It’s about 12:30 and I’m sitting in Max’s apartment in Brooklyn. I made the call midday to come down to NY for a party tonight and a set of meetings tomorrow. I’m really glad that I decided to come

My main motivation for coming down was to go to a retirement  party for Nick D. the ‘godfather’ of the IBM technical community. He’s retiring after 44 years at IBM.. including several years up in Burlington. Nick has been a patron and mentor to me and thousands of other technical folks here at IBM. He’s an amazing guy.. I’ve seen him walk into a room of 500 people and know more than half of their names, where they live, what they do.. and even stuff about their families. He’s so smart and so down to earth at the same time..  and so passionate about what we do and who we are. We’re all really going to miss him.  

There were about 300 of us there tonight.. including many friends from all over the place.. I ran into friends brad and carl in the bar.. I knew most of the folks there. It was fun seeing so many freinds in one place.

They had some great old pictures of Nick..

My freind Doug kicked off the program.  Frist Adalio S.  (I think ?) got up and made a presentation to Nick on behalf of hispanic engineers. Then My freind Joanne and I got up and presented Nick with a cool word art thing we’d made for him… Then   there was a live CSPAN segement of Vermont’s Congressional rep, Peter Welch making a proclimation at the US Capital in honor of Nick.

Then Nick’s successors John K and Linda S. got up and announced a new scholarship created in Nicks naeme at hisalma mater of RPI.

Then there were tonsof video tributes form customers, IBM folks and nick’s family.. His grandkids (in vermont) were so cute !

Sam P. made a nice video tribute

As did Lou

Even Nick’s mom did a piece !

Then Nick got up and spoke..  He was inspiring and human as always..  He talked about how much he loved this place.. and you could tell that he really meant it..

Everyone was standing at the end.

As Nick Sat down. they rolled a movie that the guys in Austin had made. It was all IBM execs playing a song  they’d written.. and .. they didn’t suck at all  !.  Tony B. actually played excelelnt lead..

I grabbed this shot of the 4 ‘dancers’ .. Note cousin Mark on the left  (with Helene, Calvin and Brad. I

The party went on for an hour or so, then we all filtered out.. I drove into the city to Max’s .. There was hardly any traffic so it was only about 30 minutes in..   Max and his friends were just hanging out in there very awesme apartment.

Max cooked me a great dinner.. then we all hung out

Then Max cut his own hair.. then some of his  freindshair.. It was fun and bizzare.

Now.. it’s 1AM.. and they are shing Steves head for soem strange reason..   Interesting place !

It’s been reat seeing Max and his freinds.. They have a good life here..

OK.. I gotta sleep.. more tomorrow.. Nite all. Nite Sam !
-me

Sunday night.. I just realize I’ve been sitting in the bathrooom for about 40 minutes reading email … I came in here to take a bath..

But sat here and worked while it got colder and caoder.. I desperately need to soak.. I’m covered head to toe with spackle and caulk..

Speaking of workout.. every boan in my body seems sore.. I’m goign to take a lukewarm bath… ewwwww… Gnite folks.. Nite Sam.. we love you..
-me

It’s almost 1 on Sunday morning and I’m just sitting down to blog. I was busy all day with one project or another. I’ve just finished filling the nail oles on the molding we put up.. I ran out of Spackle.. so I had to call it a night.

Guess which one is Gabe’s ?!?

I spent most of the day over at Homers frantically working on the ‘Oriject-X’ monstor. It’s really coming together. Today we rebolted evreying, fixed all the wiring, mounted the legs to the base… and a ton of other refinments.. He stands and waves his arms very natureally now.. or at least natrually enough for a 17 foot monstor pumpkin guy.

Homer had also captured a walking stick.. we’re taking soem movies of him because we want to copy his movements in a pneumatic robot we’d both like to build.

Homer and I worked 9 hours straight to day on the project. We took a few minutes to go on a hardware run to Vergennes. While  there we dropped into the Fat Hen, Even M’ s wife’s place, for some food.  It’s a nice funky place.. with many strange mumper stickers on the wall.

 Somehow there we got to wondering how many grains of rice were in a cubic inch.  (any guesses ? )

We each did the counting..our own way.. but I did bisections, quadrasection, etc.. my count awas about 2100… Homr devided his up a different way and came out with a little less.. so.. it’s about 2000. Tha’s usfule info.. no ?

Hanging out with Homer down there is so much fun.. I learn something cool each time I go down to work.  He’s such an amazing thinker…

Well.. I gotta stop typing and begin sleeping.. I’m falling asleep as I type again.   It’s always hard to go straight from blogging to sleep.. I need to unplug a little first.. just like Homer’s milling machine..

Here’ I go.. g’nite folks.. more tomorrow. ‘Nite Sam !
-me