All posts by johncohn

Tuesday evening – en route (delayed post)

Tuesday Night – in the air        

Folks.. sorry this post is a bit late.. I haven’t been able to get connectivity since I left VT last night. I’m on my way to South Africa for an Academy meeting.. The meeting stared today, but I didn’t want to leave town on Gabe’s birthday. We had a great day.. After I wrote yesterday Gabe and Max went out to the canoe access and hunted each other with paintball guns.. as soon as they got home. We went to Sakura’s for Sushi// Gabe’s birthday choice. !.. This time we had plenty of time to eat..

then we went over to see IronMan at the Majestic. I absolutely loved that movie… but it was so fake .I think all of the technology stuff was pretty believable, but come on..  no one that looks like Gweneth Paltrow would ever date someone who had gone to MIT.   By the way, Starks friend the the Col. in the movie (Rider ? Ridly)  was wearing a big fat ugly MIT Ring (a ‘brass rat’ as we call it) in every scene.. Nice touch. !

 

   After the movie,  the family took me to the airport to pick up a rental  car.  I kissed them all good night.. including my brand new 13 year old and headed south to NYC.. it was about 10 PM.

Actually it wasn’t quite that smooth.. I’d left my phone charger in the Prius.. so Diane, Max and Gabe had to wait for me in the Shaw’s parking lot before I headed down..   The drive down to NYC was fun. Quiet and smooth. I spent a few hours on the phone with folks. Which helped me stay awake.. (thanks., Mom. Jim. Curry) .. The drive to JFK tool almost exactly 5 hours.. about 2 hours less than during the day.. I got to the airport around 3:30 for a 7:30 flight.. so I just sat there and worked..

 

By the time I got on my flight to London I was pretty sleepy.. I slept about half the way there… The flight as empty so I was able to lay down across 5 seats.. sweet !


Kinda worried me when my tv panel started showing linux error codes, though

The 6 and a half hours went by in a flash.. I tell you, time passes SO differently for me now.. I’m starting to really love long  drives, flights, any long  spell like that.. I listen to music.. think.. and mostly.. don’t  think.. I just sit and space out. I tell you .. John Cohn 1.0 could simply  not do that.. Long periods of  quiet time like that used to drive me nuts.. now I crave it..

 

Anyway.. We gt to Heathrow about 7:30PM .. and my flight to Johannesburg was supposed to board at 7:15..   eeeeek !.. The airline folks said that they should never have issued me this connection.. Anyway I ran close to a mile (it seemed) to make this flight.  I slid into the plane just as they were closing the cabin door. I had only enough time before boarding to drop a sam stone in the waiting room..

 

It was fun looking down on the English countryside.. This isn’t veryfar from where Diane and I lived from 1984-86

Now I’m about an hour and a half into the ten  and a half hour flight to J’burg.. I think I’m going to try and get some  sleep now. I ‘ll try to post this from  the meeting when I get there.  

 

G’nite folks from somewhere over the Congo (I think)   G’nite Sam

-me

Monday afternoon – happy 13th birthday Gabe !

Gabe turned 13 years old today.. that just blows my mind !. Our baby is a teenager !  … and a very cool person …

Here he is as a pre-teen yesterday… look at that boyish grin..

And here he is less than 24 hours later.. already deep in thought as a proto-grown -up

Seriously, I’m so proud of this kid.. ..  he works hard and does a great job at everything he takes on.. he’s so together. I love watching him grow..

We all got together around 4ish today to do the birthday thing..  We stuck Gabe on the birthday thrown and he opened his loot..

Hannah and Dave gave him this awesome new Talent shirt.

He got a new hoody.. perfect for a 90 degree day like today…

Max found the perfect hat for Gabe in NYC…   Gabe has such a great style !  He does color like noone else does color !

Then it was time for cake.. we lit the candle and welcomed Sam into the party..

Then lit the candles for Gabe.. The mouse cake was getting the consistency of  ice cream when it’s at that perfect slurping temperature..

Then came the song !… look at all those candles !

Gabe and Max are now out shooting each other with paintballs. I a little while we’re all going out for Sushi and then a movie (Ironman !)..   After that I drive to NYC overnight to catch a 7am plane to south africa.. but that’s another story

Happy birthday my beautiful Gabriel.. I’m so proud of you…

TTYL everyone.. TTYL sam.
-me

saturday night – dog days

(grr.. my laptop has crashed three times while I’ve tried to blog.. I’m goign to make this short)

Ninety-three degrees … that’s what the car said right after Gabe’s lacrosse game in St. Albans.

