All posts by johncohn

Tueday night – gassifier

You know, there is nothing stranger than watching yourself on TV.. especially for a semi-shy person like myself (I know.. you’re saying.. semi-shy ?!? .. but think about it a little more.. and I tink you’ll agree). Diane and I watched the second episode of the colony with Max and a few of his friends in an overheated dorm lounge down at pratt. Once again.. I liked the show…   At the same time.. it’s odd seeing all the stuff that didn’t make it into the show.. 5 24 hour days are pretty tough  to cram into an hour TV slot. The whole complicated progression of making the wood gassifier had to be broken down into a few short beats.. I remember how absolutely amazed I was that we were actually making electricity out of wood fumes..  .. I hope the sense of ‘can that really be working ..?!?!’  came through. For those who are wondering.. we got about 3 hours of generation from every charge of wood. .. which was sufficient to top off our batteries. One thing I really loved about the show was that everything they showed that worked.. actually worked.. if it didn’t work.. they’d show that it didn’t work..   That was really important to me.
    It’s hard for me sometimes watching the interpersonal  stuff is hard for me.. the stress we were under often led to friction between folks on the cast.. It’s strange to see since we are all good friends now..   I know that the drama makes for more watchable TV. but I’ve never liked conflict…
   It’ll be interesting to see what folks thought of this second episode..Let me know what you think  I think things are going to get more interesting from here on out..  
I need to sleep now.. more tomorrow. Nite folks.. Nite Sam !
-me

ps. For what it’s worth.. here’s  part of the twitter feed I captured for the east coast screening.. interesting mix of comments !

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    t_stay the colony.. on the discovery channel.. legit.. check it out..

    2 minutes ago

    from mobile web
       


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    angrypenguin1 The plight of honeybees & alarming potential causes of colony collapse disorder http://bit.ly/4meivo

    3 minutes ago

    from TweetDeck
       


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    Chicago_SC Um yeah this Discovery thing “the colony” is lame. They’d of done better just showing how to be a freegan as it is, just more BS.

    3 minutes ago

    from Tweetie
       


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    shacker The Colony is turning into DIY heaven, a little post-apocalyptic Maker Faire for the armchair.

    5 minutes ago

    from Tweetie
       


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    DubiousBastard By far, my new favorite show is the colony

    6 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    blogsbe Is anyone else watching the colony?

    6 minutes ago

    from Twitterrific
       


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    Eltrainlane Just caught the second episode of the colony http://bit.ly/ZOBk9 ) and I really dug it.

    6 minutes ago

    from Spaz
       


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    mtgiang the colony is having it easy. where did the goat come from?

    8 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    eclecticbliss watching The Colony (what the future could look like after a global viral outbreak) “reality” show on Discovery Channel

    9 minutes ago

    from TweetDeck
       


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    BossCampbell @porkchopRICH you coming to drink with me tomorrow at the colony?

    11 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    almitra the colony on discovery might just be the best show ever.

    13 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    epicjbrown Watching The Colony w/the wifey- #Discovery puts out some quality programming

    14 minutes ago

    from Twittelator
       


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    bglendin Watching the colony with alex, I can’t stand some of these people ugh

    14 minutes ago

    from Twitterrific
       


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    sassypsyche The colony: It’s like big brother meets mythbusters.

    14 minutes ago

    from TweetDeck
       


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    mtgiang the colony is having it easy.

    15 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    mtgiang the colony is having it easy. where did the goat come from?

    16 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    mtgiang the colony is having it easy.

    16 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    sassypsyche Anyone watching the Colony on Discovery Channel? Interesting show.

    16 minutes ago

    from TweetDeck
       


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    beccarisa The Colony is my new favorite show. So postapocalyptic.

    17 minutes ago

    from txt
       


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    pencilears Watching The Colony, what a bunch of morons.

    17 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    itsDESIREEE @kaliannawu oh hecks no. You do NOT see the pimples hiding under my bangs : Its like a colony..

    18 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    lavsudar casino – Chamber casino party set for July 30 (The Colony Courier-Leader) http://…com/nd44re

    18 minutes ago

    from TweetMyBlog
       


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    gzusone This new show The Colony seems pretty cool. Book smart doesnt always mean smart. Street smarts also crucial in life.

    21 minutes ago

    from mobile web
       


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    6pm_Noel Officially addicted to the Discovery channel show The Colony. And saddened that I would have no skills to offer after an apocolypse. 🙁

    21 minutes ago

    from UberTwitter
       


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    Camaran And also, The Colony on Discovery Channel is pretty darn good. I want to go on the show now.

    24 minutes ago

    from UberTwitter
       


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    foodeater Watching The Colony, post-apocalyptic “reality” survival show set in L.A. Hard to buy into since its all so controlled.

    24 minutes ago

    from Seesmic
       


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    allinone09 News Daily: Afghanistan not a colony – Miliband – The Press Association (http://cli.gs/rteyj)

    24 minutes ago

    from WP to Twitter
       


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    CrazyinBonTemps watching ‘the colony‘ on discovery. This show is really cool!

    27 minutes ago

    from TwitterFon
       


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    mandy_soto93 Watching The Colony then going to sleep.

    29 minutes ago

    from txt
       


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    apollstar The Colony is the best reality show Ive ever seen!

    30 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    txcountry Watching The Colony… In a very very sad lonely mood tonight..blah

    30 minutes ago

    from web
       


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    ntjevan Ok, so The Colony on Discovery sounds cool…but in reality how do you have a show about a post apocolypse world without first having one?

    31 minutes ago

    from TwitterBerry
       


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    gregvaneekhout I hope mutants eat handyman Mike on The Colony.

