Greetings from Laguardia Airport… I’m sitting here waiting for my flight back to BTV in about an hour. I’ve spent so many hours in thes part of the airport over the last few years  that it’s not even worth exploring anymore… Maybe I can get my blogging in before we board.
    I’m down in NY for the day for two sets of meetings.. I had to leave the house about 5:30 this morning… Amazingly.. I woke up without an alarm… of course.. I woke up about 10 times through the night wondering what time it was.. Even so, I woke up rested…  I tried to sneak out with out waking Diane or the dogs.. but on my fifth time back into the room to find my @^$ wallet, I woke them all up…
It was fun being up before the sun.. I went out side and admired the flowers that have come up over the last couple of days They looked cool in the pre-dawn light. .Diane has been hard at work in the garden during this beautiful weather.

The sun was just rising as we took off… It was one of those old turboprop Dash8’s… I really like the way that they sound.. the two propellers create a cool throbbing in the cabin that lulls me right to sleep.

I got to LGA around 8:30.. then drove for an hour to get to Armonk.. I took work calls as I drove. Once I got to Headquarters , the early morning caught up with me..    Those of you who know me well know that when I stop moving I often have to go to sleep for a few minutes.. there’s just no fighting it..  I have a favorite place in one of the remote parking lots in Armonk where I go to meditate and/or sleep when I need to… 

 I barley made it there in the car.. stumbled out and fell asleep for 9 minutes in the beautiful sun… It was glorious  (ok… so the picture is faked.. but I really did fall asleep there… )

I like going to Armonk.. I always run into friends there..

I  looked up my friends Doris, Neal, Marylou, Robin and Grace. Doris just adopted a really cute little girl from China… and Grace just returned from a 5 month leave after the birth of her baby son. I loved looking at both of their pictures.. After some catching up, I went up to my old guest office and got to work on the phone.   After a quick lunch, Robin. Marylou and I went upstairs to one of the ‘big’ conference rooms.  The room has a huge round table that made me feel like a knight.  We had a very productive meeting

As soon as we were done there, I ran out to the car and drove up to Yorktown , taking work calls on the way.   I had a very productive set of meetings their with friends. I have a new assignment at work and these guys are going to help me get it done. I love the atmosphere in Research… it’s such a cool place.   Before I had to dash back to the airport, I had a short meeting outside with my friend Ruud (pronounced Rude… making him th most inappropriately named person I know. he is anything but !)   Ruud had some good insights into my assignment as well.

By the time we finished talking it was almost 6:30… I got in the car and drove back down towards the city. I called Max… but it wasn’t going to work out to get in to Brooklyn to see him. It was strange being so close and not getting to see him.. We’re driving back from NYC together in 2 weeks. I miss him so much.

Traffic was mercifully light so I made it down to the airport in plenty of time.. the setting sun made even the grimy parts of the city look nice.

I dropped the car and found my terminal.. I was starving so I grabbed a burrito and sat down and ate it by myself.. I just hate eating alone.. but I hate starving too. It’s strange.. everyone else was eating alone.. I was surrounded by lonely people.. In a past life I might have struck up a conversation.. Now I just sit and think.. or not think if possible. As it turns out, a good burrito can be a great meditation mantra.

OK.. that does it for tonight.. I’m hoping to board soon. More tomorrow… GNite folks.. Gnite Sam.. I love you
-me

ps. Gabe is still in South Carolina.. Should I call him ? .. or leave him alone on his vacation ? I miss him so much !

Another beautiful day.. clear and warm.. I can’t remember this many prefect weather days in a row.. it’s incredible . It’s great for all the kids that are on school break. You can tell that it’s a vacation week for most people. The halls at work are pretty empty and so is the parking lot.

