Man , am I beat.. I had so much going this weekend.. and in the middle of it, Diane and I decided to take on a major household project. The funny thing is, I think I got everything I was trying to do done.. That rarely happens with me now.. .. Well whatever we got done.. I’m completely exhausted.. I feel completely empty.. physically and emotionally. .. and somehow peaceful at the same time.
I have a small backlog of pictures that I’d like to post.. I know I’ve been lazy the last 2 days.
Hers a view from Friday.. Richmond is still cut in half by the failign brisge. It might be hard for folks who live elsewhere to appreciate the major effect this bridle closing has on the town.. Our road is the next possible detour.. anf that alone is a 7 mile side trip.. Folks who live on one sie of the bridge are a good 20 minutes from their friends on the other side.. unless the walk across the broken bridge.
As you may recall.. Diane and I had Friday night to hang out in Burlington while Gabe whent to a movie. we ended up sleeping in the car in the parkign garage.. but we did have soem excitement before that…we crused around Borders looking at books. I likeed this ones title.
.. and I even found a CD with Max singing on it.. !
Once the bookstore closed, we went to Dobra tea and had a late night pick me up. I had smoky lapsong suchang… I love the name almost as much as the taste !
Sat. morning.. I had to run over to Sara G. to pick up the pumplin monster’s head.. Sara and her friend Becca are making the decoratins for the beast.. They did a great job with the head !
I ewroked on marrying the creatures jaws to the rest of the head.. so that we can move it to speaking.. I love that kind of work..
Abot 6:30 PM Diane and I started a hike up the Catamount Trail.. Somewhere on that hike we decided to go ahead with teh crown molding project.. We we’re alone wiht no kids.. so .. why not ?!
We headed to Home Depot where another cutomer captured us in American Gothic posture.
We grabbed 10 feet of molding and crammed the 16 foot sections in our car.. CAREFULLY !
We came bck and started working at 10.. THe first job was to tear down the old square milding.. ewwwwwwww huge caps, old plaster.. and g-d knows what else came pouring down on us when we pulled off the old boards.
We worked until abotu 1 putting up the modling. then woke around 7:30 and got right back to it… We hid a buch of SamStonesthroughout the project.
Soem of the old stuff we had to pull down was up there for a centruy or more.. look at this old writing on the back f some old moulding ..
We ended up borrrowing a nailer . another ladder and a mitre saw form Tim.. that made the project easy.. by afternoon we’d finished.. and it really looked great !
Around 6 gabe went to a movie.. and I headed over to Homers. we had to find a way to marry the head to the body.. we had a great work sessions tonight.. the thing is relly looing scary !
Unfortunately.. I manage to burn ot one of the creatures jaw motors when it got jammed.. 🙁 .. Luckily.. I ave a replacement !
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OK.. it’s time for sleep.. if anyone can sleep in this heat.. It’s over 80 degrees here at midnight.. That almost NEVER happens…
You know what else NEVER happens.. me goign to sleep on time.. ok.. time for bed. gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam.. !..
Ok.. the title’s a pun.. we’re doing fine. What I mean is..Diane and I have been putting up crown molding in the living room but we’re using these nifty pre-mitred corners.. and you don’t have to use a coping saw to get the corners to mate. It’s saving aus a bundle of time. The funny thing is we just decided to start this project at about 7:30 tonight.. Gabe decided to go over to Ian’s… so Diane and I had another night to ourselves.. We did what any couple in love might do.. we went to the hardware store… (and ran into our neighbors who were also on a hardware date 🙂 We baugt about 140 linear feet of molding .. and without really knowing what we were doing, we spent abou 3 hours and got about a third of it up.. We stuck soem SamStones behind it for good measure. So far, it looks great ! The catch is.. it’s now getting close to 1:30 and I’m too beat to uplad the pictures.. so that will have to wait for tomorrow… The only other thing of interest I did today was work with Sara G. one of the artists on Project-X.. diane and I picked up the giant pumpkin head that she and Becca had build. I spent about four hours figureing out how to marry the jawbone they’de made to the servo structure we’d built.. By the end of the day I had the creaure tallkign pretty convincingly … and his eyes sparkling eerilie.. He’s goign to be wondrefully creepy.. Anyway.. sorry for now pictures.. more on both projects tomorrow.. For now.. good nite and good dreams.. Nite Sam -me
Another overly busy but uneventful day. Gabe had his first soccer game at 5 today so I left work on the early side.. Though I guess it’s not that early now that I get in by 8. It was a perfect day to be out watching soccer. Gabe is playing on a team with his friend Jack.. He looked good out there today.. He was running well and got 2 impressive head balls. He makes it look pretty easy. I’m glad he’s playing.
