Fun and very busy day./ Full day of work from 8 till 6 plus a few fun things thrown in. Unfortunately.. I forgot to bring my camera.. so you’ll have to settle for my drawings…
One fun thing is that I had a breif meeting with Dr. Peter .. the Neurologist. And my friend Ray from Champlain. My freind Casar and I are helping them hook a breathing device ( a spirometer) to a new video game they’re creating. the goal is to make it more fun for kids with breathing disorders like CF to do their breathing exercise. We’ve figured out how to interface to the spirometer and we gave them a short demo of how the thing works. We showed them ..how you can show someones breathing rate as a real time graph on the PC. Peter and Ray thought it was coolk, I think. It’s a really fun project. I’m time constrained.. so Cesart’s help in the commuincations programming is gong to be a big help
I also had a cool lunch meeting downtown with Ben C. He goes around the country talking about the gross missalignment of our countries spending priorites… He’s made a pie chart that shows how pentagon spending relates to other things like education spending, health care, housing the poor., energy research . etc… . YOu can cehk the story out at TrueMajority.org
We were talking about ways that some simple but elegant science demos could be used to illustrate some of his points regarding US and World spending priorities.. It’s got me thinking. Think ‘Geeks for Peace’ !
It was good talking to him… another bonus was a quick lunch at the new NY style deli just down the street. I had Cold borscht and a knish.. Ben had real corned beef . you can’t beat that/ What’s more they gave us real NYC pickles.. I took one back to Ben’s office and zapped it for him with 110 Volts.. to illstrate my point about scince as a way of making a point (what point ? .. I wasn’t sure 🙂
The rest of the day was busy with meetings.. I got out around 6 and headed up to Tim Ferrils.. Got my back fxed.. then dropped in breifly on my freind Dave’s 30th IBM anniversary party. It was really wonderful. Lots of friends from IBM and mutual freinds from his neighborhood. Dave and his accapella group sang 50’s and 60’s music.. they were excelelnt. It was great seeing this side of Dave I’d never seen. He has a beutiful voice..a nd he plays a mean air trombone..
I got home around 8:00 just in time to take a late walk with Diane and the doogies.. Now.. II can’t keep my eyes open.. so I’ll sign off.. Nite all.. Nite Sam -me
Oy.. what lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng day.. My frst meeting was at 8.. and my last … albeit not a work meeting.. ended at 11:30. I’m very. very glad that I’m taking next week off. I need it..
I had a fstrange Sam dream just before I wokke up this morning. I reamed I’d made a huge holographic pictrure of Sam playing guitar. I was headign downtown tot eh formal unvailing..and I couldn’t find a place to park.. So .. what’s that mean ?
Another interesting Sam thing.. All of a sudden I can hear/ Sam’s voice in my head.. For some reason it’s been hard for me to imagine his voice for a while.. now it’s back.. and I’m really glad..
It’s late now.. so I’ll doa quick once over on my day
First… I disobeyed a sign !!!!!!!!
Then I had dinner with my friend Chuck who’s visiting from Austin and my buddy Pete. Chuck wand somewhere Vermonty. so we went to the Kitchen Table. We were so loud and animated in our work talk that once of the other couples asked to be reseated !
The restaurant embraced my veganism and worked up a special just for me.. fried green tomoatoes with wild chanterall miusrooms.. Yummy !
Around 8:30 I managed to get to Homer’s for a Haunted forest work sessin. Tonight it was just me, Homer and Brandon. we got a ton done !
Here’s one of the sholder joints of the creaure..
And one of the elbow joints.
We als managed to build up a framework of the face animatronics. We were using the monster servos that I’d bought online. We got the jaw working pretty well:
..
Finally, the face is coming together.. Here’s Brandon with the Face skeleton
OK.. I’m falling asleep. Time to go to bed.Talk to you all tomorrow Gnite Sam.. Gnite me -jc
Somehow today wasn’t nearly as chaotic as I expected.. I’d stayed up late last night trying to figure out how to manage all the things I’m trying to do at once. It just didn’t seem so bad after a good night sleep. I’m in a funny space right now.. I felt like I was beginning to max out on many axis t once.. but it feels like I was able to catch it and back down.. I feel like I’m in a sort of dreamy slow state.. it’s kind of weird. I find my self staring at things or listening to things with different eyes and ears.. Like things felt the months after Sam died. Sort of magical..
Well… I got through the busy day sort of peacefully..
I had an IEEE meeting today after work.. We’re scheming some good enineeering outreach fun in about a year.. It was good seeing those guys.
It was a steak place.. so only salad for me.. well.. that and the best Black and Tan I think I’ve ever had… Isn’t it beautiful ?
One fun surprise is that Jim from the IEEE just bought a moped.. it’s only 150CC’s and gets about 100 miles per gallon !..
