We’re making this a very quick round-trip down to Houston… I. I’m feeling a little weird that I don’t have time to see other friends and family…. but t’s really nice to be back in my hometown

DIane and I woke up much earlier than the rest of the family so we went outside to drink our coffee. We saw this guy. I forgot how much these beautiful lizards were part of our life.

Billy actually woke up for a short bit to take Andy out for a quick ride… They are so cute together and Billy’s triumph. Then Billy came back and went back to sleep. has really fun time schedules. People are up really late at night… Sometimes all night and sleep at various time during the day. It’s a very cool other world.

It was plenty hot sown there.. Houston hot.. not what we are used to.. but hanging out in the pool really helped. 

We love staying with billy and Shawn.. so much. cool stuff to see and do.. or not do.. which we gladly did by just sitting on the porch

Billy took Andy and me on a ride down tot eh medical center.. I got to see the huge expansion that the Houston medical center is making. it’s already the biggest medical center in the world.. .. One feature I liked was a set of winding sidewalks that make the winding helix of DNA. Supposedly when it’s finished. the helix will eb visible from space !

After some doggy time. Later on in the afternoon, max, diane and I headed to see the house aI grew up in .

First we stopped at St Francis church.. a place I got into all sorts of mischief in.. It’s where I learned to pick locks ! The place is full of old st francis statues.. I used to talk to these guys.. good to see them all doing ok.

Then we crossed piney point to check out shady glen where we all used to live.

Here’s the old house.. I’ve been back many times.. it still brings back a nice feeling of ‘home’ to me.

the place was looking good. ! we met the current owners Leon and Donna and talked to them about the house and the neighborhood. THye were great !

a huge pine tree had just come down in the backk yard during hurricane Beryl.. which hit Houston hard a few weeks back ( then hit us I vermont a few days later !)

our old magnolia “Maggie” was still doing fine.. I gave her a kiss and a samstone for old times sake

From there we drove out I 10 towards Katy to meet Shawn and the kids at  a Tech Arts spot called Seismique. Set in a strip mall in a part of Texas that used to be sugarcane or rice… This was so far away from the center of Houston but we were still inside the city limits… This place has gotten so huge in the last 60 years !

Seismique was fun… It felt like a meow wolf wannabe… It had some great interactive art.. there was no unifying theme. I really did like the layout of the place…

I’m a sucker for cool lighting.. and there was plenty here

Lots of projection mapping.. something I want to do more of !

From there, we went all the way crosstown to catch Billy playing with one of his bands… Tonight was a big annual party in the part of Houston called the heights. Used to be a pretty rundown part of town… But now it had all sorts of crazy bars and restaurants… Super gentrified… But really nice. The event was called “white linen “and everyone… I mean everyone was dressed in white. This band is a bunch of friends old numbers and Billy is playing trombone. It was so great to watch… He was great. the whole Evening was great

From there we all headed to Katz’s all night deli for some excellent NY style deli food.. delish !

Then back to the house for another swim and sleep

nite all, nite sam

-me

We made a spur the moment decision to head down to Houston for two days…   >> one “nice” thing is it we won’t be shocked by the hot and humid weather down there… We have it up here in Vermont.… It reminded me of Houston day when I got out of the car with air-conditioning and my glasses fogged up as they hit the muggy air

“We headed down to houston because Max is in town working on the new meow Wolf and Billy and his family are there. Billy’s just been part of an amazing scientific and medical advance…. For the last several years he’s been  working with the company by Bivacor on a totally implantable artificial heart. There had been artificial hearts before, but this is the first one that doesn’t actually have a pulse. What’s more is it only has one moving part. It’s an amazingly ingenious design. They tested it on hundreds of animals. it is a huge advance towards, creating a permanent heart replacement. The initial FDA approval stipulate that it can only be used as a bridge to transplant… But eventually, it will be a permanent replacement. Several weeks ago Billy helped the team implant that a very ill 54 year old man… The surgery went perfectly and by the end of the next two weeks, a donor heart had been located and was successfully transplanted into the patient. The guy is now up and around and eating donuts and ice cream for breakfast. The news of it was embargoed for about two weeks until the health outcome was known… And now we’re able to talk about it. It’s all over the news.  .. Just google william e cohn  and bivacor.. .. there are tons of articles about it .. like this one !

We are so proud of Billy and his team!… There’s a great opportunity to go down and celebrate with him… When we got there, we found him instead of tampering with somebody’s internal organs… He was breathing life into an old BMW to see how he could make it remote control for a parade next April… Totally ingenious

We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Sean and Billy and the kids… So super fun getting to spend time with them… They are also full of information and fun facts and house has gotten all sorts of cool gadgets and toys

Fight me evening Max came to meet us and we all went to an all night Mexican restaurant. It was so fun and so good.

One fun thing we did was to take the New York Times dialect test… By answering about 20 questions it tries to identify where you are from. Check this out it nails me directly as being from  Houston…!
Billy and Shauns son Billy Jr took it and it identified him as being from Boston, which is technically true

Super fun being down here even if it’s for just for a day aor so

nite all , nite sam

-me

Hot day here .. everybody’s moving kinda slow… Diane worked on soem new samstones. 

WHile I went to UVM for an early meeting. One was about a grant  I’m helping with.. THen I dropped by my freinds Doug’s lab to see if we might collaborate on a project at beta.   DOug and his students do laser spectroscopy.. super cool stuff !

Cool stuff.. aside.. it was hot and getting hotter. 

Diane and I had tickets for an outdoor concert at Shelburne Museum for Joe Russo almost dead (they go by the name of JRAD).It was a nice crowd there..t he band sounded so good. THey are my favorite Grateful Dead cover band. Joe is the lead singer and he plays while drumming !

The concert was sponsored by Ben & Jerry’s, so there was free ice cream… We needed that to beat the heat. To be honest, the heat kind of took some of the fun out of it. So we didn’t even stay to the end… But it was still a great time.

We’re traveling again tomorrow… Better get some sleep

nite all, nite sam

-me

Worked from home this AM .. then headed in around lunch to give a tour to our friend Deb.. and her cousin Roxy and her daughter Ella. Roxy is a 787 transcontinental pilot for American., so it was really fun touring her and Ella around. We had a good time even thought only had a short while for the tour.. Both Roy and Ella did well in the sim.. we “flew” over Jonesville just to check it out.

Ella wanted a picture of them doing this thing .. I guess it’s a thing on the thing these days ?

After dinner diane and I took a walk around to check out the rivers and survey how things were going to restore the roads..

Check out these chunks of Wes White Hill rd !

Nite all, nite sam
-m3