I put in a very full day.. Still trying to get my momentum back. I feel like I can clearly see what I’m supposed to be doing.. but I’m really. really struggling to grab hold and engage. At the same time I’m not able to get myself too worked out about it. I’ve always freaked about my work.. am I working hard enough.. is my stuff getting done in time.. Now I have trouble getting worked up about it.. Is thta progress ? or a step back

    I got home in time for Diane’s yoga class. It as great as always.. Gabe’s having fn down in South Carolina.. Max’s in school.. so it’s just us here this week.. kinda sad.. and kinda nice at the same time. I made dinner (pasta putenesca) Then we put the trash  and recycling out together.. it was so romantic.   Actually.. the deep cleaning we’re doing is both difficult and cathartic.. As I said when the car turned 100.000 the other day.. I always view things as having souls.. I really think about the things I’m putting into the garbage bag or recycling bin..  I often think.. “I’m the last human who’s likely to look at or touch this ‘xxx’ .”. (e.g. pencil, gum wrapper, transistor, oscilloscope, chair, etc) ..I think about what purpose they served us.. was it satisfying for ‘them’ i.e. did they serve their purpose well. I always say sort of wordless  prayer to the stuff as I walk away from throwing something away. It goes something like.  ‘Thank you for serving me and my family. .. good luck in your next existence.”

Gabe just called to say he was having a good time… I really miss him..

OK.. I have to catch and early plane tomorrow. so I’ll sign off here… Gnite everyone.. Gnite Sam.
-me

The dogs woe us this morning.. Gabe is down in Hilton Head with Alex and Jack… so all we had to do this mornign is wake up and feed Rafe… Actually eh fed us .. we we went to the Daily Bread and had a late lucnh.. then sent Rafe on his way.. He’s spending a few days with our mutal freinds Richard. another MIT mathematician .  and his wife Jillian who live part time near Danville.   It was so great seeing Rafe yesterday and today…

As soon as Rafe’s wheels were rollign we got to work. our goal for the week is to do some serious house cleaning.. today’s task was the ‘old lab’ .. a small cloet like room on the north west cornr of the hosue.. At one point it was the kitche of the school.. then it was a pottery studio.. then an unheated bedroom.. then my first laboratory.. and now.. a huge mess of a storage room. our only goal for the day was too make it possible to walk across the flor in there..

As you can figure… doing serious claning means touching … and getting rid of all sorts of things with associated memories..  As if to underscore that.. Diane found this note she’d written to Sam last time we did a major cleaning..   The question was even more improtat now.. What would he want us to keep .. and what wouldn’t he care about ? So wierd to talk about him in the the subjunctive …

 Honestly.. I’d been dreading this memory jolt  all week.. but like many things we dread.. the reality was not as bad as the expectation.. I had several tough moments today.. but all in all my biggest challenge was untangling stuff, figuring out what to throw away and getting rid of the dangerous stuff I found..

Diane took first turn at untangling.. it’s actually a cool Zen thing that you can’t really hurry. She successfully untanlged this rats nets of cords, transformers string and wire.

I found tons of memories for all three kids.. Here’s some stuff from Sam.   Here are some odl running ribbons. he was a fast kid !

A version of Nirvana’s Ltiihum from his guitar case.. (the MMU chorus along with Max and Gabe sung it accapella at Sam’s memorial service )

Here’s one of Sam’s best inventions.. the ‘MagnaBoard’. a skate board that held unto your shoes with strong magnets.. still a cool idea, I think ..

And.. the first thing we welded together.. he did this grappling hook at Kerry’s house when he was about 10…

I also found stuff from Gabe, Max.. Diane and me.. Like number 3 piston from my old Volkswagen camper.. complete with a broken off value top still stuck into the piston head.

And a big bag of what turned out to be Zinc/Sulfer/Sulfer smoke composition.. I took it outside and burned it to get rid of it.. Pretty green flames.. (no more ‘Booms’ .. I promise !)

I also found a few scraps from the old Jonesville bridge. You can see from this how the crane had to twist and tear the old bridge apart.

I also came across an anciet treasure trove of very old electronic components.. I felt liek I was looking through a box of vacuum tubes ! This stuff is ancient.

For example .. a 1000 bit  static RAM (you can now buy 1,000,000,000 bit flash  at Best Buy for nearly the same price)

.. and a 256 bit read only memory.. this is like finding an artifact from the stone age.. I’m trying to figure out what to do with this stuff. I’ll never use. them .. but they’re too cool to through away.. Anyone out there want this stuff ? I probably have 300 ‘brand new’ 74xx (TTL ) , 74LSxx  (low power schotkey ) and 4000 series (CMOS)  ,logic chips..  You want them ? They’re yours.   ( if these acronyms don’t make sense to you.. you probably don’t want this stuff)

Well.. abotu 9 bags of trash , a car load of goodwill stuff and 10 hours later.. We can finally see the floor. (Don’t worry Gabe or Max.. we kept all of your stuff) ..
Everythign is isn sealed and labeled boxes.. it actull looks nice in there !.. It feels good

I was cleaning up when I found this print out of the t shirt design we’re working on in a pool of water.. it looks pretty cool this way..

