It’s Monday night and I’m at the IBM Learning Center in Armonk NY. I drove down early this morning after about 4 hours sleep .. yawn. The drive down is nice.. spent some of it on the phone.. some of it just quietly thinking. I find that since Sam’s passing I have had trouble listing to news on the radio.. or listening to the comedy channel we get… or reading newspapers.. I don’t think I want to hear about other peoples troubles right now.. A cop out perhaps.. but good self preservation.  

 

The Learning Center  where I’m staying is an IBM owned hotel/conference center on the campus of our companies headquarters. This is one of my favorite hotels in the world. Not sure why. It’s sort of  part monastery, part luxury hotel and part penal colony. The dorms are all in beautiful stone buildings set in a heavily wooded park with trails crisscrossing every which way. I’ve been coming here frequently for the last 10 years.. each dorm is attached to some memory of some business deal or some corporate task force I was part of.. not all good memories.. but not all bad either. As peaceful and beautiful as this place is.. it can also be a little eerie Nearly everyone here is an IBM employee.. it’s like invasion of the body snatchers but with briefcases !

    I’m really glad I came down here .. I have a series of meetings today and tomorrow related to my day job and my outreach stuff.. I’m also trying to attend a conference held for some of our best college interns.  I say ‘trying’ because I have some hot day job stuff that’s keeping me on the phone most of the day. but I was able to here a few of the talks and hang out at dinner.

 Our dinner table  – great conversation  !

 It’s so very energizing hanging out with all these 20-somethings who are still in college. They’re all so cute in their business suits. They are a very sharp bunch of folks to be sure. This kind of stuff recharges me so much. When I’m around ‘kids’ like this, I end up trying to see myself through their eyes.. to them I’m a grown-up .. it sort of freaks me out. I love talking to them about their intern projects, their schools and their backgrounds. I tell them about what I do.. and do as much meddling with their careers as one can safely do in a 5 minute conversation. I did a bunch of talking about my family tonight too… many folks asked me about my Sam button. I like talking about all of my family

    Speaking of family.. this place really does feel like an extended family to me..  Quite a few execs attend this particular event because they too get a charge out of it.  Once again.. I got hugged by many of them.. At the very least I get the tow arm hand shake (you know when you also grab the other guy’s elbow) I don’t think I get many regular  handshakes from folks I know well anymore.  Here are a few of the friends I ran into.

 My good friend Jane.. We finnaly had a chance to sit down and have a good, long talk. It was so good to reconnect with her

John I..  I once hooked his daughter up to  a 400,000 volt generator

My hero Irving.. now a Visiting prof at MIT

Nick – the godfather of IBM.. all of our hero !

I also ran into two guys.. a father and son.. who are named Eric Larsen .. Even more trange.. John-from-Voices mom’,  Pam, told Diane abotu a book about Marconi I might like written by another guy named Eric Larsen… Eric.. i think the world is telling me ot talk to you about something ?

 I know I’ve said it before.. but at a time like this you can see that the company has a deep and wonderful soul.  

 
Speaking of time’s like this.. It’s midnight.. and I’m going to friends for an early breakfast tomorrow.  So.. that’s it for today.. more tomorrow. Love you all.. love you Sam

 

-me

 

Yikes.. another late night and I need to  leave  for NY at 5AM tomorrow. I’ll make this quick. We woke this morning in Megasett MA where my Sister and my folks were staying.

We woke early and had a nice talk with my mom as we watched the birds feed a few feet away. 

 I was so glad that I got a chance to see my folks and my sister and her kids. We’re going to try and make it down there one more time while they’re on the beach.

 

It was a beautiful morning . Around 8 we shoveled Gabe into the car and began the schlep back up to VT.

The highpoint of the trip back was a stop over at Hooksett Fireworks (http://www.nhfireworks.com/) 

We HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you check   this place out.. !. We popped in for a few small items.. and… well…   uh.. let’s just say we hope  the car doesn’t get hit by lightening. OK.. so we went a little overboard.   But as Christina the president of the place says.. it’s a common problem: everybody who walks in turns into a kid again.

