Last week I had my annual eye exam which was very uplifting. Apparently, my eyes are the only parts of my body that are improving with age. The severity of my astigmatism has been decreasing over the last couple of years. Given how bad they were to start, that is not saying much. Nevertheless, I will take the win. Suspecting that my prescription had changed, I have been waiting for over 6 months to replace my glasses which are in a sad state of affairs. When I was working at Digital Alloys, I did some metal grinding and the red hot grinding dust hit the surface of my glasses (better the lenses than my eyeballs). This caused the coating on the lenses to begin deteriorating and the result is what you see above. Two weeks ago the nose bridge broke free of one of the lenses and I made a crude repair with a combination of cyanoacrylate glue and epoxy. Today, in a final attempt to cause me grief, one of the nose pads broke off. Fortunately, my new frames and lenses are due to arrive mid-next week.

When we started out to design our new River House, we asked the kids for their input. One of the requests was for a secret door somewhere. I believe this may have come from Maya. I am happy to report that we have found the perfect place and today I worked out the implementation details (which are anything but straightforward.) From the outside of my office, the entrance will appear as a built-in bookcase.

When you wish to gain entrance, the bookcase will pivot like a door all the way to the inside wall of the office where it will mate up with a matching bookcase on the inside.

In practice, the “door” will remain open almost all of the time. When we have guests or when I have teleconference meetings, it will be closed. I have not yet decided whether to motorize the opening and closing. I am leaning towards manual operation so I do not have to deal with an override to handle a power outage.

Meet Charley who celebrated her second birthday this week. She is the daughter of Jeanine’s niece, Erica. We are both looking forward to meeting her in person now that travel feels like it may be returning to normal.

At Jeanine’s request, and with the help of Maya and Lauren who were here last night, I installed this wall mural in Jeanine’s office. I took this photo while on a hike with Jeanine in the Swiss Alps. Of all the photos that Jeanine reviewed this one worked really well because of how the roof lines in the photo match the roof lines in the room. I was extremely amazed at the printed resolution. You can see a single water droplet falling from the cantilevered gutter. The mural arrived in three panels. Hanging the first one alone was something of a challenge and I was wise to wait for help with the second two where alignment was even more critical. Jeanine is very pleased with the result as is the photographer.

For the past few weeks, family dinners have shifted from the weekend to Tuesdays. Today, Nico is in Los Angeles practicing with the US National Amputee team in preparation for next month’s World Cup Qualifiers and Kyle was busy with work. Fortunately, Maya invited her friends Fiona and Lauren, and Jeanine invited our good friend Eliza. We had a great meal and watched a few family videos featuring Fiona and Maya.

One of my new clients is currently based out of One Kendal Square in Cambridge. I had a meeting there this afternoon and made this photo looking straight up while inside the atrium.

While on a walk today, I took this photograph of a bird’s nest with my camera. If you study the photo carefully, you will discover at least two things that do not make sense. If you can figure out these two mysteries, you will know how I made this undoctored image.

All the kitchen cabinets in the Road House feature adjustable magnetic latches. Combined with the self-closing hinges it makes for a very definitive closing action. Adjustment is accomplished by rotating the magnet assembly. When we first moved in, I spent several hours adjusting all the hinges and magnets to get perfectly centered and flush doors. Unfortunately, over time, the magnets rotate within their housings. Today, I took a couple of hours to remove them all, apply a thread locker, reinsert and adjust them. It was not exactly a fun project but having the doors constantly go out of adjustment would have driven me nuts over time.

Visiting from Indianapolis today was our nephew, Gabriel. He arrived in Boston earlier this week to take the CMS Level 2 Certified Sommelier exam which he passed. I picked him up in Boston and gave him a car tour of Boston and Cambridge before returning to Concord for dinner with the family. Nicolai had to leave early for the state wrestling tournament being held in western Massachusetts. Several members of the Concord Academy team of which he is the assistant coach qualified. Jeanine served specialty cod cakes which she prepared earlier in the week. I preferred the other cake on the menu.

Photos of Maya’s previously reported motorcycle ride on a frozen lake have surfaced calling into serious question the intellect which she is otherwise known for. Exhibit A: No helmet!! Exhibit B: Driver is a total stranger!! Exhibit C: Ice is slippery. Rest assured she received a serious admonishment from her parents on the matter.

