What a beautifully lazy, rainy day. I took the day off from work.. took only a few calls. and basically did absolutely nothing all day. Mid morning newlyweds Scott and Mary came over with their new puppy Rilo.. It was great seeing them.. they head out to California this weekend… we wanted to see them befor ethey left..

.. and I had to adjust Scott’s claws. i’d fit them to my hands which are evidently much smaller than Scott’s. It took only a few minutes now that I have a rosebud tip for my torch..

I lazed around the rest of the day.. it was raining outside.. s I did a little fun computer hacking, a little reading, a little napping . I couldn’t have done any less.. and it was great..

Areound 5:30 we (diane, gabe, will avery and I ) piled in the car and headed to Burlington for thir fireworks. The rain miraculously stopped at 6 and it tunred in to a cool clear evening. There was a ton of stuff hapening down at the woterfront including these afro-carribe drummers.

The croawd was dancing through a circle of folkks.. Kevin .. of course.. had to try..

We set up for a picnic and began the 2 hour wait for fireworks.

jen. Deb and we all all brought food..

We were joined by a growing group of kids..plus Hannah T , avid and their kids.

It was a beutiful eveing.. I just milled around while the girls talked..

I found this kid wearign a Sam shirt. we didn’t know each other.. but when I told him I was Sam’s dad he said ‘I’m sorry’.. I told him..I was so glad to see him wear the shirt !

Around 9:45 the fireworks began.. Max had just turned up after work. The first boom brought Sam so close to me. He loved fire and anything related.. I thought of him through the show.. .. which was really spectacular !

One freaky thing that happened is that Diane was holding baby Senyah, a bottle rocket from the crowd flew past Diane’s ear and almost hit the baby.I was leaning up against Diane and the the thing went right between us.We both stood up quickly to find it still smoldering between us. Wewere so freaked out.. as were Hannah and Dave.. they had to take thegirls away..

After the show , we all walked up t the car to give max his guitar. It was nice to all be together. max has to work tomorrow.. so we probably wont see him.. we promised to take him lots of pictures of the Richmond parade…

OK. that’s it for this evening. tomorrow’s the fourth. one of Sam’s favorite holidays. he’ll be much on our minds.. I’ll tell you how it goes… See you everyone.. tall to you later Sam
-me

Oh man.. It’s 12:30 and I have got to sleep. I only had about 4 hours last night. I’m sitting here listening to Nicholas playing some great songs he’s written and trying to blog at the same time.

We got back an hour ago from a show I did for the Governor’s institute of engineering. I do this show every year for my good friends Tom and Beth.

I think they had about 130 kids.. from all corners of the earth.

Right before the show Tom invited this guy Andreas to say a few words. Andreas is from Vilnius Lithuania.. the home of my great grandparents. He’s on town for a three week mathematics camp at UVM with Steven Wolfram, the founder of Mathmatica. Andreas is running a virtual think tank out of Vilnius. He was there to pitch some of the thinktank ideas to the GiV students. He is one cool dude. I gave him a SamStoen to take back to Vilinus

I had a great show tonight. It’s a more geeky crowd than I normally get to pitch to. It’s fun to have a group that you don’ thave to win over to science. They’re already there.

It was a very appreciative crowd.

One great bonus out of tonight’s show was the following ‘I dropped my pen in the mash potatoes’ in engleish.. then in Lithuaninan .

It took me a while to pack up because many of the kids stuck around to talk .. It was about 10 by the time we go out of there. Nick an I had the best talk about life and loss on the way home . Nic;s Dad died about 4 years ago . We talked some about how kids and perents project their own egos on their parents and kids. Nick is a good thoughtful kid,, I’m glad he’s staying with us..

