Friday night – guilty pleasures

Leave a comment

We just came back from middlebury after watching gabe play a great lacrosse game it was a beautiful evening and the drive both ways was spectacular with ll the spring foliage coming out in various shades of green and some flowering trees already in bloom. I just plopped down on the couch with a glass of wine, put my feet up and started some recreational programming (javascript) … Its a guilty pleasure sort of thing on friday night after a long (but interesting) week.
The thought of ‘guilty pleasures’ reminds me of a talk show i heard on a college radio station in ny earlier this week .. The topic was guilty pleasures… Things you like.. But dont like admitting that you like… folks were calling in and admitting their own guilty pleasures…. Folks called in to admit such things as harlequin romances, old abba cds and friend chicken.. Got me thinking.. What are my guilty pleasures … Beyond programming on a friday night ? Here are a few things That come to mind:

  • sappy movies like juno and lost in translation, the iron giant
  • naps in the middle of the day .. Sometime in my office
  • doing nothing
  • cheescake
  • anchovies
  • thiso one stupid duran duran song
  • shel silverstien poems
  • roller coasters
  • country western music (at least when I’m welding)
  • bubble bath
  • chocolate icing
  • fortran
  • african violet incense
  • sleeping late
  • soft bathrobes
  • bowling
  • macaroni and cheese with that weird orange powdered cheese
  • babies
  • jumping off the richmond bridge
  • croissants
  • the sound of old volkswagon engines
  • picking locks
  • astro boy
  • the big lebowski
  • snow angles
  • dogs
  • bright leds
  • oysters
  • tejano music
  • bad wine
  • steig larsons books
  • old hand tools
  • meteor showers
  • rainy days
  • schmalzy yiddish folksongs
  • semicolons
  • vienna
  • the smell of epoxy
  • weed wackers
  • the planet venus
  • maxfield parish prints
  • cognac
  • roses
  • dark chocolate
  • pocket knives
  • old electric shock gizmos

    • Better stop there…. What are yours ? Please let me know

    Nite all, nite sam
    -me

  • sappy country western songs

Thursday night – ketchup on calculus

1 Comment

Gabe and i just came back from a yummy dinner at bridge street after each of our respective long days.. It was great hanging out with gabe and talking. We got on the topic of calculus… There was no blackboard around.. So i picked up the closest thing.. A napkin and the squirt bottles of ketchup and mustard. I did my best to describe Reimann sum integration and derivatives using the condiments.. Not sure the waitress (our friend lauren) relished it much ….yuck yuck yuck

20120503-201927.jpg

20120503-201946.jpg

20120503-201954.jpg

Nite all, nite sam
-me

Wednesday night – fablab !

Leave a comment

This afternoon was wonderful. We had our official opening of the vermont fablab. The VFL is a new facility at the university of vermont that will allow uvm students, high school students and local inventors to get access to state of the art rapid prototyping tools like 3d printers and laser cutters. VFL is only one of several facilities that are spontaneously forming to serve the needs of northern vermont makers .. There is also facility forming at essex high school, one at champlain college, one at pine street metal. So far all of the facilities are serving complimentary parts of the maker community.. It is so much fun to see the energy around this movement. W expected about 15 folks to come to today’s opening.. But i can remember talking to at least 70… So there must have been more than even that ! We had techies, artists, welders, musicians…. Very, very cool.
This opening was more symbolic than anything else.. The facilities been in use for the last month or so and has been used by some of the SEED senior projects. Our main reason for holding the event
Was to let the public know that were up and running… And to start soliciting donations for a few more pieces of equipment.. (please let me know if you have equipment, expertise or money you
Would like to contribute to the effort !) i feel so good about helping with this effort.. Seeing the stuff already in use just makes me so happy !

 

20120502-232024.jpg

20120502-232032.jpg

20120502-232041.jpg

20120502-232049.jpg

 

saw my old buddy vicki

 

and used our new laser (thanks in part to an IBM community grant) to cut up some lavash bread  (like a tortilla) treats for the guests (tasted nasty, though 🙂

 

After the opening… We went over to the engineering night celebration over at the davis center. What a wonderful geek fest. I was able to see all of the senior projects and talk to the students .
I ran into more good friends over there.. The geek spirit is alive and well in Northern Vermont !

 

20120502-232059.jpg

 

20120502-232112.jpg

here’s the class video that the group i mentored just finished.. make sure you watch to the part with the music.. I’m so proud of these guys for what they created here. I think it’s beutiful. Folks at the event tonight really loved it as well !

 

 

20120502-232145.jpg

 

I got home at 7 in time for a lovely dinner with Florence and Julia who are here visiting with us from France..

Not a bad day ! (even the work part was fun !)
Time for bed.. Night all, nite sam
-me

 

 

Tuesday night – mayday

Leave a comment

Greetings from jfk airport.. On my normal perch waiting for the flight back to BTV. It’s the first of may.. High spring..l and the day that most of the world celebrates the efforts of laborers around the world. Its never been a more important time to think about that. I’m not quite ready to go sleep in zucatti park… But i’m getting more and more convinced that our society needs more balance. I thin the world has gone crazy for money and greed and were forgetting where real value comes from. ..
I spoke to Max today and sent me pics from nyc this morning . There were demonstrations there to celebrate labor and remind people of the principles of the occupy movement…

Oops.. Gotta board my flight..
Nite all, nite sam
-me

 

20120501-222506.jpg