SimpliSafe offers a comprehensive suite of highly regarded, DIY home security devices. It is one of the systems I am considering for our River House project. The CEO was a former colleague at iRobot and he recently contacted me to see if I would be interested in a consulting opportunity at the company. Today, I had a Zoom call with their CTO which went well and I have agreed to take them on as a new client. My consulting business has grown quite substantially in a short period of time and I feel very fortunate that I can be selective about who I work with. I will only say yes to an opportunity if I am really excited about the team or technology (in this case, both).
Kyle is on vacation in Costa Rica taking surfing and Spanish lessons. He shared this and several other photos with the family but included no commentary. I conclude that he is too busy having fun to spend time writing about his exploits. Rest assured, he will be interrogated upon his return.
I had business in Watertown this morning and remembered to bring my drone for further exploration of Howe Tower. In a previous post, I promised to get an aerial view of this very beautiful work of architecture.
Jeanine and I enjoyed a wonderful Memorial Day party in Gloucester, MA at the family home of one of Jeanine’s colleagues. The home is situated on a high rock outcropping overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the grounds are just gorgeous. The food was delightful and the company even better.
Jeanine informed me that we would be meeting her quota of 10,000 steps today. The first leg of our journey would be completed on a new section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. While en route we passed by an ugly two-car crash, a sober reminder of how quickly one’s fate can change. We encountered a large snapping turtle on our walk, which Jeanine recognized from an outing earlier in the week. It appeared stranded on the newly constructed footbridge over Route 2. Jeanine insisted I not lift the turtle by the back of its shell (later confirmed to be the recommended method). Instead, she proposed that we use a big orange barrel to capture and transport the snapping beast. At first, I was not too keen on the plan, but it proved to be a very safe and humane way to return the snapper to its natural environment. Jeanine recorded the operation on video and I will try and add it to this post when I get more time.
Jeanine and I spent some time today driving around looking for attractive exterior color schemes to inspire our choice for the River House. We are in full agreement that we will not be choosing orange for any component of the palette although I could not resist stopping for a photo of these carrots while grabbing a snack at Wilson Farms in Lexington.
I was in Cambridge for a meeting this morning and decided to swing by the Boston Common when it ended early. I find the Memorial Day Flag Garden to be a moving reminder of the cost of conflict. Each of the 37,000+ flags represents a Massachusetts service person who paid the ultimate price in service of our country.
We are very pleased to have found someone who is interested in recycling many of the windows from our River House. They will be used to build a greenhouse. Pictured above are the empty openings with the removed windows on the ground in the background.
My sister Alissa, attended the first annual Forbes/Shook Top Women Wealth Advisor Summit in Palm Beach, FL where ~$500,000 was raised to support the Susan G. Komen foundation. She was one of nine women out of 450 selected to participate in a “best practices” sharing and was joined at the conference by her daughter, Rachel, who got to celebrate her 25th birthday in lofty style and company.
The kids stopped by for dinner so we could present Maya with a graduation present. Kyle came up with the gift idea and did all the leg work including finding the “card” pictured above. It has been a couple of weeks since we had a family dinner and it was really nice being together again.
Maya and I rented a 3/4 ton pickup truck this afternoon and spent a total of 5 hours moving her tiny house from the River House lot to the Road House lot. A two-phase procedure was required to exit the driveway. We backed the house out from its plot while aligning it with the driveway. Next, we decoupled the truck, and drove it around the tiny house and up the driveway (the back of the house appears jacked up to its full height in the photo above during the decoupling operation). We then recoupled and began the 1.5-mile trip to the Road House. On the way, we encountered some low-hanging phone lines which caused a minor delay. Maya fashioned a scaffolding in the bed of the truck and used a long pole to lift the wires over the roof as I slowly advanced the truck. The rest of the journey was uneventful and the tiny house is now parked in our backyard where Maya will complete the remaining interior bathroom and trim work before starting her new job at Formlabs on July 1.
Ten minutes into my soccer match this morning, I tweaked my hamstring and could not play for the remainder of the match. The temperature on the field was 95F and by the end of the game, our team had zero subs compared to our opponent who had 8. They literally ran us into the ground and handed us our first defeat of the season (0-2). I spent the rest of the day trying to take it easy and helping Jeanine to select the final handful of images needed to complete her book. Unfortunately, these pictures were taken some time ago and none of the subjects were on hand for sampling.
DJI recently announced a new drone and controller that is about half the weight of my current kit with nearly the same quality camera on board. Having strained to haul my kit to the top of many a tall mountain, I placed my order for the latest model on the day it was announced. Now it is time to sell off my current gear so I took some product shots and posted the kit for sale on Craig’s List.
At long last our construction drawings are complete, and our builder will file for a building permit next Monday. If there are no glitches with the permit, our project will be officially underway. Working with Steve Baczek, our architect has been a real pleasure. His expertise in building science is unsurpassed and his practical understanding of the construction process is equally impressive. We started our work together operating under the premise that “the best idea wins.” I feel like the design process was a true collaboration every step of the way and could not be happier with the outcome. Above, is one example of a construction detail that is one part of the full set of plans.
Planning for our fall excursion to Turkey has officially begun with the arrival of a travel book I ordered online. The plan is to make a family vacation of our trip to Istanbul to watch Nicolai play in the Amputee World Cup. Our initial thinking is to spend half our time in the capitol and half visiting other parts of the country.
My consulting work took me to Watertown for an early meeting this morning. I arrive 30 minutes early and used the extra time to take a stroll along the Charles River. When I reached the Newton Yacht Club, I was able to get a nice view across the river of the Howe Building tower. It is the iconic feature of the main building on the Perkins School for the Blind campus. On my next visit, I must be sure to bring my drone for an aerial perspective.
