Another day of meetings. Today’s started at 7AM and ended just before 7. tomorrow will be more of the same.. thought I’ve decied that I need to come home a day early We leave at 5AM on Sat for India and I just have too much stuff to get ready

 The day was pretty good. These Academy meetings are a wonderful chance to talk to friends from all over the place. It’s the best networking thing I go to each year. As I’ve said many times in these pages. The friends I have from this group are among the closest friends I have on the planet.

 One interesting highlight of the day was the opportunity to participate in a panel of my fellow Technology Council members. It was a highlight to me because I truly believe in what I’m trying to do in my new role   as America‘s VP for the Academy. My job is to help the Academy improve the technical vitality..  of all the technical folks in North. South and Central America .It’s all about people and I like that.. 

The audience of the panel

 The full Technology Council

After the days meetings we all went out in small groups to the restaurant of our choice . I picked Japanese and ended up with my friends Glenn from Australia . Chris from England .. and new friends Jane from Australia  and Clifford from South Africa.  My friends Gottfried from Germany, Philippe from Switzerland and Ralph from new York were at the next table.. This meeting always feels like the United Nations. The food and the company were really great. It turns out that Jane is a big fan of Brian Weiss, the past life regression guy,  so that made for an interesting conversation .

 Cool sentiments

Our crowd.

nice sunset

Shirt a woman in the hotel was wearing.. Max has this exact same shirt.

We got done around 10 so I grabbed a cab and headed over to my friends Brian and Moira’s. Brian and I have been good buddies since we started working together in the mid 90’s.. we have the same scars on our backs from fighting battles together at work.. actually he has some different scars now.. he’s been going to an acupuncturist regularly and she practices ‘cupping’. Cupping involves using small flames to create a vacuum  in a small glass vessel. The resultant  suction is supposed to  help extract toxins from the body.. it certainly gives you some cool markings.

She’s going to love this

I got to see Brian’s newly rebuild house and his new half a car.. he’s got one of the very few Daimler Chrysler  Smart Cars.. It’s so cool and small. 50 miles per gallon.. and no messy battery’s.  I got to ride in it tonight.. on the way back to the hotel.

It’s about 1 AM and I’m about to nod off. As I was uploading the days pictures, I found that through a coincidence of folder naming, I’d accidentally mixed them with an Oct 3^rd of a previous year. .. maybe 2005 ?  In there I found this good picture of Sam and our bird Gabby.. The picture of Sam took my breath away

I must sleep now. I love you all.. G’nite Sam. I love you

-me

Oy… I only have a few hours to sleep before I need to be in my seat and smiling at 7AM..   Sometimes it would be so easy to tell myself. I’ll blog tomorrow… but I have a tradition to maintain here..   I’ll make this short and sweet. Today was uneventful from the sense that I did not ever step outside of the comforting wrap of the hotel today. I cant tell you if the day was hot or cool, dry or humid.. . Inside it was cool, dry and interesting. This meeting is the one each year that draw all the 300+ folks from the IBM academy under one roof. It’s a great opportunity to connect with all my friends that live all over the world. The big thing we’re struggling with now is how to make sure that   the body we belong to is really reaching out to the more than 210 thousand technical folks in my company.. I like thinking about stuff like that.. In fact.. anything that involves people and their path to success really interests me..

One of the great things about this meeting is the opportunity to sit down and talk to friends I  have from across the US.. and in other areas such as the US, Canada  Europe, India, China, Japan. Mexico. Canada, Brazil, etc. One aspect of this is to come face to face with ‘failure’. I know that I have not been doing my best job over the past 10 months…   I may have a good excuse.. but that doesn’t change the fact that many things I was trying to drive at my work.. may not occur once I  take my  in-house sabbatical Nov  1^st I’ve been confronted by a large array of work folks today.. that have been asking  ‘where have you been’… ‘why aren’t you doing ,,… ‘x’ “   why are you letting us down ?

I don’t have an answer.. But I do know that I’ve been doing all that I can do given  my current situation. I’m learning to forgive myself for that.. to be easy on myself.. I hope that it works for the rest of you.

I keep  falling asleep.. so I need to stop now…   before I drop my laptop

Gnite all.. gnite Sam

-me

ps.. here are some pictures from the day

Out on 6th street

Bob. me and Al

Nick’s admonition

Akl the fellows  in a meeting

Religious message aside.. I DO !

I’m on the road again… I’m donw at the IBM Academy annual meeting in Austin. Once again it’s so good to be surrounded with this many good friends. At this point most of the folks here know about Sam’s passing. Many of them have helped us spread SamStones all over the planet. My friend Jai just told me today that he put a SamStone on Eva Peron’s grave.. and another in the IBM box at a large soccor stadium in Argentina. . (I also heard last week that our firend Rand and Julie cast a few Samstones in the foundation of their new clinic !)
   Not too much to report down here yet.. The main part of the meeting starts tomorrow. As always, I’m trying to split my attention between being here.. and having my day job back at home.. I’m not doing the best job of either at this point.. but it is really good fun to be down here with all these good friends. 
 
    One back at home thing I just finisheed was our Halloween invitation. We’ve decided to have the pary as we do every year. Sam would have absolutely wanted it to be that way.. no question. We’re prinitng up a bunch of invitations .. but feel free to pass this one on as you see fit.   Please come and party like Sam  !

