We’re just back in from trick-or-treating .

It’s been a good day.. not the day I expected, bit a good day

nonetheless. I had a ton of stuff planned, but this mornign I got a

call from Herb at the Haunted Forest, .. the Pumpkin King aka

‘Project-x’, hadn’t been tied down properly and blew over in a high

wind gust at last night’s performance. Luckily, no one was hurt.. but

you couldn’t say that for the pumpkin, he’s head had beenn early 

knocked off, his fingers were all broken, and arm was dislocated and

the wires were all ripped up.. Worse.. his whole 20 feet was lying

horizontal on the ground. Homer got there around 11 and I got there a

little later..they took off his head.. homer worked on the arm while I

redid the electronics and repaired the jaw. . Herb repaired the fingers

It was a mess !

By

about 1 we had the whole guy back together again and completly

working.. I couldn’t beeive it. Homer is a mechanical genius…

As

I was packign up, a couple of parent visitors to the forest recognized

me from the show.. so I grabbed a picture.. . I was id’ed 4 times

today..  It still happens every time I go out in public  I love talking

to folks about the show.

During

the afternoon, Sam M came over and interviewed us for a journalism

class she’s taking. She’s doing a paper on ‘folks who overdo

Halloween’.. and she thought of us.. The funny thing is.. with the

party being last week, we weren’t too motivated to go out tonight. Gabe

was going out with his friends… but they don’t need us tagging along.

So… it looked like it would be the first time I hadn’t gone out trick

or treating for the past 20 years…..

I

dropped Gabe and his friends off.. then had to drop Kristen’s bag at

friend Scouts’.. I ended up trick or treating by myself at Scout’s

house….   and realized I wasn’t old enough to skip trick or treating

yet.. I zoomed back home

..

and Diane and I whipped together a costume .. We tied ropes between our

arms and clothes pinned on a bunch of old clothes.. We came as a

clothesline… or ‘airing our dirty laundry’.. in recognition of our

towns bizarre and amusing politics of late…

Wouldn’t you know that as soon as we got out of the car in town we ran into Gabe and co..

We

did our normal rounds, first down Bridge street .. with a stop in to

see Marvin and Bridge Street.. Half the town was in there…

We ran into Chris K as ‘iron man’

Then we headed down pleasant street to see Gretch’ , Marshall and Ben and have one of their traditional cider doughnuts.

We

then wandered round town, running into old friends and reliving those

decades of carrying kids. repairing costumes and eating the candy that

the kids didn’t like I can remember so, so many of those Halloweens in

Richmond.. It’s got to be one of my favorite things abotu living in a

small town like this.. I love our town.

I love our memories.. Happy Halloween folks.. happy Halloween Sam..  Trick or treat !
-me

I dropped him off at the party… but by the time I picked him up he’d turned back into a boy.. what a relief.

Not much else to report today.. One cool thing is that I got a great link from Burning Man  friend Kirk. He found this great panorama shot of this years Burn.. you can pan and zoom around enough to really get a feel what it was like to be out on the playa on Saturday night. If you look around, you can spot our timecycle looking pretty and other worldly.

Check out the link here

Here are some screen shots I took to quide you to us.. 

You can even see people riding in the chairlifts !.. Amazing !

Getting sleepy now.. gotta stop before I fall asleep.. more tomorrow. Night folks
Nite Sam !
-me

The place was packed we ran in to several of our friends there.. there

were doubtless many more in the packed crowd near the stage. It was a

great vibe there.

11:59PM on Wed night.. just got home from NY

after a quick 24 hour trip down and back. it was a good and geeky day..

the meeting we ran today was really interesting and nerdy… in a good

way. I can’t go in to the topic here.. but I had the idea that I wanted

to do a little show and tell at the meeting… I mail ordered some

cool  sensor units that IBM builds for another company.. They’re very

cool chips that can talk to each other wirelessly.. I got them working

in the car ride down last night (don’t worry… I wasn’t driving). then

finished them up in my hotel room last night.. The result is a system

that can wirelessly monitor temp, humidity and light level in four

different locations..

It

was fun waling in to the meeting today with a piece of working

hardware.. even if we hadn’t designed it.. our company had helped make

it possible.. I love things you can actually touch and feel..

I

wasn’t the only nerd in out 8  hour meeting today.. I found at the very

end  that 4 out of the 10 folks in the room were from MIT..    That

realization happened when I spotted the tell-tale ‘brass rat’ …the

class ring with the MIT beaver mascot…  on the finger of Lloyd t.  

turns out that he, Steve, Dario and I were all alums.. we started to

geek out on field of study (6.1, 6.5, 8.1, 6.3     and where they

lived, Tang, Bexley. MacGregor   .. if you’re from MIT you’ll  know

what that all means.. )  I was proud and happy tobe around co-alums.

We

ended the meetign around 5L3 then Dave, Steve and I headed home.. On

the way, we stopped at the ‘Blue Colony’ diner.. had to eat tehre

because of the name !.. And Dave recommended it highly.. it’s a great

Greek place.. I had spanikopita, dolmas  and greek salad..it was enough

for 3 people !

Yies.. only 5 min of battery remaining.. better hit ‘post’ .. more tomorrow.. Nite folks !
Nite Sam !

-me