I’m still in this strange state of having way too much to do.. . not enough time to do it.. and really liking everything I’m doing/ I’m used to being over committed and hating everything I’m doing because of it.

I’m even liking my work quite a bit now.. I’m trying hard not to bring it home with me.. but it’s getting harder to do.. I find myself leaving work when the parking lots like this.. (That’s my prius out there alone)..

2 days ago I got a survey where they were askeing each oft he execs on site to answer questions about work life balance.. It was fun filling it out (I love surveys) .. It was also good thinkign about the ‘balance’ I have now. One of the questions was ‘how many hours do you work a week’. I did soem quick accounting and realized that I’m now down to 55 hours per week.. that’s down from more than 70(counting working at home) where I was before Sam’s passing. That’s pretty cool.. it think. The problem is that I’ve said ‘yes’ to so many cool things inside and outside of work that those 55 hours are not leaving me enough time for …. goofing around.. hangining out, just doing nothing…. or thinking

TANyo make matters more complicated, Max and I just decided that we are goign to Burning man at the end of the month.. We bought our plane and event tickets last night.. Now… why in the world would I take on a major trip like that when I’m already so busy…. on the other hand.. how could I say ‘no’ to going to burning man with my son…

Not sure how to change this… but I need to get it back to sanity.. I went to Marci today.. one of the things we talked about was maybe its just about changing my attitude.. instead of focusing that I have too much to do.. focus that I’m doing so much fun stuff…

I wish it were that easy to shift my perspective……

Anyway… I came home this afternoon to find gabe and justin on bikes pulling Nate around in a wheel chair that Max had found the other day.. It was hilarious, .. and crazy…

Then another 4 hours work session at Homers on the robot project.. tonight we made good progress.. but we have so much more to do. Here’s homer ‘contemplating’

Sara and ‘becca the artists are looking at our animatronic face.. Sara is doing here best evil laugh here and we’re trying to capture it n our faces movements.

Here’s Cesar tweeking the code for the motors.

here’s jana trying to grease the lift that will be the creatures body

These are the solenoid valves that will control the monsters arms.. look at the initials.. SMC.. Sam’s initials/

I got home around 11:30 to find Gabe and Ian hatching a cool plan. They movd the basketball net next to the tramp.. what a cool game.. I got up there and di some killer dunks myself.. That boy is very crazy and clever.

OK.. I have a 7am (yuck) burning man mtg tomorrow morning. Gottasleep.. Nite all. Nite Sam !
-me

Change feels funny to me now.. And change is all around me always. This week our neighbors big red barn is coming down. it’s been about to fall down for some time.. Its not a particularly old barn.. I think it’ s form the mid to late 40’s the old barn that was on the roughly the same spat burned in the 40’s. Still.. I’ve gotten pretty attached to i tin the last 26 years. Believe it or not.. I talk to this barn every time I run by it.. I ask it how it’s doing.. and it asks me how I’m doing. Since Sam’s passing I respond by saying// ‘thanks for asking’. You probably think I’m kidding.. but I never kid.
The big red barn became a landmark in the week after Sept 11 2001. Our friends Bud and Bob (or maybe it was just Bob ?) got out there and put the most amazing american flags on the front and side of the building. I remember watching them paint it one day and thinking that was the most amazing, patriotic and positive thing I remember from that awful week…

They’re taking the barn down gently with the help of Recycle North.. the windows and the siding will all be reincarnated into something else. Building material karma…

I took these pictures yesterday

You know.. I’ve lived here more than 26 years.. and I’ve never stuck my head in this bulding.. here’s the cows eye view of the innards.

I came back today and found they’d gotten the windows and half of the siding out..

So.. I walked over there tonight and asked the barn.. “how are you” This pictures says it all for me… ‘What’s happening to me !?!?”