After more than a week of back and forth, we have settled on what I sincerely hope is a final floor plan for the River House. Changes to this version were the result of moving the main hallway from the left of the stairs to the right. The office now gets a window with a long view of the river, access to the rest of the house is from the foyer rather than the living area, the mudroom gets a window, and we pick up a cleaning supply closet. The trade-off is that the laundry is now smaller and will require a stacked set of machines rather than side-by-side. Because the stairs moved, changes rippled to the second floor and basement. In both cases, this resulted in improvements to the layout. The woodshop and photo studio are now 600 sqft each.

Amputee soccer world cup qualifiers are scheduled for March and will be held in Mexico. Today, the roster for the national team that will represent the United States was posted and Nicolai will be among its members. He is tentatively set to play center midfield. I will be traveling to Mexico for the tournament and there is a good chance Jeanine will be joining me.

During my recent annual physical, my doctor asked me if I was experiencing any health issues that he should be aware of. My only real complaint other than the normal stuff related to aging was the fact that I felt my cardiovascular endurance had diminished far more so than my contemporary soccer teammates. I expressed the same concern five years ago and he ordered an echocardiogram stress test. It revealed some undesirable EKG waveforms but my coronary blood flow was deemed to be good. He thought it would be a good idea to get another stress test to see if anything had changed from my baseline. The results of the test I did today showed the same anomaly in my elevated heart rate but no change from my last test. This test did not include the ultrasound component and based on the outcome, I have to come back again and repeat the whole thing again for the more comprehensive test. The good news is that we live so close to the hospital now that it was faster to walk there than drive. I could also see our house while running on the treadmill. It is located in the clump of trees in the background. Below on the left are my at rest waveforms with my elevated heart rate waveform on the right. Apparently, my pattern shows an ST-segment depression outside of the normal range which can be indicative of reduced blood flow to the heart. According to my very friendly technician, my pattern was identical to the one five years ago and he is fairly confident that a repeat of the echocardiogram will not turn up a blood flow problem this time either.

Last October, my mother performed an Argentine Tango at a dance demonstration held at the Mall of America in Minneapolis. My sister Alissa, who coordinated her participation, just shared a great article that appeared on SheerDance.com. It tells the story of how my parents met through dancing and how it has been a sustaining passion for my mother to this day.

Link to article.

Jeanine and I spent a good part of the day at Kyle’s house. I helped him install two more replacement windows in his basement while Jeanine gave the upstairs a thorough cleaning, a much-needed intervention after all the cement dust we created last week when removing a portion of the concrete slab. Kyle is rapidly picking up many new construction skills and I can assign him projects with high confidence they will be done right. Although there remains much work to be done, the space is starting to take shape and much of the less enjoyable work is behind us.

Maya spent the weekend in Camden, Maine with friends from Olin participating in the National Toboggan Championships. Her team managed a 12.38-second run which was not good enough to advance but more than enough to have a great time. Apparently, she also took a hot lap around a frozen lake on a motorcycle with a “very handsome guy”. The motorcycle was equipped with spiked tires and her father was not pleased to learn of this risky behavior. He did, however, approve of the pond hockey match which was also part of the weekend activities.

Plans for our River House are coming along nicely and have remained stable for the last few months. Over the last few days, however, I have been playing with different options for a room we have been calling the Aviary. The original intent was for a 4-season screened-in porch above the main floor (five-window upper section in the lower image). In an unusually long post, I am sharing the thought process behind considering a change in direction for that single room.

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

(1) We are missing a cozy place for Jeanine to read, meditate, and enjoy quiet time or coffee with a friend. This space would have cozy dimensions, ample space for a big comfy chair (or two) and side table, great natural light, great views, and convenient access. No spaces on the first floor currently satisfy these requirements.

(2) The original goals for the Aviary (screened-in porch, “place to entertain small groups”) are not really being met with the current design. 12” thick walls with operable triple-pane glass will never “feel” like a screened-in porch and a lot of work will be required to open and close windows (9 in total) with each use. Unlike our old sunporch this will be a conditioned space which means: (a) when occupied with the windows open, the door should be closed (unlikely to happen in real life) and (b) when unoccupied, the windows should be closed after each use (otherwise we are pumping conditioned air into the outdoors all the time unless we zone separately). It is 90 feet and 22 stairs away from the kitchen and thus will never lend itself to entertaining with food being served. The high glass-to-volume ratio makes it one of the least energy efficient rooms and it will also be one of the least used.

