Saturday evening – not my party

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I never thought I’d see the day.. but here we are.. home on the Saturday night before Halloween having a very nice and quiet evening at home. ‘Normally’.. tonight would be the night of our annual Halloween party That would mean about 300 folks packed into our house like sardines. crazy costumes, spooky food and drink and loud music. The lead up would mean about 2 weeks of moving furniture, securing breakables, stocking coolers, putting up lights, spiderwebs, and  decorations. Followed by about of week of undoing the same starting the day after. Don’t get me wrong.. I love our parties.. and there will certainly be more.. but it’s been just SO nice giving it a rest this year. There’s just so much going on in our house right now. eg. we’re halfway through refinishing the  bell tower.. , Deb’s stuff  is all packed up to move up to her condo this week and my work is in transition. All that lead us to decide to give it a pass this year.   We’ve been having that party nearly every year since we moved her in 1982… i say nearly because I know we missed a few here and there   It’s nice to break with tradition every once in a while.. so it doesn’t bind you.

Like I say.. the party will likely be back next year.. so.. for the 298 or so of you not here tonight.. we wish you all a great Halloween.   We’ll see you out trick or treating on monday..

 

night all , night sam

-me

 

 

Friday night – Tech Jam / Complex systems

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I took a much needed vacation today and attended two events in Burlington. I began the day with a an informal roundtable discussion at UVM with a group of really interesting and bright folks on the topic of ‘complex systems’ the room was full of physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists who were turning their tools and skills to the study of large complex systems with huge data-sets. Many of the problems were around social systems and used data gleaned form social networking sites.. It was strange and cool to see the cross application of disciplines. It would be interesting to see what would happen if sociologists suddenly started delving into particle physics.. (The analogy was made.. elementary particles can be either attractive or repulsive as can be people 🙂

 

Around 10L30 I had to bug out and go downtown to the Techjam.. it was held in the old Borders bookstore.. It was weird seeing the bookstore devoid of books.. I guess folks like me who by ebooks off amazon spelled the demise fof the brick and mortar bookstore.. *sigh*..

Anyway.. Techjam was AMAZING> it was absolutely packed with visitors and with cool high tech companies.. and most of them were hiring. !  It had such an upbeat feel it didn’t not feel like a recession inside the building today !

 

Here are some picks.. most of them from Stephen Mees of Champlain College .. my own camera ran out of batteries.. Stephen.. I hope it’s ok to reuse these. they have your name on them..

 

My show was at 11.. I even got introduce by Governor. Shunlin  .. only in Vermont !  (The Gov is a huge backer of science and technology.. thanks for that Peter !!!)

 

 

 

 

My show went pretty well.. lots of people there.. I couldn’t tunr the lights off.. which was a bit hard.. but overall.. went ok.

 

then after my show.. I quickly pacekd up and headed back to UVM for the TEDx talks..abotu a dozen talks on complex systems and ‘big data’

Cool stuff. including friends peter, chris and isabell’s project to measure happiness using analysis of the worlds twitter feeds. analysis of the frequency of human conflict (the answer is 2.5) .. progress that right equeations and telephone poles that tells who’s a stay at home dad.. all very cool.. Finally a quick beer withthe speakers and now home…

 

All iand all a very stimulating and enjoyable day.. and I really, really needed it.

 

ok. now I gotta sleep. more tomorrow..

 

night all, nite sam,

 

-me

 

 

Thursday night – setbacks

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home again.. home again.. and so glad.. My mind is racing from whats going on at work.. I’ve been trying to keep these setbacks in perspective. Diane is a great help here.. she’s suhc a good listner.. and does not judge. ./

This afternoon she sent me today’s entry from Rod at Heron Dance. Once again it seems prescient.

Nocturnal Flight

Nocturnal Flight

October 27

We learn both from the things that go right, and from the setbacks. Sometimes the setbacks, the most painful experiences, provide the most insightful learning. And sometimes, the more emotional my reaction to those setbacks, the more attention I need to pay. The setbacks that have emotion behind them teach about deep things.

I’m trying to learn from turmoil.. that’s prpobably less fun tham it sounds.. but I’m trying..

nite all, nite sam
-me

Wednesday night – Zombie Tech

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Just back from a long drive back from NY.. I had a good set of meetings today.. but it’s still a long drive for a day.  Lots of work things weighing heavily on my mind now.. which makes for difficult driving.. One bright spot was a 2 hour interview with the fine folks at Zombie Tech podcast Hosts Addie and Whisker do a weekly podcast on folks practical suggestions on how to survive and thrive in the zombie apocalypse.  They saw the Colony on Netflix and invited me to the interview.. it was so much fun talkign to them. After the interview I learned about some of their amazing projects.. They do a weekly youtube podcast at  http://tymkrs.com/ on cool stuff thye’re building. I plan on staying tuned in. .. I love getting to talk about zombies with folks.. on of the great perks of being a geek ( I just noticed my name is in close proximity to the word ‘zombie’ over 3000 times in google.. how cool is that)

It was a big media day for me.. there was also a nice article in our local paper 7days about engineering promotion . I really love the article.

Unfortunately I found a pretty serious misquote/misunderstanding in the hardcopy version.. A large heading says  that I ‘…designed the chips in the xbox, playstation 3 and  his personal favorite the wii”.. I did not design those chips. although I did  work on them along with 100’s of talented colleagues at IBM. The heading also says I have a favorite..while that may be true, it was not appropriate for me to have said that in print. I apologize to our customers and my colleagues for any offense taken… none was intended.

Again.. i loved the article overall… .

well.. I gotta sleep now.. i feel like a zombie !

nite all, nite sam

-me