Friday night – Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award

This morning was the annual awards ceremony at MMU..   That’s the day that the school  awards the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award..   Any kid or teacher can nominate any other kid for the award. The winner gets to pick out a guitar of his or her choice at Advance Music. Diane, Max and I got up to MMU around 9 /It still feels so funny to look around these halls and know that Sam’s not waling down them anymore.

The whole school was down in the gym.. it was a great scene.. lots of awards for lots of cool talents.

Here’s Jake getting some sort of award for something.. all I know is that he was wearing his Sam shirt…

Maybe it was a music award… because here he is getting photographed with r. Pilsbury and Urion ..   Note sure.. but I do love his shirt !

Avry got soemthign too.. Maybe it was musical as well.. cuz here she is with M.. I mean Ms. Bauer.

Then it was time for the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award.   The three of us walked up in front of all those kids..

Jen B. handed us the basket with the nominations in it.  Shes been so reat helping us get this going ! . Diane reached in and choose at random.. That’s how Sam gets his say !

It was a great choice.. We all choked up as Diane read the winning nomination .. It was our buddy Kasey… Unbelievable !.. Sam picked well. Sam and Kase have been buds for as long as I can remember. Sam was always at Kasey’s or Kasey and his bro were always at ours. I love those guys..

Max showed everyone the award with the video ‘s running. We’ll take a picture of Kasey and his guitar and put it on here. along with Meghan G.  from last year.. and all the guitar winners in years to come.

One cool thing is that there’s already a picture of Kasey on the plaque.. Here’s one of our pictures of Sam the Vampire with a much younger looking Kase.



It was such a great morning.. We went home feeling so good  about Kasey getting this guitare.. Sam’s spirit is still moving in this world !

On the way out we saw these posters for the Voices Movie premier (Now called ‘Shout it out’.. It’s cool to see Max;s name on the poster. I can’t wait to see the movie !

OK.. time to sleep.. Thanks to everyone who helped iwht the Sam Cohn Award.. good night everyone !  Gnite Sam !
-me

Thursday night – pictures

I spent the evening finishing of the plaque that  Homer and Jen helped us build for the Sam Cohn Musical Soul Award at MMU. In the Musical Soul Award, we give away a guitar every year to someone who could use one. The contestants for the award have all been nominated by a friend or teacher. Tomorrow morning at 9AM we go to MMU and pick the name o the winner out f a hat. that way Sam gets to choose.   Last year Meghan G. won and  picked out a sweet electric. It’ll will be great to see who wins this year.

Tomorrow we’re bringing a plaque to remind  people of the award.. and bring a little of Sam in to the school.. The plaque has a small screen which will have a bunch of pictures of Sam.. I’ve spent the evening staring at these pictures.. I really like looking at them.. I think you all ill like them too:


what can you say after that. .. other than good night friends.. Good night Sam !
-me

wednesday night – carfull of squid

Hey folks… I’m in the car trying to blog on my phone. Don’t worry, Max is driving. Due to a change in his travel plans I had to drive down to albany to meet his train. Believe it or not… I really enjoyed the unexpected 3 hour drive. Since sams passing I find that I crave down time like that..

I met up with max in downtown albany about 9 on. We picked up some Chinese food for the road. I’m wearing half of it now and…the car smells like squid in garlic sauce…and every part of me is sticky and gross. Max is playing some bizarre spoken word rap poetry (sage francis_ at high volume and we’re talking about cosmology

…… It really doesn’t get much better than this ! Seriously

Ok…. I gotta stop looking dow at my phone.. So…that’s it for tonight. Love you all.. Love you sam

-me

Tuesday evening – great company

I’m almost too sleepy to write.. less than 7 hours sleep in the last two days.. My first meeting today was to give the opening lecture to this years crop of interns. (aren’t they cute ?!)

As in past years, I do about half related to my day job.. that usually puts them to sleep.. and about half relating to my education outreach  stuff. which wake them back up

This morning I talked quite a bit about my family and Sam’s passing. II put that in the context of needing to really think about the balance and priorities you have in your life .. and the importance of finding and feeding your passion.  I know that that part of the conversation changed the tone of my talk.. but it’s something I really can’t not talk about.

The rest of my day went by in a blur.. my calendar was jam packed.. and I managed to get a ton done. One cool thing that happened was that I got a copy of the cool One IBM  video that they produced for the CTRE event. This will be  used all over the world to promote the reach and scope of  IBM. My friend Doug had told me that there was a SamStone picture hidden in it somewhere.. I looked and looked.. but couldn’t find it..   Can you see it ?

He then told me the secret.. if you watch the movie above.. in high resolution on a large screen you’ll notice that the band around the earth has a series of pictures moving across it..   Here’s the series of pictures…

Is that a great company or what.. OK.. I gotta sleep now.. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam

-me