Walked out of work today just before 6 into a beautiful fall afternoon. Maybe it was the weather.. or soemthing about the light.. but   something came over me as I got in the car. There are times like this when Sam’s presence.. or maybe his absence.. comes over me so strongly that it’s like a spell. It’s a funny mix of sad, sweet and quiet.. that lasts for an hour or so. I can actually feel it in my body.. it’s like a warmth right above my heart. … I had an errand to do on the way home.. but by the time I hit Richmond, I was deep in that spell.  I often talk to Sam when I’m alone in the car.. I don’t know if he can hear me.. but I do it for myself today ‘we’ talked about the town.. As I drove the 3 miles from Richmond to Jonesville I remembered Sam back into this place.. 

 Like k here where we’d wait for our place in the 4th of July parade…

Or the Boutin’s old place where we’d go to see the crazy Christmas lights

Or Everett’s where we bought a pie once.

I can picture passing Sam on his bike here

Sam came with me once when we were helping rebuild this barn.. since he died, we’ve had two memorial concerts for him here.  

Here’s Robin’s mountain.. the backdrop for our neighborhood.

This is the Williams.. There son Jerrod died in 2001.. I remember thinking how unthinkable that would be…

And here’s the old Jonesville store.. we all used to walk there to get ice cream on hot summer days. Our friend Dan is reopening the place into a cool hippy cooperative.

And.. here’s the rope swing where all the kids used to spend summer days. I remember coming home one day from work and seeing Sam doing a back flip off the rope .. thing was.. he had a cast on his arm.. he’d just broken his elbow. Worse yet, he decided to tell the orthopedic surgeon about doing the flip when we went to get the cast changed.  I remember  that I got in trouble for that.

here’s the winooski where we’d all tube or canoe or kayak..

ANd.. of course.. here’s home..

As I pulled into the driveway the sense passed, the dogs needed attention, I had to get dinner going.. I wanted to talk to Gabe.. Life resumed .. it was now again..
And now it’s late..

Nite folks Nice riding with you Sam.
-me

Another peaceful laid back day.. getting ready for the change of season.. We woke to a wierd and unpleasant surprise, someone had gone through both of our cars as they sat in our driveway. the glove compartments and all the contents had been rifled through. Stuff lay strewn about.. but nothing was taken as far as we know. it was  wierd sort of violation in a community like ours where folks rarely lock their cars.. ours will be locked from now on .. and we’ll be a little sadder for it..

Mid afternoon we stopped by Kristenn’s for the continuation of her birthday. It was nice hanging out with her family.. Her grandmother had the most amazing sunflowers !

Around 4,  Diane and I headed to the Huntington Living Art festival at Sarah Jane’s barn.   It was a quintessential Vermont event.. 

Walking into the barn was an emotional experience for me. I haven’t been in there since Sam died. We had several of our huge Halloween parties in this barn . Every place I visit for the first time ‘since’ I have to relive a bit of loss. I also get to  relive the fun memories of those parties with all three boys and their friends running around. Those were very good years for us. … We may have even hung some  of the lights that were in the barn today..

Outside, many of our artist freinds were plying their wares.. Jen was out there with a table for clay work. She’d made this cool Sun.. and asked folks to help decorate it..

Someone.. not sure who.. made a spontaneous SamStone.. Our family is held so close in the heart of this community.   We appreciate it very much !

Here’s friend Meg weaving …

And Duncan (that’s his leg) demonstrating a hundred yar old post and beam mortor drill (I think that’s what it’s called)

A spinner (Who’s this ? It’s rare I don’t know someone in this town )

Our friend Ben’s mobile pizza oven ..

It was fun seeing all of our friends.. many of them came up to talk about the colony..  Most said they’d heard about it, but hadn’t seen it.. since they didn’t have TV>. I love it . we’re not the only ones !

One the way home we found thies great mushrooms in front of Jen and Tim’s place.

And a fox in the field across from them !

Then we came home and cleaned up the last stuff in the garden.. including these mammoth zuchinni’s .. they are like building material now.

OK.. that’s about it for today.. I appreciate everyone’s comments on yesterdays blog about Calor Humano.. it motivated me to give this more thoguht..

