I ended up having a busy and productive day down here.. I woke in my folks guest room this morning … and couldn’t figure out where I was for several minutes..   I was so confused. !

They both woke up and fed me and said good bye. and sent me on my way.
Even though I didn’t grow up in this here.. my parents house is fulled with so many memories of my kid-hood… I ate my peanut butter and jelly staring at this picture that’s over my folks dining room table.. it was over our table in Houston… Who are these kids ?… And why are they staring at me ?

It had been a really nice visit. I left my parents house about 7:15 drove the 20 or so miles to Lexington for my talk at IBM Rational Labs.   The traffic was nasty so it took me over an hour…

When I got to the IBM site, this nice woman, Lois,  came up to me and asked me for a funny favor.. She asked me to take this envelope and mail it from Vermont.. It’s some sort of secret pen-pal thing that her scrapbook club does…. or it’s a letter bomb… I’ll let you know which.   I gave her a SamStone as a swap..

I arrived just in time for my talk. The audience was a group of developers and support folks from IBM Rational in our Software Group. I was giving a general career talk.. I think I tried to cram too much in. but it went OK…   There were about 20 folks in the room and 25 or so on the phone.. not bad…   I love getting perspectives of folks in different parts of the company like this.   Here’s my host Jennifer.. and her beautiful crew.

I had a bunch of phone meetings for the rest of the morning .. so I hunkered down in the IBM office and worked there. Since nearly all of my work is now on the computer or phone I can truly work from anywhere now..   I cut out around 1 and went to meet my folks for lunh.. As I left the building I noticed how much closer Spring felt down here.

I met my folks at a bakery in Nattuck.. the building was the old Odd Fellows hall. It was a nice irony because one of the meetings I’d had this morning was the Council of all the IBM Fellows..   .. and most of them are Odd….

I found my folks tucked neatly in a corner of the bakery.. We ordered lunch…  The food sucked.. but the conversation was great.. so it was great… It was a nice bonus seeing them twice in a day..

I stayed with them for about an hour and a half then headed off to my next meeting. I was heading to another IBM office (Westboro) to see my friend John P. ..   On the way I found this bit of regrettable nostalgia..

I spent about an hour with John at the IBM Westboro site.. we had a short, productive meeting..   I’d never visited the site.. it was a really nice place

I  left Westboro at 5:30 in order to  make the ferry dock by 7:30  .. It was an easy drove down.. a few more work calls and a call to Homer and I was there.

The ferry dock was a pretty lively place…  

I only had to wait about 10 minutes until we loaded… This boat is HUGE. there were a ton of cars and trucks to load..

They won’t let you stay in your car…..

But I did notice the GPS showing the car already out in the water.. Don’t know why.. but I thought that was cool

I wandered upstairs and was pleasantly surprised about how nice the boat is.. they have a dining room, lounge, V’s, free WiFi, wall plugs.. you name it..   In fact you might forget it was a boat if it wasn’t for the queasy rolling of the floor (I’m really feeling pretty sick at the moment … )

I had a vision of standing on the point of the bow of the ship with the stars bright above and the wind whipping through my hair.. but then I remember theres was now pointed bow… it’s cloudy and I don’t have that much hair.. so I’ve settled for the more tame fantasy of sitting here at my own Formica table sipping a diet Pepsi and trying not to loose my lucnh…

OK you landlubbers… (what the heck is a lubber.. anyway ? ).. I’m going to go outside  and try getting some fresh air… or possibly heave over the rail..  

Smooth sailing folks.. ’nite Sam
-me

Busy and productive day.. though I got so distracted that I missed a major meeting that I was supposed to be speaking at. I don’t think I’ve ever done that. I felt  so bad… Sometimes a screw up like that is a small wake up call.. I realize that I’ve been getting pretty spacey at work again…  Nonetheless.. I did get a bunch done today.. My last act of my work day was to pack up my car for the trip down to Boston and Nantucket. I’m giving a career talk to some IBM folks down here early tomorrow morning.. then working down here for the day., then going over to Nantucket to do some science shows for them this weekend.  I’m psyched to see the schools on the island.  My buddy Willow (hi Willow ) found that they’d written a newspaper article about this trip.. before i got there… hope it lives up to the hype !  Given the length of the drive, I’d decided to take the Prius. Miraculously… everything fit !

Before I started the drive to Boston, I stopped at Marci’s for some Reiki body work. She wanted to test out her new Shirodhara  on me.. It’s a funky pot with a spigot that drips hot oil on your head for 20 minutes.. it sounds like torture.. but it’s amazingly relaxing.

The oil is at 110 degrees and has herbs infused in it .. Here’s the list of stuff in there.. As I say.. it felt great… but I did feel like a salad afterwards.

From there I ran home, hugged Gabe, Diane and the dogs and took off for Boston. The drive down was fast.. mostly work calls with folks I like talking too… but I also had  a long conversation with Dale D.. the guy who started Make Magazine.  If you don’t know Make, check it out.. it’s a magazine and online community that’s all about taking things apart and putting them back together in strange and wonderful ways. All 3 kids and I have had so much fun making stuff from that magazine.. It was an honor to talk to Dale. He’s making a TV show about inventing and hacking on PBS.. and I may get a chance to work on it !! 

I got to my folks house in Sherborn at about 11:15.. they had this great sushi spread waiting for me !

My mom with the sweater she just knit for my nephew.. I think this is the first she’s ever made.. Looks good !

We had a nice time tlaking for about 2 hours..It is great seeing them..  then it was time for bed !

