Another really nice day..   We hung out trying to stay warm while it went between warm and freezing outside.   We’re expecting frost tongit but mid 80’s on thursday. Gotta love Vermont in the spring.
    We spent today doing small projects around the house including trying to dry out the half pipe, fixing the trampoline, re-running the water softener after it failed the first time, etc.. none of it hard or taxing.. just blissfully mindless work.. ahhhhhh

The big event for the day was a ‘Friends of Sam’ meeting here at 4..  Sam’s freinds   have created this orginization in Sam’s memory. They raise money to help kids around the world.

Last year Sam’s freind Sam T. organized a ‘Jam for Sam’ benefit at Talent Skate Park (with the help of our very wonderful freinds at Talent..Hannah and Dave !!!!!) That event raised more than 3000 dollars to help a Sudanese freind of ours Abraham get his family out of refugee camp and here to vermont.. Sam  wanted to do another Jam for Sam event.. and the group of

This time they’ve found a really interesting cause . am T.’s mom has a freind who has a freind who’s from cambodia . Her name is Khem

Khem  is trying to raise money to help the families in her small birth town of Khang Baing . Khem and  her sister and brother was abducted from their small village in Kampong Chanag province by the Khmer Rouge. They spent many months in refugee camps before fleeign to tthe Thai boarder. therye they got pinned between the Thai military and the Kmer Rouge troops. Khem’s sister got ill and died while her brother managed to escape back to the village. Khem passed out and woke in a hospital. She ended up in an orphange in Thailand where she lived for several years. Eventually she was brought to Vermont and settled with a family in Essex. She went to high school here, then to college in Mass.. then married and now has three kids.. 9 years ago she met another Cambodian women here who was travelign back to Cambodia.. Khem gaveher  as much info as she could about her parents and her village  … Somehow this info proved to be enough for the woamen to find Khem’s family and reconnect them. Ever since Khem has been trying to help her family and therei vary poor family escape from poverty and illness.   Khem actually traveled back to cambodia for the first time last fall.. here she is reunitted with her parents.  You can read about Khem’s story and her vision here.

Khem told the the Kids that she was tryoing to raise money to dig a few wells in the village to get fresh water and perhaps to help them buy a truck in order for the village  to sell their produce. The FOS guys were excited to help. it looks like the event will be 6/6/09 at Talent.. I’ll let everyone know as that date gets closer.. The event should be fun.. music, food and skateboarding..all for a great cause.. what could be better ?

Whiel we had everyone toghter.. we couldn’t forget that it was Brit’s 19th birthday. Diane had mad a great carrot cake (our Sam’s favorite).. and we brought it out as a surprise.. Crit was suprised and happy !

Well now it’s about 9 PM on Sunday and Im having trouble staying awake.. What’s up with that ? I think I’m really getting soft in my old age.. but who cares.. I’m goign to sleep. Gnite everyone.. Gnite, Sam !
-me

Taday was near perfect.. nothing to do but hang out.   Our first event was Gabe’s lacrosse game in Jericho.. The weather started nice, the game was good… and.. we got a chance to puppy-sit Jay’s dog Onyx… !

Having a puppy on the field is like having a cute new baby.. everyone wants to come up and play with him.. People….

… and dogs.. It was great to have all of that furry attention

Gabe had two games with abotu an hour break in the middle.. I messed around and stared at the sky and the flowers.. and talked to diane and one of the other parents.. Very peaceful !

We got home around 2 and just hung out the reast of the day.. I wrestled a little with the motor controllers which continued to vex me.. and when that didn’t work.. I decided to sit and do nothing.. something that I worked hard to learn to do on the colony..   I finally managed to do nothing for abotu an hour.. While I was doing that.. diane was prepparing food for the vegitarian potluck we were attending tonight. Her contribution was home made hummus and home made pita breaad.. When she pulled out the 2nd batch of pita.. this is what she saw.. Do you see the face in the middle pita ?!

Here;s a closer look..Religions have been started for less ! Pretty funny.. eh ?

We went over to teh veggie potluck at anne and kieths.. abotu 5:30 ,, It was a fun get together.. soem of us drank a drink I accidently made up at an earlire party at anne’s.. carrot juice and white wine.. It’s much better thnan it sounds ! I think it makes your eyes sharper even as they get blurrier !

Dinner was great.. conversation was great… 

The hilight was inidng out that two of the families kids had been featerued in the burlington free press B-side photos for havign taken part in the naked bicycle ride  a few days ago.. Here are abbot and patrick with their freinds devon and lindsy celibrating the near end of the semester..

It was a great evening.. Good freinds and good food…. so good night !.. Nite sam !