OK… folks.. gnite.. have a good week
nite Sam
-me

Nice slow, sleepy day.. just what I needed.. Diane and I took the dogs for about a 2 hour hike up Honey Hollow. We spent some of that time exploring some new trails we’d never followed.  There were some great pools and waterfalls along the way. It’s great finding something new that close to your house..

About the only thing I really got done today was to start unpacking, cleaning and repairing the electronics from the Burning Man Timecycle. The wiring for the lights got chewed up a few times.. and was completely covered with dust from the Playa.   I’m still covered with that dust even after trying to wash it off several times..

I got the first view in daylight of a battlefield repair I did with duct tape and electrical tape while hanging ten feet in the air, in near total darkness at 3 AM on the playa.. it looked  as bad as I thought it did.. but it worked !

I learned that there was one more mechanical failure with the Timecycle after Billy and I left for the airport around 2AM last Sat. That failure managed to chew up one of the rotary connection hubs that supplied voltage to the wheels. I was happy to find that the cool 2 connector mercury commutator I’d used was still intact.. and not leaking.. leaking mercury is bad…

The rest of the day was pretty blissed out.. we did listen to a good podcast interview which Mike from the Colony made.. I liked hearing someone else’s answers to the same questions I always get asked.

Despite my attempts not to think.. I did have one sort of deep thought today that stuck with me. 2 days ago I attended a welcome home party for a work colleague who’d been on an IBM service Corps trip to Brazil.. He told us about a Latin American concept he discovered in Brazil  called “calor humano”.. or human heat.. or human warmth. The actual meaning ., he said, went beyond the basic concept of warmth.. it spoke to the joy people get from being together.. He told us how the Brazilians hung out together after work.. went to each others houses all the time, hugged one another frequently, and hung out in each others offices all the time. He also said that some of the common practices we have… e.g. working from home, or frequent conference calls were not as prevalent there.. he said people needed to be close to one another to really understand one another and get things done.  

The concept may have left my head had it not been for a second conversation I had yesterday. I was speaking with a new friend and protegee down in Rio de Jainairo.. and we also talked about “calor humano”..   Interesting..   anyway.. the idea kept rattling around in my head and the more I think of it, the more I see how many of our modern work trends, working at home frequently, distributed worldwide teams, endless conference calls or web meetings are all threatening that basic human need we have to be near our colleagues. I experience it more and more every day.. … we believe we’re becoming more efficient and flexible.. but at what cost ?  I see that folks are becoming more detached from their jobs , from their colleagues and from their companies. In my own job  and most of my colleagues,  I rarely work face to face with anyone anymore.. my entire job is on the phone or on a computer.. I MISS PEOPLE !

I’m wondering if we’re thinking about the global work environment totally wrong. Often now we try to globalize tasks so that a single job may have folks participating virtually from  many locations.. sounds good.. but.. more often than not  these people hardly know one another.. they’ve never have met in person.. never have drank a beer together.. don’t know each others families, etc.   how can we expect them to care deeply about their joint work ?  

 What if instead of dividing all jobs into global exercises where we picked the skills form across the world.. might it not be better to return more to the idea of decomposing work into closely knit groups of people working face to face on well defined problem that were coupled together globally  ?   I know it sounds naive.. but I’m being serious here.  There are many ways we can divide our work.. the current wisdom of globalizing each task just doesn’t seem to be working to me.. it’s draining the humanity out of our jobs..   I’m going to start thinking of ways to start reversing this trend and  restore a little calor humano in my own little sphere..  What do you all think ? Am I off base ? A luddite ? What ?

end of rant
end of post
end of day

nite folks.. nite Sam !
-me

They also had some slide shows of some work I’d done at the Governors Institute  summer camp. Here’s a kid hooked up to the Van De Graaf generator.

They had a bunch of other artwork around. including this piece.. which is a copy of a stature that keeps following me around (Chris W has one, Linda P’ has one.. then this one.. what’s it mean ? )

This guy had a home built theremin.

This guy had robots made out of clay which was deigned to look like rusted metal.

We hadn’t gotten too far into the art hop when Gabe called. There were no movies that they could get into that they wanted to see.. We left the art hop, picked them uo and took them home. It’s Kristenn’s birthday (yes.. 9/11 !) .. so we had a small part for her. I gave her a pack of pink fake mustaches..,.. every girl should have one.

OK.. I’m falling asleep.. time to post and go to bed.. .
Nite all.. Nite Sam !
-me