Saturday night – retreat !

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I’d been looking forward to this for several weeks.. this morning was the Generator Board retreat. We all met at Burlington City Arts for a half day of facilitated soul searching: who are we , how far have we come, where are we going.. standard  board stuff.

I coul dhave swarn they said it was a SPa day.. but I was the only one who showed up in my jammies.. Geeeez !

 

I really love the folks on this board. They are so dedicated and energetic

 

. It really did feel good to think how far we’ve gotten in the past year.

It was fun to think back to our humble beginnings

here’s our first setup day

generator setup from john cohn on Vimeo.

and here was our opening a month or so later. In march..

fastgenopen2 from john cohn on Vimeo.

We did lots of thinking of where we want to go with generator.. now that it’s up and running well.. there was lots of passion, energy and good intentions. Those give me confidence that we will find our way to awesomeness.. I personally believe that much of that direction will come from  combination of our board thoughts, the members and the community.. I feel there’s will be  lots of fun trial  and error. along  the  way and I welcome both -)

I’m proud to be part of this orginization.. and look forward to traveling with it as it evolves. I want to publiclly thank the other mmebers of the board, our leaders, members, staff and our fascilitator today , Paul,.. for helping us move along the way !

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. Heres an awesome video that someone shot of the lights we did at ECHO under freind Travis’s leadership. .. these are a little showy.. but it’s fun to see what it can do.. goign forward, we’re tuning it down to do some fun interactive stuff.. and help interpret data from the lake.


 

 

Friday night – Swift Tailor

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No.. not Taylor Swift.. I mean that I finally took the time to try out the new Swift programming language for my iPhone and iPad. I used to use Objective C.. which was pretty complicated…

 

Swift is a more modern language designed for morons  like me. It really is fun to program.. My first attempt was a tutorial by a guy named Wei-Meng Lee that coupled a TI sensor tag to my phone or table to allow you to take remote selfies.. How cool is that ?  I took advantage of a couple of boring meetings (not with any of you) to do my coding as I listened)

 

The Sensor tag is this very cool $25 dollar wireless gizmo with thermometers, barometer, accelerometer, magnetometer, gombometer (remember gumby ?)..

 

here’s the Storyboard for the design in Xcode

and heres a little bit  of the swift code.. almost all of it in one file

 

And here’s the result.. you click the button on the sensor tag and it takes your picture. how cool is that

 

i fee proud of myself l like a kid who just tied his own shoe for the first time.. !

you’re never to old or weird looking to learn.. are you ?

 

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Thursday night – Old times

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Last night at 6 diane came in to tele that Gabe was up at bolton doing night riders with Ryan and Scooby..// I dropped what i was doing (is it ok to knock of work midday at 6pm ? ) .. we go on our warmest clothees for the 0 degree weather and headed up to the mountain. The slopes were pretty empty. I asked around and realized that we’d timed things perfectly.. no need to stand around outside freezing our a**es off.. it was already the prize hand out upstairs..

 

it was so much like old times, sweaty kids, questionable judging, copious swag, lots of hearing.. brought back so many great memories of both sam and gave being up there. This time without the need to watch for an hour of freezing just to catch a couple of runs.

 

the whole thing made me feel warm and fuzzy..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had promised ourselves the usual reward of beer and frenchfries.. but given that we hadn’t suffered enough to deserve that we  decided instead to go down and hang with Deb and Hannah and eat a gourmet meal with them.. YUM ~!!

 

i love our life here..

 

nite all. nite sam

-me

 

Wednesday afternoon – Shoveling Snow With Buddha

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Sitting here staring out the sunny window at the light cover of snow..

as if she could read my mind…our friend Kathy just sent us this…

Shoveling Snow With Buddha

~ Billy Collins ~ 

 

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

 

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

 

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

 

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

 

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

 

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

 

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

 

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

 

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

 

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

 

 

 

 

 

enjoy the snow…

nite all, nite sam
-me