<\/span>Action feels good. <\/p>\n <\/span>Around 10. Diane went up to get Sam and our friend’s Hannah. Morgan and Rebecca from up the hill. Avery showed up too.\u2026 The girls wanted to learn to weld\u2026 which is pretty funny since I’m sort of a beginner myself. We chose a simple practical project to start: a mitten rack. If you’ve ever visited the Townsend’s house in winter you’ll know how practical this will be. We copied the design of <\/span>mitten rack that we had.. but decided to super-size it. It was such a blast figuring out the materials, cutting the metal, bending it and welding it all together. I did some demo’s of each of the steps, but the girls did most of the real work. I was so impressed. These women are natural welders (some better than me, I think!) <\/span>I felt very close to Sam as I worked with his friends out there in the lab. As the last weld came together we all felt so proud of what we’d built. <\/span>All it needs now is some paint and a SamStone on the top and it’ll be ready for use in Hannah’s house.
<\/span>After the girls left around 4ish<\/st1:time>, Diane, Chai and I got out for a great snowshoe. Among other things we talked about one of the books I am reading “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepak Chopra\u2026that my friend Julie gave me . Though I’ve never been a big fan of Chopra, <\/span>In this book.. as in others of his I’ve seen, he mixes spiritual stuff with advice on how to be materially successful. That said, there are many things I like about this book. One of his main themes is <\/span>the importance of living <\/span>in the moment, particularly the importance of not denying the facts of the present. He says to resist <\/span>the truth of the present <\/span>is to spend energy fighting the tide of the whole universe. He doesn’t say that in a fatalistic way.. he says that <\/span>each instant you must <\/span>take responsibility and make choices on how to shape your own future. <\/span>That really resonates with my own sense of how I have to apply this powerful set of messages I’m learning from Sam to steer my life.. I look forward to finishing the book..
<\/span>Around 6ish<\/st1:time> Gabe, Diane, Chai <\/span>and I headed up to Jen and Tim’s for a “Friends of Sam’s” meeting. FoS is a group that the kids have put together to do local public service in Sam’s honor. The kids were talking about having a fund raiser in the next couple of months. The kids are doing all the planning; we adults were just there to listen. (and eat !)\u2026 While we were up there we made a batch of very yummy instant ice cream with some liquid nitrogen I’d picked up <\/span>last week.. We nearly wrecked Tim and Jen’s kitchen freezing stuff (roses, balloons, bananas) and smashing them. <\/span>We then watched all of the Super Bowl commercials without having to watch even a second of football.. (Hurray for TiVo !) <\/span>We got home around 10:30<\/st1:time>. Max, Mason and Scott showed up a few minutes later after their successful trip down to Brooklyn<\/st1:place>. Max had to move some stuff out of his dorm room at Pratt. . It sounds like it was good for him to go down and take that step. He got to see some friends and feels like he’ll be fine fitting back in down there in the fall. <\/span>I’m so glad he decided to stay here this semester.
<\/span>One last closing piece of news.. Last night there was an MMU Cabaret night. Diane and I almost went but decided to have a quiet at home Sam night (very nice) .. <\/span>I heard today that Skanky Green premiered a new song there in Sam’s honor\/ It’s called ‘Captain Sam.. Jeff D. sent me the words\u2026 I’ll get a recording posted as soon as I can. <\/span>Sam, you’re famous!
<\/o:p><\/p>\nThe Ballad of Captain Sam
By Skanky Green <\/o:p><\/i><\/b><\/p>\nVERSE 1 <\/span>
Captain Sam was staring <\/span>
Down a hardline barrel <\/span>
Positioned for the drop and smiling <\/span>
He headed down the hill, <\/span>
Saluting as he came <\/span>
And flipping upside down he couldn’t help but grin <\/span>
CHORUS <\/span>
Relax a bit, you might just have some fun <\/span>
Don’t take it all so serious <\/span>
You’ll never live it down <\/span>
Take the plunge, you might have to take a dive <\/span>
‘Cause that’s what he would have done <\/span>
if he was still alive <\/span>
VERSE 2 <\/span>
Captain Sam he hopped a vessel <\/span>
bound for Israel <\/span>
And we all knew, he’d rock the middle east <\/span>
He walked right in, cracked a grin <\/span>
very next day he walked out again <\/span>
And sure enough, ever since then, <\/span>
there has been peace <\/span>
CHORUS <\/span>
VERSE 3 <\/span>
Captain Sam got himself a pirate ship <\/span>
through somewhat dubious means <\/span>
He sailed that thing across the ocean <\/span>
but never once did a man <\/span>
step across that plank <\/span>
and the prisoners all swore <\/span>
their allegiance to the captain <\/span>
CHORUS <\/span>
VERSE 4 <\/span>
Two months ago, we heard news <\/span>
that captain sam had perished <\/span>
Fighting pygmies in the amazon <\/span>
outnumbered by a hundred he refused to run <\/span>
he held them off from dusk to dawn <\/span>
sam was never afraid <\/span>
even when the odds were against him <\/span>
he only feared for those he left behind <\/span>
and he’s moved on to the next adventure <\/span>
i think its best we keep his legacy in mind <\/span>
CHORUS<\/span><\/o:p><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long, and good day\u2026 Started the day with a dream about Sam. Something was trying to erase all of his movies but I was able to stop it. It’s a repeat dream theme about being afraid I’ll start forgetting him. There doesn’t seem to be any chance of that while I’m awake. He was with … Continue reading Sunday evening \u2013 Welding Day<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}