Saturday afternoon – en route

Diane, Max, Gabe and I (and.. ) are sitting at the Burlington airport waiting to board our flight to Lutsen MN by way of Detroit, Duluth then a two hour drive. As always. getting packed took about 10 times longer than we figured it should.. The car was 95 percent packed by about 12:30.. but we didn’t get out of the house for aanother 2 hours or so.. Diane’s the only organized person in this family.. but anyone who knows us… knows that.

When it came time to lave we had to say goobye to the dogs.. that’s really hard to do.. they could sense that we’re heading out. We’ll have to call and talk to them

Luckily Nicholas wsa there to distract them.. Maybe we should have given Nick a bone too.

We first had to go and pick up Rose and Max2 (not our max.. but a rental Max) … who will be house/dog sitting… Then we all went to New Wold Burritos for a quick lunch. The place is great they sell burritos that are the size of your head. !

We used the time to go over the dog and house care manual.. Our house is not all that simple.. it’s like an organism..

We got to the airport about an hour before the flight which worked out well. Max2 and Rose dropped us off and drove off . We’re on our own..

Hey.. looks like we’re boarding.. I may update this as we go.. but if not.. More tomorrow from the wilds of Minnisota. Wish us luck.. talk to ya’ll tomorrow. ttyl Sam.
-me

ps. We just got to Lutsen.. The second we got out of the car, Max and I saw the hugest shooting star.. Sam’s here too !

Thursday night – no camera

Fun and very busy day./ Full day of work from 8 till 6 plus a few fun things thrown in. Unfortunately.. I forgot to bring my camera.. so you’ll have to settle for my drawings…

One fun thing is that I had a breif meeting with Dr. Peter .. the Neurologist. And my friend Ray from Champlain. My freind Casar and I are helping them hook a breathing device ( a spirometer) to a new video game they’re creating. the goal is to make it more fun for kids with breathing disorders like CF to do  their breathing exercise. We’ve figured out how to interface to the spirometer and we gave them a short demo of how the thing works.  We showed them ..how you can show someones breathing rate as a real time graph on the PC.  Peter and Ray thought it was coolk, I think. It’s a really fun project. I’m time constrained.. so Cesart’s help in the commuincations programming is gong to be a big help

I also had a cool lunch meeting downtown with Ben C. He goes around the country talking about the gross missalignment of our countries spending priorites… He’s made a pie chart that shows how pentagon spending relates to other things like education spending, health care, housing the poor., energy research . etc…  . YOu can cehk the story out at TrueMajority.org

We were talking about ways that some simple but elegant science demos could be used to illustrate some of his points regarding US and World spending priorities.. It’s got me thinking. Think ‘Geeks for Peace’ !

It was good talking to him… another bonus was a quick lunch at the new NY style deli just down the street. I had Cold borscht and a knish.. Ben had real corned beef . you can’t beat that/ What’s more they gave us real NYC pickles.. I took one back to Ben’s office and zapped it for him with 110 Volts.. to illstrate my point about scince as a way of making a point (what point ? .. I wasn’t sure 🙂

The rest of the day was busy with meetings.. I got out around 6 and headed up to Tim Ferrils.. Got my back fxed.. then dropped in breifly on my freind Dave’s 30th IBM anniversary party. It was really wonderful. Lots of friends from IBM and mutual freinds from his neighborhood. Dave and his accapella group sang 50’s and 60’s music.. they were excelelnt. It was great seeing this side of Dave I’d never seen. He has a beutiful voice..a nd he plays a mean air trombone..

I got home around 8:00  just in time to take a late walk with Diane and the doogies.. Now.. II can’t keep my eyes open.. so I’ll sign off.. Nite all.. Nite Sam
-me

Wednesday night – fried green tomatoes

Oy.. what lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng day.. My frst meeting was at 8.. and my last … albeit not a work meeting.. ended at 11:30. I’m very. very glad that I’m taking next week off. I need it..

I had a fstrange Sam dream just before I wokke up this morning. I reamed I’d made a huge holographic pictrure of Sam playing guitar. I was headign downtown tot eh formal unvailing..and I couldn’t find a place to park.. So .. what’s that mean ?

Another interesting Sam thing.. All of a sudden I can hear/ Sam’s voice in my head.. For some reason it’s been hard for me to imagine his voice for a while.. now it’s back.. and I’m really glad..

It’s late now.. so I’ll doa quick once over on my day

First… I disobeyed a sign !!!!!!!!

Then I had dinner with my friend Chuck who’s visiting from Austin and my buddy Pete. Chuck wand somewhere Vermonty. so we went to the Kitchen Table. We were so loud and animated in our work talk that once of the other couples asked to be reseated !

The restaurant embraced my veganism and worked up a special just for me.. fried green tomoatoes with wild chanterall miusrooms.. Yummy !

Around 8:30 I managed to get to Homer’s for a Haunted forest work sessin. Tonight it was just me, Homer and Brandon. we got a ton done !

Here’s one of the sholder joints of the creaure..

And one of the elbow joints.

We als managed to build up a framework of the face animatronics. We were using the monster servos that I’d bought online. We got the jaw working pretty well:

..

Finally, the face is coming together.. Here’s Brandon with the Face skeleton

OK.. I’m falling asleep. Time to go to bed.Talk to you all tomorrow
Gnite Sam.. Gnite me
-jc

Monday evening – Gabe’s room

Somehow today wasn’t nearly as chaotic as I expected.. I’d stayed up late last night trying to figure out how to manage all the things I’m trying to do at once. It just didn’t seem so bad after a good night sleep. I’m in a funny space right now.. I felt like I was beginning to max out on many axis t once.. but it feels like I was able to catch it and back down.. I feel like I’m in a sort of dreamy slow state.. it’s kind of weird. I find my self staring at things or listening to things with different eyes and ears.. Like things felt the months after Sam died. Sort of magical..

Well… I got through the busy day sort of peacefully..

I had an IEEE meeting today after work.. We’re scheming some good enineeering outreach fun in about a year.. It was good seeing those guys.

It was a steak place.. so only salad for me.. well.. that and the best Black and Tan I think I’ve ever had… Isn’t it beautiful ?

One fun surprise is that Jim from the IEEE just bought a moped.. it’s only 150CC’s and gets about 100 miles per gallon !..

I couldn’t resist a ride

..

I got home to find that Gabe had completely changes his room around. he and Trevor had taken apart his bunk bed.. How many times had I fallen asleep reading him a story up there .. Amazing.. I would tell the kids Baby Zatar , Baby Rataz and Baby Tazar stories // Gabe was Baby Tazar…

The bunk bed parts were on our floor.. waiting for me to wrap them and gall them up to the attic.

One thing Gabe hadn’t planned for was an intruder.. One drawback of sleeping near the floor .. It’ll be hard to get Chai up.. she looks so comfortable !

Gabe just called me in to look at the way he decorated thhis room. He has every light up gadget we own in there.. (and that’s quite a collection) . Here’s a small tour of Gabe’s light garden :

OK.. That’s it for now.. There’s a hot ath waiting for me.. more tomorrow. Nite all, Nite Sam
-me