All posts by johncohn

Saturday night – wrong cable

Folks,
    Sitting in Ohare airport. Just realized I don’t have the right cable to download the pictures from today’s’ very cool assembly of wheel 2 for the time cycle. Instead, I’ll show you a quick experiment I did.. Here are two wordles’ (word frequency diagrams) from the last 9 days of twitter searched for ‘the colony discovery’.. Interesting to see..

Here’s the first

How cool is that.. Ooops we’re boarding. More later. Love you all ! Love you sam
-me

Friday night – thinkign of Sam

I’ve been thinking about Sam … I always think of Sam.. Today I was going through a couple of thousand pictures which were taken during the making of The Colony. I came across this picture of Morgan and I soldering soemthing together.. Not sure what.. but I noticed the memory band I always wear for Sam.. It made me happy and sad to see.. It’s always that way.

Nite folks.. Nite Sam you’re always with me..

Thursday night – Tish B'av

Very productive day.. worked at home again in the tower. I find I get so much more done when I work up there. It’s quiet and there are no distractions. I was so busy that not much else happened that was worth recording here.. Tonight we had a nice break .. we walked over to Dawn and Jim’s for dinner. It was great hanging out with them. We ended the night with stupid yoga tricks.

One other thing of note.I learned from a friend that today is Tish B’Av.(תשעה באב)  .. the ninth day of Av… a day of mourning in the Jewish calendar. It’s like Friday the 13th.. but sadder. According to Jewish history there were 5 major calamities on Tish B’av.  (I learned from Wikipedia)
    The twelve scouts sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Two of the scouts, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, but the others spoke disparagingly about the land which caused the Children of Israel to cry, panic and despair of ever entering the “Promised Land“.

    For this, they were punished by God that their generation would not

    enter the land. Because of the Israelites’ lack of faith, God decreed

    that for all generations this date would become one of crying and

    misfortune for their descendants, the
    Jewish people. (See Numbers Ch. 13–14)

    The First Temple built by King Solomon and the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE and the Judeans were sent into the Babylonian exile.
    The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land.
    Bar Kokhba’s revolt against Rome failed in 135 CE. Simon bar Kokhba was killed, and the city of Betar was destroyed.
    Following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the razing of Jerusalem occurred the next year. A Temple was built in its stead to an idol.

    I’d never heard about Tish B’av before yesterday. It’s strange to learn something new about your own culture at age 50..

    I hope it was a thoguhtful day for everyone..

    It was for me..   OK.. All for now.. Nite folks,
     Nite Sam

    -me

Wednesday night – just wednesday

Diane and I were on the road by 6 this morning heading back to VT. I’d been down in NY for work meetings for the past few days… we took advantage of that to visit some friends (Bruce and Mary Beth, Ruchir, Dave and Jean) and to go down to see Max in his new place.

Ruchir and I took advantage of an hour break in work meetings to hike up Turkey Hill near Yorktown.. It was in the 90’s and humid.. nice breeze at the top. Here we are lookign a bit wilted..

I got to Max’s about 7.  max was still at work..no prob there since I had work calls till past 8.  Around 9  Diane and I walked over to meet max on campus to watch The Colony.. with his friends Angela and max’s roommate Pat.. it was great getting to see the show with Max and his friends  !..

I love the folks at PRatt.. they are all so strange and creative.. exhibit 1.. Max’s other room mate Chad modeling his new fake mustache…

exhibit 2.. Max’s other other roomate JJ’s self portarait as a 50 year old man..

We hung out with those guys until about 2:30.. then I slept for about 3 hours..before we wokfke for the drive home. We got home early enough for me to have a full and productive work day,. then around 7, Diane and I headed to David D’s for a Burning Man work session. Tonight we were working on the ‘clockwork’ the moving heart of the timecycle vehicle. The clockwork is the piece that rotates the the ski lift chairs inside the 20 foot giant wheels. One job we had was to cut out the giant gears that will drive the chair assembly around the clock work.. They were so big that David had to cut them out of three parts  which we welded together.

While Homer and Chris welded,

David and Duane cut parts and Diane and I assembled the bearing and thrust wheels that will hold the moving rings of the clock work.

It was a peaceful and productive session. next session is Saturday when we will assemble the second giant wheel. We need all the help we can get to bag the 1600 pound wheel into shape and get it standing.. If you’re available to help, please let me know..

Yikes.. It’s after midnight again.. and I’m runningo on about 3 hours of sleep.. Gotta jump in bed.. more tomorrow .. nite all, nite Sam !
-me