Today is Sam’s birthday. He would have been 33 this year.. 
I can  picture what kind  of man he would have been.. energetic, fun  and loving. 

We miss him every minute of every day !

As is our custom. we hiked up bolton with a few freinds to say happy birthday to Sam. THis time we had Kyle, Nate  and Avery for a fast walk up !

Diane made a carrot cake.. sams favorite to mark the day

A bonus for the day is that my brother Billy came in to town theios afternoon. He is giving a talk at UVM tomorrow.. so he’s styign with us for 2 nights. It’ll so grewat having him here.. 

He’s been workign on soem amazing stuff.. His main project now is that he’s the cheif medical officer of Bivacore  the company that makes the total artificial heart he’s been workign on for the last 8 years with Dr Daniel Timms. . He actiually had oen in his backpack when he got here !

when billy got in, we took a short hike to the lower gorge just to get him Vermont oriented. 

Aroudn 5ish. .. id reve billy to a dinner that the med school was having for him as a visiting dignitary. I go to be hi +1. Super nice folks 

billy amazed them all with soem close up magic

we got home to find a n ararora alert goign off. we tried to see.. but the moon was too bright (and very beutiful)

actually there might be a little color here

long day.. good day

happy birthday sam.. we love you forever !

nite all, nite sam
-me

Super busy at work right now.. cant say why.. but it will be out soon

I did take a short break in the middle of the day to meet my freidn Lapo for lucnh downtoawn. Lapo is from Italy and just finished his PhD in Computer Scecince at UVM. His wife Chengi  who is from Hungary also just defended her PhD.. Like most foreing students. they want to get out of the US as qucikly as possible. Its heartbreakign since so much of the braintrust of our country is in students like this who study here.. then make their careers here.. 

here’s a statistic everyoen might be surprised to know..

More than 1/3 of all PhD students in this country are from outher contries and here on onm temporary education visas 

if you narrow that down to Science, technology, engineering and Math (STEM) students, that total is 45 percent of PhD students are here on temporary visas

here’s the shocker. in my feild of electrical engineering, a full 70 percent (!) of phd students are here on temporary visas>

I cannot understand what the cgovenrment thinks is goign to happen if we no longer are welcoming to these students.. our universites will suffer.. and there wont be any talent to run the new manufacturing growth they supposedly want.. It doesnt make sense

THat was just one of the many great conversatiosn that Lapo and I crammed into our hour lunchl.. we talked AI stuff and had soiem ideas fir possible collaboraitosn oence theyy settle downin europe somewhere||even though we dont see each other very much, ill really miss seeing Lapo.. hoe we can stay conencted !

 

 we even had the exact same tyvek wallets covered in engineering formula and measurement devices !

I thikk we’re destined to satay freinds..

nite all. nite sam
-me

that’s all I can say 🙂

nite all nite sam
-me

We had a great visit today from my friend Ben , his wife Lisa and his son Leon. , OK.. so thats really Ben Huh.. .. rhymes with ‘d-uh’ ., not with ‘shoe’.. I realize i’ve always gotten that wrong. 

Ben is an old freind from the MIT-IBM Lab. He’s a very smart and creative thinker. I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with him. It was my first time meeting Lisa and Leon.. Leon is 3 years old and super cute.. his name Leon is Noel spelled backwards whcih is (im told) Korean for ‘Play’.. Ben says I had soemthing to do with that choice, whihc is really cool. 

Theyt are a beutiful family. We got toys out and watched Leon line them up in perfect matrices. he’s goign to be a mathematican like his dad.   Lisa is lovely. She does communications for the Dental School at Harvard. it was interesting talkign to her abotu the crazy state of affairs there. 

We  all had lots of fun durign their visit. 

Super nice visit !

nite all. nite sam
-me