What will be different about living in a home with a fresh air ventilation system (ERV)?

Our house will include a ventilation system that constantly brings fresh air from the outdoors into the house replacing an equal volume of stale air (carbon monoxide build-up, odors). The system will replace 1/3 of the air in every room every hour while preserving a very large percentage of the energy used to heat or cool that air.
During the summer, the humidity will be removed from incoming air and in the winter, it will be added. The incoming air will be filtered for dust/pollen. With this type of system, the only reason to open a window is for ambient sounds or egress. Opening a window will result in more dust in the house, loss of conditioned air, and bigger swings in humidity. If not for building codes requiring egress windows for all bedrooms, I would make every window non-operable.

With all of this in mind, I created a new plan, shown in the top image, which slopes the roof over the Aviary in the opposite direction. It does not present as dramatic an elevation view but solves many of the problems and has a feature that will make for a really nice cozy space for Jeanine. Time will tell if we opt for the change or stick with the current plan or some new variation emerges.

Perhaps the least fun I have had working on the River House is the removal of this pipe and another one just like it. The pipe is principally made of cement but also contains asbestos. Before demolition can begin, all asbestos must be removed from the structure and properly disposed of. Step one, completed last Saturday was to remove the stone tiles and cut through the 4″ concrete slab covering the pipe (3 hours). Step two, completed yesterday was to break up and remove the concrete covering the pipe (2 hours). Step three was to cut out the subflooring covering the remainder of the pipe (10 minutes). Step four, completed today while wearing a respirator, gloves, and a Tyvek hazmat suit, involved breaking the pipe into manageable-sized chunks and double bagging them in 10 mil plastic bags. Next weekend the bags will be picked up by a certified hazardous waste disposal company for a total cost of $300, a tiny fraction of the price had I hired a company to do this job.

Today, my plans to meet with a new colleague over lunch in West Concord had to be changed when we arrived to find the fire department on scene and the establishment closed. We decided to head to the Main Street Cafe where I was thrilled to find breakfast fare on the all-day menu.

Last fall, I was approached by the principals of a group working within Meta (formerly Facebook) with a consulting opportunity. The team is building a robot that installs fiber optic cable over existing power line infrastructure. It is a very cool project and I am excited to be joining the team. It has taken many months, however, to complete the onboarding process which involved joining the Launch Consulting Group which provides Facebook, Google, and others with contract employees and/or contract services. Today, I completed the process which included hours of mandatory training videos, paperwork, and setting up a dedicated computer for the project.

Taken in June of 2014, I just received this photo of me with my nieces Sophia and Rose. Since I am usually behind the camera, I appreciate getting photos where I am in front of it; even if they take 8 years to reach me 🙂

Despite using two vacuum cleaners at the same time, it was impossible to capture all of the dust created by a 14″ concrete saw that Kyle and I used today to help remove a slab of concrete in his basement. There were times when you could not see into the next room it was so thick. Before I get scolded by my mother and/or Jeanine, I should clarify that we were both wearing high-performance respirators. We sliced the 4-inch slab every two inches or so and then used a sledgehammer to break it into pieces. Some additional excavation with a demolition hammer followed by a diamond grinder and we were very pleased with the outcome. We also removed a massive cast iron standing sink which involved a little more plumbing work than we initially anticipated. I think it is safe to say that we are both pleased to have these two tasks in our rearview mirror.

Jeanine referred me to an article on Wicked Local today about “Doc” Furey, a teacher and coach at the Concord Carlisle High School for the past 40 years. Last month he stepped down as the Head Coach of the Women’s Varsity Tennis Team, a position he had held for 18 years. Before that, he was the Assistant Head Coach and JV Head coach for 17 years. During his tenure, the team won 11 state titles. He was also the Head Coach of the combined Alpine and Nordic Ski Teams for 20 years and the Head Coach of the Alpine Ski team for another 20 years when the programs split. As if that was not enough, he was also the Head Coach of the Boy’s Ninth Grade Soccer team for 40 years. Why was he called “Doc”? Because he holds four graduate degrees. And now for the amazing part and the reason the phrase “illustrious career” was invented. In forty years of coaching three sports, his teams never had a losing season!