-me

Last night I started noticing that I was returnig to some mndless habits I had before my advventure at the colony.. nothing major.. just mindless actions.. I didn’t make time to run in the morning. I found myself eating through the night.. I had a couple glasses of wine .. I made a few phone calls I spent an hour on the computer… I checked my phoen messages while I was talking to Diane.  Again.. nothing major.. but they were all habits that I’d managed to break during my stay away.
  THis morning I woke up with the best of intentions … I was planning on running… but I couldn’t resist checkign my email.. I lopened my laptop.. but for some reason.. I couldn’t connect.. I then tried to check my blackberry to check my messages and emails.. For some reason my phone wasn’t working.. Then the dogs came in an basically dragged me out for a run.. As I was heading outside to run I saw our box of Angel Cards.. They’re a deck of cards weach with a word that you use to meditate on. I figured I’d grab a card on the way out.. The card i grabbed was ‘Balance’ . Everything  felt like the universe was trying to help me remember to stay centered..

I thought about that for the rest of the day..

Speaking of balance..  Check this cake out.  I had a late mentoring meeting at Mexicali . My freind Erin works there and asked me to borrow my camera.. They were having a going away party for one of the guys who worked there and she wanted a picture of the cake.. Check this out (Erin.. The full res picture is in my photobucket)..

The rest of the day was pretty quiet.. After work I went home and helped diane in the garden which was pretty peaceful.. even though my hands kept twitching for my cell phone.. it wasn’t working again  whcih was good.

Gabe called because he needed a ride. I went down to pick him up at the park and got to check out the new ferry boat that’s runnoing while the bridge is out. Check this out !

The evening was peaceful… The Atwoods came by to talk about the new spetic system they’re putting in for us the week after next.. Now that’s pretty exciting !!!!

Right now we’re siting in Sam’s room watching a wierd movie.. Juast as we turned the lights of Gabe found a glass of many month old kool-aid.. Yummmmm

OK.. I just realized I’m doing it again.. I’m typing while hanign out wiht my family.. When am I goign to learn ? 🙂
Gotta go now. Gnite all. Gnite Sam
-me

I ended up with an unexpected quite night. Gabe is at a school thingy and Diane is at the laundromat.. We’re still having to was our clothes there until the new septic system goes in .. We have our first meeting with our friend the excavator tomorrow.. so we’re getting closer to being able to do laundry at home again !
   Anyway.. I had the house and time to myself.. My mind is still so empty that nothing jumped in to fill the time. I decided to look at a few of the lectures on TED (http://TED.Com ) Ted stands for technology, entertainment and design. It’s a set of wonderful lectures on any topic imaginable. They’re all about 15 minutes.. and they’re all free. There are some great pieces in there on science, inventions, human behavior, future ideas.. really.. something for everyone. I’ve watched these things on and off over the past year.. but I rarely make the time to go and check out what’s new. Yesterday my buddy Sue turned me on to a talk she’d seen by Seth Godin  on the concept of ‘tribes’   Godin is  a blogger and the founder of yoyodyne.. a marketing firm (named after a fictitious company in two of my favorite books by thomas pynchon) 

Anyway..  Godin explains the evolutions of the leadership model he calls ‘tribes;. His point is that ideas spread very differently now than they did even 5 years ago. The internet has give us such a capacity to share ideas and gather around them.. that anyone can lead.. from any position.. as long as he/she can speak to folks who are already of like mind. It’s a simple idea.. but one that I think about often now..

I was really thinking of this when I did my ISSCC talk in early feb. I realized that despite the work I’d put in.. I wasn’t telling folks much that they already didn’t know.. what appealed to many folks about the talk is that it reinforced to them what they

already knew or at least suspected… and i was on a topic that many of them were already passionate about..   I was starting to build a tribe around the idea of connecting green jobs and engineering careers.  to helping address some of the worlds most pressing problems. . It wasn’t that I was the only one saying that.. it’s just that  got the pulpit form which to speak to a bunch of folks who already knew what I was about to say.. and wanted to hear me (or anyone) say it..

So.. I think now, more than ever, we need to build that tribe.  how do we do that ? Not sure.. but on a related topic.. i just heard that Obama’s green job czar, Van Jones is going to be in Burlington next week to speak.. He’s got a major tribe going on the idea of putting jobless folks to work doing gree energy projects like insulating houses, etc.. I want to talk to him about extending this message to one that encourages inner city kids to consider engineering and technology jobs that can help us address energy and environmental issues.

I know that Jones will be speaking at the VT Expo during lunch.. does anyone know where else he’ll be during his stay in VT ?

OK.. I gotta go do some homework… hope everyone is well.. Note folks.. Love you Sam
-me