Friday night – historic ardsley

I’m sitting at JFK airport…now.. seems I’m always sitting at an airport somewhere..
My flight is delayed, I’m hoping to use the time to get this blog in.

Lessse… oh yeah. I couldn’t  upload any pictures last night.. so here are a few leftovers..  

I made a quick stop on the way to Ruchir’s to pick up some ice cream.. and found the convenience store selling oxygen for 8 dollars a can..  You can sell anything !

Dinner at the Puri’s is always wonderful.. Even though it was about 10 at night, the girls. Anika and Isha were still awake !

Rashi and her mom made a delicios Indian dinner, bitter gourd, okra, potatos, dahl,  fresh made yoghurt. fresh made puri.. yum !!!!


Our meeting today was at the TJ Watson research center. No matter how many times I go there, I still feel.. like a  green new hire when I walk in the building. There are so many brilliant people in that building.. Maybe more than in any other building in the world.. It’s un and really, really really humbling..    I like the layout of the building.. lots of light, lots of windows.. lots of brilliant people talkign to each other in the halls…


lots of cool equipment all over the place (like these two class IV argon lasers.. me want !!!)


Our meetings lasted all day and went pretty well.. good ideas and good discussion.
Afterwords I went around to talk to some of my friends.. alike Al.. who just celebrated his 50th (yes 50th) service anniversary with IBM

I also spent time with my buddy Jeff… we go waaaaay back..


Around 7 I headed south to JFK.. I was cruising down takonic when I saw a sign to Ardsley.. the place I lived until I was almost 4.. I pulled across 3 lanes of traffic and got  off the freeway.


I called my folks to get the address of our old house.. 91 Hiltop Lane… I punched it into the GPS and in a few minutes I was there !!!!!..

It wasn’t as huge as I remember 🙂 .. In fact it was tiny..


I spoke a bit with the folks who lived there .. but the woman seemed to be a bit worried about me poking around. She didn’t think it had been our house, but I called my folks again to confirm.. They let me look in the back yard.. I remember this stone fence here


Here it is from the back

And the side..


I placed a SamStone on the house..


And one on the tree in the front yard..


the guy from the house took me down the street to meet one of the nieghbors whod been there since 1963 when we left. Meet Louann Kelly !She was absolutely great.. She asked me if I was little Johnny Cohn … she remembered our family.. and  told me a bunch of stories. The one I remember from being a kid is eating Swedish pancakes in her back yard with powdered sugar.. We still talk about it whenever  we eat crepes with my folks..   I gave LouAnn a SamStone

I even called my mom and let them talk to each other . It was very cool

I spent so much time tlaking to her that I got close to missing my flight !.. Speaking of whcih.. I better go check on it.. Talk to you all tomorrow ! Nite .. Nite Sam
-me

Rhursday night – Puri’s

Hi friends.. I’m writing from my wonderful friend’s Ruchir and Rashi’s house in Somers NY. It’s about 1 AM and I’ve been struggling to find an internet connection to blog. I think I’ve found a neighbors wireless who didn’t set a password.. I just know it’s not a good connection.. so I’ll be brief..
I got here around 9:30 tonight after a 6:30 flight to JFK.. As always Ruchir and his familiy welcomed me with gracious hospitality.. We had a wonderful Indian meal made by Rashi and her mom. Rashi’s parent re visiting again as they did last summer. Rashi’s dad aand I always have a good time talking he’s knows so many interesting facts about … welll.. about everything. He’s a pathologist by training.. but a true polymath.. This time he didn’t experiment on me and make he eat or drink anything weird. last time he was in town he had me drink ‘noni’ .. or sour bag juice.. just the thought of it makes me shudder. The kids. Anika and Isha stayed up for awhile. They had their last day of school today so they were very happy… After they all went to sleep. Rashi. Ruchir and I stayed up and talked about the amount of time we spend.. or don’t spend with our kids.. and the gender norms that exist around that.. Ruchir and I got the message.. we work too much :-).. I really enjoy talking to these guys.
OK.. Now I gotta sleep. I have an all day meeting tomorrow so I need to get my ‘beauty rest’ . Speaking of ‘beauty rest ‘.. My friend Jana.. who’s coordinating the Haunted forest project with me… sent us all a picture she had taken of herself last week at the ‘professional scarers convention’ . THis is why the project is turning out to be so much fun !

OK.. that’s it for tonight. More tomorrow. Nite all.. nite Sam
-me

Wednesday night – geek out

Started today with a haircut with my newly married buddy Deb.. Not much hair left to cut.. but it’s still a good time to catch up on what’s going on around town.. If it’s happening, Debbie knows about it. She’s such a great person..

She’s got all sorts of Sam stuff around her shop

My work day was full and productive.. a good mix of stuff. Nothing much new..

Tonight I hosted a pickup meeting for part of the Haunted Forest ‘project X’ team at my house.. We had quite a crowd

Here are Seth, Leo, Homer, Buddy, John and Brandon out in the lab.. trying to get one of the microcontrollers to speak to us. The controller is going to work the face of our monster.

Jana, the goddess of the haunted forest was there tonight.. She has a year round. full time job planning for halloween.

And from what she tells us.. there are many more in her profession than we might think.

Homer brought over his models for the creatures arms.. You can tell form these models that this is going to be very. very cool.

Meanwhile, inside.. while we geeks were out in the barn.. the ‘cool kids’ were inside writing on each other and singing ribald songs. Here is Nicholas and Carolyn.

And Selene

Last saw, Max, Nicholas, Carolyn and Selene were heading out to go caroling.. in June… ?

OK.. gotta sleep.. but before I do.. I gotta share a great video that I was sent today..

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

I just gotta give this guy soem SamStones !

Ok.. time for sleep.. gnite all.. Gnite Sam..

Tuesday night – Kasey’s Sam Cohn guitar

Today’s highpoint was short and sweet. Diane and I took Kasey P to Advance Music to pick out the guitar he won with this years Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award. Every year kids, teachers and staff at MMU can nominate any student in the school who has a musical soul… We then select the years winner out of a hat… so Sam can have his say.. Ths year our super close friend Kasey was the winner.. It could not have been a beter choice Sam and Kase were freinds for years.. Sam was always over at Kasey and Jakes.. or they were over here.. They were always up to fun and mischief.. like the time Sam managed to run their snowmobile into the house… sweet memories..

Jeff, the manager of Advance has very generously worked with us to get
a great deal on these Sam Cohn guitars.. in fact they’ve been very
generous to us in many ways since Sam’s passing. Please help us show
our thanks by giving them your business.

Our firend and neighbor Kyle was working there in case we had any questions. We gave him a SamStone to put in the store. Look for it next time you’re there.

It was really fun watching Kasey walk into the acoustic guitar room at Advance. He really was like a kid in a candy store.. He started pulling down guitars and strumming them. I’m sure it was a hard choice to make.. After about 30 minutes of trying things out, Kasey found this beautiful Taylor acoustic/electric. Its got a very sweet tone.. The two of them fell in love immediately.

It was wonderful seeing Kasey sitting there playing a guitar he got from Sam.. I’m sure Sam approved of his choice..

I can still hear Sam playing that guitar in my head… I love the sound.

Gnite folks.. gnite Sam.. keep on playing …

-me