Sunday night after a very busy weekend. Last night there were a bunch of kids here just hanging out. Max had a hankering for Pizza Hut pizza so Diane picked some up on her way home from Stratton with Gabe. The Pizza entered the house at about 10PM.. and was gone about 3 minutes later… It looked like a bunch of prehistoric ostriches attacking. (I have prehistoric ostrich’s on the brain tonight.. we just came back from watching the movie 10,000 BC where said birds are in the supporting cast)

Gbe and Diane had a great time at the US Snowboarding Open in Stratton Friday/Sat. They went down with Dylan and his mom… they all had a greatcouple of days skiing/riding and got to see a bunch of the competition. I’m glad that they got a chance to go…

    We woke today at 6:30 for puppy call… then went downstairs. Look what the easter bunny brought ..

There were even baskets for Chai and Satori.. this year.

We sat down for a nice breakfast of fruit crepes and smoked salmon. We took a few minutes to bring Sam into our day.. as we always do with family gatherings. I missed Sam like crazy today.. as I do every day. Every holiday since he died is hard for me… but I don’t think I’d say harder than any other day.. it’s just .. I don’t know… a milestone  I guess.

After breakfast we did the search for eggs… As I type this evening.. I can still see a couple.. so there’s still more to do.

Somehow candy leeches figured into this year’s haul

Ooops.. this egg must be from last year !  Wrong candy !

… and jelly beans as always.

Easter reminds me of a very funny (and true) short story by David Sedaris in his book ’Me Talk Pretty One Day’ . In this story Sedaris describes a group of beginning French students  trying to describe  easter traditions from around the world… you can read it here.. but be advised.. it has some  … uhhhh…  ’strong’ language…

One thing I noticed while we were looking for eggs this morning is that there’s a hidden bearded sunglass dude in the patter of our carpet.   Look in the middle..

Mason,Abbot and Alex came buy this morning on the way up to work on the mountain.. So did Alex and Martha Alexander. Emma was still here as well. It was jumping this morning.

Emma was taking Max part way back to Pratt today.. so we all did a bunch of soaking up Max …. It’s been really wonderful having him home.

It was time for them to leave at about 12:30.. We all crowded out side to say ’bye’.  Emma was dropping Max off at Albany to catch a train to NYC while she drove back to Endicott/Endwell.

There they go… I missed Max the moment the car door shut.. It really has been nice having him and his friends around.. Now it’s back to the quite 3 of us again.

Gabe and I messed around for a few hours this afternoon. One project was to try ’flying’ a 50 foot hot air balloon I have. It’s basically like one giant ultra thin garbage bag. It works best on a cool, sunny day like today (mid 20’s outside) . The wind was a little strong.. but it worked pretty well. The sun warms the air in the black plastic.. making it lighter than air..It floats up and whips around like a giant snake. If you let them go they will fly up into the path of airplanes.. which is a no-no. 

Here’s a view down the middle as we filled it.

I only let it go about 60 feet because of the trees.. It’s pretty cool to see, though since it’s so very big and twisty.

Gabe thought it was pretty cool..

The rest of the evening was very quit. The three of us grabbed some leftovers and went into town for a movie.. 10,000BC.. It wasn’t historically accurate.. but it was fun as an action movie.. A nice quiet close  to the weekend.. .. And I need to close.. I’m sleepy. Hope you all had a good easter if that’s what you celebrate. ..
Gnite all.. Gnite Sam. we miss you so…
-me
 

I’m just about through my 36 hours of solo puppy sitting  and I’m realizing that I’m not really a fit father. The puppy has had several ’accidents’ in the house no matter how often I find myself standing half clothed in the field with her. This is tough work.. even though Diane manages to make look easy…. She’s deintely the natural mom around her.. and the leader of the pack… The dog’s kept giving me the “you’re not the boss” look while Diane and Gabe were away..
    I spoke with them several times.. and it sounds like they had a great time at Stratton.  
    I haven’t done much since they’ve been gone. It was kinda nice being house bound by the puppy. I did get out a bit last night. I met Max, Emma, Meridith and Josh at Higher Ground to watch our friend Willa play as part of a 3 act show. Willa is one of the cast members of the Voices movie along with Max.. She’s a really talented singer/songwriter..She has a folky style with cool lyrics.. and interesting, unexpected rythems  (rythyms ? rithyms ?… man .. I can’t even get that close enough for the spell checker to figure it out) .  I really enjoyed her set..

She was followed by a kid who grew up in Vergennes named Justin Levinson. Most of his songs were about how tough it is that he went to college for music (Berkelee !) but is still waiting tables. He was pretty funny and was a good song writer… Not quite my musical taste.. but i enjoyed hs set, too

The last act was Jer Coons.. a friend of Jane’s .. He’s been over at the house before with his old band The Theory. They had a good high energy pop/rock thing going.. but by that time I had to run home and get Satori out of her crate.   It was a nice night out.
    One thing I noticed as how much those doggies missed Diane and Gabe.. They spent a bunch of time staring at the back door.. “when’s mom coming home” ?

    
My last surprise for the day was that the door to our room had blown open .. probably hen the front door blew open in the high winds we were having. I managed to get the room back up to  52 degrees before I went to bed.

This morning the puppy woke me about 6:30.. I woke again with a heavy heart.. somethings going on in my dreams, I think…  I fed the dogs and we all went for a walk in the woods. It was good to clear my head..

