First things first.. I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to my dear pa Hugh.. 78 years old today and looking good ! Happy Birthday Dad !

Not a whole lot to report today.. One observation was that it was friggin’ cold this morning
when we went for a run. Even stranger was the look of some of the trees as I drove in and home from work.. What can this mean ?! It couldn’t be.. could it ?!

Work was busy and productive.. Not much to report there. One good thing that happened today was that I ran into a friend of mine who lost a child many years ago. This was the first time we’d ever really talked to each other about grieving and healing. I was telling her how mad I get at myself sometimes for letting myself get stressed and frustrated at work . She re-framed this for me a bit by telling me a story she’d heard at a Compassionate Friends meeting. A woman there told a story about going to work after a tragic loss and hearing a co-worker complain about her dishwasher. The woman was angry and sad that her coworker was complaining about such a trivial thing to her. Several years later… the same woman had a similar problem with her dishwasher.. She too found herself frustrated and complained about it to a co-worker.. She caught herself doing it and started to feel bad for her loss of perspective.. Then a light bulb went off in her head.. she realized it was actually a sign of how far she’d gotten in her healing that her loss no longer overshadowed everything else…

I thought about that story all day… soemthing about it resonated.. soemthing about it didn’t..

Anyway.. the rest of the story was all work and no play. I did have a late afternoon mentoring meeting at Mexecali.. but still had a bunch of work to do. I couldn’t bring myself to drive back to work on such a nice day.. At the same time, I knew that if I headed home, I wouldn’t finish what I needed to do. I compromised.. I stopped at a starbucks and worked there for a couple of hours .. I’ve only seen people do that in movies… But here I am in an actual starbucks ! (and I don’t even drink coffee !)

I don’t go into many Starbucks.. bt this sign on the back exit made me really wonder… I couldn’t figure this out ? What do you think ? Vampires ?

I got home around 6:30.. and we immediately left for Tim and Jens’ We were making Samstonesto give to all the kids who are goign off to college and for me and Max to take to burng man…

Tim cooked .. we ate

Then we all sat down and made 50 pounds of SamStoens in record short time… It was really fun.. One cool thing about this picture is that my camera had run ot of batteries.. I treidseveral times to get at least one shot of the SamStone making.. but no luck.. I thengot the idea to take the battery out of the camera and warm it under my shirt.. I did that for abotu 10 minutes.. and beleive it or not.. that etra warmth gave it enough ooooomph for this one last shot…

Speaking of ooomph.. mines flagging. Time for bed.. More tomorrow. Gnite all./ gnite Sam !
-me

3:30 AM.. that’s what the clock said when I woke up last night.. . I’d gone to bed at 12:30. and 3 hours later there I was lying in bed.. wide awake. it was either one of the kids or one of the dogs that made the noise that woke me.. but despite meditating, listening to music and lying quietly.. I just could not fall back asleep. I had way too much on my mind.. After about 30 minutes.. I decided I had to get up and walk around. I went downstairs. then.. went outside for a walk.. It was wonderfully quiet and calm outside.. It was magical to be out walking around then.

About a half hour later. I came back in and sat down and wrote out a massive todo list.. I also wrote a list of all my ongoing projects… andwere they ended up on a fun vs/ importance graph.
The reslut of that was very interesting.. It also made me feel much more restful having written it all down.. out of the mind and into the page. I apologize for having to obscure the names of the project.. but I make it a point of not talking about my work here.

It was about 5 when I got that proritization finsihed.. I walked back upstairs and almost fell asleep again for 30 minites.. then it was time to get up again.. i ‘just’ need to clear some stuff off my plate.

Right now. me and my plate are really tired.. I keep falling asleep as I write. I’m goign to try this sleep thing one more time. Gnite everyone.. G’note Gabe

-me

I’m still in this strange state of having way too much to do.. . not enough time to do it.. and really liking everything I’m doing/ I’m used to being over committed and hating everything I’m doing because of it.

