tuesday night late – touch of gray

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Ackkkk.. ALMOST 2 am and just back from a great Dark Start Orchestra show at Higher Ground. DSO is a… no make that the est Grateful Dead tribute band that has ever exited Honestly They sound more like the Dead than the Dead did, I;ve been attending their shows for nearly as long as I went to Dead shows.. .. and that;s saying something. As I was dancing tonight I realized my first GD show was 36 years ago. Something to think about !   I was there with my buddies Gary Forrest, Paul and Andrew.. and ran into many other friends in the audience.. there were many 20 somethings.. and many about my age….

The band generally plays a complete Dead show from a particular date and place.. so the song list is fixed. I cheated and looked up the songs they played and realized that this was a show from Charlotte NC in June 12th of 1991..   The first set was splendid… some of my favorite songs.. (Peggy-o, Althea, hell in a bucket ).. the second set started with ‘Touch of Gray’ .. a tribute to being older  .. That song has special meaning to me as I used to put on that song and swing all three kids around in the air as we danced to it. Sam loved it most.. he called it ‘swing around music’.. I remembered being at Higher Ground listening to DSO not long after Sam died.. and they played that say song. Touch Of Gray;.. as I did then.. I broke down and cried and danced at the same time.. felt very good and sad at the same time..

Live music clears my head and opens my heart.. I hope you all have live music in your lives.,,

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

 

Monday night – maker’s pace

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Very full day today with work… Many meetings… But the one I really looked forward to was after work we had a steering meeting for the Vermont Makers.. The overarching community group that is tying together all of the fast growing maker community here in northern Vermont, we all met at the Farmhouse…. An ironically named restaurant on the site of the Old McDonald’s in downtown Burlington (get it ?) .. It’s an upscale place now full of Ernest looking burligntonians.. our 10 slightly artistic geeks.. Or slightly geeky artists fit right in . I loved the anarchistic spirit of tonight’s meeting.. Between this large table and the background noise, we could hardly her each other. But that was half the fun. We had several orders of business tonight.. One was to form committees.. We created 2: one was about workshops.. And the to her was about….. Uhhhh… I can’t remember, but I’m in it…. I know that one of the purviews of the group I’m in is to solicit makers to participate in the Champlain Maker Faire slated for sept 21 2012 at shelbourne farms. We’re looking for makers of all types and stripes… Artists, geeks, musicians, food experimenters, farm hackers, craftspeople, welders, glass blowers, citizen scientists, renewable energy folks, back to basics, anyone who experiments as they make,, are you one of those types ? If so.. Let me know, we’d love to have you show your stuff at the makers are. We’ll be sending out a call for makers in the next 2 weeks.. But in the mean time, let me know if you are interested.

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Ok.. Hats it for now.. More tomorrow..
Nite all, nite Sam
-me

Sunday night – udderly amazed

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Very nice day today.. perfect weather and not too much to do. Took a long run up in the mountains with the girsl.. very good for my soul. The book I’m reading (Imagine by Jonah Lehrer says running is good for creativity.. but all I did was think about nothing.. bliss)

Early afternoon I headed over to Homers to work on a project. On the way I saw freind and sort of neighbor Erin out on their tractor . I ducked in for a quick tour of Erin’s and her Fiancess robotic milking parlor. Erin’s been telling me about it for months..

here’s Cher.. she decided to give us a demo. Each cow has an rfid ear tag.. the machine will only milk them if they need milking..

Here’s the robot

and the entry side

here’s Cher..

first the machine reaches out and cleans here teats..

then it uses lasers to locate each teat

then it latches on and starts milking..

all the details of each cow.. weight, milk production, teat location.. etc are on the computer.

;

here’s the milk.. she gave over 20 gallons

heres the manure scraping robot.. the back scratching robot is in the background (no joke)

here are the manure producers.

erin then showed me the milk tank

then it was off to homers… always love working there..

thats it for now.. more tomorrow. have a nice week everyone…

nite all, nite sam

-me

;

ps. here’s a snapping turtle that diane and I saved on friday. Dane gave me one of the car floor mats.. and i reached under him and tossed him off the road.. he wasn’t happy but he was safe. He was pretty pig.. he could have taken off a finger with that beak of his..

Saturday night – prom night

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very quiet day.. odd for cinco del mayo.. diane was at a yoga thingy.. so I had most of the day alone.. I spent the mornign doing green up day.. Thats the time that all good Vermonters take to the back streets with bright green garbage bags.. I took the stretch of cochran road between the winniski bridge and the huntinon bridge. n that short segment I found 6 car tires, a bunch of beer bottles.. two bottles of sambuca and countless…and I mean countless cigarette butts,,,
The afternoon I spent puttering around the house.. I even managed to fall asleep on the skateoard ramp for a bit. All in all a beutiful day… The big enven for the day came in the evening. Gabe and his friend Raya were heading to the Junior prom.. He were joinde by gabes freinds marcello and david and thir dates… They did up the whole prom thing.. tuxes, corsages… high heals… (well the girls at least)
Gabe and marcello tried out their tuxes on the trampoline.. to start the evening..

then came picures and dinner.. the kids were great… i know thta they had fun.

now.. they’re out at the prom.. and diane and I are watching a movie… I should have gotten her a corsage.

nite all, nite sam
-me