All posts by johncohn

Thursday night – stranger in a strange land


Productive-ish day .. worked at home and spent most of it on the phone. I’ve got some new work stuff that has me excited.. which is good.   One benefit of working at home occasionally is that I can snowshoe or run durign lunch. Today Diane and I took the dogs for a fast snowshoe up the Caramount trail in the foot or so of new powder. It was beautiful.. and very head clarign to be outside. The world looked magical and clean.

I came across this tree funguss all covered with snow. It kinda looked like a fishhead to me.. Do you see it ?

I stopped at the sign out to see if the Samstoen I placed there last week was still there.. it was…

I worked the rest of the day into the vening.. Gabe came back from the mountian after 11 hours of riding (!).He had his hair up n a top knot.. lwhich ooked really … uh… strange.. .

Speakign of strange.. I was reading a book in the bathtub this afternoon about people who make thing. and it began with this wonderful quote form Robert Henlein.. th Sci Fi writer who wrote Stranger in a Strange Land.   He said:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein”

Now that’s a cool menifesto.. no ?
I’ll go think about that.. nite folks.. nite Sam
-me

Wednesday night – jam for another Sam

It’s 11:50 PM and believe it or not I’m waiting for the star of a work meeting. One of the fun things about working for an international company is the opportunity to work with folks all over the world..One of the difficult parts though s finding times when groups that are all over the world can get together to talk. Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone kept the same hours.
    Not much to report tonight… One thing I do want to do is to invite folks to a memorial skate Jam for Sam “raven” Laframboise.

The Jam will be held a from 6-8 PM this Saturday at Talent. Sam L was a great kid who skated regularly at Talent. He and his friend Jason S were killed in a car accident last October.   There’s a $5.00 donation to skate.  The good folks at Talent will be raffling off a lot of stickers (Sam loved stickers), and other prizes.  Red Bull will be selling cans for $1.00 to support the cause Hannah from talent said ” Sam would want it done in the winter cold because it invites people in to a warm place to skate together” .. Please come and support Sams family.. and your fellow fallen skater. 

Goodnight both of you Sam’s.. hope you’re skating hard.
-me

Monday night – Chandu's dad

I was sad to learn yesterday that my friend Chandu’s father has just passed away.  , just days after Chandu returned from visiting his family in Bangalore. Mr. V. was a great man.. I’ve known him since Chandu and I were in graduate school together. Last year, he and his wife and their kids hoisted Diane. Gabe and I during our stay in Banglaore. I’ll always remember our conversations.. The notice I received said that  “He will be remembered as a wonderful husband,
father and grandfather, an outstanding civil engineer, an avid musicologist, a consummate hobbyist, and a man of impeccable style and taste.”.. He was really good guy.. 

Here’s a picture of Chandu and his dad that we took when we visited them

Reading my blog post from that visit brought back many warm memories,

I spoke with Chndu this evening.. he’s just about to head over to India for the memorial service. Our hearts are with him and his family..

nite sam
-me

Sunday Night – flamethrower

Fun end to a busy day.. I spent most of the day working on my talk.. again..   It still needs work.. but It’s getting there…    Elizabeth and Chris took off this morning Gabe went up to the mountain.. and Diane went to a meeting in the afternoon. ..so I had no excuse not to work. My plan was to go down to Middlebury to meet up with Homer.Whit and Nicole to see the final project of the flame arts class that Whit and Homer were teaching.  I was trying to get out of the house by 2.. but didn’t make it until 4.. .. It was just getting dark as I pulled into middlebury. The guys were just done filling up the last of the balloons with hydrogen they’d made by dumping aluminum foil in drano.. . They were going to use these balloons as targets..

I went down to the green (now very much white) and watched as they set up the propane accumulator.. It’s a very simple design that Whit has come up with. It’s an empty 40lb propane tank with the top valve replaced with a simple manifold which included 3 inlet lines from full propane tanks. one pressure gauge and an solenoid valve topped with a long steel pipe . The idea is that you let the pressurized liquid propane from the three filler tanks fill the empty accumulator with somewhere between 50 and 100 psi of gaseous propane.. Then you activate the solenoid and it release a blast of high0sh pressure propane over a small lit torch at the top. The torch is wrapped with coarse steel wool to keep it burning.  

Last weekend I built a small time delayed relay for the guys to use.. it uses a small micro controller to allow you to set the on time, off time.. and rep rate.. . The kids had made this massive wooden box to hold my tiny, tiny circuit.. most impressive. 

The other part of the piece the kids designed was an electric controlled spinner thing with two stainless steel baskets hanging off form it. those baskets held the balloons filled with hydrogen and a little burst of oxygen. the idea was to trigger the propane flame shooter as the  balloon swung over .. which would cause the balloon to explode loudly.. How cool is that ?

The kids were doing the final setup .. we took advantage of that to go inside to warm up and grab a snack..   On the left is homer’s buddy the Econ prof (can’t recall his name), Homer , Whit and Nicole..

We got back and a crowd had formed..  Home, Whit and the class kids turned on the gas and started shooting..   It was truly beautiful.. They were having pressure problems due t the cold.. but even so.. they were getting a good 10- 15 foot flame plume. You could feel the heat from the blast from 20 yards away.. Very, very  nice against the dark moonless sky.

I promised folks on Facebook movies of the thing firing.. so here ya go.. Note it was hard to time this to catch the baboons going off.. but I think you can get the idea..

..

OK.. this is going to be a busy week.. Better get to sleep.
Night everyone..
Nite Sam.. hoped you liked the fires..
-me