All posts by johncohn

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

Saturday night – movie night !

Arghhh… once again Myspace has eaten my (nearly) complete blog entry and forced me to re-type.. I have done my cursing oo-fline and will attempt to retype what I entered before !…  (grrrrrrrrrrr)

So.. we woke today to a new month.. December.. can it really be December already ?   I guess so.. it feels cold enough to be.  One good thing about December is Advent calendars.. In this family, we try to take the best aspects of all of our cultures.. Advent calendar this week, potatoe pankakes next week, christmas in 3 weeks.. wow…

I particulalry like this new advent calendar. You get to put your own stuff in it.. so we had choclate kisses and dog boscuts this morning.. I’m thinking A-1 sauce for tomrrow. I’ll let you know if anything really wierd shows up .

Diane and I worked together most of the morning trying to get the house back in some order after all the events of the last week and a half. It was fun workign around the house.. it was a sunny and very cold day.. the perfect kind for being inside.. Though.. too much inside is too much. Around 2 we took Gabe up to Bolton and Dinae, Chai and I went out for a Snowshoe at Bolton lower quad.. It was a beutiful day to be ut.. cold. (8 degrees and blowing) but enough sunshine that we were ok in a windbreaker and sweater.


I liek this iew from Bolton back over towards our house. Robins mountin in our back yard is the left most hump in this picture

The trails a re a reat palce to Snowshoe.. I like the name of this one.


We got home very cold and tired around 4:30.. Around 6:30 we got back in the car to go to the Jericho Community Center (JCC)  for Movie Night. Burt D, his son Angus.. and freinds Max E.  and Alex L had organized a showing at the JCC. the  with all proceeds goign to the Sam Cohn Fund (thank you so much guys !) .

There was no missing the fact that the event was on.. 5 signs dragged in quite a crowd



I esteimate that there were between 110 and 120  people there..

People were still coming in at 7PM .. so Kevin got up and did his Kevin immitations.. as only he can do.. He is one wierd and funny dude.

the first movie was ‘Fly’ by Sam R. and Garrod. It was great ! There were so many of Sam’s friends in it.. I kept expecting to see Sam…. I liked the fact that they included our pnd skimming porate ship into their movie.

Next up was the ‘ToGnar’ (totally gnarly) project by Angus D, Burt D, Max E, Alex L. and …  It was a history of the 2006-2007 ski/board season.. I loved the images and music in this one, too. They also had a sequence of the pirate ship as the credits rolled.

They had a great dedication equence to Sam at the end..   Choked me up a bit.

The last film, ‘Push Rewind’ was by Nick S. It had amazing camera work, and editing.. really professional quality.. It also was dedicated to Sam.. which was a reallly good surprise for us. I’ll try to get a copy of the dedication sequence for me to post when I get a sec.    Irelaized that I kept moving my vest away from my Sam buttin soe Sam could ‘see’ the movies.. it’s a funny instinct.

The last movie was over at around 9.. It was really a great evening.. Our thanks to all the folks who made it posssible ! We took gabe’s friend Dylan home then came back to the house.. it’s only about 7 degrees aout now.. and supposed to be gettign much colder tonight !.. Bundle up everyone !

Stay warm everyone.. stay cool Sam !
-me

Friday night – art auction

We’rve just come back from the Friends of Sam Art Auction at JDK.. and I’m so sleepy I can hardly type. It was a great event thanks to the kids with great help from Deb, Jen, Liz and the generous doantion for all our artistic friends. I got there around 5:30 and found Deb putting out a veritable feast of hors-devours with help from the kids who  were all dressed up to serve. The food was all delcicious… I stocked up before heding down

All night we had a steady flow of folks coming by.. not a huge crowd.. but enoughfolks to make it feel lively and good. The bids started coming in.

We had all sorts of art.. prints

Inks

paintings


Photos


Markers


Watercolors

Boards


Instruments


Whiligigs


Etc, etc, etc..



Even birdhouses !

Jen fired the glass the kids did last night.. they looked amazing


Around 9 we closed the bidding and folks picked up their treasures

We haven’t completely tallied the bids… but most of the art sold.. and the Friends of Sam raised more than 2000 dollars for the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf..  That’s a wonderful take for the evening.. Our big thanks to the Friends of Sam and Deb, Jen, and Liz for plannign the event and making it happen.. And our thanks to David K and JDK for allowing us to host the auction in their beutiful building.

We met a woman named Nancy who’d had a Heart/liver transplant a few years back.  She told us about  how the organ donations saved her life. We talked about  all the emotions around transplant. It was really good to see how healthy and vital she was..

Good night friends.. thanks for all you do for Sam and for us. We love you.. we love you Sam !
-me

Thursday evening – yearbook

Frriends.. I apologize.. but this is the 4th time I’ve had to type in my blog for the evening due to computer problems. This posting will be brief.

Today was refreshingly ‘normal’… Normal meaning a fair sprinkiling of highs and lows, victories and bittersweet heartbreak. I’ll take that mix for now. the highs were mostly about my new temp job. I’m more energized and excited abotu my work than I’ve been in several years. I’m meeting some cool new people and I feel my creativity starting to come back some.. I think this will really be part of the recharge that I so desperately need

The bittersweet came in the shape of Sam’s 2007 class yearbook. Diane picked it up at MMU today when she was up teaching yoga. There’s a great tribute to sam on the inside front cover.. How many times have I seen those tributes in other peoples yearbooks. It’s always someone else.. it’s never supposed to be your.. or our.. kid.. He’s not going to graduate in 2010.. Oh Sam…

One nice touch we found is that Sam’s friend and Band mate Jeff had Sam’s Myspace name ‘bree_bree_roarororf’ as the caption under his own picture.Thanks for that Jeff.

The rest of the day had it’s interesting moments. I was on the phone all day as usual. I managed to slip into Moe’s for a quick burrito around 3:30 and ran intoour friend Meg working there.. Her dad Ken happened to be right behind me in line.. I felt like a taco

I had been scheduled to do a ‘Jolts and Volts’ show at Camels Hump tonight. Ken Wootan,  a  virtual neighbor and expert on  prevention of child sexual abuse was giving a talk. I was supposed to do my show while he spoke with parents privately. In the end, tehre wern’t that meany kids, so I got to hear most of Ken’s talk. he has soem really good ideas about educating kids on how to avoid dangerous situations. I was impressed with how pragmatic his advice was.

I did manage to do a mini-show for some of the kids and parents who stuck around aftetr the talk. I always love doing that.

Ken’s grandaughter on the van de graaf

Ke’s daughter (note the similar hairstyles )

I made a big mess as usual but was forgiven by Rogene, Toby and John..It was good seeing them.. they’re always so nice to me.  I sat around and talked to them and Rand for a whiile after the cleanup

When I got home it was time to help Diane with the backing for tomorrow’s Friends of Sam Art Auction.. I’m including this picture of a whole bowl of unwrapped reeses penut butter cups to entice you to come tomorrow.. it’s at 7PM at JDK , 47 Maples Street Burlington.. Details here.
You won’t beleive the cool stuff the kids have collected. Come down and bring your friends. Thanks !

That;s all for now.. See you at the Art Auccion  . Nite Sam
-me