Hi John,

currently stuck in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia, due to early snowfall. The trip is full of coincidental meetings.

Yesterday we ended up in Cafe “Amsterdam”, in the center of the city here where we suddenly met a Japanese entrepreneur who was working on Climate Change and Precision Agriculture. He is currently connecting us to his people in Japan and to Ulaanbataar University. It seems that this Water Preservation / Precision Irrigation using low-cost devices is really hitting the right notes.

Moreover, I am really thankful to have to opportunities to bring Sam here, it is really  a great addition to our travel. I will send you a set of pictures soon; we have some great footage and places where we placed the stones. Btw, yesterday we placed the first stone in Mongolia, at a rather special place 🙂

-RJ

Robert-Jan Sips

NB From 1 Sept 2014 until 3 Jan 2015 I’ll be travelling in Central Asia with limited access to my mail. Responsibilities will be delegated to Wing-Yan Man, please mail to wingyanman@nl.ibm.com

CAS Research Lead
University Relations Manager

Center for Advanced Studies (CAS)
IBM Netherlands B.V.
Johan Huizingalaan 765, 1066 VH Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Phone:  +31 (0)20 513 3584
Mobile: +31 (0)6 2041 9915
Fax:       +31 (0)20 513 5866
Email:   rjsips@nl.ibm.com

From:    John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM@IBMUS
To:    Robert-Jan Sips/Netherlands/IBM@IBMNL@IBMGB,
Date:    26-09-14 21:37
Subject:    Re: SamStone Kazan

Robert-Jan,
Thanks so much for the update. It’s so cool to imagine where you are , what you’re seeing and who you’re meeting !
-jc

John Cohn Ph.D,
IBM Fellow , Corporate Technical Strategy
phone 802-578-0985

Re: Placed SamStone Jamile Sims to: John M Cohn 09/28/2014 04:49 PM Hide Details From: Jamile Sims <jamile@jamile.com> To: John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM@IBMUS

Hi!

Name = Jamile Sims

Email = jamile@jamile.com

Message =
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/118244598199676016900/albums/6064172607342136785

One SamStone placed inside the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City.
One SamStone placed at my cabin inside Grand Canyon National Park.
Both were placed September 2014.

Hi John,

we placed four so far throughout Russia. Today we positioned one at Lake Baikal, the fabled lake every Russian we met wants to see at least once in his/her life. Sidenote: it contains 20% of the worlds freshwater and is home to various species found nowhere else on earth (we ate a Baikal fish today and saw Baikal seals).

Next up is Mongolia and after that down to the ‘stans. I’ll keep posting stories, but am a bit behind on sorting out photo’s and material.
You can follow our progress at dutchcourage.org 🙂

We actually like to take Sam along on this big adventure! He seems to give an extra sparkle to it and, perhaps coincidental, the sun has been following us for the past month, everywhere we came, the weather changed.

-RJ

From:    John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM@IBMUS
To:    Robert-Jan Sips/Netherlands/IBM@IBMNL@IBMGB,
Cc:    gj.keizer@gmail.com
Date:    22-09-14 23:25
Subject:    Re: SamStone Kazan

Robert-Jan,
Thanks so much !.. this i such a cool looking place. It means so much to us that you are taking Sam on your big adventure.
Where too next ? It’s fun to be watching your progress !
Sorry you’re having trouble with the upload. I’ll see what’s up.
-jc

John Cohn Ph.D,
IBM Fellow , Corporate Technical Strategy
phone 802-578-0985

Hi John,

failed to upload multiple pictures through your website 🙂

On the 13th of September, we visited Kazan, the capital of Tartarstan in Russia.
Kazan is named the “third capital of Russia” and home to a magnificent Kremlin, dating back to the 16th century. In Kazan, we met Anastasia Trofimenko and Lena Sadrtdinova, with whom we spent a great evening watching Russian TV, chatting and learning about Russian culture.

As it turned out, Anastasia worked at the Sochi Olympics, which gave her an amazing network throughout Russia (there were some 20000 volunteers on site), and she has arranged for places to stay in many places we visited after Kazan. During the evening we came to speak on the purposes of our trip (as there are multiple) and we also came to discuss Samstones. Given the historic importance of Kazan, the beautiful Kremlin, the very hospitable and kind reception, it seemed highly appropriate to place a Samstone in the Kazan Kremlin.

We left the stone in the custody of Lena and Anastasia (I’ve attached a picture of the official handover moment) and a few days later we received another picture through Whatsapp, showing SAM on a beautiful spot right in the heart of the Kremlin. A beautiful example for Russian-Dutch collaboration for a good cause.

Below links to wikipedia, the gps location of te stone and 3 pictures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazan_Kremlin

https://www.google.nl/maps/place/Kazan+Kremlin/@55.799356,49.105999,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x415ead219941ae53:0x5b0126a895b9ce7d

[attachment “DSC_4146.JPG” deleted by John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM] [attachment “DSC_4190.JPG” deleted by John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM] [attachment “IMG-20140918-WA0005.jpg” deleted by John M Cohn/Burlington/IBM]

Best, Robert-Jan and Gert

Hello, John!
It’s Anastasiia from Kazan. I’m working at a hostel, and see a lot of people come and go every day.
So one evening, Robert-Jan and Gert arrived, and since that moment we started our amazing communication. I wouldn’t like to repeat, but it was great evening, full of talking about everything – time passed  so quickly! Also Robert-Jan told me about the Samstones, we both decided that the Kazan Kremlin is the best place for one of them (hope, you’ll agree). It was unexpected, but very pleased that guys entrusted me and Lena to put the stone there.
By the way, it’s a great pleasure for me to help guys to get to know Russia by good people – my friends and big friendly family called “Team Sochi 2014”, the network of contacts which resulted from the Sochi Olympics volunteers. It reminds  me about the best days in my life.
We hope that Russia won’t be empty anymore in the Samstone map soon 🙂

File attached = DSC00002.jpg

Message =
I’d never heard of SamStones, but grabbed this from a geocache in
western Montana,
GC2TVNN “My 1,111 +1 Pact TB Mountain Manor Inn”
I was outbound on a 13-day roadtrip to Seattle for geocaching’s annual
“Block Party”.
It’s now a several weeks later, and I just dropped the SamStone off in
Cheyenne, WY, where I live. I put it in geocache GC1HYHV “Johnny
Appleseed”.
Pretty amazing to see all the places that these have been!

Name = Kevin O’Hare

Email = spooty3@yahoo.com

File attached = DSC00002.jpg

Message =
I’d never heard of SamStones, but grabbed this from a geocache in
western Montana,
GC2TVNN “My 1,111 +1 Pact TB
I was outbound on a 13-day roadtrip to Seattle for geocaching’s annual
“Block Party”.
It’s now a several weeks later, and I just dropped the SamStone off in
Cheyenne, WY, where I live. I put it in geocache GC1HYHV “Johnny
Appleseed”.
Pretty amazing to see all the places that these have been!

I placed the 2nd Sam Stone on my desk, next to some other engraved stone that I have (perhaps Om?).

———–
My typos my own, they belong to me