While reading the article on the Wicked Local site, I noticed an included video documentary about the CCHS Nordic Ski Team produced while Maya was a member. It features her boyfriend at the time as well as brief shots of her.

The students at the Fenn School are preparing for their winter food drive. They have been partnering with Open Table for over three decades and will help this year by collecting food for recently resettled Afghan people and for Open Table’s Fuel for School program. The latter prepares “Kids Bags” which provide a weekend’s worth of wholesome, calorie-dense, nutritious food and snacks that supplement a child’s access to food and can help alleviate hunger. Open Table is also partnering with local organizations to support the 2000+ Afghan refugees resettling in Massachusetts this year. They are hoping to make these families feel welcome and respected by providing familiar and culturally important foods. Pictured above are two slides from a deck being presented at Fenn to explain the programs, the second feature food photos that Jeanine asked me to take for the project.

We were fortunate this evening to have all three kids over for dinner. Usually, such occasions are limited to the weekends. It made for a terrific end to an already great day. Earlier, I had an important presentation to the Board of Directors of one of my clients. I was challenged to design a polypeptide printer that can operate 100 times faster than their existing machine. My work was well received and I have a green light to move on to early prototyping. The presentation was recorded for posterity and to share with other employees. When I played it back, I was shocked to hear how many times I used the word “essentially” to explain the work. I really need to break that habit.

Yesterday’s first blizzard of the season was impressive. It lasted all day long and dropped up to 24 inches of snow in some nearby areas. We only received about half of that and it was distributed very nonuniformly because of the winds and drifting. Our new electric snowblower got its first real work out and I am happy to report it was up to the task although, to be fair, the snow was very fluffy and light. Still, it managed to chew through the dense two-foot buildup left by the street plows at the end of our driveway with little complaining. I did, however, deplete both sets of batteries and had to wait for a recharge cycle before I could finish the job. I should probably just bite the bullet and order a third set but at nearly a thousand dollars a pair, it may be worth putting up with the recharge delay for larger snowfalls.

The shed I ordered to house our snowblower and trash cans arrived yesterday at 2:30 pm. It arrived in a large box in kit form. With a blizzard forecasted for today, I desperately wanted to get it assembled and ready for use before the snow started. It took just over three hours to complete the work following 40 pages of pictorial instructions. It should have taken half the time but I was slowed down by the cold weather, a number of ill-fitting components that I had to coerce into place and the lack of daylight for the final hour. All-in-all, I am happy with the result and pleased with the aesthetic match to the house. I will need to add a carpet to the interior because the floor is dangerously slippery as things stand.

This evening we were joined for dinner by our good friends Irene and Eric. Completing the guest list was their dog, Cobi, who is an absolute peach. He is very well behaved and extremely friendly. Jeanine and I continue to discuss the possibility of getting a dog when our new house is completed. Visits with Cobi only increase the probability of that happening.

I have spent a good bit of time this week working on the mechanical systems for the River House. At this point, I think we will be using two cold climate heat pumps, one for each wing of the house. This partition is essentially the night time zone (west wing) and the daytime zone (east wing) allowing for a straightforward temperature setback strategy to save energy. It also means that we will have a measure of redundancy should one unit fail. Furthermore, the east wing zone is almost entirely an open floor plan which means we can use a common return, whereas the west wing is composed entirely of individual rooms which will benefit from having a return vent in each. Locating the HVAC trunk lines is the biggest challenge and I now have a plan which I believe will work very well.

Kyle shared these photos with me of his first 2×4 wall segment. Thus far, I have been leading the effort on his basement renovation project. He has been paying attention and learning how to use all the various tools. After our last work session, I suggested he tackle this remaining wall segment on his own. I wouldn’t say he is a master carpenter quite yet, but he is certainly off to a great start.

Jeanine received this orchid as a present and has been taking great pleasure in its care. It has bloomed for the second time which filled her with much joy. I was happy to oblige when she asked me to photograph it for her.