I’m even liking my work quite a bit now.. I’m trying hard not to bring it home with me.. but it’s getting harder to do.. I find myself leaving work when the parking lots like this.. (That’s my prius out there alone)..

2 days ago I got a survey where they were askeing each oft he execs on site to answer questions about work life balance.. It was fun filling it out (I love surveys) .. It was also good thinkign about the ‘balance’ I have now. One of the questions was ‘how many hours do you work a week’. I did soem quick accounting and realized that I’m now down to 55 hours per week.. that’s down from more than 70(counting working at home) where I was before Sam’s passing. That’s pretty cool.. it think. The problem is that I’ve said ‘yes’ to so many cool things inside and outside of work that those 55 hours are not leaving me enough time for …. goofing around.. hangining out, just doing nothing…. or thinking

TANyo make matters more complicated, Max and I just decided that we are goign to Burning man at the end of the month.. We bought our plane and event tickets last night.. Now… why in the world would I take on a major trip like that when I’m already so busy…. on the other hand.. how could I say ‘no’ to going to burning man with my son…

Not sure how to change this… but I need to get it back to sanity.. I went to Marci today.. one of the things we talked about was maybe its just about changing my attitude.. instead of focusing that I have too much to do.. focus that I’m doing so much fun stuff…

I wish it were that easy to shift my perspective……

Anyway… I came home this afternoon to find gabe and justin on bikes pulling Nate around in a wheel chair that Max had found the other day.. It was hilarious, .. and crazy…

Then another 4 hours work session at Homers on the robot project.. tonight we made good progress.. but we have so much more to do. Here’s homer ‘contemplating’

Sara and ‘becca the artists are looking at our animatronic face.. Sara is doing here best evil laugh here and we’re trying to capture it n our faces movements.

Here’s Cesar tweeking the code for the motors.

here’s jana trying to grease the lift that will be the creatures body

These are the solenoid valves that will control the monsters arms.. look at the initials.. SMC.. Sam’s initials/

I got home around 11:30 to find Gabe and Ian hatching a cool plan. They movd the basketball net next to the tramp.. what a cool game.. I got up there and di some killer dunks myself.. That boy is very crazy and clever.

OK.. I have a 7am (yuck) burning man mtg tomorrow morning. Gottasleep.. Nite all. Nite Sam !
-me

Change feels funny to me now.. And change is all around me always. This week our neighbors big red barn is coming down. it’s been about to fall down for some time.. Its not a particularly old barn.. I think it’ s form the mid to late 40’s the old barn that was on the roughly the same spat burned in the 40’s. Still.. I’ve gotten pretty attached to i tin the last 26 years. Believe it or not.. I talk to this barn every time I run by it.. I ask it how it’s doing.. and it asks me how I’m doing. Since Sam’s passing I respond by saying// ‘thanks for asking’. You probably think I’m kidding.. but I never kid.
The big red barn became a landmark in the week after Sept 11 2001. Our friends Bud and Bob (or maybe it was just Bob ?) got out there and put the most amazing american flags on the front and side of the building. I remember watching them paint it one day and thinking that was the most amazing, patriotic and positive thing I remember from that awful week…

They’re taking the barn down gently with the help of Recycle North.. the windows and the siding will all be reincarnated into something else. Building material karma…

I took these pictures yesterday

You know.. I’ve lived here more than 26 years.. and I’ve never stuck my head in this bulding.. here’s the cows eye view of the innards.

I came back today and found they’d gotten the windows and half of the siding out..

So.. I walked over there tonight and asked the barn.. “how are you” This pictures says it all for me… ‘What’s happening to me !?!?”

Well.. It’s good they’re taking the building down.. I know it’s unsafe.. I’ll just miss seeing it..
Good luck my wooden freind. I hope your boards go to soem good use..
Good luct to all of you.. good luck Sam
-me

ps. Folks.. our good friend gary just sent me an amazing song he wrote. he says it was inspired by Sam’s passing.. though it’s not about Sam.. Take a listen.   I think you’ll like it ! 
-me