Greetings from Somers NY> I’m staying at my good friends’ Ruchir and Rashi’s. I’m down here for a set of meeting over the next day and a half. It’s always wonderful to see them.  I got hear abotu 10:30 after a full days work at home.. I had to work at home today because today was the day we began work on our new spectic system. Nothing beats putting a large amount of money into a hole in the ground 🙁 ..
Honestly .. getting this fixed will be a huge relief to us. Diane’s been having to take our clothes to the laundremat for many months.. It will be nice to wash, shower or flush whenever we feel like it now.

I have to admit it’s exciting to watch the new system go in. The system was designed by our freind Justin.. and our buddy Bill A. is doing the excavation work…   Bill is a true artist with this big machine.. I keep thinkign what a cool robot we coul dmake out of that excavator.

First thing we had to do was to number the fieldstones from the part of the walkway that had to be removed.. we nede ot get these stones back in their original  places.

Here’s comes Bill with the shovel full of work

Here he is lifting the sidewalk stones. He is so delicate with that machine that OI think he could scratch his back with it.

He also had to remove the back step.. I gotta do soemthing about that sill rotting..

Here’s the hole for both tanks of the new system

And the dirt that came out of it….

Here’s the new gravel in the bottom

These guys are perfectionists.

Here come the tanks…

While the guys were placeing the tanks, woody was wirign the septic pup and Bruce and I worked on getting the air vent routed to the roof.. easier than it sounds. We ended up having to put the pipe up through one of the interior rooms.. and then up into the attic. Not easy at all.. The hardest part was cleanign a path through the mess in the attic to reach the place the pipe will come through..

OK.. I need to sleep now. We’ll have soem more piuctures from the spetic system over the next couple of days.. I gotta admit, it’s all pretty exciting .. isn’t it Sam ?
-me

Frriends..
  Max and I had a wonderful day at Makerfaire in San Mateo CA today.. We left Rafe’s and Lauerence’s at about 9 AM… the girls all waved us goodbye..

After a bit of wrestling with traffic and directions  we found the fair ground remote parking .. There was a long line of folks heading into the fair.. it was really packed !

We picked up our tickets at will call.. and went inside.. It was truly amazing and overwhelming. We spent all day there and I don’t believe that we saw a full half. THere was a bit of everything including art cares straight out of burningman.

There were also some great high voltage shows including this battery powered marx generator.

And these large tandem tesla coils with a 15 to 20 foot spark !  These were made by Greg Leyh.. a hero in the tesla coil community.

These guys had a chapter of engineers without boarders. THey showed us the wind generator design they’d developed for folks in gutemala.

This guy had a squid hat.. (squids are my favorite !)

This guy built a machine that printed any 3D solid using sugar !

there were a ton of blinking lights everywhere.

.. and lots of volunteer scientists.. just like me. In fact.. these guys even looked like me !

I tran into my freind Eric from NY.. that was a nice suprise !

Jacob Von Slatt… a  famous stema punk guy from Mass. was there demonstrating his wares..

therse guys developed the high spede camera rig that Max and sam used to take soem stop motion pictues.. I just happen to have those pictures with me.. what a cool coincidence !

there were all sorts of things you could buy then buiild.. like these cosmic glasses that made sounds and lights to sooth your head..

I particulalry liked this jelly fishe display ..

One high point was a GREAT talk by Mythbuster’s adam savage on the improtance of failing.. ihe got it just right.. Failing is how you find out the boundarieds of what you know. It was an inspiring and human talk..

As it turns out, adma is also inspiring and human.. we talked a little abotu our own Discovery TV show..

there was a ton of stuff outside.. including this wood gassifier..  just like one we’ve recently built.

I liked this creepy walking, solar powerd electric thingy..

and this steam powered motorcycle was pretty cool, too.

Max and I saw this at the last burning man.. there were a tun of burners here…

like the flaming lotus girls.. here’s a pretty piece of theirs.

This huge robot hand wasn’t doing anythign when we came by..

We saw a freat demo by the diet coke and mentos guys.. they did a show with 102 bottles of soda.. very impressive (movie tomorrow when I get more bandwidth)

I saw several folks peddlign around dressed as cupcakes.

We foudn a guy selling maps of last years burning man.. Max managed to find our camp in the map.. 2:10 and fairlane

We were just abotu the middle of this picture,

Max got to sit in an Elctric Tesla motors car

We saw these sperical roots at the burn also ..

We had the honor and pleasure of meeting with Dald D and Cindy… Dale’s the founder of Make magazine, MakeTV and the makerfaire. I got a chance to tell him how much I and the rest of the plante appreciatewhat he and his freinds have done here. we had a great talk about poissible collaborations.  Dale had soem excellent ideas.  I’m sure we’ll worktogether on soemthing soon !

I foudn the IBM bus on the way out..

We got back to rafes exactly on time.. Sabine was sitting there already dressed as a zebra !

Then we had a wonderful and ecliectic dinner party hosted by laurence and Rafe.. t included the former principle clarinetist fromt eh SF orchestra, his wife a classics prof, afreind of Rafes from Googe My couasing Mark and rafe’s sister rima and mom Katie clare. it was a great mix of people.

I’m glad I’m out of pictures.. I can’t write another line.. Im so sleepy.. Max and I are goign back to the faire tomorrow.. there’s still so much to see !.
OK.. I love you family.. Gnite Sam
-me

I’m writing tonight from Palo Alto California. I’m out here with Max to go see Makerfaire
a huge celebration of making things. Max met me at 7AM this mornign at JFK. It was so good to see Max..He’s living in Brooklyn this summer and   I hadn’t seen him since I’ve gotten back from The Colony..We flew cross country to San Fransisco then hopped Caltrain down to Palo Alto where our friend Laurance met us with a car we could use.. Laurence and her husband Rafe are very dear friends of mine/. Rafe was my suite mate at MIT  some 31 years ago .. (OMG !) Max and I will be staying with them for the two days we’re out here.
   Max and I dropped Larance at home then went out in search of food.. we grabbed soem veggie sushi downtown which was a treat..

then we headed up to the Stanford radio telescope park and foudn a

place to lie down in the shade. Both of us were runnign on very little

sleep. I was out in seconds.

The teelscope itself was looming back in the distance.. It’s quite pretty, actually…

Which is more than I can say for my big toe.. posing here wiht the Standord University clock tower. I always love Stanford.. I got in here for graduate school out decided t go to CMU instead.. it worked out great in pittsburgh.. but it’s always fun to wonder what it would have been lile living here.

Around 5 we headed the short distance back to Rafe and Laurance’s new house.

It was the first tie I’d met their new baby Sophie who’s now 1 and a half…

and only the second time I’ve seen Sabine who’s 4 and a half..   Sabine and I made a lady out of broken cornn chips..   yum !

We went out and got some chineese take out .. then sat around and talked ’till we all nearly fell asleep on the floor.. OK.. truth be told.. only I fell asleep on the floor.  It’ sreally wonderful to be out here with Max.. and with Rafe and his family…

My leasson for the day came from the beer we were drinking.. the label says “Einfach Leben”.. or “live Simply”.. What good advice.. do I think I can ever get my life to ‘simple’ > I’m trying I think
OK.. nite everyone. Nite Sam !
-me