I gtta be up early tomorrow.. so I’ll sing off here…   Gnite all, Gnite Sam.. Grandma and Grandpa say ’hey’
-me

Ps. here’s my great grandfather Phillip  (my mother’s mother’s, father)

And my father’s mother’s father Sam

And my father’s mother’s mother , Sarah   They say hi too

It’s starting to feel a lot like spring these days. Cold nights and warm sunny days. It’s still cold enough to freeze the tea I left in the car .. but warm enough for shirt sleeves by afternoon.  It was about 14 degrees when I ran this morning. and about 45 by the time I took Gabe to lacrosse.

We can see more bare ground every day.. though the yard is still mostly covered with snow…   It’s staying lighter, later too which feels good

I had a jam packed day.. my 2nd meeting of the day was pretty interesting. My friend Kim has offered to help me make my office usable again. I’ve been using it as more of a storage room for the last couple of months… I ended up emptying the contents of an other storage space I had into there. The result is a place that isn’t really conducive to working. Kim’s offered to help me find  some furniture and find a way to store/get rid of 25 years of gunk that I have in there now. We spent about 30 minutes looking around in some of the old labs.. and I found some cool looking lab fixtures I may be able to press into service as a desk and chair. Should be cool if I can figure out a way to move it to my office.

I did have one offsite meeting today with friends from UVM and Champlain. The two places are discussing ways that they be able to collaborate around using modern multi media, gaming  and social networking to help promote science technology engineering and math careers. I love the fact that they’re looking for ways to work together. I’ve hung around enough in both places to know how well their skills and needs compliment one another. It was really fun to be in a room with these two sets of friends coming together for the first time. I’m cautiously very optimistic that this will be the start of of something good !.

I got home to find the living room full of Lacrosse stuff. mason was stringing up one of Sam’s old lacrosse sticks for Gabe.. Gabe was running around bouncing off of things with his new helmet. Tonight as supposed to be Gabe’s team’s first practice. It was to be indoors until it gets a bit warmer.

Diane made Gabe’s favorite dinner.. cheeseburger burrito with fries inside to give home energy for lacrosse

I drove Gabe up to Brown’s river only to find that the 5-6’s were practicing earlier this evening.. It wasn’t a waste though.. we were able to get Gabe signed up and get him a jersey.. I’m excited about the season starting up.. I love watching Gabe play..

Lacrosse season brings up some strong memories of Sam, too. He just loved the game…  I look at this picture of him in his lacrosse gear every day…

Gabe and I took a quick detour on the way home and dropped in on a conference I’d helped organize that was being held at the Inn at Essex.Gabe and I just walked around and said hi to some friends then left. One cool thing about the conference is that they had these great bunny ice sculptures ’guarding’ the doors.

We left a SamStone on one for folks to find…   OK.. It’s getting late.. gotta sleep More tomorrow   .. Rah-rah everyone.. rah-rah Sam (that’s what they always say at the end the lacrosse games)
-me

ps. I just got word from USAIR that they allowed me to reinstate those 67K miles that had expired and donate them to their Miles of Hope program.  The program uses donated frequent flyier miles ot help with ’angel flight’ programs forfamilies of sick kids, make a wish foundationand the red cross. It’s easy to donate the miles.. just do it before they expire.. .. not like me 🙂   Thank you USAIR !

Busy day at work…. but not much worth relating here. I managed to make it to Tim F’s chiropractic clinic in Jericho again.. Whatever Tim’s doing seems to be working.. My back doesn’t hurt for the first time in about 10 years.. that’s kind of cool when something like that just stops…   I got home in time for Diane’s 6PM yoga. It was a quite/slow  class tonight just what I needed. I love Dianes yoga.. I love Diane.

Gabe and I had some minor mischief planned for the evening. I’d made a bunch of Aluminum and Potassium Perchlorate (Sam always loved to say ’Potassium’) … flash powder yesterday. Gabe and I were messing around with it yesterday after Max left… I had a fair bit of it left over in the lab.. All through Yoga I was getting the creeps knowing that it was sitting in that jar right under us.. Even though Perchlorate compounds are ’relatively stable’ .. I wanted to get it out of the barn….   After dinner (peanut noodles – yum !) … Gabe, Mason. Abbot and I took the flash powder outside, poured it in a paper cup, stuck in a fuse, lit it and moved back These pictures just do not capture the beautiful white flash and mushroom cloud.   I was 20 feet back and I felt like I’d gotten an instant tan form the thing and  I’m still seeing spots. Diane came outside right after to tell us that Brad’s dad, Lee, was sitting in his house on the hill on the other side of the interstate when he saw the explosion.. he figured it was us and called down to ask for more.. It was very cool

Note: don’t try this without a reasonably sane  adult..The following can be dangerous.

Next on the list was to try an experiment I’d seen which used confectioners sugar as a ’safe’ way of shooting 10 foot long jets of flame from your mouth. (Again.. ’safe’ being a relative term here).. You can do this with any fine milled substance such as powdered sugar, corn starch, flour, coffee creamer etc.   Anything that fine burns like crazy when you mix it with enough air because it’s got such a big surface area to volume ratio.  This is what causes things like grain elevators and sugar factories to blow up.. (In fact there was a tragic sugar factory explosion just a few weeks back) ..
   Anyway.. the idea is you pour a cup full of powdered sugar into your mouth.. then blow it out forcefully over an open flame. We used an alcohol soaked paper towel on a coat hanger.   You don’t want to use anything that would low out like a match.. and you certainly do not want to be holding the fire source in your hand.
These movies don’t really do it justice.. you produce quite a jet of flame this way.. and it’s much safer than using flammable liquids  such as alcohol or kerosene like fire swallower’s use. These powders are non toxic.. and non flammable until they’re spread in air. The main downside is that you’re left with a mouthful of wet powdered sugar at the end.. ewwwwwwww

Here’s the aftermath… a bunch of sugar coated nutcases !

Sweet dreams all.. sweet dreams, Sam
-me