So cool in fact.. that I’m going to go jump in some water myself.. I’m dirty and tired.. Time for a bath then bed..  

Talk to you all tomorrow. Thanks for the help with cleaning Sam.. I neede all the advice I could get.
-me

ps. Gabe just called from Hilton head and is having a great time !!.. He and Jack saw a big alligator down there this morning.. !

I spent a few hours working on a new shirt design for the next Friends of Sam event… We’re having a Skate night at Talent in about 2 weeks (I’ll send out a bulletin). The proceeds will pay for Deb’s friend Abraham to bring his wife and baby over from a refugee camp in Sudan. Working on the drawings for the shirt is a true act of love.. I worked with Brit to edit out one of our favorite pictures of am… as a pirate at Camp Abenaki.. I had to edit out his mustache.. I sent hours staring at his face.

While Brit and I worked on the shirt design. Brit’s brother. Matt worked in the lab drilling wholes in 3/8″ plate steel to make decorative brackets for their post and beam house frame. He put in a ton of work drilling these holes. 

Shortly after noon my great friend Rafe showed up. He’d driven down from a conference in Montreal. Rafe is my old suite mate from MIT.. and now lives in Palo Alto..where he’s  the head of the Math Dept. at Stanford. Here he is looking very professorial..   It is so good to have Rafe here.. first order of business was to see some baby pictures.. Rafe and his wife Laurence have 2.5 year old Sabine and 6 month old old Sophie.. Both exceedingly cute.

We fed Rafe. then decided to take advantage of the beautiful warm weather and go for a hike up at Bolton.. .. and I do mean warm !!!  The car said it was 82 degrees !

We drove up to the ski area.. where we found they still had a ton of snow.. We didn’t need snowshoes.. but the snow was still quite deep.. it was mid thigh in some places if you feel through the surface.. other places it was less than a foot.

clear blue sky !

We kept climbing until we reached the very top. We took a short brake at the warming hut..

And checked out some of the Sam graffiti there.

Not sure why this metal thing is an ‘S’ .. but I took that as a Sam thing too..

Since we’d made it this far, I decided to go up the fire tower. It’s a place of special significance to us.. Thats where we sent up some of Sam’s ashes in fireworks in December of 2006.  It looks like something out of an old movie set.. but not as well built.

Diane,. Rafe and I climbed p the rickety ladders..

The view was so worth it !.

The dogs sat below barking.. ‘Where’d’ you guys go ? , Where’d you guys go ?”

Here’s Waterbury Reservoir.

The walk down was gentle and sunny.. What a perfect hike !  We got to the car and headed back to the house.

A few of the music kids were down at the house practicing (and sounding great0.. They helped me take down a few of the storm windows.. While I was out there I fixed most of the lights on the Sam guitar man sculpture in the front yard.

Meanwhile Diane and Rafe cooked dinner. Rafe had been talking about Risotto all day.. so we forced him to make us some.. It was delicious.. We also grilled some fish.. it was a great meal.

As I went out to get the fish… I caught a beautiful rise of the full moon.

Rafe and I decided to take a short walk up to the rock.. As I was leaving. Diane called down from the upstairs bathroom window.. I say window.. but there was no more window. It had blown off in the wind…  !

It now lay in a thousand pieces in the back yard.. Yikes ! Never, ever a dull moment around here.

Rafe and I too k the road over to the high meadow.. It was nice having the guitar guy lit up again !

We got up to the rock.. and in the  moonlight I saw that a daffodil had bloomed today up there !.

The moon was now clearing Robbins mountain.. Rafe and I sat up there and talked for a while It was a clear and warm night..

As we walked home. the moonlight was bright enough to cast our shadows..

We got home and Rafe told me a little about his research. I nodded politely to pretend I understood what he was saying.. (Actually.. he’s a good explainer.. I think I actually did understand what he was saying. tonight)  .. Rafe went to bed about midnight..It’s now about 1.. and time for me to go to sleep.. More stuff tomorrow. 
   G’nite everyone.. G’nite Gabe in South Caroline.. Max in NYC.. and Sam.. everywhere.. We love you !
-me