That’s a full 25 degrees warmer than the same time yesterday./ They said it was going to get hot.. but I refused to believe it.. The weather folks do seem to nail the temperature even if they miss on rain and snow. It takes some of the fun out of guessing
   I go into a sort of walking hibernation whenever it gets over 75.. I don’t function too well. I try to move as little as possible. I can’t imagine how I ever survived so long in Houston.. but I did.  Poor satori is trapped in her fur coat.. It’s a blessing in the winter.. but she did a lot of panting today.. Look at that tongue

It was a very slow and low energy day.. in a very nice way.. after the lacrosse games I went and holed up in my lab because it was the coolest place by far on the homestead. I made use of the time to fix some of the casualties of my Seattle trip.   I had to completely rewire the theremin.. the weird musical instrument you play with your electric field.. It looks like it had either been trashed in shipping or someone tried to debug it by pulling it out of the box. All of the wires that hook it up were broken.

I got it rewired.. then realized that there was something more serious up.. After about 20 minutes of sleuthing I found out that the output amp chip. an LM386,  had been fired.. I foudn a replacement and voila !.. It worked. !!

I was on a role.. so I took apart the Tesla coil that had failed so unspectacularly during my talk in Seattle .. after the talk a bunch of students and I grabbed some test equipment that someone was demonstrating at the conference and used it to track down the likely problem. ,, a shorted IGBT output transistor.  It’s the third one from the left in this picture that was fried .. That $25 dollar transistor blew up in order to save the 15 cent diode right above it.. go figure.

Today I confirmed that diagnosis.. and gave it a transistorectomy.  I had  a few tense minutes after the repair when I realized I hadn’t completed a solder connection.. but when that was repaired .. victory .

I realize that I love debugging things like this almost more than I like building them/ it’s the ultimate crossword puzzle.. infinite possibilities.. only one right answer.  another thing which I marvel at is a way  my personality has shifted in the last year and a half since Sam’s passing. I manage to keep my work spaces.. here and at work clean and organized.. That may not sound like a big deal.. but you have to realize how much NOT that way I was for the first 46 years of my life.. I can’t quite fgure it out.. Just observing it though

We ended today with a nice quiet dinner with Jen and Tim.. it was so beautiful outside that we never turned on the lights.. we all sat there eating until we couldn’t see to eat anymore.. 

Nice day.. nice night… Good night all. Good night Sam !
-me

Friday night – Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award

This morning was the annual awards ceremony at MMU..   That’s the day that the school  awards the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award..   Any kid or teacher can nominate any other kid for the award. The winner gets to pick out a guitar of his or her choice at Advance Music. Diane, Max and I got up to MMU around 9 /It still feels so funny to look around these halls and know that Sam’s not waling down them anymore.

The whole school was down in the gym.. it was a great scene.. lots of awards for lots of cool talents.

Here’s Jake getting some sort of award for something.. all I know is that he was wearing his Sam shirt…

Maybe it was a music award… because here he is getting photographed with r. Pilsbury and Urion ..   Note sure.. but I do love his shirt !

Avry got soemthign too.. Maybe it was musical as well.. cuz here she is with M.. I mean Ms. Bauer.

Then it was time for the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award.   The three of us walked up in front of all those kids..

Jen B. handed us the basket with the nominations in it.  Shes been so reat helping us get this going ! . Diane reached in and choose at random.. That’s how Sam gets his say !

It was a great choice.. We all choked up as Diane read the winning nomination .. It was our buddy Kasey… Unbelievable !.. Sam picked well. Sam and Kase have been buds for as long as I can remember. Sam was always at Kasey’s or Kasey and his bro were always at ours. I love those guys..

Max showed everyone the award with the video ‘s running. We’ll take a picture of Kasey and his guitar and put it on here. along with Meghan G.  from last year.. and all the guitar winners in years to come.

One cool thing is that there’s already a picture of Kasey on the plaque.. Here’s one of our pictures of Sam the Vampire with a much younger looking Kase.



It was such a great morning.. We went home feeling so good  about Kasey getting this guitare.. Sam’s spirit is still moving in this world !

On the way out we saw these posters for the Voices Movie premier (Now called ‘Shout it out’.. It’s cool to see Max;s name on the poster. I can’t wait to see the movie !

OK.. time to sleep.. Thanks to everyone who helped iwht the Sam Cohn Award.. good night everyone !  Gnite Sam !
-me