OK.. I can’t stay awake anymore.. gotta sleep.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam
-me

So.. today was fairly peaceful and very productive. Lots of folks are off work this week, which makes it a good time to get things done. I took an hour off in the middle of the day to take a friend to lunch. It was good catching up we hadn’t had a chance to talk in some time. We were were having a pretty heavy discussion about work.. and what wasn’t going well there when a friend of both of ours walked in to the restaurant. We hadn’t seen each other since Sam died.. I was very saddened to learn that her 40 year old daughter was in the final stages of a terminal disease. She told me how sorry she was about Sam.. then we talked for about 15 minutes about life, death, surviving, grief, endurance, love, knowing and not knowing and all the stuff around a major loss.. or impending loss. We mostly listened. She was quiet and peaceful as she talked.. In the end o gave her a SamStone and a promise that I would check in on her over the next few months. She got up, said good bye and left…

As soon as she was gone, my friend and I went back to our conversation about the frustrations at work.. and I could tell.. it wasn’t bothering either of us so much now. Our mutual friend’s visit had given us one of those reality reminders about the real priorities in our lives. I can’t help thinking that the timing of her visit hadn’t been accidental…

Anyway… not much else to report for the day.. I have a big batch of SamStone placements I nede to post.. so I think I’ll start working on that.. One cool thing before i go.: My firend Joanne just sent me these pictures from her last visit to England. She took these around DIane and my old neghborhood in Winchester in Hampshire

This is the river canal down by Winchester College at the end of our street.

Aother view, looking back towards our street..

A bit closer into town.. We used to watch huge trout swimming here..

Our old flat. the one with the white door. 75 Canon St

,, and again from the other side. it looks just the way it did 22 years ago.. but then again.. it’s probabl lloked liek that for the last 200 years.

Brings back very good memories.. Like the time the older sisters across the street wondered by to ask why we cooked with so much garlic. They asked whether my wife was talian.. I replied that es, she was italian.. but not (yet) my wife.. From that day on the refered to Diane as my ‘consort’…

Well.. gotta sleep now.. happy almost July.. nite all.. nite Sam
-me

I 8 wonderful hours of sleep last night. I managed to sleep through 2 alarms, the dogs, the wind blowing doors.. but what finally woke me was a strange thumpa-thumpa-thump coming from the dryer.. After I’d gone down and had my tea, I investigated the root of that sound and found a very clean and dry SamStone underneath the pile of freshly laundered clothees in the drer. This confirms that SamStoens are indede washable.. so. if yours is dirty….

Diane and I went for a nice run up honey hollow with the dogs this mornign. It was amazingly wet and swampy out there.. it felt more like belize or costa ria than vermont. The highpoint of the trip was when Satori managed to wade across one of the small streams without being carried.. I could tell she was proud of herself !

I got home, cleaned up and headed down to Champlain to watch the ending presentations from the Governors Institute for IT..

It was great.. I did a show for the kids last Monday .. it was great seeing what they did with the time since. There were lots of thanking of people includig the faulty and staff.. who are mostly friends of mine . They nearly outnumbered the kids in the program

There were about 200 folks in the auditirium.. many of them parents of campers..

Each team of kids presented the games, websites, and podcasts they did during the week

While the RA’s sat in teh back and playedgames.. which is working for them, I guess..

After the program, Ann was taking all the staff for lunch.. She invited me which was awflully nice !.. As we were waiting, I called Max.. he’s just SOCAPA. Max will be living on campus for 2 weeks teaching high school kids how to make and edit Videos.. It sounds like it’s goign to be awesome..

Max was guiding traffic just a buldign away, so he took a break to come up and meet my friends. They promised to let him into the gaming lab at night.. I think he’ll lik that..

I drove downtown to go to the lunch. n the way, i ran into John K and Burk wearing a Sam shirt !

LLunch was great.. it was in the back patio at Halversons.. We sent the time reading the student Evalsform GIV.. .

Ann had presants for each of us.. We got alien fingerpuppets… That’s more than I usually get for doing a show !

While there, I met newborn baby Rosa and her folks Geeda and Ken

Here’s Ann holding rose

I got home to find Gabe in friends tramping with the sprinkler on.. Looked like a ton of fun.. It was hot… !!

Now I’m taking those guys to the Hulk.. So I gotta stop here.. We’ll be late for the movie if I don;t
OK all for now.. note folks. Nite Sam
-me