All posts by johncohn

Wednesday night – old man

It’s always funny the day after a colony episode.. I end up reading through the blogs to see how folks liked the show.. It’s cool seeign what folks think.. what they liked and what they didn’t like. While  I’m looking,m it’s impossible not to see what they think of us.. most of it is great.. but sometimes.. it’s stuff you reallllllly don’t want to see.. Honestly, I like the way I come across on the show.. in fact.. it reminds me exactly of me..  I get a bunch of good feedback…. but I get soem funny stuff too.. One freind said that I should be a rabbi.. several called me ‘naked santa’ ..  one guy said that I loked older than vlad (which I do)k  one person thought that we were all professional actors.. and that I was really John Williams.. the composer… pretending to be an engineer..  For the record… Mr Williams.. is 20 years older than I am…. and fabulously wealthy after writing the score for Star wars and other great movies

 I guess this all comes with the territory.. I didn’t really think out what it would be like to be so.. so what.. so .. public.. 

Anyway.. I’m trying not to let the show creep into my skull during most days.. today was pretty normal for the most part.. I had pohone meetings from 8AM until 6PM .. (as usual..) then we headed to David’s for a night of Burning man building. The project is coming along great.. yet there’s soooo much more to do..   The giant wheels are both finished…

now we’re working to assemble the giant ‘clockwork’ at the heart of the machine. It’s really come together nicely thanks to the hard work today of homer, chirs , ben, jerry, bill and david

We now have all of the hydraulics in hand too. here’s one of the tiny but powerful motors that Steve pulled out of a small backhoe.. they will power the giant wheels and the carosel

we spent the rest of the evening specing out the parts we still needed david to cut on the water jet..   and all the electronic parts that seth, carly and I need to finish the lights and sound.

We had one cool science moment this eveing..Young Seth showed us how ot use a simple DVD to look at the light spectrum off of the lights in the room. David had purchased some high end LED ligfhts he hoped to use for hydroponic gardening.. We used Seth’s trick to look at the spectrum of the LED’s vs. the light coming form the fluorescent lamps..
Here are the fluorescents.. their phosphors give a pretty even spectrum.. as you can see in this smooth rainbow.

The LED turned out to be pretty broad spectrum too.. but as you see.. it has more discreet color components..   Not sure what that means to the plants.. but it’s sure pretty !

Speaking of pretty.. we  got to what the moon rise as we walked out to go home..

ahhhh.. I’m home now.. and sleepy.. so I’ll sign off for the day.. Hope all of you are well. night folks..  Nite Sam
-me

Tueday night – episode 3

Kate,Steve, Shannon and Matt are  up  from

pittsburghvisiting us for a few days   I met Steve in a grocery store

right after we moved to pittsburg.. I was carrying max who was less

than 3 months old. I could tell steve had a baby too because he was

doing the put-the-baby-to-sleep side to side rock that dads do. Kate,

Matt and Steve became our good friends .. and helped keep us sane while

I was in grad school.   Max and Cody also drove up from NYC to see Kate and Steve..

After dinner, we all drove to Avery’s where we all gathered to watch the third episode

of The Colony. I think it’s pretty funny that we have to drive that far

(10 miles ?) to find someone who has both cable tv and cell phone

reception.  

There was a pretty big crowd of folks there to watch..

It was a hoot watching the show this with friends.. I liked this weeks episode.. I didn’t have much of a role this week.. I’m glad hat some other folks are getting more air time. i thought Joey was excellent in this episode. It’s kind of funny to seem him portrayed as such a  serious , down to business guy.. He can certainly be intense.. but he was one of the funniest of all of us.. he was always clowning around.     Mike was mike this episode.. Folks either love him or hate him.. “What’s Mike like” is usually the firrst question anyone asks me about the show.. It’s not an easy answer.. yes.. he’s just like that in person.. but he’s also a really nice guy inside.. and a wicked smart guy too. I don’t think I want to go into who things work out between us on the show.. or I’d be giving too much away.. just keep watching. Just like the other episodes..I hadn’t seen what the producers had chosen to include or exclude..   I was so glad that they managed to capture our trip out for oranges.. I’ll never forget climbing into that tree and smellign the oranges and orange blossoms. It was the first fresh food we’d eaten in  3 weeks… Even handling the fruit made us smell better !  I was so greatful to the tree that I thanked it before we left. Sometimes it’s also really interesting to see what they choose to drop.. For example.. we put in a ton of work breaking apart and adapting an old water heater to get the tank we used to make the solar heater.. .. there were also some other things.. none of which I should mention here.. because they may appear in later episodes.

