Two very different stories for tonight… First.. my day.. I had a long one.. the kind where every moment of the day from 8AM until 9PM was proscribed.. no free time.. but still it felt OK. Lots of variety and progress.. or at least it felt like progress. One of my friends asked me today why I never write more specifically about my work .. I hadn’t thought of that much before. I gues smost of what I do is IBM’s confidential business.. not something I should shre here.. also .. I do enough thinking about work while at work.. I don’t want it to take over my life anymore.. even if I do really like it (which I do)

Anyway… Work was good.. then around 5:30 I packed up my gear and headed to Champlain College for a Jolts and Volts show. I was tonight’s entertainment at the Governor’s Institute for Games and Media. My buddy Ann is the director.. It was so much fun doing a show for them.. All of my friends are working there as councilors this summer. They welcomed me with a hand drawn sign (guys.. can I get that sign if you still have it .. it was so… so .. ‘dynamic’.. (inside joke))

The show went well. It’s allways challenge to adapt the show to older kids like this.. I have to ‘dumb it up’ on the fly.. This time it worked pretty well.. The crowd was already self identified with high geek quotient.. just my kind of folk.

After the show, my friend Awesome demonstrated her mastery of Kendo on poor defenseless Tony. (“Luke.. I am your Father…”)

Then I let some of the kids and councilors take turns on the go cart. Here is Emily.

and awesome.. (we call her that as a joke.. but I always have to think to recall her real nake which is alllllison.

Here are Awesome, Kate Emily Tony and Lauren.

I came back in from my last packing run to the car and found they’d created a 21 hand salute for me… Sorry you’re missing the sound effects.. it was truly wonderful and bizarre.

OK,, that was my day, or at leas the end of it..

The other thing I wanted to call to folks attention was the very cool efforts of our friend’s Steve and Annie’s son Aaron.Aaron is the founder of the Student Peace Alliance (SPA). The SPA is is the student version of The Peace Alliance.. the Peace group that is lobbying for the creation of a Department of Peace. Think about it.. we have Departments of Defense.. and Armed Services.. Why don’t we have a Department of Peace.. After all.. you get what you work for !

Anytway.. Aaron’s SPA orginization was just recognzed by Ben and Jerry’s, the estate of John Lennon and Peace One Day as a ‘Peace Pioneer’ .. SPA has created more than 100 student chapters… and is promoting many initatives to focus people on waging peace. We’re really proud of Aaron

There’s an info meeting at Aaron’s home on Wednesday night.. let Diane or I know if you want instructions on how to contact him.

SInce we’re on the topic of Peace.. check out this video from the Peace One Day founder ..

Before I forget There’s a great short video on the ‘Shout it Out’ movie on WCAX’s website right now. You can see it here ...

This was nearly a perfect day.. I woke late.. nothing pressing to do. Gabe had his Lacrosse state All Star game this morning. We had to be there at 10 for a noon game.. That gave the kids time to meet their teammates and practice a bit. The kids were split into North and South.. Gabe was on the North team.. There aren’t’ that many teams from the South so some Northern towns like Shelbourne were playing for the South. it’s funny to think of Shelboune as ‘south’ Diane and I took advantage of the practice time to take a nice 3 mile run .. and a visit to the Famers Market… We got back to the field and learned that everything was running about 30 minutes late. that was lucky because
Max got there in time to see the start of the game.. Here he is trying to fake the pad luck that gabe has,, we think he looks like he has an Alien inside.

While we were walking in Shelbourne we ran in to our friends Jay and Michelle. We spotted Jay becaus eof his range am shirt.

The game was absolutely amazing.. All of the kids were good.. so all passes connected. nearly all goal shots went in.. it was so exciting.. Gabe had a great game as did all the kids on both teams .

The game was fast and active.. it seemed like it flew by. The North team won soemthign like 12 to 6. Gabe had a great goal and a few good assists. he had a blast..
Both teams looked really good.

Here’s the south team

Here are the norths (Gabe’s team)

There was great sportsmanship all around

Here’s both teams.

Afterwords, the North coach gave out some awards… Gabe got the the most interesting character and best hair awards.. It was another all star shirt… which he gave to me !!!

We got home around 2L30 to find Max and friends preparing for Scott’s Bachelor party tonight.. It wasn’t the kind of bachelors party I remember.. this one involved making two full sized zombies with wooden skeletons.. packed with balloons that were filled with fake blood.

And a clay head filled with fake blood and oatmeal. Ewwwwww

The idea is to hand scott a bunch of weird weapons and let him go after the zombies as a celebration of his impending marriage… weird I know but sweet… and a little less yucky than the normal bachelor party fair..

I decided to contribute by making Scott a set of claws like I’d made for Chris.> These came out very nicely.. I sharpened them until they were really .. well.. dangerous.. A perfect wedding gift.

Max is at the bachelors party now.. Dines at a show with Gina, Gabe and his friends are upstairs and deb just walked in. I think I need to make the kids some dinner.. after all its’ nearly midnight.. 🙂 …

Talk to you tomorrow ! GNite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

Tonight was the premier of the Voices Project Movie – “Shout It Out”. The movie is the culmination of a multi-year project by our friend Bess O’Brien and hundreds of kids across Vermont. it started as the Voices Project, a play in 2005..Max tried out and got a part as Justin. a homeless drug addict. They worked through the summer of 2005 then toured the play to nealry 20 sites across the state.. last summer, Bess decided to make the play into a full feature length movie..Max got the same part. Our house became one of the dorms and a major hang-out place for the actors. We were also the the sett for 4 scenes. Diane, Gabe and I even have a short cameo. It was such a great experience for the kids.. and for us. It was only 6 months after Sam’s passing.. and the activity and energy the kids brouht was so uplifting… They filmed through most of the Summer.. since then, Bess and her crew have been editing.. tonight was the night.

We all headed down to the waterfront theater for the 7:15 start. Max drove separately because he had to haul al of his DJ stuff.

We got down to the theater right before the movie was to start. Just as we were parking, Diane spotted this beautiful rainbow.. a good omen.

They ushered us into two different theaters ..

We were in ‘theater A’

Just before the movie started, Bess came in to introduce the movie.. and she brought the Governor !

The movie was absolutely wonderful. It was really cool to see how they took the storyline from the play and gave the characters depth. The visuals were great and the musical numbers were really, really good. it was cool seeing Max up on the big screen. The movie is going to be touring about 50 cities in Vermont.. please check it out and let us know what you think.

After the movie we all flowed into teh lobby and had a party. It was great seeing the kids again.. There was a band and most of the kids were dancing. Everyone was psyched that the movie was out !

I’ll find some info on the tour schedule and post here when I get it. .. Right now.. I need to sleep ! More tomorrow.. Gnite all… Gnite Sam.

-jc