It’s about 1:30 AM and I just got home from Boston. I was able to skip out on a meeting tomorrow in Boston and get back home a day earlier.. I don’t like being away from Diane and Gabe this long.. It was a hard trip.. got lots done.. but pretty emotionally tiring

I had planned on staying with my folks tonight.. so.. even though I was able to go home tonight, I wanted to go and see them . I got there about 7L30 this evening after our meetings were over. My mom met me with the gift of a snake shaped gourd… is that cool or what ?

It was great seeing my folks.. I really enjoyed having them out with my work friends on Monday night. Tonight was a quick visit.. I helped my mom set up the new laptop she got for her birthday.. and helped her hook it up with the camera they got for their anniversary.. It was fun playing with new hardware…

I spent some time looking at pictures around their house.. they have so many pictures of my family.. its so nice and so sad..

Families are made of memories…

Time to sleep .. Gnite folks.. gnite Sam.. we all love you
-jc

Hi friends.. I’m still in Cambridge. I had a surprisingly good set of meetings today.. It’s the time when some of my friends role off the committee I’m on and some new friends role on. It’s strange and sad about not seeing some of these folks as regularly as I do now. We’ve all become really close. They’ve been with me through some of the toughest times of my life.. I’ll miss them… At the same time, I look forward to getting some of these new folks better.

Anyway.. back to today.. I started with a run up Memorial Drive and the Charles River back to my old dorm.. it was a beautiful morning.

Here’s the famous Citco sign that I could see from my old dorm window. Pat O. has a miniture of this sign in his own little fenway park in Essex.,

I stopped by my old dorm, Bexley.

Here’s the window where the police caught me rappelling down the building.

On the way howm from work I pulled up behind a car with both Diane and my undergrad school stikers… We gotta meet these guys !

We all decided to walk to dinner, so I took folks on a wlak through MIT-land..

Here we all are on the atairs of 77 mass ave.. the main MIT entrance.

I was taking my crew down the ‘infitinte corridor’ when I ran into my good freinds Kim and Kathy. Ki’ms the Dean of Undergraduate Research here.. he runs the Edgerton cdenter. Kathy is a biologist and has invented a toy wiht Lego that teachs folks about protein synthesis. It was so cool running into them like that.. As always.. really small world !

We hiked around looking for a resturant.. we passed the MIT presss (still one of my favorite logos !)

Then dinner at the Cambridge Brew Pub..

Here’s the Verggie thing they made for me.. pretty good..

We then walked home.. Past the wierd Statis Center.

We all walked Luba back to her hotel.. themn loped back to ours. On the way, we found this great political statement.

OK.. now it’s time for sleep.. I gotta wake up early if I’m going to get a run in.. Talk to you later.. Nite Samm

-me

Greetings ffrom Cambridge MA (our fair city) ..

I’m here at an IBM meeting.. Drove down this morning. It was a beautiful day to be driving. Here’s the view f the charles river from my hotel room.. I’m staying just up the street from my old dorm at MIT. This is the hotel that my folks stayed in when I graduated from college. mroe than 25 years ago.. !..

Our meeting doesn’t officially begin until tomorrow. … but my friend David had arraigned for a short tour of the MIT Media Lab. I worked in the precursor to the media lab in the late 70’s and early 80’s . It’s changed quite a bit since then as you would imagine. .. but.. it still had the same sort of cool energy that I remember.

We saw the maings of a machine opera.. where the main character becomes a computerized bookshelf (?!?!?)

a new fold up electrical car !

What a great workspace !

Here’s a gesture operated flecible interface fro making music…

and a real time wind and shadow simulat0r.

and a LADAR contour mapper…

Hre it’s seeing my arm in the field

The tour was so cool.. it was over just too soon. We walkde out to find some sort of emergence thing goign on. Lucily we were able to back down the street and escape !

I invited my folks o coem out and ea with us.. I coaxed the group inot goign to the ‘Middle East’ a favorite haunt of mine when I weant to school here.. I love the food there. My folks fit right in.. It was great getting them to meet my colleagues and visa versa.

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

Man , am I beat.. I had so much going this weekend.. and in the middle of it, Diane and I decided to take on a major household project. The funny thing is, I think I got everything I was trying to do done.. That rarely happens with me now.. .. Well whatever we got done.. I’m completely exhausted.. I feel completely empty.. physically and emotionally. .. and somehow peaceful at the same time.

I have a small backlog of pictures that I’d like to post.. I know I’ve been lazy the last 2 days.

Hers a view from Friday.. Richmond is still cut in half by the failign brisge. It might be hard for folks who live elsewhere to appreciate the major effect this bridle closing has on the town.. Our road is the next possible detour.. anf that alone is a 7 mile side trip.. Folks who live on one sie of the bridge are a good 20 minutes from their friends on the other side.. unless the walk across the broken bridge.

As you may recall.. Diane and I had Friday night to hang out in Burlington while Gabe whent to a movie. we ended up sleeping in the car in the parkign garage.. but we did have soem excitement before that…we crused around Borders looking at books. I likeed this ones title.

.. and I even found a CD with Max singing on it.. !

Once the bookstore closed, we went to Dobra tea and had a late night pick me up. I had smoky lapsong suchang… I love the name almost as much as the taste !

Sat. morning.. I had to run over to Sara G. to pick up the pumplin monster’s head.. Sara and her friend Becca are making the decoratins for the beast.. They did a great job with the head !

I ewroked on marrying the creatures jaws to the rest of the head.. so that we can move it to speaking.. I love that kind of work..

Abot 6:30 PM Diane and I started a hike up the Catamount Trail.. Somewhere on that hike we decided to go ahead with teh crown molding project.. We we’re alone wiht no kids.. so .. why not ?!

We headed to Home Depot where another cutomer captured us in American Gothic posture.

We grabbed 10 feet of molding and crammed the 16 foot sections in our car.. CAREFULLY !

We came bck and started working at 10.. THe first job was to tear down the old square milding.. ewwwwwwww huge caps, old plaster.. and g-d knows what else came pouring down on us when we pulled off the old boards.

We worked until abotu 1 putting up the modling. then woke around 7:30 and got right back to it… We hid a buch of SamStonesthroughout the project.

Soem of the old stuff we had to pull down was up there for a centruy or more.. look at this old writing on the back f some old moulding ..

We ended up borrrowing a nailer . another ladder and a mitre saw form Tim.. that made the project easy.. by afternoon we’d finished.. and it really looked great !

Around 6 gabe went to a movie.. and I headed over to Homers. we had to find a way to marry the head to the body.. we had a great work sessions tonight.. the thing is relly looing scary !

Unfortunately.. I manage to burn ot one of the creatures jaw motors when it got jammed.. 🙁 .. Luckily.. I ave a replacement !

OK.. it’s time for sleep.. if anyone can sleep in this heat.. It’s over 80 degrees here at midnight.. That almost NEVER happens…

You know what else NEVER happens.. me goign to sleep on time.. ok.. time for bed. gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam.. !..