Like the last two episodes, I followed the east coast airing of the show on Twitter.   and commenting on it myself. . in the course of the two hours I was watching there were about 254 comments abotu the show.. about 95 of them just mentioned the show with no opinion indicated.. … as in ‘watching the colony’..  of the balance.. 145 were positive comments, and 14 were negative.. I think that’s about 10 to 1 positive.. that’s pretty cool when you think of it..   That’s better than the ‘C-‘ that entertainment weekly gave us.. even as they recomended the show.. Jen had a copy of it there tonight..

I liked seeing the questions folks raised.. As in ‘ do they shut down the streets every time we went out’ (Yes) Did we ever have zombies (no.. but I often felt like one) .. Was mike an ******** (maybe. but I like him alot) .. Can they date Morgan (be my guest…) was I going to take another shower outside (what do you think ?!) . Did we eat the goats (I’ll never tell) ..    etc..   It’s very cool watching this stuff roll by.

I spoke with Joey. Mike and Amy after the show.. we all try to connect after each episode  to compare notes. I have to admit it’s kind of hard sometimes.. watching the show and hearing what folks said privately stirs up some strong emotions.. but hey.. that’s what reality TV is all about..

I think the episodes, the story and the builds only get builds only get better from here.. I’m really enjoying this show.. Hope you all are too…

You too Sam..
-me

Monday night – 28 years

I’m in route back to VT after a fun/short/interesting visit to Notre

Dame. It was very good catching up with my old friends there.   TOday I

did my best to attend the meeting in notre dame while also attending to

work. I did a fair ob.. but it’s hard to be in two places at once..  

You know, I’m getting increasingly convinced that our work culture is

doing the wrong thing in focusing so much on remote collaboration..It

certainly has it’s place on large projects.. but the level of

interaction is so much less interesting and less fulfilling.   I think

we need to divide our work such more tasks are geared around locally

autonomous face to face teams that would get together every so often to

collaborate remotely.. Call me a Luddite.. but I miss seeing people

when I tlak to them.. Nearly 0% of my work involves seeing people thse

days.. and seeing peopl eis one of the things I most love in life.. go

figure..
On a different note. I noticed this morning that today was

my 28th service anniversary at IBM.. 28 years ago I walked into building

973 wearing a light blue sweater with multiple holes in it.. I remember

that because I’d never lived anywhere that you might need a sweater in

august.   My most memorable thing about that day was that I got to set

off a fire extinguisher !…   28 years.. wow.. what A ride it’s been…

Speaking

of ride.. the plane is abotu to begin loading.. I better sign off

here.. It’s time to start getting nervous and excited  about the 3rd

installemnt of The Colony tomorrow.. Here’s  a short prelude of

tomorrow nights show

All for now.. Nite folks.. Night Sam !
-me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlLhq-WzMag

Sunday night – sam's pants

I’m in South Bend IN today giving a talk at Notre Dame. (just gave my talk.. went ‘just ok’ )  The good thing is getting to see my friend Jay B/ and family. I also got to see the Notre Dame campus.. what a great place ! (I apologize for my phones poor camera)

Here’s the old admin building

They even have  a grotto modeled after the grotto at Lourdes

The basicilica wsa as beutiful as any I’ve visited anywhere in the world

This place is oozing with school spirit.. hey even have Notre Dame carpeting !

I spent the mornign with Jay and family. It was wonderful hanging out with them. I knew Jya and his wife Jean in Pittsburgh when I was in Grad school. They now have 2 kids.. sam age 11 and abbey age 14. Jay and jean also had a daughter Dylan who lived only 4 months back in 1993.

Sam and Abby are great. they showed me a bunch of hteir stuff.. including soem magnifying glass wood burning.. Sam even managed to get a fire started with friction using a bow. very cool.

One of Jay’s most prized possesions is a signed picutre of the professor from Gilligans island.. one of my all time heros.. sweet !

They also had a painting of an old guy who looks somewhat like me.. ok a little older me.. but still kinda close..

Jay then took me by the ‘angel of hope’ memorial garden.. A place where people remember childeren who have died. It was very moving. To me.. I spent several minutes crying which feltreally  good.

There’s a brick for Dylan.. we put a samstone next to it…

It was good being there with Jay next to our two kids names..

Then I remembered.. I was wearing Sam’s pants….  felt good…

that’s all from here. gnite folks.. nite sam
-me