Diane and I headed down to DC for the annual meeting of the National Academy of Engineering. Its one of my favorite nerd fests of the year. I get to see lots of freinds from all over the ocountry adn the world Traceling with the governemnt shutdown was an adventure. I couldn t beleive how politicized the situation is
the trip down was crazy.. our plane was foced to land at Laguardia because we’d been kept circling so long. I managed to get us on anoyher carrier and we got to where we were going
we headed over to Matt and Corolines for dinne. It was so fun gettign to play wiht Anna and James. Anna is a realy person now !
We love coming down to DC to see these guys. nite all, nite sam -me
Today was Yom Kippur.. the most important day in the jewish calander.. the day you think about how you did last year, ond what your intentions are for the coming year. I’m getting les and less observant as I grow older, but I do take yom kippur pretty seriously. It’s like an annual progreess review that you do for your self.. its also when you forgive yourself for the times you slipped, and ask other you might have wronged for forgiveness.. It traditioanally a day of fasting.. which I always do. I worked quietly at home.. and lat e afternoon i took a walk by myself up to teh power lines to think.
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I hope all of my friends who are members of the tribe had a good reflection today as well
Busy and fun day,. headded out for lucnh to meet my freind Eliot and his boss Ted at Echo. It’s been a long time since i’d been there and I wanted to see the result of all the new renovations. Great being back tehre and great meeting Ted.. he’s the new Exec Director of Echo.. super great guy.
After lunc my freinds John and his son Tom cam over for a quick tour of BETA. John is 99 years old and still sharp as a tack. He’s invented many things in the material sceince world.. and I thought he’d love to see all the materials stuff we do at BETA.. they both loved it !
around 5:30 , Diane and I headed up to Bolton to Meet our good friend and former housemate Kyle.. we hadnt seen her since her dad John died last August. It was a huge shock. John was such a great guy
As a surprise, Kyle brought our good freind and former housemate and her fiancee… no wait.. her husband !Hunter to hke with us. Was really great catching up with them. We talked a lot about kyle’s dad John. It was very good to be with him both. We got to the summit in time for the sunset.
We woke early and did a fast hike up honey hollow.. Work today was busy and fun.. THen tonight we had a fluffy meetup.. THe idea was to discuss how this burn went.. and discuss what was next for Fluffy.
it was great to have everyone together again. We ate then got down to business.
It was fun to relive soem stories from the playa…. we discussed what worked and what didnt for the camp and fo fluffy. Overall, people agreed that fluffy performed well We agreed we need to do soem work on the light patterns we are using.. which should be fun to do
the biggest discussion was abotu how much work we might take on .. lots of discussions includeing proposals to try to clean the dust oout of the clouds.. all the way up to rebuilding the clouds completely/ We have soem exeriemtns to do aroudn cleaning.. but i’m hopeing we dont commit to any major rework beyond tha.t. I don t thingk people have the energy or time for another compelte summer of work
we also discussed where fluffy should live..: there are 2 choices we discussed:
a) one thought was to continue business as usual.. which involves. Duane paying rent to the warehouse in charlotte where flufdfy is parked.. , doing soem local events and transporting her back and forth to the playa each year.. .
b)THe other thoguht is to take her out to playa next year and find a place to park her there.. that would dramatically reduce the cost of rent here in VT and the cost/effort of getting her out and back.. The down side would be that anything beyond basic maintenance would be hard to do remotely..
the agreement (I think) is to try a) this year and see how qe feel about b) when the burn come around late summer..