 

 She was great.. it was like trying to buy a new car.. so many choices.. she helped us find just the right sort of heck raising mayhem .  Christina also showed us the special fireworks collection that she’d assembled in honor of the ‘Hookset Four’ (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3199506) the four town workers fired for improper gossip. It was national news a few weeks ago. The special collection  included Mortar clusters called “hicktown heaven”  , “parrots prattle”, “love on fire,” and “blond joke”.

She was great. We told her about Sam and his love of fireworks.. We also told her about how we sent  some of Sam’s ashes up in a green shower mortar. I think that makes us professionals of some sort. 

The titles and artwork on these things were just great

 

He rest of the trip was pretty uneventful.. as was the rest of the day for that matter. We got home around 1:30   To a very clean and peacful house

In time for Diane and Gabe to make the Burton Sale.   I finished cutting the lawn. It’s funny how even doing something like that makes me nostalgic.. how many times did Sam do that job with this mower.? . Everything is loaded with memories.

 

As usual, there were a passel of kids and adults circulating through the house all day.. It was like musical chairs.. when dinner hit the table our friends the Rossi’s where here as were   Pucket, Liz, Carolyn, Nick , Brad, Will.. so 11 for dinner… never, ever, ever a dull moment..

One sweet thing that happened as we prepped for dinner. I went out to grab a cucumber  from the garden.. As I walked in, I saw something big move.. I though.. maybe a big rabbit. As I reached down to pick the ‘cuke I saw the cutest, tiniest baby rabbit.. it was no bigger than an apple. It was sitting so still.. I guess scared stiff. I pretended not to see it.. I started singing ” I don’t see any  bunnies … no”.. and backed out of the garden… 

 

On that sentimental note.. G’nite all.. g’nite Sam..   look for fireworks.

 

-me

Nice uneventful day at the cape. Diane and I went for a run this morning through a really nice set of trails near Jen’s folks. The countryside is sandy with stunted evergreens . It’s so different from the woods in Vermont. I dropped Diane off at the house then ran down to the beach again to say hi to the ocean. I noticed that the SamStone we placed there yesterday had already been moved. That’s good. We want people to pick them up and either keep or replace them. 

 Which reminds me.. Once again… If you used SamStones.org to tell me that you’d placed or found a SamStone  in the last 6 months, there’s a good chance I missed it. If you can, please resend the note and any pictured you sent.. again so sorry for the trouble.

After all the kids were up we packed into two cars and headed down to Harwich Beach.. it was beautiful beach.. fairly packed with people. The water was warm and pretty good for skim boarding.. I’ll never be a beach person… but this was nice.

 

What would a day at the beach be without fly over advertising ?

The beautiful kite store in Harwich

Around 1 the kids had enough so we went back to Jen’s folks house for lunch and (at least for me) a short nap. Around 4 we decided it was time to head to Falmouth to meet my folks.  Jen and Deb and the kids drove with us for awhile until we got to one of those rental go-kart places. We all went once… then some of the kids went again. It was a hoot ! It’s the kind of thing I would never have down before.. but since Sam died I’m up to just about anything.. why not ?

 

They even had rides for the big kids !

From there Jen and Deb and co. headed back to Harwich and we continued on to Falmouth. My baby seeeeeeeester Mary (or SPG as we call her.. because that’s how she used to spell her name, has rented a house here for 2 weeks. My folks are coming down to help with Mary’s kids’ Ellery  and Jake…Mary’s husband John is coming in on Thursday.     Turns out that Mary and my folks were caught in traffic on the bridge so we got there about an hour before they did.. Time enough to explore the environs..   We found a cute beach a short walk off with a jetty that just needed to be explored..