It was nice hanging out and talking to the other parents.. Jean and Victor where there ans well as Fran and Kathleen.
Sometimes I forget that Jean and Fran are sisters.. until I see them standing next to each other.
After the game, Diane, Gabe and I went to Bridge street for a quick dinner. We were happy to go there. They need the business since the bridge was closed .. (Subliminal message.. go to bridge street for dinner tomorrow !) ..
We ran into Kasey there.. whose as big as a horse now… He’s been playing football and they keep him pretty busy,..
Check this out.. in Football he got a bruise in the shape of a smiley face !
After dinner I went out to Homer’s to do a little more work on the project-x monser.. We still have a ton to do.. but it’s looking very good. It turns out that Raye is heading out tonight.. so I got to say goodbye to her… Here is Homer , Mary and Raye. Aren’t they cute ?
Well.. that’s all the news that’s news.. gotta sleep now. Tlak to you all tomorrow. Nite Sam.. -me
ps. My friend Charlie took some SamStones to Vienna.. He put soem at my old apartment.. the Erol’s house.. at 43, Graf Starhembergasse Here’s m old place.. !
Tuesday evening.. feeling a little low and quiet. The change of season seems to do that it’s just past 8 and already pitch black outside. I think we could all go to sleep about now..
One good thing about having Gabe back in school is that it generally gets me out of the house and to work pretty early.. I’m usually at my desk by 8:15.. that makes for longer .. more productive days.. even if there’s not much I could write about here. One thing that was on the agenda today was a filming for an outreach project that IBM is doing to encourage more folks to volunteer in schools. A film team (Jeff, Peter… and Mr. Becker) drove up from Connecticut this morning to film me doing a show for the Boys and Girls club of Burlington.. The club is a free activity based after school program for kids from the North End.. It’s a really nice facility.. there were abotu 450 kids there.. mostly in the 9-12 year old range. Great kids. It was a little crazy doing the show with the video crew there.. they had all sorts of lights and mikes.. and we had to keep the kids happy for about 45 minutes before they were ready to go.. We all practiced screaming while the crew set up.. that was nice because most of the kids were hoarse by the time we started. The show went pretty well… though there were a few times we had to back up and repeat things for the camera or sound. We also only had camera releases for about a third of the kids.. all the other kids couldn’t be on camera.. so I couldn’t pick on them.. or ask them to volunteer.. I felt kinda bad for them…
All in all it was fun.. I kept their attention and had them screaming at regular intervals.. That seemed like a success.
After the show I hung out and talked to the kids as I cleaned up.. they want to do some sort of big project together. I think that would be fun to do..
As we cleaned, Jeff and the crew interviewed a bunch of the kids.. It was fun watching them being filmed.. The kids were all so into the whole movie thing. I can’t wait to see how it comes out..
The funny thing is that they drove 5 hours to come up, filmed for 3 hours and the entire video if only going to be 3 minutes long.. so my part will only be 30 seconds or so.. amazing..
By the time I was heading home it was after 6.. I dropped by Jacks.. or as close as I could get with the Richmond bridge out… to pick up Gabe.. I had to cram him in the car around all of my equipment. Good thing he folds up well !
We got home to find Diane making great progress on the downstairs big room. we’re going to start a major painting and trim job ourselves.. There’s a tremndous mount of prep before we start. Step one was to take off all the things off the walks and tables and put them away. one of those things was the table with all of Sam’s things.. some really precious photos, his lacross head, a few of the poems people had written for us.. other things of his. It had stood on that table since… the first days we came home after he died. All the stuff is safly put away for the renomavations.. and will come out again.. but seeing it not there was so… I don’t know.. it made my heart hurt .. At the same time it felt kind of like progress..
He is not his stuff… Today I found a broken rubber band on the ground in a shape of an ‘S’.. He’s everywhere
OK.. that’s all for today.. more manana… Nite all.. ntite Sam -me