I’d had lots of expectations on what I was going to get done today…   and as always with expectations.. they backfired. It seemed that everything I got involved with didn’t quite work out.. I tried to work on my personal website (johncohn.org) to start putting info about my science shows.. but they’re having a huge MySQL meltdown and the servers are all backed up (It is effecting SamStones.org as well) . I tried listening to our online Yahoo Music Jukebox only to find they’ve removed all the ’interesting’ music stations that I like (klezmer, indian, asian. middle astern. brazillian, world beat. african, etc)… All they have now is standard pop/rock/country.. I asked about getting my money back .. and they said no way.. they’re ability to change your musical tastes is in the fine print of the contract.. grrrrr.. I also had a note exchange with USAIR who just told me that a whole bunch of frequent flyer miles I had just expired.. I asked them to donate the miles to charity.. and so far they’ve said no.. grrrrrr**2
   I had to get away from the computer. The opportunity came around 9 when the folks at the Richmond Land Trust folks invited me to go walk our friends fields and woods  with them. The lands are going to be coming up for sale and the land trust is looking at what they might be able/willing to purchase to keep it open. It was nice walking around with everyone. it was a beautiful day..

Chai and I went for a run.. then I spent the rest of the day puttering.. but not quite succeeding at anything..  .

Max invited me to have a late lunch with him,Jessie and Emma at Bridge street.. which was really nice and relaxing.. Then back here.

More in the ’weird drinks series’

I tried doing some torch cutting practice. While I succeeded in not blowing myself up.. I didn’t manage to cut anything well..  I finally gave up trying to ’do’ anything.. and just hung around.. nice.. if not productive.. 

Gnite folks. Gnite Sam
-me

Friday night and I’m on my own. Diane and Gabe are in Stratton with Dylan and Sue at the US Open Snowboard competition.. Max and friends are at higher ground watching friend Willa play.. It’s just me and the dogs here in this very big.. very drafty house.. Nice and kinda sad.. It’s good to have some quiet time. I had a good day..It started early.. Diane woke me before 6 when she and Gabe left in order to watch the puppy.. I seem to remember that having human babies required less work .. but then.. maybe I wasn’t paying as much attention 🙂 ?

I took the dogs for a great walk in the woods at around 7:30. I was surprised to be moving at that time of the morning.. but there I was outside on a beautiful but blustery and cold morning. I had had a troubled sleep.. but the fresh air and dog play chased it out of me. I came back .. stuck ’Tori in her crate and went to meet friend Jason at On The Rise for Breakfast. Jason and I work together at work.. I always enjoy talking with him. On The Rise is great.. but might not be the best place for a business meeting. Half of Richmond came and went this morning.. which made it hard to have a technical discussion. Fun nevertheless.. One cool thing of note… As I was about to leave, Lisa-san from Tyko drumming ran in and gave me two bags of Matte that she’d bought for me a few weeks back. Diane saw her in the coop and told her how much I liked it. It was so cool..
   From there I went to work and met up with friend Mark and his son Austin. Austin was skipping school today (like Gabe)  to do a job shadowing thing with me. Our main event was to do a Jolts and Volts show at Orchard School in South Burlington. . Austin is in 8th grade at Browns River MS. He’s a really great kid. He and his dad helped me load up my gear while we talked about my job and about engineering. He has to do 2 job shadowing things for his class.. He already did a physical therapist.. which is an area he liked.

We then went to Healthy Living for lucn.. There I ran into Peter-san.. also from  Tyko.. He told me that our Tyko  Sensei Stuart-san actually built the giant stand-inside drum that he’d been talkign about. That was cool to have a 2nd Tyko person contact in a single day. Mark and Austin and I sat down and Austin  asked me a whole bunch of thoughtful questions.. It was fun being interviewed.. Some of his questions really made me think.. like ” What do you do every day ?”   ) If you read this often .. you’ll understand.. that’s not an easy answer. )   I ran into Homer’s wife, Mary B. there while I was eating.. which is pretty funny because my cell phone  called her at 11:45 last night.  It’s a really small state…

In keeping with my ’disgusting drinks theme.. they had a display of Noni (sourbag) juice on the way out of Healthy Living.. Austin hazarded a smell .. but wouldn’t venture a taste. This is the same stuff that Rashi’s dad had me drink when I was visiting Ruchir one time.. nasty !

From there we went to Orchard School.. I did a show for all the 4th and 5th graders.. they were an awesome audience.. Austin played photographer. It was a good show. I’m so in the moment when I’m doing these shows.. I know I’m serving my life’s purpose when I’m onstage doing them.

Here’s mark with a suspicious object

I got packed, backed ot IBM, unloaded and home in time for my afternoon meetings. It was a productive evening. I worked until about 7.

Jeff and his band ’Forever They Said’ was here practicing.. their practice was so good that they blew an amp. The big news with them is that they’re playing in a hardcore fest at higher ground in a few weeks. Sam would be proud.. Jeff, Pucket and Sam were in the band’s predecessor.. Black Night Vengeance.

Speaking of Higher Ground.. I thin I’m going to go and try to catch Willa’s show.. so gotta sign off. before I do.. 2 things.. First.. RJ was here last night after dinner and almost showed us a trick.. (or he showed us an almost trick) .. it was impressive

All I have for this eveing is leftovers. I managed to have a completely uneventful day. The first I can remember in several months. In fact.. Im still in my jammies and it’s 8PM. I worked all day at home.. on the phone from 8 until 6:30PM got lots done.. but nothing memorable to report… For that reason I’ll resort to a couple of images left over from yesterday and the day before  that I would like to share before I forget..  

So.. Monday.. on my way to work I drove behind a pickup with a giant stuffed (real) bear…   it was the most bizarre sight..

I guess the guy was just exercising his ’right to bear arms’…  (ugh)