Saturday night – barely coping

Ok.. the title’s a pun.. we’re doing fine. What I mean is..Diane and I have been putting up crown molding in the living room but we’re using these nifty pre-mitred corners.. and you don’t have to use a coping saw to get the corners to mate.  It’s saving aus a bundle of time. The funny thing is we just decided to start this project at about 7:30 tonight.. Gabe decided to go over to Ian’s… so Diane and I had another night to ourselves.. We did what any couple in love might do.. we went to the hardware store… (and ran into our neighbors who were also on a hardware date 🙂
We baugt about 140 linear feet of molding .. and without really knowing what we were doing, we spent abou 3 hours and got about a third of it up..  We stuck soem SamStones behind it for good measure. So far, it looks great !  The catch is.. it’s now getting close to 1:30 and I’m too beat to uplad the pictures.. so that will have to wait for tomorrow…
   The only other thing of interest I did today was work with Sara G.  one of the artists on Project-X.. diane and I picked up the giant pumpkin head that she and Becca had build. I spent about four hours figureing out how to marry the jawbone they’de made to the servo structure we’d built.. By the end of the day I had the creaure tallkign pretty convincingly … and his eyes sparkling eerilie.. He’s goign to be wondrefully creepy..
   Anyway.. sorry for now pictures.. more on both projects tomorrow.. For now.. good nite and good dreams.. Nite Sam
-me

Thursday night – soccer dad

 

Another overly busy but uneventful day. Gabe had his first soccer game at 5 today so I left work on the early side.. Though I guess it’s not that early now that I get in by 8. It was a perfect day to be out watching soccer. Gabe is playing on a team with his friend Jack.. He looked good out there today.. He was running well and got 2 impressive head balls. He makes it look pretty easy. I’m glad he’s playing.

It was nice hanging out and talking to the other parents.. Jean and Victor where there ans well as Fran and Kathleen.

Sometimes I forget that Jean and Fran are sisters.. until I see them standing next to each other.

After the game, Diane, Gabe and I went to Bridge street for a quick dinner. We were happy to go there. They need the business since the bridge was closed .. (Subliminal message.. go to bridge street for dinner tomorrow !) ..

We ran into Kasey there.. whose as big as a horse now… He’s been playing football and they keep him pretty busy,..

Check this out.. in Football he got a bruise in the shape of a smiley face !

After dinner I went out to Homer’s to do a little more work on the project-x monser.. We still have a ton to do.. but it’s looking very good.
It turns out that Raye is heading out tonight.. so I got to say goodbye to her… Here is Homer , Mary and Raye. Aren’t they cute ?

Well.. that’s all the news that’s news.. gotta sleep now. Tlak to you all tomorrow. Nite Sam..
-me
ps. My friend Charlie took some SamStones to Vienna.. He put soem at my old apartment.. the Erol’s house.. at 43, Graf Starhembergasse Here’s m old place.. !

Tuesday night – shrine

Tuesday evening.. feeling a little low and quiet. The change of season seems to do that it’s just past 8 and already pitch black outside. I think we could all go to sleep about now..

One good thing about having Gabe back in school is that it generally gets me out of the house and to work pretty early.. I’m usually at my desk by 8:15.. that makes for longer .. more productive days.. even if there’s not much I could write about here. One thing that was on the agenda today was a filming for an outreach project that IBM is doing to encourage more folks to volunteer in schools. A film team (Jeff, Peter… and Mr. Becker) drove up from Connecticut this morning to film me doing a show for the Boys and Girls club of Burlington.. The club is a free activity based after school program for kids from the North End.. It’s a really nice facility.. there were abotu 450 kids there.. mostly in the 9-12 year old range. Great kids. It was a little crazy doing the show with the video crew there.. they had all sorts of lights and mikes.. and we had to keep the kids happy for about 45 minutes before they were ready to go.. We all practiced screaming while the crew set up.. that was nice because most of the kids were hoarse by the time we started. The show went pretty well… though there were a few times we had to back up and repeat things for the camera or sound. We also only had camera releases for about a third of the kids.. all the other kids couldn’t be on camera.. so I couldn’t pick on them.. or ask them to volunteer.. I felt kinda bad for them…

All in all it was fun.. I kept their attention and had them screaming at regular intervals.. That seemed like a success.

After the show I hung out and talked to the kids as I cleaned up.. they want to do some sort of big project together. I think that would be fun to do..

As we cleaned, Jeff and the crew interviewed a bunch of the kids.. It was fun watching them being filmed.. The kids were all so into the whole movie thing. I can’t wait to see how it comes out..

The funny thing is that they drove 5 hours to come up, filmed for 3 hours
and the entire video if only going to be 3 minutes long.. so my part will only be 30 seconds or so.. amazing..

By the time I was heading home it was after 6.. I dropped by Jacks.. or as close as I could get with the Richmond bridge out… to pick up Gabe.. I had to cram him in the car around all of my equipment. Good thing he folds up well !

We got home to find Diane making great progress on the downstairs big room. we’re going to start a major painting and trim job ourselves.. There’s a tremndous mount of prep before we start. Step one was to take off all the things off the walks and tables and put them away. one of those things was the table with all of Sam’s things.. some really precious photos, his lacross head, a few of the poems people had written for us.. other things of his. It had stood on that table since… the first days we came home after he died. All the stuff is safly put away for the renomavations.. and will come out again.. but seeing it not there was so… I don’t know.. it made my heart hurt .. At the same time it felt kind of like progress..

He is not his stuff… Today I found a broken rubber band on the ground in a shape of an ‘S’.. He’s everywhere

OK.. that’s all for today.. more manana… Nite all.. ntite Sam
-me

Monday night – Sam button

So I was half way to work this morning before I realized that I didn’t have my Sam button in my packet. It’s the very same one that I wore every day for a year after Sam died.. I now carry it in my left shirt pocket.. over my heart.. whenever I where a shirt that has pockets.. When I relized I’d left it at home, I almost turned around.. but I had stuff waiting for me at work… and went on in..

Try as I might. though, I coulld not get used to not having that button in my bocket. I’ve got a custom now of reaching over and touching the button whenever I think of Sam.. it’s kind of an uncouncious movement.. Today I realized just how many times I do that each day.. I’d reach for it .. and find it not there.. and then notice I was doing it.

You know.. I thik that’s kind of nice.

Aside from that.. my day was pretty unremarkable.. I had a brief but nice meeting with my friend Kerry. Kerry and his freinds collect and repair old military vehicle.. I htink I want to take a tank to burning man to drive around.. Maybe Kerry can help !

The weather today was so gorgeous.. that I tried to work a bit outside.. I managed to walk up and down one fo the IBM service roads abotu 10 times while I was on the phone.. It was so bright and beutiful out..

Even te view from my windo at work was intoxicating.. How’s a persons ‘sposed to get any work done when it looks like this outside ?

Ah well. that was my day.. I just ended it by takign a look at Sam’s Myspace page. Belive it or not.. kids are still posting stuff to him every few days.. They also send him private messages.. but I never read them.. they’re for Sam.

OK folks.. time for bed. See you tomorrow. Nite Sam
-me