Today was an very laid back day.  I woke just before 10 after staying up too late last night blogging.  I got Max up to continue his prep for going back to Pratt tomorrow.. then I spent a few hours on some of the Sam projects I’d fallen behind on. We really need to finalize the plans’ for the Sam Cohn guitar giveaway at MMU which will happen around Sam’s birthday (May 28^th) and the Sam Cohn Scholarship at Abenaki which we’d like to be available this summer. I personally am very excited about the Guitar giveaway. We’re planning on giving away the electric, acoustic or classical guitar of the winner’s choice to one kid a year at Mount Mansfield High School. The winner each year will be chosen at random (so Sam can pick) from a selection of students who are nominated by their teachers or peers as having a ‘musical soul’ like Sam has. At Abenaki we’re working to establish a cool camper award in Sam’s name. There will be one winner chosen by the staff for each of the three two week camp periods. I find working on these memorial ideas t be very rewarding. It’s a good feeling trying to do some good around Sam’s memory,

   After a few hours of working on that stuff, Diane came back from her errands and Gabe woke up. Gabe was feeling a bit under the weather so we all hung close to home today. Not much at all happened here from 12 to 4. . It was wonderfully slow and sleepy…
  At about 4. Diane and I wandered over to the Paulsen’s for a pre-concert dinner for Skanky Green .. our ‘house’ band. . 

They were opening for Bad Fish , the Sublime cover band which was playing Higher Ground tonight at 8..but had to leave home at around 5 to get set up. It was so cute watching them get ready for their gig.. they were very excited and visibly nervous.  I was so  very proud of them.

We got to Higher Ground around 7:30  and the room was already filling up with Skanky green fans. Abbot was in a both outside selling T-shirts and copies of their new first CD. It was really professional. I got my first view of the CD> it’s got a great list of songs, including ‘The Ballad of Captain Sam’ which the band wrote for Sam. The CD itself has artwork of a dancing (skanking) man that Sam drew for the band last year.. and the whole disk is dedicated to Sam. T all made me feel very good.  The band came on promptly at 8 and started playing. They sounded so good. I was so proud watching them play.. to think , this band  started and practice in our barn… This was as close to being famous as I was likely to get.

   Skanky Green plaid about a 30 minute set… they sounded absolutely great. They were tighter than I’ve ever heard them play and they really bonded with the crowd.

The high point of the show for me was when they plaid “The Ballad of Captain Sam’, the song they wrote for Sam.. I always cry pretty hard when I hear them play that song.. I still managed to get most of it recorded.   Sorry about the shakes.. I was crying pretty hard.. I can’t begin to tell you the emotions I have around that song.. I am so grateful that these guys took the time to write such a great song for Sam.. it really captures his spirit.. I was so proud to  hear them playing it on the big stage.. at the same time.. Sam never heard it.. at least not while he was alive..  The Skanky Green set set ended way too early for me 

 

I never thought I’d be able to cram this range of emotions into the same moment.   Diane and Gabe took off after the Skanky Green set, while Gabe and I hung out to hear the other bands. .. We all milled around waiting for back up bands number 2 and 3.. It turned out that both were excellent sets.   I was glad I stayed.  He main act, Badfish.. a Sublime cover band’ finally came on around 10ish.. they were excellent too.. Gabe had had enough by that time. So we headed for home..   The band has planed a post-concert victory party at our house. It’s a few minute after 12 and I’m hearing the house fill up with people. It’s going to be a long, fun night.. I better go play host.   Sam.. I hope you enjoyed the music and the party… please hang out with us tonight. . I love you

-jc

Hear are the lyrics to the Ballad of Captain Sam  by Skany Green ( I also posted thes back in Feb.) Enjoy !

I tried to take a day off today and managed to not work most of the day. I did get pulled into a few calls and some email.. but for the most part, it was a downtime day. , I’m trying to use the vacation I’ve got to simulate a 4 to 4.5 day work week for the next couple of months.. just to make sure I have enough down time. I managed to sleep until near 10 AM. (!) this morning. I stumbled out of  bed then took Diane for a run I the fine spring rain. Outside was beautiful.. even though it was windy and rainy. You could see the ‘sproing’ of spring just a few weeks away. There were buds on all the trees and the ferns were starting to push up on the Rivershore path.  Our Daffodils are in full bloom.

 

Another notable thing about this morning’s run is that today was my  first day running this year that I’ve not seen enough snow to write Sam’s name.. I chose instead to write his name in the dirt.  I’ve developed a techniques of using only strokes that come toward me.. I’ve found that the snow.. (or mud) tends to distort if you mix up and down strokes. As I wrote Sam’s name in the dirt, , I was thinking about how many times I.. or one of our friends have written Sam’s name just in tribute.. I can’t count home many times I’ve written his name in the snow.  I’ve also used rocks, candles, mustard, steel, paint, powdered iron oxide, water, syrup, chocolate chips, M&M’s, sticks, sawdust, metal filings, light., spray paint, glue, sand, batter. I even came out one day a few weeks ago to find someone had written Sam’s name in the snow with …. Some sort of yellow ink ?!   I just read that Kevin wrote his name on a bagel.. I’d be interested to hear what other folks have used  to write Sam’s name.