Well.. It’s good they’re taking the building down.. I know it’s unsafe.. I’ll just miss seeing it..
Good luck my wooden freind. I hope your boards go to soem good use..
Good luct to all of you.. good luck Sam
-me

ps. Folks.. our good friend gary just sent me an amazing song he wrote. he says it was inspired by Sam’s passing.. though it’s not about Sam.. Take a listen.   I think you’ll like it ! 
-me

Blissfully little to report today. It was a great transition day from vacation.. nothing planned.. and not much attempted. Diane and I took the dogs for a run up honey hollow this morning. It was a bright, cool clear morning though it rained most o the rest of the day.

Around 12:30 I drove over the Homer’s to pick up some of the microprocessors I’d left over there the other day. Unfortunately Homer and Mary were not home.. I think they were kayaking.. I grabbed my stuff and came back home.

Buddy and Seth came over at 3 for a work session on the Haunted Forest Project-X project. We’ve been falling a bit behind on our schedule.. A bunch of the intern’s who are helping with the project are about to go back to wherever they came form. i was determined to get the face animatronics done this week in time for our work session with Sara and Becca.. the articts.. on Wednesday night .

We got a ton tun between about 3 and about 11 tonight. Seth Buddy and I finshed the mechanicals for the the face animations including the jaw that moves to sound/voice, moiving eyebrows and lights that flicker and brighten in synch with the sound.

I really enjoy workign with these kids.. they’re shapr prorammers.. It’s fun watching them get familiar witht he joys and limitations of 8 bit microcontrollers.

We broke for a delicous dinner that Diane made… We had a bunch of kids around for one reason oranother.. gabefriends, maxi’s freinds.. my project friends..

Dianemade a mutant vegan pizza.. it looked lik it was ready to explode when she pulled it out of the oven.

Then back to work.. Around 11:00 everythign came together. I’d finished the wiring and Seth had finished the programming. We actually got everything we needed done for ou rwednesday meeting with the artists who are doing the creatures skeleton .

We still have lot sof tuning to do.. but the creatures jaw moves and eyebrows move to sound.. And it’s lighs flicker and brgheen as the sounds changes.. Here’s a low quality first example.. many more to come

If anyone’s interested.. here’s the Arduino code we wrote tongight.. Not beutiful.. but it’s fun to post code in your blog…

---

include ..nterrupt.h> // For interrupt functions cli() abd sei()
include ..o.h> // This file will look for the appropriate header file for the chip being used (ie., iom168.h will be included in our project)
include “Servo.h” // For open source servo library

// Create a count value for the timer to reset to:

static const unsigned char countValue = 6;
int in = 0;
int dimCounter = 0;
int yellowSwitch = 2;
int powerYellow = 0;
int yellowLED = 5;
int redLED = 3;
int inputVal = 0;
int mouthAvg = 0;
int inputTotal = 0;
int eyebrowVal = 0;
int inputArray16;
int i = 0;
int countMouth = 0;
int countEyebrow = 0;
boolean yellowOn = false;

// Make a macro to reset the timer when called:
define RESET_TIMER2 TCNT2 = countValue

// Evil global servo handlers:
Servo mouth;
Servo rightEyebrow;
Servo leftEyebrow;
// Timer 2 ISR:
ISR(TIMER2_OVF_vect)
{
Servo::refresh();
RESET_TIMER2;
}

// Setup timer 2 to trigger an interrupt everytime it rolls over
void Timer2Init(void)
{
//Timer2 Settings: Timer Prescaler /1024
TCCR2B |= 0x07;
// Use normal mode
TCCR2A |= 0x00;
// Use internal clock
ASSR |= 0x00;
//Timer2 Overflow Interrupt Enable
TIMSK2 |= 0x01;
// Reset the timer to whatever TIMER_COUNT is set to:
RESET_TIMER2;
}
void setup()
{
// Initialize timer 2 for operation:
Timer2Init();
// Enable interrupts (cli() will disable them)
sei();
mouth.attach(9);
leftEyebrow.attach(10);
rightEyebrow.attach(11);
Serial.begin(9600);
}

void loop()
{
inputVal = analogRead(in);
inputArraycountMouth = inputVal;
countMouth ++;
if (countMouth == 8)
{
countMouth = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;
for (i = 0; i <= 7; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
mouthAvg = (inputTotal/2)+80;
mouthAvg = constrain(mouthAvg,80,120);