No matter how grown up they have become, I still think of them as my boys. Kyle heads to Costa Rica next week for a surfing vacation and Nico has arranged to take a leave of absence in the fall to train for the World Cup.
It’s official. Maya is now a graduate of Olin College and has earned a bachelor’s degree in Robotics Engineering. This right of passage is not complete without the kissing of the graduate by the parents, a tradition started by my cousin Heather and one which we have continued with our kids. On hand for the celebration were her brothers, aunt Susan, and cousin John William. Later in the evening, we hosted a party on campus for Maya, her suitemates, and their parents. The entire day was full of joy and we count ourselves truly fortunate to have been blessed with three children who have grown up to be such nice people, each with their own unique gifts.
As Olin graduates cross the stage to receive their diplomas, a narrator reads words that each has chosen to share with the audience. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” were those selected by Maya; ones to live by for sure.
Not only did the day have a wonderful ending, it also started well. Having missed a week due to injury, I was happy to be back on the pitch this morning. I scored one goal and had one assist before leaving the game early to shower and change for the graduation ceremony.
Maya will graduate from Olin College tomorrow. Today, she asked if I would take some photos of her and her close friends. Pictured here are all but one of her suitemates. Not shown is Lauren who tested positive for Covid earlier in the week. Later in the session, we were able to get her in some specially designed socially distanced shots. The full set of photos can be found here.
We are making every effort to keep all of the trees surrounding the River House. Unfortunately, the ones standing where the attached garage will be located have to be moved. We are hoping to transplant them but their survival can not be guaranteed. One of the trees contains a bird’s nest. As demolition day approaches, I plan to relocate this home to another tree on the property.
Nico and his friend Oliver took the kayaks out on the Sudbury River this afternoon. He provided this wonderful photo taken by Oliver while on the water.
Jeanine and I were able to attend Maya’s SCOPE (Senior Capstone Program in Engineering) presentation at Olin this afternoon. Her team was sponsored by Amazon Robotics to develop the ability to operate fulfillment center robots at a great distance where network latency becomes a serious problem. All the Scope presentations can be seen here. Maya did a great job with her portion of the presentation and later we got to play with the prototype that the team built. Jeanine had to attend to some urgent Open Table business but I was able to hang around for a tour of Maya’s dorm suite followed by a father-daughter dinner at Sweet Basil.
For almost two years now, I have been jumping through hoops to get our new home construction project approved. This process included gaining signoff from the following parties:
Concord Department of Natural Resources
Concord Historic Preservation Commission
Concord Building & Inspections
Concord Board of Health
Concord Planning Division
Concord Tree Preservation
Concord Municipal Power
Concord Water & Sewage
Concord Highway Department
Concord Fire Department
Concord Police Department
National Grid
Last week our Building Permit (demolition phase only) was approved and I picked up the physical permit this afternoon. It is the most expensive sheet of orange paper that I have ever seen. Fortunately, all of the groundwork for this permit will apply to the Construction permit that we will file next week. With any luck, demolition will commence in June.
Jeanine celebrates the arrival of new furniture for their office. Until now they were using second-hand furniture donated by a local bank. The new items are light and colorful and much more fitting to the image of the organization than the dark and heavy bank furnishings. She is joined by the local business owner who donated the furniture and the designers who helped with the selection.
Jeanine was treated to a fine dinner prepared by Kyle and Nico who spent the evening catching up with Mom. Maya was in crunch mode at school with just one week left to graduation. The meal included lamb chops, a greek salad, and asparagus.
I spent the earlier part of the day readying the River House for demolition. I wisely chose to give my knee and ankle another week to recover before returning to the soccer pitch. My team managed a 2-1 win which made me feel better about my absence.
I spent the bulk of the day working with Kyle on his renovation project. Today we concentrated on framing and electrical rewiring. Our most visible accomplishment was the mounting of his heat pump condensing unit on the side of his house. We located the unit to cover the holes left where we removed the fill pipe and vent for his old fuel oil tank. Those holes will be repurposed to carry refrigerant and electrical power respectively.
An aspect of my visit to the Lazy Q Ranch yesterday that I failed to mention, was the fact that we spent an hour at a dead standstill on the highway to La Grange. A serious accident occurred less than 2 minutes in front of us that required a medical airlift. At first, I thought we were unlucky to have not started our journey a few minutes earlier. The more that I thought about it, however, I realized we were very lucky to have left exactly when we did. When traffic started moving again, I could see only one car off the road. Presumably, another was also involved and had been moved to the shoulder.
I spent the day in La Grange, Texas at the Lazy Q Ranch, a 2,200-acre state-of-the-art training facility for power line workers. Here, one of my clients has constructed a test facility for their robot which helically wraps fiber optic cable around power lines. A series of non-energized power lines near ground level (~8ft) are strung between shortened power poles. This allows testers to closely observe the robot as it crawls along the cable and over and under the insulators at each pole. Seeing the robot, pictured behind me, in person was extremely valuable. Although I had seen many videos and CAD files of the design, I still found myself completely surprised by some of the features I discovered and behaviors I witnessed. Fireproof clothing and hard hats are required while in the test area.
Another flight, another kidney stone. This makes four stones in five flights. I flew from Boston to Austin, TX today for a business meeting tomorrow. For reasons, I have yet to figure out, flying seems to initiate the passage of kidney stones in my body. This one measured just over 3mm. My current working theory is that this phenomenon is due to the reduced air pressure that exists in an airplane cabin.
