greetimgs from my kindle. it’s my new best friend. if you don’t kmow what a kindle is .. you should ! its an electronicreader about the size of a book. its pretty amazingz. it can hold about 1000 books worth of text. it can read aloud… and it has a simple browserz. its good enough that i can use it to enter a blog post when im too lazy to get off the couch and look for my laptop.
hey… since this thing is .ade for readimg books… i should ask folks what they are reading. do you have a book that youd recommend to me ? diane says thqt i like long books where nothing happens. got any of those ? seriously .. im lookimg for recommendations.
well.. im goimg to hitit post and see if this works.
night folks
mite sam
-me

We spent last night ushering in the 2010 in a quite and low key way.. in fact.. I cannot remember spending a more quiet and peaceful nNew Years in my adult life. Gabe had about 8 friends over.. Our friends Victor and Patty dropped by.. but aside from that.. it was Diane and me on the couch reading our books.. trying to stay awake to see the new year. while Gabe and his friends sledded, hung out by the fire and ate…

Diane made them two kinds of fondue.. cheese and chocolate..  We sacrifised a circa 2006 xmas chocolate snowman to the fondue pot . We sat around chanting as he metled.. kinda cool and kinda creepy  (not really)

“help mee-eee-eeeeeeeee”

Then Gabe and Kristen had everyone  write their resolutions on tpieces of paper and then threow them in the fire…  Here’s are my 3..

– follow my true path (whatever that is)
– be open to the world (and whatever that brings me)
– manifest love and fun

It felt good toss them in the fire and watching them go up in smoke..

Miraculously, we managed to stay awake. At the stroke of midnight we were all in the barn.. we  all hugged and yelled and drank sparkling cider.

It was really warm and wonderful..    and always a little sad now..

After midnight I walked aroudn and talked ot soem of the Sam things in the house.. the stone,

the fridge…

Then I sat down and listened to my favorite rendition of Auld Lang Syne  (click here to hear it) ) it’s  supposed to to be closer to Burns original melody. I sat there and held a Samstone and listened to the song and found the tears I was looking for. ..

I looked up the words again . there are several versions. I found one that’s earlier than Burns.. by a Scottish poet named James Watson .. Pretty poigent when you read htem in our context….

James Watson (1711)

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,

and never thought upon;

The flames of Love extinguished,

and fully past and gone:

Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,

that loving Breast of thine;

That thou canst never once reflect

on Old long syne.

CHORUS:

On Old long syne my Jo,

in Old long syne,

That thou canst never once reflect,

on Old long syne.

My Heart is ravisht with delight,

when thee I think upon;

All Grief and Sorrow takes the flight,

and speedily is gone;

The bright resemblance of thy Face,

so fills this, Heart of mine;

That Force nor Fate can me displease,

for Old long syne.

CHORUS:

Since thoughts of thee doth banish grief,

when from thee I am gone;

will not thy presence yield relief,

to this sad Heart of mine:

Why doth thy presence me defeat,

with excellence divine?

Especially when I reflect

on Old long syne

CHORUS:

We ended the new years night the way we always do by choosing angel cards. Each card has a word to reflect on. I like t think it portends the coming year.. I got ‘delight’ ! .. I’ll aim for that !

We all woke late today.. and got right to work on all those Jan 1 kid of things. Diane did the bills while I reorganized all of our food containers.. THere’s something abotu new years day that wants us to restore order…

That done, we headed to Bristol while Gabe when up to Bolton.
Diane and I had a great visit and snow shoe with our good friends Priscilla and time a and their dog Stella.. Stella , Chai and Satori managed to find a frozen frog in the snow.. now what’s THAT mean for the year ?

The snow was really nice and packable.. it caked around Satori’s legs, giving her dense white boots.. we tried to help.. but it kept getting caked on.

Afterwords, Tim and I went o his shop. He’ helped me cut a snowboard in half for a project I’m doign with Gabe.. It’s a splitboard.. it’s a kit to build skis with skins to climb up a mountain, then a quick toggle and they lock together to make a snowboard.. What this space ot see how it comes out.

OK. that’s it for today..

practice writing 1/1/2010
do you say twenty ten ..
or two thosand ten ?

Whatever you say, g’nite
‘nite Sam
-me

Happy New Year’s Eve folks…
     It’s always hard for me to figure out what to write on ‘big’ days like new years eve. There’s always a set of expectations around holidays. ore milestones. special time to remember, to reflect. The thing is every day has that kind of significance to me now.. it’s just that mos days don’t have a name. This is the 4th new years since Sam’s passing.. Diane pointed out that last week I’d written it was our 3rd xmas SSP (since sam’s passing) when it was actually the 4th year.  That;s not a mistake of forgetfulness.. it’s the opposite. Time perspective for us is very different for me now.   I think htat’s why I’m having trouble seeing this as a turning of a decade. The decade itself seems fractured in half.. The early half was so different..  The first half had Y2k, 9/11, some great family trips, the second half.. so many milestones.. and then of course, sam’s passing. I still can’t call any year good or bad.
   That said, we had a ton of fun this year..   my education talk at the geek conference in Feb, The 58 days in the colony wiht Diane showing up, the show airing, burning man., the cusp conference. making those movies, jumping in the lake in december.. All fun.. all heading in the same direction about making science fun.  Another thing to note is that this year marked the longest time I’d not been out of North America since I was 19.
 My family is doing well.. .my folks, my inlaws, our siblings, cousins etc are all doing well.   I feel grateful , optimistic, excited and peaceful as this year comes to an end.. I feel surrounded by fun and love and cool challenges .    

I’m calm and hopeful as the new year comes.. I guess I couldn’t ask for more right now..

I hope te new year is interesting and fun for all of you

Happy new year folks
We miss you so much sam
-me

I just love this time of the year.. I’m officially working this week because I burned all of my vacation doing The Colony. The thing is hardly anyone else is working… so I’m pretty much on my own. Not that I mind that..  it means that I can catch up with all those good intentions.. paramount  among those is cleaning out my email. 
 Like most folks, I get a ton of email..  for example. As I typed this, I went off and did a little data mining and found the following email counts for the month :

The ramp down in email count reflects folks flagging attention to the real world as the holidays approach . Today was relatively quiet.. I got 120 emails… not counting spam Compare that  176 on 12/10. And December is definitely the quietest email month.. ( even if April is the cruelest) .   Not all of these need answering.. but

most need to be read. .. and quite a few of those need at least short

responses. I sometimes wonder how we have time to do anything else. 

closet.. It was magical, positively transformational in fact . I said

to myself in that moment that I would never again let my email backlog grow out of control..  !

 but .. then I looked a few minutes later and it was already filling up..

I wish you all luck in your new years intentions..  We can dream, can’t we ?
Nite folks, Nite Sam
-me