inputArraycountEyebrow = inputVal;
countEyebrow ++;
if (countEyebrow == 16)
{
countEyebrow = 0;
}
inputTotal = 0;

for (i = 0; i <= 15; i ++)
{
inputTotal = inputTotal + inputArrayi;
}
eyebrowVal = inputTotal;

if(analogRead(yellowSwitch) == 0)
powerYellow++;
if(powerYellow > 0 && powerYellow < 255)
{
dimCounter++;
if(dimCounter % 16 == 0)
{
powerYellow++;
yellowOn = true;
}
}
if(yellowSwitch == LOW && yellowOn)
powerYellow = 0;

if(inputVal>=8 && yellowOn)
{
analogWrite(redLED,random(100));
}
else
{
analogWrite(redLED,0);
}
eyebrowVal = eyebrowVal/16;
analogWrite(yellowLED,powerYellow);
rightEyebrow.write(eyebrowVal);
leftEyebrow.write(150 – eyebrowVal);

mouth.write(mouthAvg);
Serial.print(inputVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(eyebrowVal);
Serial.print(” “);
Serial.print(analogRead(yellowSwitch));
Serial.println();
}

---

And there you have it.. the source code for my day.. OK.. I gotta get to selep now.. Gnood night to you all. G’nite Sam !
-me

It’s about 2 Am and we’ve been home fro about 2 hours. It was a really good vacation.. relaxing and fun.. good time with family. Last night we closed the week by all going to eat at the funky bar in the resort we were staying in.. We couldn’t get seated until about 9:30… Gabe passed the time waiting by perfecting his Ollie’s on the wall outside.

As we went into the restaurant, Shaun showed me she’d hidden a SamStone.. under a stuffed wild cat just outside the bar.

Dinner was fun and chaotic.. here’s my folks and sybs.. (and Jake)

And here are the long suffering ‘outlaws’.. they put up with alot !

We went home and packed most of our stuff.. then Gabe, Max and Iwent down to do one more fire of the spud cannon come fishing pole.. We did a little fire experiment with glow sticks.. messy .. but cool

Gabedid the steel wool spin thing.. Looks cool in time lapse.

Then we coverd one o the golf balls we found in glow stick go, loaded it behind a potato with a tuft of steel wool attached . and launched out into lake superior. The film doesn’t do it justice at all. It was really spectacular.

This morning we woke up early to finish packing.. max and I zoomed down to the lake to do a quick divein.. We hadn’t seen anyone in the lake all week.. I guessed because of the 40 degree temperature.. Shawnand Betsy came down to watch..

In we went..

..

Then it was back to the cabin to move out.. I found soem cool tuff as I was cleaning.. Liek this clayhead that one of the cousins or syblings must have made while we were making SamStones.

Our last act was to place a SamStone. We’d been thinking that if Sam were here he’d be climbing on the rafters.. So Gabe colimbed up.. shimmied across the rafters and placed a SamStone on the crosspiece.

Then it was time to say good bye.. bye-Bye jake and mary

Bye-bye granpa and grandma ..

Sigh.. it was sad to leave.. but I was ready to go home.

We ran into Billy, ben and Betsy in th airport even though they’d leve about 40 minutes earlier than we did.. They’d had to change their flight.. so we hung out with them a little.. Itwas nice getting to say goobye to them again..

The trip home was long but uneventful.. a 2 hour drive, three flights and some long layovers made it nearly 15 hours door to door ..

There was a beautiful sunset as we left detroit..

Max and Rose met us at the airport.. . It sounded like they had a fun a peaceful stay at the house.. They loved the dogs and the dogs loved them . we drdve them home then came back to the house… which was spottless ! It was so great having them watch the place.

We all spent some time in the back yard watching the meteors. Thepersieds peakss tomorrow night.. and we saw a bunch of bright shooting stars tonight. Each one makes methink of Sam..

Right now, Max, Nicholos and Nick’s freind Wyndham are playing guitar and singing.. it’ now 2:15.. I better get ome sleep . More tomorrow.. Man it’s good to be home ! Gnite all.. Gnite Sam.
-me