 
    When I got back to the yard, I happened upon this.. the tool max used to open the upstairs window last night..

I guess it didn’t actually go through the window.. it broke it and bounced back.
Diane reminded me that the week before the wind had blown in two of the windows in the tower and broken them…. those are  curved glass  pains I have to cut to repair them.. I hate cutting curves in glass.. grrrr

   The rest of the day passed pretty peacefully. We just hung out.

I spent an hour or so watching Gabe play videogames… I figure if I’m on TV saying that videogame technology is wicked cool, it would count as a work day to watch Gabe play G-d of War.   I managed to get about 45 minutes to sleep as Gabe battled some hydras, a three headed beast and lots of creepy zombie things that looked a lot  like the engineers we use to build the chip inside the game.

 I was surprised how many visitors we got during the day. I guess it was because it was school break.   Both Sam’s old band, Black Night Vengeance and Skanky Green came to practice in he barn today.. It was great hanging out with both of them.. 

Skanky Green was squeezing in one last practice before there big debut concert at Higher Ground tomorrow night. They’re opening for Badfish at 8ish tomorrow night.. Come check it out if you can..  

 

Corrine and her mom Deb also came by to get some SamStones. They’re going to Bermuda next week and wanted to take some.

While she was here, Corrine told us to very cool dreams she’d had about Sam. In one Sam was out in the backyard helping two other kids build a slingshot to shoot people through the air..   that sounds so Sam.. In the other one.. he told Corrine that he was going out to e a Ninja.. Again.. Sam was always into the Ninja thing.. he pioneered the Ninja move on his Snowboard.. The ninja is when you  kick out your back foot and shake it in the air like a kook. as you do one of the rails..

 

Speaking of Ninja’s  last night as I was writing my blog around 1AM I heard a noise.. I was Max and Gabe coming back into the house. Max had organized some sort of goofy  Ninja stealth mission last night and had pulled Gabe out of bed to go with them.. Here a picture they took before heading outside.. the three ninjas..

 

Gabe and I spent the last half of the afternoon doing some high speed strobe photos with my little camera and the sound actuated strobe I have.. We did all sorts of shots.. eggs dropping, BB’s shooting, water splashing and balloons. Here are a few of the shots that came out well.. We’re open for any suggestions of things we can photograph in this way.. It’s really so much fun.   Tomorrow I hope to hook up a Kirlian photography set up and try to take a picture of people’s ‘auras’.. (or at least the ionized gases that come out of their skin. )

Here’s a baloon being slapped down on a pan 

This one is an egg breaking after being dropped

This one is an egg breaking after being hit by a hammer

Here’s a container full of MAPP gas goign up in flames

And here’s a baloon with a ittle enthanol being lit by a blow torch

Speaking of photos.. here’s a picture of Sam that Mason had on his cell phone. Last week He and some friends wen to see the Wailers, Bob Marley’s old band, at Higher Ground. He didn’t have a SamStone with him, so he put his cell phone with tis picture of Sam on it and stuck it up on stage.. Sam.. you be jammin’

 

Gnite all.. see you at Skanky Green tomorrow night !

 -jc

 

 

 

 

I woke this morning just in time to jump into a string of phone meetings. It was one of those days that I got stuck at home because there wasn’t enough time between meetings to drive into work. By the time I had a break I could use to drive in, Diane was coming in from her Yoga class. Jen and Avery had been in the class and came in for tea. Diane wanted to talk to me about my blog last night.  She often has cool insights about things I say in the blog that help me work things out better. This morning she gave me her thoughts on the whole ‘wrong place at the wrong time’ theme from my post last night. In her view.. everything happens for a reason.. she suggested  that the reason that I had missed  the Ben Zander and Eli Wissel talks wasn’t a case of not being in the right place at the right time.. it was that I didn’t’ need to be in those places, She suggested that in some smaller way I had already learned the lessons those guys were there to teach and was already living them in some small sort of way,  I like that thought. It sort of removes regret at having missed something.. and I don’t have much energy for regret right now. I also like the idea that I’m getting wiser through the lessons around Sam’s death. .Maybe it’s self serving to think so.. but then  I request permission to be self serving    

    After this conversation with Diane I had to zoom out to get to work . As I did I saw something pretty amazing. Gabe had grown three inches in his sleep last night.. Check this out.. he’s absolutely towering over Diane.. I took this picture.. then he said to me in his best Darth Vader voice ‘you’re next !’ ..