One other piece of home business I did htis evening is to send in some material for the Book of Remeberence that is being pulled to gether by Lifelink the orginization that arrainged Sam’s organ donations. Each year they pull together a service and a set of stories and pictures of the pople who have given livfe in the previous year. We’re not going down for the service.. but we sent this text.. and the cool bicture that our friend Brit took of Sam.

Sam was an exuberant boy with a 1000 watt smile. He loved his friends, family, dog, and bird deeply. Sam was passionate about guitar, snowboarding, lacrosse, and having fun. Yes, having fun was important to Sam.

Springtime meant lacrosse for Sam and a time to play hard with his buddies. Ultimate frisbee at the park were memorable times for Sam and he would come home with a big smile on his face and grass stains on his body. Summers you could find Sam floating down the rivers, swinging from a rope swing, biking, or just hanging with friends. A summer would be complete with time spent at Camp Abnaki and jamming at Burlington Rock Camp. Fall would be the season Sam would try and stretch summer out a little bit more until the snow started to come. That time was then spent at Bolton Valley Resort on his snowboard. He enjoyed ariel tricks and hitting the rails. Mostly he enjoyed just hanging with his friends and little brother Gabe.

Sam loved music and was always plugged into some song. Guitar was second nature to Sam. He could play “Asturias” on his classical guitar to heavy metal on his Gibson. He enjoyed playing bass and wailing on the drums. His favorite times were when he would jamming with one of his friends, or his big brother Max.

It is hard to capture Sam’s true spirit in a few paragraphs. He taught us so much. Mostly he taught us to have fun, ease up, and to be there for each other. He is a true best friend to many and deeply missed.

Sam was born on May 28, 1992. He was hit by a car on November 20, 2006 in Florida while visiting friends. His beautiful body stayed strong long enough for organ donation. He gave his heart, liver, kidney, and kidney-pancreas so that four others would live. His spirit continues on through them and surrounds us today. Sam lived his life to its fullest on this planet.

What a beautiful, beutiful boy…   I miss you so much my son..

Gnite all.. gnite Sam..
-me

Sometimes… you start down one path than have to change idrections and take another. My oringal tack for tonigth was to tell you about our daying spent cleaning the house in prep for the halloween party.  Our party is not ontil Oct 27^th.. but this is the last Saturday between then and now that  I’ll be here to get ready for it. I was going to make the point that the only thing that seperated “garbage” and “garage” was the letter “b” which must explain why our garage was so full of junk…   I was also  going to tell you how hard it was spending all that time in the Attic … There are so many memories packed in up there…

I’d even found the perfect song to include… the one I was singing to myself as I waded through all those memories…

by The Grateful Dead

            In the attics of my life

    Full of cloudy dreams unreal

    Full of tastes no tongue can know

    And lights no eye can see

    When there was no ear to hear

    You sang to me

    I have spent my life

    Seeking all that’s still unsung

    Bent my ear to hear the tune

    And closed my eyes to see

    When there were no strings to play

    You played to me

    In the book of love’s own dreams

    Where all the print is blood

    Where all the pages are my days

    And all my lights grow old

    When I had no wings to fly

    You flew to me

    You flew to me

    In the secret space of dreams

    Where I dreaming lay amazed

    When the secrets all are told

    And the petals all unfold

    When there was no dream of mine

    You dreamed of me

Here’s a good recording of the Dead singing it.

But then.. the eveing took a really funny and different turn.. Aftr the day of  cleaning, Diane and I decided to go into Burlinton for a night of shopping and eating. Gabe was with friends. After a quick round of shoping. We ended up at Primas for a great Thai dinner then came home. We’d just settled into bed at about 11:30 when we heard a noise in the wall of our closet. We’d been listening to the same noise for about 24 hours. We knew it was a mouse stuck in the wall. Ast night we both were listening to it struggle at 3AM. I was thinking abut how loney and frigtening it must be for that poor creuatre. I’d made a half hearted attempt to find the mouse this morning.. but no luck/. This evening. We were able to  run over and pin-point the locati on of the noise. It was in the small wall between our closet doors. I went and grabbed some tools and As I did, another mouse ran next to diane’s foot downstairs
!.

Here’s the mouse hole downstairs

I came back upstairs and set to work  work cutting the wallboard  I finaly got the board cut and backed out the screws holding the freed up segment. I eased the sheetrock off the wall.. ‘the’ mouse ran straight at me .. I jumped out of it’s way and it dissapeared down a hole in the floor.  I was laughing histerically at this when diane shouted, “I got him”.. Evidently.. there had been  2 mice trapped in the wall ! Diane had capturd the other one in a poly box. The poor creature was really frigthened and half starved. We took it downtairs and gave it something  to eat..

 Then Diane and I walked it across the Winooski bridge.

We released the little guy along with a handfull of pecans for food. He wasn’t interested in staying around to eat…..  

As we walked back home we heard a coayote howl, a goose honk and the beaver slap the water beneath us.. It was like they were all saying ‘thanks’ for saving Mr. Mouse.

Heeres the bevers’s slap disturbing the moonlight on the water. 

I’m finally back in bed.. andi’ts nearly 1.. So I’ll stop here.. never a dull moment !

Love you guys.. love you Sam !

-me