All posts by johncohn

Wednesday night – sick as a dog and old freinds

Ughh..   I was supposed to be out withsoem of my Richmond Father’s buddies on our annual beer drinking/shopping crawl through Church street.. Instead  I’m lying on the couch like a wet rag.. Running a fever and feeling as creeky as our attic door.
I’m pretty bummed to miss the shopping.. but it feels pretty nice just chilling on the couch..

Not much to report on today… I woke up feeling pretty creepy but figured it was a pulled muscle..or soemthing. By midmornign I felt fine..

 I managed to get the Prius in to Road Res-q   to get the Snow’s on . (subliminal message… take all of your cars to Road Res-q.. they’re excelgreat ).   Shawn and Phil let me work in gas  station while they swapped the tire..   I care..ved out a cool little office in the back. It’s cozier than y own office, I think .   They got the tires on..   and I drove off.. or at least tried to drive off. The Prius is possessed .. whenever I get in, the battery goes haywire and it drains, I need to jump it with a tiny battery I carry for that purpose. I’m taking it in to Toyota tomorrow to have it exorcised… they’ve tried fixing it three times.. but no luck.   The energy dsissrupr waves from my brain are jsut too powerful.  By the time I did make it home, I relaized I was really sick. I drove into the driveway and immediatly felel asleep in the car for 45 min with the motor running.. (outside)  I’ve been on the couch ever since.
   Hmmm.. what else to report ? … Ahh.. I have had an interesting increase in the freuency of out of the blue contacts from old friends. Yesterday I spoke with Chip, my junior year roomate from Vienna Austria.. We haven’t spoken since 1976.. .. but it was just like old times.  He’s running a folk and blues magaziine out of DesMines has a great family and travels to folk festivals all over the US. Playing music and working his magazine. He lists himself as the ‘Tribal Cheif’ of the opreation.   I remember that he and I used to buy whatever we could find for cheap and mix it all together in a pan.. we called it ‘Lizard Slime Death Mold’.. and I still call it that..   . I loved talking to him.. He found me on the Web.. and found out about Sam  and called me. We’re goign to find a way to get together somewhere sometime to talk old times.

    I also heard from my other frien Murat in Vinna. He and his wife Laura and baby Murial and I have stayed in touch pretty welll.. but it was still good to hear from him. I tried to convince him to go to a Robotic Bartending show that was being held in Vienna last weekend..He calls himself a wood doctor. , and only beleives in stuff made of wood … so he didn’t go.. Can you beleive not  being interested in robotic drink mixing 🙂

Today I heard from my old friend Greg P.. He wsa in the high school class ahead of me in Houston. He and I worked on a coule of geek projects together.. One I remember was a little air puck that worked suing car AC Freaon. It floated on a small cusion of the gas so it cold move frictionlessly on tables floors, etc. That was a few years before the connection between freon and the ozone hole were established.. I’m sure theres a lasting ozone hole over memorial high school to this day given the amount of that stuff I vented off.   Greg is now the CTO of Sun Microsystems (which is a big deal)… We were trading email on how much we owed to the science teachers… One in particular Mike Saathoff…  in helping us get in touch with our inner geeks and find our true passion. I just proposed to Greg that we track those teachers down and tell themm.. maybe go give a talk down there.. I’ll let you know
   For those of you kids reading this.. think about the teachhers you have now.. the ones that are really passionate are probably helping you decided what you want to do with you life.. Do me a favor and thank them now… so you don’t have to go find them  30 years later…

OK… Gotta go sleep this off..
Love to you all.. Love you Sam

-me

   

Tuesday night – 1st night of Chanukah

Home again after a very good trip to NY. It’s so nice coming back to Vermont.. and back to my family. I still feel it hard to walk in the house after being gone. Sam’s absesne is more concrete when I step in that door. That feeling passes once I’m inside and with my family.

As soon as I walked in, Diane started converteing the potatoes I’d brought in into Latkes for tonight is the first night of Chanukah. Gabe and I sat around smelling them cooking with our mouths watering.. It was torture. Once they were made, we sat down and lit the first lights of Chanukah. I suspect most folks know the drill.. You start wuth one candle and add one every night foreach of the eight nights.. There’s also and extra one,. the Shamus… who looks after (and light’s) the others.  It’s names after the guy who looked after the synagogue.Shamus is also the Yiddish word for ‘detective’ or ‘private eye’ .. I always thought that was cool,

Chanukah commenmorates the uprising of the Maccabees against the Greek ruler Antiouchus IV in 167 BC (or BCE as we say).  The deal is when they drove the Greeks out of the temple, they found that there was only a tiny bit of the oil needed to keep the everlasting light of the temple (Ner Tamid) lit.. in fact there was ony enough left to run it for one day.. somehow the small amount ended up lasting 8 days… not much of a miracle.. but  enoguht to make a holiday. (I’ve had that sort of thing happen on my cell phone.. only one bar of battery.. and it lasts a whole conference call. )   Anyway.. the theme of the oil goes throughout Chanukah .  You’re supposed ot eat oily fried things like donuts and fired potatot pankaes called Latkes.  Note the bubling oil around these delicious latkes…

Gabe lights the first chandles

Note the reflection of the ligths on the latke plate.. now that’s oil !