 

 By the time we got back to the house, My folks and Mary had arrived. We got our first face to face look at our new nephew John Samuel / Jake.. You all may remember that Mary and John called me in Shanghai to tell me that he’d been born… It was great  to finally meet the little guy in the flesh. He’s gorgeous… and that’s not just me as his uncle talking. J. It was great seeing Ellery too.. she still thinks I’m Santa Claus.. “hi HoHo: she said when she saw me.   My folks seem great too… It’s nice to be together.. Nice.. and as you would expect.. hard too.

 

Me and Pa

Me and Jake

Diane and Jake

Ellery

Pa

Ma and Jake

My mom and I took off to get a few groceries and pick up Chinese food.. right now we’re sitting around in the post-take out glow talking to some of Mary’s friends who live near by…   It’s very peaceful… I better post this now. Not sure I’ve got an internet connection.. We’ll see !

 

 

OK.. More tomorrow.. G’nite all.. G’nite Sam.

-me

 

 

 

We’re staying at Jen’s folks house on the Cape (South Harwich).. Her parents are really nice. I got here around 11:30 a;last night after a nice quiet ride down.

A shot from the car while moving

Diane got us up at 6AM to walk to hike down to the beach for morning yoga. It was a great way to start the day.  

Nothing better than yoga on the beach !

Some cool creatures down there

These too !

Diane making left foot only tracks !

We got back to the house in time for me to take an 8:30 work call. The cell signal is so bad, If I moved my head it dropped the call.   I had to prop my cell phone on the window cell to get enough bandwidth to use my computer.

  I took the rest of the day off which was really nice.  We packed up a ton of food and piled into two cars and headed up the cape.

 

First stop was Marconi beach. The site of the first commercial transatlantic wireless station.  There wasn’t much left of the original site.. but there was some cool signs  describing what the site once looked like.   The ocean had eroded most of the site off the map.. it was quite pretty. We saw a bunch of seals playing in the water right off shore.

 

Mr. Marconi (Actually Count Marconi. I believe)

His circuits (It was a big rotary sspark gap tesla coil that evidently could be heard working from more than 4 miles away)

I’m fascinated with the story about Marconi. Many kids are taught that he invented Radio..  In fact, that story is incorrect. According to the Supreme Court  of the USA, Nikola Tesla invented Radio. They overturned Marconi’s  patents in 1946, claiming that Marconi’s work infringed on Tesla’s 1888 work in Colorado.

From there we took the half hour drive to Provincetown I’d never been there… and didn’t know what to expect. It was a much bigger town than I’d imagined. Our first stop was to eat our picnic in the parking lot where we parked.

From there we took the 170 step climb up the Pilgrims Monument. This place commemorates the first landfall of the Mayflower.

 

It was a great hike up. The view from the top was gorgeous.. as was the breeze. It was a perfect place to put a few SamStones.

 

After taking in the view, we all trucked down the tower and headed into ‘downtown’ P-town. It was wicked  hot, packed with people and was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Very colorful and diverse.

We popped  in and out of some of the wild stores along the main street.

 

I like this place !

Some of the diversity that makes Ptown so interesting

Frank Zappa.. one of my heros !

My favorite Puffer

This car dealer’s name plate sums up the whole place !

Eventually we had enough of the crowds and piled back in the car and headed down to Nauset beach to let the kids do a little boogey boarding. The waves were amazing. We didn’t stick around much because the water was freezing..  

We headed up to Brewster beach to watch the sun set. It was an amazing place.  When the tide goes out, the water recedes over a mile. We walked out on the flats to the edge of the water to skim board. The kids were really good at it.

 

Me pulling Gabe… (this is wicked fun !)

As the kids played, we went out and brought back pizza which lasted about 4 minutes. I’m glad I got my hands out of the way…

 ..g0307c360.jpg”> ..g0307c360.jpg”>

The day was really nice… really, really nice… It was just missing one very beautiful kid… Oh my Sam…  sometimes having fun is really hard.

-me