 

   The rest of the day was good and productive. I met my good friend Jim for lunch. Jim was up from Poughkeepsie for a meeting. He’s been really attentive to us since Sam died.. he even bought me lunch. today. what a guy.   I had a string of phone meetings in the afternoon. It was nice out, so I took one of them out in the field next to our building.. I went out and sat on my  favorite ‘meeting rock’ I sometimes  use for phone calls..   I always feel better when I spend more time outside.. I feel Sam so much stronger out there.

     I got home around 6 to find Max working hard on his Pratt course work.. I spent some time talking to him.. then I sat down to write.. few minutes later  I was talking to my mother on the phone when I heard a huge crash… I ran upstairs to find RJ. Abbot and Silas in front of the (wicked cool) video game console  staring at a pile of glass and a tennis ball. on the floor…   One of the top panes of the second story window was smashed to bits. Two seconds later Max charges into the house and I quickly learned that  . Max , who was outside, was attempting to get the attention of the three guys upstairs so that he could moon them. Evidently they didn’t respond to the first few gentle thumps on the wall.. so  Max tried the window.  Ugh..

That 2^nd story window  is about 25 feet in the air.. and it’s in an ancient wooden casing that probably hasn’t moved since Truman was president.  I really, really  tried to get angry. I started yelling and eventually screamed as loud as I could.. but I just couldn’t get properly angry.. I ended up  laughing.. Max cleaned up the glass and covered the hole while I went and apologized to our guests who were still cowering in the corner..

It was pretty funny.. At least this window will be easier to replace than the one in   that Sam broke last spring  with a lacrosse ball  . That one was over the front door and required a 30 foot ladder to rach,,   Ahh life.. it’s never dull is it Sam ?

-jc

Ps. Ivy sent me a note yesterday about a SamStone that she left on  top of the Empire State Building. Thanks Ives..   Everyone.. please  remember to let me know where you place those SamStones.. We like to keep track..

 

I feel like I have been  just a little out of step  the world for these last two weeks. I seem to be constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time… or…  actually … not at  the right place at the right time. It’s like my whole ‘be in the moment’ thing has slipped a few hours into the future. Not wildly so .. like it used to be.. but just enough that I keep missing stuff I feel like I’m intended to see. None of it’s earthshaking stuff.. I’m thinking of stuff like missing that Ben Zander talk at the conference last week.. and having everyone come up to me and tell me how much the message was perfect for me.. or at the same conference last week.. always being in the boring conference presentation while hearing laughter or loud  clapping  coming from the meeting in the conference room next door. Monday I managed to miss an important meeting at work in which the secrets of the universe..  ..actually  the secrets of our product roadmap and the  budget for the year….  were finally revealed..  Everyone has been talking about that ,meeting all week about wha a great turning point it was for our area… sigh.. Tonight I had another one of those things. Several of our friends went and saw the Nobel prize winning Holocaust witness Eli Wissel  this afternoon at UVM. Wissel was in town to receive an honorary degree from UVM. I’d thought about going.., the talk was free and open to the public,  but I had work meetings throughout the afternoon   and miles to go before I sleep…

    From what I heard from Deb, Jen and their kids  Wissel gave a memorable talk.  They said he talked three types of reaction to tragedy like the holocaust: the first is to close off the past, try to forget it and live for your own pleasure and preservation.. the second is to become bitter and angry about the wrong that has happened to you and to stay angry at the world.. the third  is to become a witness to the world of what has happened to you and to become a force  to teach and to prevent others from ever having to face that same pain. Those descriptions sounded alot   (I know alot isn’t a word, mom 🙂  like the way that people react to a tragedy like  the death of a loved one.  Since Sam died we’ve met folks who’ve reacted in each of those three ways.. I always try to live in the third way….. that is live in such a way that we help others learn from Sam.. and learn by our experience of his passing.  but I don’t always get to choose how I react. In fact, I’ve come to believe that people generally don’t get to choose the way that they  react.. It comes from your nature, circumstance  and surroundings more than from choice.. and for that reason, I’ve also learned not to pass judgment on people   who react in one of the first two ways.  Deb told me that Wissell said exactly the same thing.. I think grief has no scale.

   Deb and Jen told me that Wissel also talked about  how unbelievable it was to him that despite all that the world has learned from the Holocaust that we still have genocide in our time:  in Darfor.. in Rwanda, Kosovo in Iraq.. He told a story about when  Pres Clinton had said that ‘if Americans had been in Rwanda.. 400,000 lives could have been spared…’ he wrote to Clinton and said  ‘why if ?’ . I think that’s a pretty telling story when you think about how fast our country moved  into Iraq or Kuwait when our business  interests were at stake.. makes you think.. no ?

  I really wish that I’d heard Wissel’s talk  today… but I was in the wrong place at the wrong time… .. and you already know what that’s like Sam.. you really know

-jc

 

ps. The TakeYourKidsToWorkDay thing I did yesterday was covered by the Burlington Free Press and  WCAX TV. Here’s a low-res video of the story