I couldn’t resist a ride
..
I got home to find that Gabe had completely changes his room around. he and Trevor had taken apart his bunk bed.. How many times had I fallen asleep reading him a story up there .. Amazing.. I would tell the kids Baby Zatar , Baby Rataz and Baby Tazar stories // Gabe was Baby Tazar…
The bunk bed parts were on our floor.. waiting for me to wrap them and gall them up to the attic.
One thing Gabe hadn’t planned for was an intruder.. One drawback of sleeping near the floor .. It’ll be hard to get Chai up.. she looks so comfortable !
Gabe just called me in to look at the way he decorated thhis room. He has every light up gadget we own in there.. (and that’s quite a collection) . Here’s a small tour of Gabe’s light garden :
OK.. That’s it for now.. There’s a hot ath waiting for me.. more tomorrow. Nite all, Nite Sam -me
Great day.. great weekend.. I was getting so stressed by the end of last week with all I had to do I was having trouble sleeping. This quiet weekend was just what I needed.
Somehow I managed to sleep until about 8:30.. We got up and took the dogs for a fast long walk up the Catamount ski trail about 2 miles down Duxbury rd from our house. We were trying to find a place that was a bit more open since everything here is so soaked from all the rain. The trail was beautiful and clear.. the flax was out with its beautiful blue flowers. The air was warm and dry ….. for a change.
All of the streams were filled with rushing water.. the sound was very cool .
We took a detour through the woods on an abandoned logging road. The rains had spawned a huge vaiety of mushrooms.. Wish I knew which ones we could eat !
It was a great walk.. we went all the way to the top.. as we turned around. Satori ran right into me because she wasn’t looking. She really hurt herself… she was wimpering.. we thought she might have broken soemthing.. she managed to get up and walk.. but whe was really favoiring her left front leg.. We took our time getting down.. She’s fine now..
On the way down we met another Labradoodle.. This one’s name was Khrama.. and her owner drives a prius and a subaru.. (but the subaru was in the shop getting new kayak rack).. I told her she matched the perfect profile for a McCain voter.. She looked at me. horrified… She couldn’t figure out that I was kidding..
I ran home while Diane and the dogs drove.. A bit later we got back in the car and drove to Charlotte to the MIT Club picnic. It was at the summer home of John and Alice Outwater. John was one of the original founders of the the MIT Club of Vt (AKA VoMIT – Vt’s own MIT club) .. John’s now 83 years old and is in a nursing home because his memory is failing.. He’s an amazing guy.. He graduated from MIT with a PhD in 1951 after graduating from Cambridge University in the UK.. He was an inventor, professor and entrepreneur for more than 60 years. Even as he could no longer remember our names, he was able to tell us amazing facts about all sorts of scientific curiosities.. i remember him tellign me how tree’s were able to lift their sap much higher than could be explained by simple capillary action. I also remember him giving me a very eye opening and risque treatise on the sexual prowess of drysopholae (fruit flies).
Alice hosted us today.. Though John wasn’t present in person today. .. he was very much in spirit.
There were abotu 40 people at the picinic.. the largest turnout we’d
ever had. TheThere are about 380 MIT grads in the state of VT.. so
today’s take wasn’t bad. it’sa a very interesting and diverse group of
folks.. Lots of different interests, professions and skills. We even had two of the three kids who have bene accepted as freshmen there in the fall. I’ve known one of them , Colin S. , since he was little I worked with him in science camps when he was in elementary school. He’s a tru math prodigy
. He got 1st place in the US math olympiad this year.. and helped his
team win 3rd place (after china and russia) in the international math
olypiad in Spain last week..
My freind KC was there (her licence plate is KCN..
her initials.. and the chimical symbol for Potassium Cyanide.. one of
the worlds most dedly poisons)
We stayed at the picninc for about an hour and a half.. went shoping.. then came home.. My folks called to talk about the vacation we’re taking with them next week. As I was speaking with them I noticed that we had our first ripe tomatoes on the vine !!!!
Diane used them to make a great dinner for the 8 folks here. , cuke and tomoatoe salad, fresh Pesto pasta and garlic bread.. all the veggies and the basil for the pest were right out of the garden.
As we were cleaning up, nicholas serenaded us.. This is a song he wrote since he’s been staying with us.. I relaly like it (I apologize.. there are 2 short gaps in the recording.. but you can get the idea)
..
Since I’m adding movies, I wanted to share this one that Gabe and I made ysterday.> We put up blue tarps behind the trampoline then ised the ‘chorma key’ feature in Adobe Premiere to drop out the blue.. Digitial video rocks
..
OK.. I have a few hours of work to do now.. so I’ll quit here.. This is goign to be a wicked busy week and I need to prep for it. Love to you all.. Love you Sam -me