    31 minutes ago

    from Seesmic
       


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    Marciegee Calling Fluffy Bunny, I mean, @mreko The Colony is on! Dagger needs her fix of scaring the colonists!

    31 minutes ago

    from TweetDeck
       


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    reichenberger13 Watchin’ The Colony.

    32 minutes ago

    from txt
       


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Print

Monday night – green eggs and ham

Very late to be starting to blog. Not much else to report today.. it was a good work day.. I did an

outreach event for teachers in Poughkeepsie in the morning.. then a

good set of work meting in Armonk in the afternoon. Right now I’m in Holmes NY staying with my friends Dave and Jean. Dave is an old freind from IBM.. he retired a few years back and now spends his time inventing cool stuff, playing the concertina and hiking.. not bad.   Their house is like a cool museum.. They collect original prints from books.. they have one of the original prints from Maurice Sendaks ‘where the wild things are.. and soem original Dr. Suess prints.. Here’s my favorite.

Not much else to report.. getting ready for tomorrows second episode of the Colony. We’ll be watching it in NYC with Max … I’ll let you all know what I think about it tomorrow night ..

For now.. here’s a scene from the archives of the show..  I really like this picture 🙂

OK.. that’s it for today.. nite everyone.. Nite Sam
-me

Sunday night – old friends


Greetings from Poughkeepsie NY. I’m down here for a couple of days of work meetings and a meet up with Diane and Max in NYC tomorrow  night or Tuesday.   Diane and I spent a good portion of the day working with Homer, Mike David and Chris on assembling the first wheel of the time cycle. After a couple of hours of grinding and banging we managed to get the whole thing to slip together. Homer has done an amazing job of designing this wheel.. it’s a thing of beauty. Around 3:30 we’d managed ot gt the struts on, the rims locked in and the spokes tightened to the point that the thing was pretty tight. David got the forklift and we all held our breath as he hoisted the thing up to vertical

Once it was up we tightened the spokes on the bottom sde of the wheel and voila.. it was tall and true !

Here’s a picture to give you a sense of the size.. (we chose dinae because that even makes it look taller 🙂

It was a good weekends work.. now on to wheel number 2, the clockwork, the drive and the lighting.. It’s goign to be a busy 3 weeks !

Once the wheel was standing it began to rain a bit.. so I decided it was time to start heading south. The drive down to NY flew by.. I had some great phone convrsations with old friends.. my brother, my friend kevin, cousin mark, then.. I decided to call my old high school friend Phillip.   We last spoke in 1976 (I think).. but had recently reconnected by Facebook. I thin we spoke for about an hour.. It was just so great catching up on each others families both happy and tragic, our passions, our current life situations.. etc. We had a great time taking about all the geeky stuff we did as kids including blowing stuff up (over the towns fire station) , getting caught hacking phones, drinking hot sauce, camping in new mexico, making up  making up new languages and swimming (unintentionally ) in sewage laden storm runoff.    We made a date to talk at least once more in the next 33 years just to stay in touch.. no seriously.. I hpe to find phil in person next time I’m on the west coast..

Around 9 I made it to the homes of more old friends Bruce and Mary Beth.. We went out for a late dinner and talked about family, eating rats and work.. not too much about work… but engouhg. Bruce has always been oe of my best work mentors..

Yikes it’s late.. time for sleep.. More tomorrow. Nite folks. Nite Sam !
-me

Saturday night – spoke too soon

Busy day today..  woke around 8 .. then Diane and I took the dogs for a walk with Tim and his dogs. As we came down to the pond we spotted this magnificent blue heron.  When we finally spooked it too much it flew away on it’s huge wings It looked positively prehistoric.

We dropped the girls off then headed out to David D’s for a whole day of workign on the Time Cycle vehicle for burning man.. We hd a steady stream of people there today to help. Our goal was to get one of the 20 foot wheels assembled.. we got that about half done today.. so tomorrows another all day work days.   Here’s the 4 inch pipe we had bent to make the wheels.

Everyone had a job.. Here’s duane grinding down the inserts that hold the wheel segments together.

Here’s Jerry G. doing the same.

Diane and I worked on cutting the slots out of the spokes. We had some technical difficulties.. but finally mastered it enough to finish nearly  20 spokes from 2″ pipe.

Around  12:30 qwe took a break for lunch on David’s porch which leans out over the New Haven river.. Diane andJen had brought yummy snack food. ! (thanks !)

Next task was to drill 3/4″ holes in the massive hubs.. it was hard going !

Then came the tricky part of starting to assemble the rims, hubs, struts and spokes into the huge wheel. It was hard to get everything to align… Here’s Duane, Homer and Chris scratching their collective heads abotu making things fit ..

Finally, we had a whole half a wheel.. and a whole lot of ideas on how to make the next one easier. We’ll finish this one up tomorrow.

We packed up abotu 6 then headed over to wish Mason a happy 21st.. then off to verizon to pick up a new phone.. My current blackberry needs another replacement. this one will be my 4th !.. They say I must use them hard.. guess I do..  After the phone shop, we made a quick, fun visit to Tom and Bets’. They were having a party for the GIV counselors who’d been staying with them this summer.   They showed us the cool things they’d built including solar cells, solar hot water/shower and a wind generator.Cool projects, cool kids !  Sounded just like The Colony !

That’s about it for the day.. We got some pictured from Gabe’s trip by way of Sue P. here’s Mt Hood, where Gabe’s been snowboarding this week..

..and here’s a cool bus they saw on the way..

Speaking of Sam… I was takign a bath yesterday when th exhaust fan in the bathroom clicked on once, then turned off,… then turned on again.. tehn off again.. then stayed off the entire night.. while the switch was firmly off the whole time.. Just Sam saying “hi” ..

I’ll say ‘gnite”.. gnite all ! gnite Sam
-me