All posts by johncohn

Monday night – daylight savings

Another  mercifully slow day… I spent a good part of it staring at the wall at work. Just couldn’t get moving.   Tomorrow should be more exciting. My intention is to use this tough month to spend time getting centered and thinking about where I should be putting my energy. This time last year I was pretty clear on what I wanted.. and didn’t want in my life..The last few months I’ve gotten so busy that I’ve stopped thinking about what I want to do..   Now’s a good time to get back in touch with that..

Since I don’t have anything new to report for the day. let me share something interesting I saw at a lecture the other day  . I’m going to give you a link to a video.   The player for the video is at the bottom of the link. The video shows a bunch of folks throwing a basketball round. Sometimes they use chest passes.. eg. the ball never hits the ground… and sometime they use bounce passes.. eg. the ball hits the ground at least once. Watch the video, and as you do, do your best to count how many bounce passes you see. Don’t count the chest passes.. Here’s the video

Now.. how many bounce passes did you see ? 26 ? 32 ? ….Now.. did you see the woman in the gorilla suit ? If not.. go back and watch it again.. It’s a pretty cool perception test that shos how our minds can miss obvious things when we’re trying to pay attention to soemthign else. Like going to bed…

Nite all.. Nite Sam
-me

Sunday night – time change

I woke today to more sunshine than I figured.. ahh the time change !..
I was up early, but committed to do absolutely nothing today.. and it was wonderful. I don’t think I realized how close to physical exhaustion I’ve been running.  I can’t believe how full last month was. I’m choosing to take this month slow. We’re approaching the 2nd anniversary of Sam’s passing and I can already feel the need to pull into myself more.. I was thinkign of takign the entire month off from work.. but I don’t think I can get away with that.. I wll take the last two weeks off.

OK.. so I did do a few things.. Diane and I took a wonderful walk today up honey hollow from duxbur road, across and down the atamount trail.. about 5-6 miles.. steep and beautiful

We found acool old car we’d never seen before.. It had been shot up .. We made beleive it was a getaway car from a bank heist.

The wootans was looking more beautiful than usual.. it must have been the Obama sign that made it so appealing.

It’s bow season up here.. so the four of us were decked out in our orange-y best.

I stuck a samstone in an abandoned house.

We cae back to find a Samstone in our fire pit.. It had burned through the night.. it still looked fine !

My only accomplishment today was to cut glass for the last two missing panes n the house. The catch was.. they were both cureved.. I spent a couple of hours getting all the old glass and plaster out.. and cutting the new…

The rounded cut is a trick.. it took me 5 panes of glass to get the two good cuts made… grrrrr !

OK.. that’s it for the day.. I’m going to get an early(11PM) night’s rest. Hope you can too !.. nite all .. Nite Sam !
-me

Saturday night – house cooling

I snuck away from a whole houseful of people just now so I could lie down and blog. I’m too sleepy to handle a crowd. We’re have a really nice ‘house cooling’ for Deb and family. They’re selling their house and taking off for a year of travel.startoing in south america.   We have all of their/our firends here fr a ‘house colling’.. eg. the opposite of a house warming. Everyone brought south american food to the potluck. it was excelelnt…  I’m going to miss those guys so much . they’ve been suceh an important part of our life these last two years…  I know they’ll be back..

I wanted to get some of these pictures from yesterday out.. I was too tired to blog last night after the last haunted forest show.. I did that short blog on  my phone form the car around 2AM.. (sorry for the spelling.. no spell check on my phone).. hten came home. I lay down to start petting Satorie. .. and the next thing I knew it was 4AM.. I’d fallen asleep on the floor, in all my cothes.. no blanket or pillow.. I felt like a nut..   What I was too tired to do last night was to post these picutres .. First the breakfast Diane made us yesterday..

An these of Vicki .. my good frind at work. She told me she had a special Halloween cosutme picked out.. I found out it was smething realllllly scary.. ME !.. She’d baght a mad scientist wig, plucked it to show an apporporiate amount of scalp.. then  glued the rest to her face as a beard. Then she’d gotten a Tyvek painters outfit from our firned Dixie and hand colored it to look like my lab coat.. Then she put all this stuff that was important to me on the back,… and even had a badge made of me (with Kerry’s help !) .I lent her my lights to make it complete.. She looked more like me than ME !

It was an amazing thing for her to do.. all day folks were comign up to me and asking me if I’d been to the cafeteria.. I was so blown away that she’d done this. .it was so funny.. and so sweet… and.  for me, so needed.. It’s ben a tough time for me lately.. and this just made me laugh and cry at the same time.  And I really needed that laugn ! It’s so good to have frends like her..   I’m still speachless !

Thank you Viki.. you’re a really good freind

I got home in time to see Gabe off for trick or treating.. he’d made this cool ‘Red Bull’ man custumn with oua little help from us.. It was awesome.. he headed out to a party…. and it became the first time I didn’t go trick or treating in 20 years !  It felt OK.

Diane and I spent the evening running the monstor at Haunted forest.. … it was the last night.. and it was fun working it togehter… I’m glad it’s all over.. it was fun..but so much work !

The part of the proprieter was played by peter C.. the sun of my firends Paul and Sue.. I new Peter whne he was a baby.. it was fun working with him as an adult.. He was a great actor !

Around 12:30 the last group came buy.. we closed down the monster then headed to the ‘victory party’.. it was wierd seeing folks out of cosutm. here’s Tom and Ero…  who palyed the proprieter on various nights.

.. and Lilly.. hwo helped us run the beast tonight

Here’s Jana takign a vicotory swig (of soda.. it turns out)

After my half a night sleepign on the floor.. I crawled into bed at 4.. and got a few hours more sleep.. We spent the day  putting fittings, door latches, grates etc back .. painting ..   and cleanign for the party tonight

There are abotu 50-60 folks here now.. many goo friends of ours ans and Debs family.. the food and company are excelelnt.. Everyone broght facts and food about South America…

Deb brought a few boxes of stuff she wanted to get rid of. Kevin ran a charity aiuction.. people baught stuff out of the box.. and the money is goign to be used to buy school supplies for kids in Hundouras.. where the’re going next week. What a cool iand gerneous idea !

Soemonge noteiced that satori and I have the same color hair.. but she has much more..

Dinane pointed out that today is thla dia De Las Muertas– the day of the dead. In Mexico.. it’s celibrated as 2 days.. the first is celibrated for dead children, the 2nd for dead adults. It’s a joyius time.. where you make the persons favorite food.. their spirit is supposed ot come and enjoy the family.. Dian made Sam’s favorite.. Peanut Butter Noodles.. I sure flet him here..

I wrote his name in the last noodles… it felt liek the right thing to do ..

We miss you tonight… and every night my son…

OK.. I thin I’ve been discovered.. gotta go back to the party.. Nite all.. Nigth Sam..
-me

friday night – happy halloween

OMG- justtoo much to try to write now. It’s almost 2am ans I’m just getting out of the jaunted forest “thank g-d it’s over and post mortem” party/meeting. Tonoght was the last night if the haunted forest and of project-X for the year.vit worked flawledsly tonight. It was so strange not trick or treating this year. It was the first time I hadn’t in 20 years ! Haloween was always sams favorite !

Gabe jad a fabulous costume abd wen to a party on his own, diane and I celibrated by working the robot at haunted forest all night.

I hace some great pictures form the day including my wonderful lunch room. Surprise from Vickie.. And of course gabe’s cool costune.. Those pictures and stories will have to wait until tomorrow when I’m not typing from my phone.

For now I gotta drive home and sleep. For now … G’nite . Gnite sam !

-me