{"id":301,"date":"2007-07-01T03:26:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-01T07:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/07\/01\/sat-night-billys\/"},"modified":"2007-07-01T03:26:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-01T07:26:00","slug":"sat-night-billys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/07\/01\/sat-night-billys\/","title":{"rendered":"Sat night – Billys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ahhhh .. home at last. Diane and I made it home at about 7:00 PM<\/st1:time> after a 3.5 hour flight and a 6.5 hour drive. I’m glad to be sitting still. It was a wonderful trip.. not because of the places we went.. but because I was  <\/span>traveling  <\/span>with Diane. It was a totally different dynamic than my normal biz trips.. instead of coming back frazzled and fried, I’m coming back  <\/span>already chilled out.. I’m going to see if I can take family with me more often now\u2026.<\/p>\n

    <\/span>Yesterday I posted a bunch of pictures about going back  <\/span>to my childhood schools and house..   <\/span>The real reason for the trip to Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> was to visit my brother Billy, his wife Shaun   <\/span>and their kids Ben. Betsy., Billy. ‘Berto and Christopher.  <\/span>They had moved back down to Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> from Boston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> nearly four years ago . I’m embarrassed to say that  <\/span>even though we see my Bro and his family pretty often, this is the first time I’ve seen their new house in Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. In fact, this was my first trip back to my home town , in more than 6 years since my parents moved up to MA.  <\/span>Diane and I were excited to see Billy ‘s family and the house. We got there mid-afternoon yesterday and just hung out with them for the rest of the day.   <\/span>It was great hanging out with Billy ,Shaun and the kids.. I love talking to Billy, he is the person on the planet who thinks most like me. Talking to him is like having a conversation in my head. Shaun is a free spirited and creative thinker too. She’s very spontaneous and loving. We love being with her. The kids are all quite different. All are growing very fast.   <\/span>It was fun checking in with each of them during this trip.  <\/span>We miss having them so far away from us now. <\/p>\n

 Billy<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/center><\/span>Shaun

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<\/span><\/span><\/center><\/span>Betsy

<\/center><\/span>‘Baby” billy (no baby anymore !)
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<\/span><\/center><\/span>Christopher (the bobblehead)
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<\/center><\/span>Chris on drums
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<\/span><\/center><\/span>On the porch
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<\/span><\/center><\/span>Me and Tintin
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Billy and Chris
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<\/span><\/center><\/span>More Chris
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<\/span><\/center><\/span>‘Berto
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<\/span>Fireworks at night
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Betsy and the W.E.B. (Wiggling Eye Balls)
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Billy and his trombone practicing<\/p>\n

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Their place is really great.. First of all, it’s huge !.. Is a big two story brick building on a tree lined quiet street in Bellaire<\/st1:city> TX<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>.. an embedded suburb of Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. The house is spacious and airy and has all sorts of amazing features e.g.<\/i>  <\/span>the whole outside of  <\/span>property, including the tree house,  <\/span>is plumbed with small jets that spray a natural repellent  <\/span>to keep Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>‘s famous voracious mosquitoes at bay. They have a great pool with a spa, an outdoor kitchen, and a full guest house with full kitchen. Downstairs from that was Billy’s shop where he does much of his inventing. <\/p>\n

Welcome !<\/p>\n

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The front of the house<\/span>
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The rearof the house<\/p>\n

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The guesthouse.shop and outside table
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The pool

Their ceder works glider.. jsut like the one I rode on with all three of our kids. (We’d sing ‘Doggy-doggy-doggy meat !’) <\/p>\n

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<\/span>Cool artwork
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Yummy Texas food (you couldn’t make me eat okra as a kid.. now I love it)

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My grandfather’s desk !<\/p>\n

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The inside kitchen

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><\/span>The outside kitchen<\/span>
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Our three boys are present
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My brother is a world renowned  <\/span>heart surgeon (http:\/\/www.oberlin.edu\/alummag\/oamcurrent\/oam_winter99\/hearts.html<\/a>) , He’s invented many amazing devices to help in heart surgery.. most of them were prototyped in his how shop out of ordinary equipment such as spoons, PVC pipe, ti-wraps, film cans, etc. His shop is pretty nice.. I particularly love his desktop mill\/lathe combination.   <\/span>Billy is also a semi-professional musician. He’s currently playing in a tongue-and-and cheek Disco revival band )’Disco Expressions”) complete with white leisure suits and white platform shoes . Here he is practicing for an up coming gig. <\/p>\n

    <\/span>We stayed up late last night , cooked some food out on the grill  <\/span>and hung around in the pool. Around midnight<\/st1:time> we wandered off  <\/span>for a few hours sleep before leaving this morning at 5AM<\/st1:time> to catch our flight.
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     <\/span>Our flight was about 3.5 hours .. but I only remember about 30 minutes of it.. the rest I slept. We arrived at JFK around 11:30<\/st1:time>.   <\/span>As we waited for our bags, I saw this add for Spamalot.. ‘Spam’ or ‘Spamus’ was always my nickname for Sam. I always collected  <\/span>‘Spam’ stuff for him. When I saw this add I instinctively started to take a picture.. but then  <\/span>almost stopped \u2026 ‘Why stop’ I asked  <\/span>myself ?<\/p>\n

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   <\/span>We got our stuff, and boarded the Airtrain back to our car. On the trip I managed to fall against the emergency alarm button…. I had to explain my clumsiness to the Transit police  <\/span>via intercom..  <\/span>Oooops !   <\/span>We found our car with out issue and began the long but smooth trek back to Vermont<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>.   <\/span>As we crossed the line back into Vermont<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> we both let out a sigh of relief. Our trip had taken us through  <\/span>Newark<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, the Jersey<\/st1:placename> Shore<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, Austin<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. Houston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. NYC., Urban CT, etc..  <\/span>The unspoiled green of Vermont<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> really felt like home to us. It’s quite a different world up here.. maybe not for everyone.. but it’s heaven for us.<\/p>\n

Here<\/p>\n

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there

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   <\/span>We got home around 7PM. Max and a few of his friends were hanging out. The house was spotless which was nice to see. Max asked me to go get a voltmeter out of my lab.. he followed me over. I opened the door to see that he and Scott had completely cleaned and organized it for me as a Father’s day present. I almost cried I was so happy. You would have had to have seen it before to know what a huge labor of love that was for them to do.. what a wonderful gift.  <\/span>I love Max so much.. he is such a loving guy..  <\/span> <\/span>Scott, that was so cool for you to help do !<\/p>\n

Surprise ! Clean Lab !<\/p>\n

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   <\/span>Diane, Max and I then headed off to Mexecali for dinner. It was a great homecoming. Now\u2026 time for sleep. It’s nice to be back in my own bed.  <\/span>G’nite everyone !.. <\/p>\n

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-me<\/p>\n

    <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ahhhh .. home at last. Diane and I made it home at about 7:00 PM after a 3.5 hour flight and a 6.5 hour drive. I’m glad to be sitting still. It was a wonderful trip.. not because of the places we went.. but because I was  traveling  with Diane. It was a totally different … Continue reading Sat night – Billys<\/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-301","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\/301","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=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}