From Baird, I stopped at Champlain Chocolates to pick up some chocolate for Diane’s fondue tomorrow night,   While in there I sampled a bunch of different chocolates.. I’d heard a great interview with a chocolatier on the radio yesterday and was in the mood to sample the wares.. I settled on some that I liked and bought some for the folks at Champlain College. I  then went to Champlain and worked the whole day trying to finish up our first draft of our project.. … and eating more chocolate. Today was our deadline.. and.. we almost made it.. I’m hoping to be able to put the first version of it up for comment tomorrow morning.   I so much appreciate all the hard work the students and staff at Champlain have put into this thing.. I hope folks like it..   It’s designed to be a companion piece to the Educational Video Game that IBM announced today  (see powerupthegame.org). We’ll see how that goes.  I was in work calls all day as well.. so it was kind of schizophrenic.. I was trying to be in two places at once and basically failed at being completely in either.

 I had to take off at about 4 to take my show gear back to IBM…in time for me to make a meeting I had in Montpelier at 5. The meeting was with the Vermont State Science Teachers’ Association .. I’d been invited to their meeting to brainstorm about fun science activities for Vermont school kids. It was an absolutely fantastic meeting.. many cool ideas came up. One I liked was having a YouTube video contests about science topics.. We’d get high school students to help us make videos designed to get middle school students more interested in science.   We’ll see where it goes.  Here are a few of my friends in the association.. They’re a great group of folks !

I got home around 7 and had a nice quiet dinner with Diane.. It was great catching up after a busy week. We have both been really, really  missing Sam this week.. We always miss him.. Sometimes it becomes almost too much to bear.. When it’s like that somehow our friends just start showing up. Sometimes we feel like Sam whispers to them that we need a visit.. It feels like he still takes care of us..

OK.. That’s all for now.. I’m going to jump in the bath. I feel so lazy !  Gnite to you all.. gnite Sam.. more tomorrow.
-me

ps. I apologize for adding another geeky cartoon. This one’s for my brother.. I think he’s traveling now (Last week sweden.. this week cancun). He’ll get the message.. It’s an inside joke

Happy Valentine’s day folks. I hope it was a good one. It’s funny that there’s a special day for love.. but not special days for some of the other normal human emotions.. Apathy day ? Anger day ? .. Well. I’ll take love any day..
We did a low key observation today.. but it had all the right elements.. Heart  shaped cookies from my mom, heart shaped plates with hearts on them.

Sleepy boy with heart shaped waffles.

Even Chai got the opportunity for some flirting.. she went to the Crate Escape, Doggy Day Care place.. She gets so excited that she almost jumped out the window.  We take here to Crate Escape sometimes when neither Diane nor I can take her out for some exercise.

The day passed as most days do now.. fast and full. I spent the day at Champlain.. I’m trying to get our joint project wrapped up for our deadline tomorrow..  I love going there… but I’ll sure be glad when this project’s out the door.

I dropped by work on the way home to load my gear fro the show I hav tomorrow morning at Baird school.  

I also took the chance while at work to get a new badge.. I loose my badges all the time.. every few months it seems. My dirty little secret is that I usually am able to get into the building without them using simple Jedi mind tricks (” I look like I belong in this building.. please open the door for me”)  .. I do want to have a badge though.. so I went in and got one.. They offered to use my old picture.. but I wanted one with my Sam Button.. Here it is

By the time I got home it was nearly 7.. The three of us had a nice low-key stir fry dinner.. then we did a bit more Valentining.. Gabe made us a cool card..   And we did some more chocolate, flowers and stuff like that.

Then we did the est thing possible. the three of us when to Sam’s room and watched a really dumb/good  Jacky Chan movie (Rush Hour 3) together… I couldn’t have asked for a better night..

I was getting ready for bed when I came across this old valentine that Diane had found behind her dresser today.. It was good to see it.. it brought the tears that I had somehow been looking for  since my birthday last week.. good tears though.. Sometimes they just get backed up

Well my friends.. hug you loved ones for me… do it everyday !.. And while we’re thinking of hearts.. remember to carry and organ donor card with you.. and discuss it with your loved ones. There many ways to give love…

Love you guys.. love you Sam

-me

Gotta make this short.. I’ve gotten about 8 hours sleep in the last two days.. and I’m zapped..    I Woke this morning around 6AM in NYC.. I had to get on the road early in order to make soem meetings here back in BTV. I quickly packed. made myself a cup of tea and then placed a SamStone in David’s wonderful apartment.

I went  out for a quick bite of breakfast..

I love the streets of NYC early in the morning.. everything seems so fresh and alive.. . (Speaking of fresh.. how’s this for a weird slogan ? )

The streets and elevators were full of dog walkers.. what a life that must be to be a dog on the 26th floor..

I loved this button in the elevator.. It gave me hope.

I had a brief scare when I thought I’d lost my cash card and my drivers license.. ‘luckily’ i found them in the bottom of my backpack.. I sorted that out and got on the road at about 7AM

I was on FDR driving north when Ir realize that I was driving under the building that I was born in.. Now.. that’s something to think about…

I think this sign typifies the difference between New York City in Vermont.. in Vermont the hills are the view !

Driving in the city is pretty nerve racking.. but after I I hit the ‘hutch’.. I can got on autopilot.. I got on the phone.. and basically was in meeting the whole 6 hours back to VT… Speaking of cell phones.. how do you like this weird looking tree ?

The rest of the drive was restful. busy and uneventful. I skidded into Burlington with only 5 minutes to spare before my face to face meetings at Champlain.
I spent the rest of the afternoon working there.. then drive home to pick up Diane for our meditation workshop tonight.   Diane had just gotten home from Burlington with Gabe.. We both turned around and drove back to Burlington for the workshop.. It was nice seeing all of our new friends there..   It’s a very warm and interesting crowd.  One nice surprise tonight is that the meditation center had put a SamStone on the meditation ‘altar’ (right word ?) .   Robert-the-leader gave us a few moments to describe SamStones to the others in the class. I really appreciate him giving us permission to do that.   Tonights class was a very interesting discussion about the Shamabala tradition.. What I learned tonight is the importance of simultaneously being a fearless  warrior  and being gentle..  Now that’s something I need to meditate on .. But now I must sleep.. G’nite all you fearless warriors .. G’nite Sam…
me
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