All posts by johncohn

Thursday night – Stories

I’m in a hotel room somewhere in westchester county. My buddy Steve and I drove down this afternoon for a meeting in Yorktown tomorrow. It was great talking to Steve.. a great guy, very thoughtful, good talker, good listener.. We got here about 9-ish in time to meet some of the folks from UVM we’ll be meeting with tomorrow.. We spent another hour talking with them.. then Steve and I went out and grabbed a late dinner… more talking  The conversations have  been great all day.. ..The thing is, though.. I keep hearing myself telling the same stories.. I’m not telling them to the same folks..  but when I come across someone new.. and they want to hear about The Colony.. or any other facet of my life.. my family, , sam, work, burning man, It sometimes feels like I’m pulling out a tape and hitting play. Maybe that’s unavoidable when you have things you want to relate..   but I hate feeling like I’m repeating something.. or worse.. boring folks. I simply don’t know how to stop talking sometimes, Why do we tell the stories we tell ? Why do we feel compelled to tell them as often as we do..  ? (as I do ? ?
    As if to make that point.. here’s an interview I did last night for the Linux Tech Show podcast..   Same stories..  different audience. ,  

Guess it’s time to make some new ones.

Yikes .. It’s nearly 1:30.. I better shut up now.. Gnite everybody.. nite Sam !
-me

Wednesday night – Smart Grid

Friends,
IBM put out another of our Smarter Planet videos today.. let me know what you think of this one. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93YM0PNFgSs

The earlier one on micro-forecasting is here   . IBM is building a series around these.. which we hope will raise awareness our Smarter Planet ideas on how computers can help solve environmental issues.  I’d really like to know what you think.. and get suggestions for how to improve them.. and get ideas for future topics.   If you like them, please send the links on to your friends.. we’d like to get them into circulation.

   Aside from that it was a quiet day. I did manage to get out and do some xmas shopping this afternoon. It felt good to be doing it. I did get choked up a few times as I realized I was buying for two kids

now.. not three.. It’s such a strange way that San’s absence is more

present than anyone sometimes.

Overall it’s good to be out in the world, seeing people shopping , running into freinds.. Church street looked beautiful at twilight.


I did come across one greeting card that stuck me very powerfully.. it’s had a quote by anais nin.. (kind of a surprise there.. ) Here’s what it said.

I’m leanring that again and again these days..

I think I’m expanding…

Nite folks, nite Sam !
-me

Tuesday night – advice

I was on the phone 8AM until 6PM without even a break for lunch, yet when I left for the day I was feeling refreshed and energized.. I got half way ome trying to figure out why I felt  so jazzed after what should have been a grueling day.. Then I realized what I’d been doing all day. 8 of my 16 meetings (yes.. 16 !) today had to do with my day job. Pretty interesting stuff these days. especially some of the new stuff I’m focusing on.. The other 8 meetings.. were about mentoring and advice..   That is  .. me acting as the grizzled Yoda character and some young person who’s twice as smart as me comes and asks for my advice on job, career, school, etc. .. I grunt occasionally and make a few nonsensical remarks.. then they thank me profusely and hang up.   I’m not sure why suddenly my advice–giving numbers are up. I suppose it’s because it’s near the end of the year and everyone;s under stress.. or feeling philisophical as the holidays roll around. Maybe it’s because I’m enjoyign my work much more these days and folks can smell it on me ?  I don’t think the advice I give is always that good.. but what I can say is that giving advice makes one feel better. It’s funny how working on someone else’s troubles makes your own seem less important.. It’s also so true that it’s easier to work on someone else’s issues than your own.  I’m not so sure exactly why.. but I have to say I’m grateful for the opportunity.
   That’s it for tonight.. get back to work …. may the force be with you.. !

Nite friends.. nite Sam
-me

 

Monday night – Lights

It’s a good week of lights.. chanukah candles every night, the xmas tree now lit up, and the canldle for Sam last night. And.. I’m staring into a roaring fire in the fireplace as I type. I love having these bright sparks in the house on this 2nd darkest week of the year (I think it would be.. since solstice is next week) .

Here’s Saurdays ‘s chanukah lighting .. Dylan and Gabe do the honors..

along with Latke dinner number 1 (or was this two).. Diane’s latkes are great..   I can smell them now.. We have some left over in the fridge.. bit if I get up and eat one  now I’ll regret it. You can’t fall asleep after eating those things cold.

Kristen and Gabe do the honor last night…

and of course we lit the candle in Sam’s memory. Thanks ot all of you out there who wrote to tell me you’d lit a candle for us too. I like thinking of all those candles side by side lighting up the planet..

Here’s a still life in mixed cultures.. the christmas tree, the menorah, and the memorial candle for sam.. That just about sums up our lives.. joys and sorrows, .. It’s a rich soup to be sure.

After candles came the obligatory game of Dreidel the wooden top used as a gambling device on Chanukah. Story goes that the Assyrians forbade the jews to study the torah.. so the jews pretended to be gambling every time the Assyrians came into their studies. Leave it to the jews to make up a game that was more boring than studying.. !

Ah.. but there was one moment of excitement !.. My dredel spin landed on the edge of the top !.. How often does THAT happen ?

THat was all last night.. today was a long interesting day.. The first half I spent in meetings.. and the second half I psent hosting some students from Olin College.. The Olin kids were amazingly, amazingly bright and fun.. they told me about their research projects.. and we told them about IBM.   They are working on somehting very central to my new project at work. it was one of those cosmic alignments that seme to be happening to me ofent now.. I really look forward to collaborating with them.

They even weighed in on the rap video I am still trying to finsih !

One quick funny story from today. Late this morning I was sitting in my office tryign to do several things at one. I noticed my plants were a bit dry.. so I looked around for something to carry water.. Aha !.. My garbage can.. I dumped the garbage on the floor and went down to teh restroom to fill up the can with water.. I never asked myself if the can could hold water.. answer was that it couldn’t.. By the time I got back to my office.. I was soaked.. I quickly started bailing the water into my plants to prevent further leaks.  That seemd to help ntil I realized I’d badly overfilled my plants with water.. so they started gusihng out on the floor with dirt filled water.. I bolted out of the room to go get paper towels..As the door clicked shut, I remembered  that my keys and my cell phoen were sftly in my jacket pocket inside. What’s more my admin Kay was at lunch. and sh has the only other key..

I had to go find her at lunch .. on my way back I ran into my Olin quests.. l I was dripping wet and covered with dirt.   The great thing about it i was that everything went better from that point on  🙂

OK.. gotta sleep. nite friends, Night Sam !
-me