Friday night – art hop

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TGIF !.. for some reason the week dragged on.. but .. i had my share of fun this week.

As I left this morning for work,  Deb, Diane. and Jen were hard at work on a catering job Deb is doing.. they were still chopping in their little chef’s hats when I got home at 6pm.. lots of yummy food around the house.. the place smells great !

I had a busy day at work..today.. The high point was presenting remotely to about 200 folks in our Hortlandia command center in Brazil. This was about 100km from where I vistied a couple of weeks back. It’ snever as much fun talkign to people remotely as it is being there in person.. but we made it work. once again I was blown away with teh warmth and freindliness and overall awesomeness of the brazillian people. The calor humano came all the way through the phoen lines. I even had a camera in the command center I could steer around so I could see the folks there..

I know I talked to long.. but I really loved the questions.. I need to get back down there and visit soon. I love brazil !!!!

 

I got home around 6.. to find the girls still chipping away.. Gabe and Kristin wanted to go to the Art Hop.. so we piled back in the car and drove downtown to soak up some culture !.   The art hop has been going on for years here in the south end of Burlington..It was really great.. I saw a ton of folks I new.. and saw some really great art.. They had music..

and food

SOme of my favorite stuff was in the Soda Plant an art space collective.. really cool stuff.

if you know who this is .. then you have great taste in TV (I love bubbles !)

 

my freind John had two really nice hollograms there

among all the folks I ran into .. Sandy and Michael were the oldest friends I saw.. I’ve known Sandy for more than 40 years.. we grew up together in Houston.. I used to come up to visit her when I was going to school in Boston.. and that’s how I fell in love with Vermont. It was great seeing them !

OK.. i’m getting so sleepy.. and tomorrows an early day.. more then

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

Thursday night – WTF (what the flood ????)

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It was a scary dejavue .  This morning Diane’s folks called from Endicott NY to tell us that t their town was now flooded and that there was several feet in their basement. Diane was going to drive down there  but her brother Joe called to say that the roads in were all closed  some were underwater..  . Interstate  88 was closed by a mudslide.  there’s 4 feet of water in the kmart down the street. 1000 people have been evacuated and are now staying  in Diane’s high school.  My in laws are ok.. they have no power.. or phone.. but their house is safe.. soggy but safe.. their neighborhood is a wreck.  Here are some pictures I found online.. ..

This is near diane’s neighborhood

this is just past the old IBM site

this is less than a quarter of a mile from her folks house

or how’s this .. Fire plus flooding ?

I really can’t figure out whats going on .. earthquakes, floods, fires..    ? I don’t even want to continue the list.. it’s hard not to take all these points and try to draw some cosmic line.. .. what’s it mean ? Or does anything mean anything when it comes to this ?

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. Here’s a picture of our town last week. Our freind Gary sent it.. It’s amazing..

 

Wednesday night – other people’s tragedies

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Not sure I like that title.. but.. I’m not sure how to capture what I’m feeling tonight.. The last couple of days I’ve heard several very sad stories from friends and friends of friends.. I’m thinking tonight about those folks.. and the loss they are feeling.. and I feel the echo of it deep inside myself. It’s strange how soemthing that might catch your eye in a newspaper.. a flood, a fire.. and untimely death  becomes so different when you know the person.. or their families..   We all felt that when the floods hit Vermont this past week. Seeing the  pictures on TV and in the papers felt different  than  when we saw the same things happening to our neighbors and  friends..  In the last couple of days I’ve heard stories of pets that have died, friends of friends  kids that have passed away suddenly   I didn’t know the people directly.. but knew folks who did.. but still d each of those stories knocks the wind out of me for a little while..

All this week I’ve  been watching the stories of the Texas wildfires.. I saw this map yesterday and noticed that many of the blazes are near where I grew up.. I hear today that over 1200 homes and other buildings have been lost to the fires in the past week

Tonight when I got home  learned that our good freind Trevor’s family’s house was one of those homes destroyed.. it was no longer a news story..it was ‘us’.    I just can’t believe it..   Trevor used to live up here.. he was actually here at our house when we heard about Sam’s accident.. We’re not sure what to do for him now.. but we have to do soemthing. We love that kid..

We’re think of you trevor !

nite all, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – Looking for trouble..

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Today I was speaking with my freind Scott at work.. In the course of trying to untangle a particularly thorny political problem he shared with me a quote from his Grandmother.. She used to say.. “don’t go looking for trouble.. trouble  will find you”.  In this case.. he meant that it would be best to wait for the hornets nest to come to us.. rather than to kick it and see what comes out (sorry to mix metaphors )

I thought about that bit of wisdom all afternoon. I’ve been really stewing about finding the ‘next big thing’  that I am supposed to do.. I am going through life these days with the feeling that  I’m supposed to be doing something ‘bigger’ and more important .. something that matters more in the world  than working at a big company. . The funny thing is.. over the past several weeks I’ve been getting a quite different message from the universe..  not that I shouldn’t be thinking bigger.. but that I shouldn’t be trying so hard to find it.. it will find me….

sounds like trouble.. no 🙂

nte all, nite sam

-me

Ps.. I mentioned above that the universe is sending me consistent messages about where I am now.. . just  before I hit ‘post’ on the above entry.. I got the following note from Diane.. She follows this guy’s blog called Heron Dance.  Every day he posts one of his watercolors and a thought. She sent his post today to me .. Today it included a short poem by Wendell Berry

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

– Wendell Berry, Collected Poems