The Colony – A Daring, New, Survival Experiment Begins 07.21.09 10EP *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZFAHRkcI5c

Just saw this new commercial for the show

I like it !

Good day today..   Diane took both dogs to get hair cuts.. here’s a before..


… and an ‘after’ Satori looks like she’s half as big !

Work was fun today.. Had some out of town friends in which always makes things fun. I got home on the early side in time to see Avery and Morgan who’d come by for Yoga. Avery is just back from 4 weeks in Ghana.. she said it was awesome.

TOnight we had a great Burnign man meeting at David D’s house inBristol.. THere’s actually metal biegin cut. I cna actually see this thing coming togetther !.. Here are the large planetary gears that will make the carosel.

We also played wiht the scal e model to work out soem mechanical ideas.

Our secret weapon in building this thing is David’s water jet machine. it’s an amazing piece of technilogy.. it uses extrememly high pressure water (10,000 PSI.. squirted through a diamond nozzle) and fine garnet grit to cut through anything.. stell, grnaite, glass, foam, cloth, wood

Seriously.. anything !

David showed us some amazing things he’d made including his business cards that double as bottle openers..

and these cute tiny bicycles, 1/2 inch tall, that he cut out of stainless stell sheet.

I feel good about our progress.. we need to keep the momentum going..

Right now, my momentum is slowing.. gotta sleep. More tomorrow !
Nite all.. nite Sam !
-me

Monday night – at Max's

Only slept 3 hours last night for some reason.. went to sleep well, meditated, but then woke Satori barking at 2 AM…   Dodn’t get back to sleep until 5.. So much on my mind these days.. none of it bad stuff.. just losts and lots of stuff. I think the show starting next week has me more wired than I care to admit. I think I’m more excited than scared about seeing int.. But I guess I’m a little of both…

3 hours sleep made the drive down to NYC this evening harder than normal.. but it was still fun. I spent most od ht time on the phoen.. mostly work stuff.. but a mix of interesting things in any case. I got off the BQE in NYC just in time to take a call from a new friend in  China.. (Hi Lu Yong 🙂 ! she had to sit and listen to me as I tried to drive through Brooklyn lookign for max’s new apartment.   I finally found it … and it’s really a great place.. I’m going to cut out here and take Max and soem of his roomated to get soemthing to eat (It’s 10:30)

I’ll get pictures of Max and his digs tomorrow.. Right now, I have one picture from last Sat. Kim sent us this from our visit to Chris’s rock poetry garden. She aasked us to both pick out a word form the hundreds there….

Here’s our two word haiku…

OK.. gotta go eat.. More tomorrow ! Nite folks, Nite Sam
-me

Sunday night – 4vryung

Interesting day.. Started out by cleaning the whole front entrance way..   I carried all the skis, snowboards, sleds and woodstove stuff up to the attic..   at least 20 times up and down the three floors of stairs for a nice mornign work out..    I figure now tat I have the winter stuff up and out of the way it has my permission to finally really be summer.. It’s probably in the 50’s here again tonight.. it seems like real summer weather still isn’t on the horizon. (no complain from me.. it never needs to be abouve 60 to make me happy) .

The cool weather is having all sorts of wierd effects on people. For example,  Gabe woke up sporting a great new sheriff style mustache.. that boy is growing incredibly quickly.

We had soem great visitors in for breakfast.. first up was y freind Paul Z. who’s in VT visiting his daughter and grandaaughters. Paul used to be the ringleader at bread and puppet .. then was on TV for several years as Beekam.. the crazy scientist in Beekman’s world, the scince show we loves so much when our kids were young. Paul is now workign on a new show abotu the brain. I’m lookign for ways that we can collaborate.. He’s such an amazingly smart and funny guy.. A little later on , friends Larry and leah showed up.. also smart and funny.. the 5 of us all sat aroudn and brainstormed abotu Paul’s brain idea. It was really fun and thoughtprovoiking. I think we cae up wiht soem cool things to work on together !.

Later on in the afternoon, Larry. Leah, Diane, Gabe, Will and I headed downtown just to hang out.. we did a little shopping, a little exploring, a little swinging a little eating.. and a lot of great talking.. We love having them up to visit..

around 9 we said good bye ot Larry and Leah and headed home. As we walked through the parkign garage I noticed this license plate.. which reminded me of Sam.. It’s funny.. soemthing told me that I had to go bakc and take a look and snap this picture..

We then got in our car and drove down to overlook park to pick up Gabe and Will.. they wanted to show us a cool tree house thtat they’d discovered in the park.. Check out the name.. Isn’t that strange and cool ? !

Gabe took us over and showed us the SamStone he’d wedged into the roof of the treehouse.. a great place for a stone.. !

forever young… guess so.. we love you sam.. nite all !
-me

Saturday night – pour iron

Great relaxing day which I very much needed.   We started off iwth a nice run while it was hot and sunny.. then we went over to friends Chris and Kim to see chris’s  work. He’s an excellent stone carver .. and I’d liek to find a way to work together..

Later in the afternoon we headed downtown. Today was the day of the Iron Pour.. Thats when my freinds at the Pine Street Studio get together and melt old radiators and cast them into new and interesting objects. I’d really wanted to cast soemthign this year.. but a combination of lack of time, inspiration and money (in that order)  prevented me from getting my act together enough to design anything. My inability to do that really got me thinking abotu how time constrained I am again.. if anythign, I’m beusier than when I left for the colony.. I was hoping that wouldn’t happen so fast. It jsut means I need to be more mindful of syaign ‘yes’ to so many things, again..

We did make it down in time to see the last pour.. which was great.. !

Seeing the hot metal pour out is such a cool sight !

The ladel takes abotu 100 pounds of white hot metal.. the crew then carrys it over to the sand molds and pours it in… lots of sparks, smoke and steam

Several old freinds were there.. Thea was doing a great project in whch sh cast wierd dools on to the handles of cast iron skillits.

Adrianna did another beutiful had scuplted form.. last year it was a beutiful nude.. thi year it was a mans face .

There were some other great peieces around.. like this bowl

Matts puzzle (from last year)

and his suit and tie from this year

Here’s louie about to uncast

I liked this winged wrench !

and an iron glove

As soon as the last pour was complete it started pouring rain.. it was great seeign the raindrops explode as it hit the hot molds and metal…  We said goodbye and headed to the inn and essex to meet up with aour good friends lary and leah who are up for a few days from pittsburgh

we sepnt the evenign hanging out with them and eating thai food in their room. We can talk for them for hours and hours.. Their coming over tomorrow to talk more…

OOppps.. looks liek that’s it for my batteries.. more tomorrow.. nite all, nite Sam !
-me