We said the blessing over the candles…

Blessed are You,
our God, Creator of time and space,
who enriches our lives with holiness,
commanding us to kindle the Channukah lights.

On the first night of a holiday, it’s  also traditional to say the Shehecheyanu, the prayer that celibrates the safe arrival at the holiday. I couldn’t bring myslef to say it this yoear.. we’re not all here safe…    I remember choking up on that last year. at the wonderful Skate benefit that our firends Hannah and Dave had in Sam’s memory last Chanukah just 2 weeks after his passing.

Oy !

After dinner we got down to some good old traditional gambling with a Dreidel..

‘Nun’ – nothing

‘Gimel’ – wins all

‘Shin’ – put one in

‘Hey’ – take half

Gabe ‘poned’ us… We didn’t even have  a chance..  

OK.. I’ve been up and driving since 5:30 AM .. time for me to get some sleep..
Chanukah Sameach (Happy Chanukah) everyone.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam..

-me

ps. Our firned Gary sent us a picture of the SamStone he put on the bell in the tower of the Round Church where Diane and I were married. .. Pretty cool. Thanks Gary !

Monday night – Dusting

Friends…
   I’m still down in NY with no camera.. and not much in the way of stories. It was party cludy and pretty nice down here whi;e folks at home were getting snowed in.  I wore my underwear backwards last night just so Gabe could get a snow day. I guess it worked. I had a really productive day down here at headquarters.. Not much really to report about it.. Lots of smart, dressed up people moving about very purposefully. Sometimes I feel like a real kid walkign around down here.
   I love eating in the cafeteria here.. it’s a great place to meet up with friends from all over the world.. Today I walked in and the lights went out.. they came on breifly then went out again.. and blinked every few seconds then went dark. they never did figure out what was up.. I must be sending out some wierd vibes.
   I had a full day of meetings then went to my firend Bill T’s house for dinner. I carpooled there with Brabara.. who is on assignment to the same department that I am. Bill’s wife Linda passed away in July of this year so he’s been livign alone.. It was good to see how he was doing. . Turns out he’d been taking a few cooking classes in the last month.. He made a really  excellent meal for us. The three of us had a great time talking about life, loss and IBM .. Bill and I had lots to share about how we were doing in all three regards. It’s always good to talk to soemone whoin some way  ‘knows’ what you are going through.
  I came back eary because I need to get on the road before 6AM tomorrow.. so .. I think I’m goign to cut this short. Can’t wait to get home and through a snowball at Gabe..
   Gnite all, Gnite Sam.

-me

Sunday night – camera-less in New York

Greetings from Armonk NY. I had to come down here today to go to a meeting tomorrow.. I  was heading down to Homer’s with Abbott and Mason on the way down when I realized I had left my camera at home !.. No Camera ?!? How could I blog ? it was too far to go home and fetch it so I pressed on to Homer’s.

I called home to make sure that my camera was still there.. and Gabe confirmed that it was.. he told me I should take pictures wiht my mind … so that’s what I did…     Here I am saying goodbye to Diane. Gabe and Chai…

I Got to Homer’s about 11 with Mason in my car and Abbott fowling us. Abbot had wanted to route soem signs using the shoipbot in Homer’s shop.. They’d never met so I deceided I’d go down with him.. then continue on down to NYC.  Wouldn’t ya’ knwo but the power went out just as we drove up.. I’m pretty sure it was because I was so agitated from leaving my camera at home.. Electrical things go haywire when I’m mad/agitated… (Sure enough.. all of addison county was blacked out.. the power came back on as soon as I left the county !)  Homer, Mason,. Abbot and I hung out in the shop for a while waiting for the power to come back on.. but when that didn’t happen.. we wnet inside and watched soem of Homer’s melting wax movies on his well charged laptop.. Eventually we gave up and I headed south.

The drive down was peaceful enugh.. I had severall good phone calls.. including several from Diane.. the Prius was having electrical problems too !..     By the time I got down south of Albany.. it started to rain a bit.. nothing like the nasty storm I expected.. but still trecherous enough drivign. I still managed to make the city in just about 6 hours..

I got to Brooklyn about 7PM and met up with Max, and his freinds Aaron and Liam.. we went out for some great sushi .. Max looked great.. he had a ton of work to do… so I took off back north around 9PM.

I got to the hotel in Armonk at about 10:00 ish and checked in. I told the guy at the desk my last name.. and he said ‘Sam Coh(e)n ?’ I was pretty surpised.. there’s someone of that name checkign in here tomorrow night.. Small and meaningful world..  no ?

Now it’s time to get some sleep.

More tomorrow.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam..
-me