My over-50 soccer team opened our fall season in fine form with a 3-0 win over the Mariners. My sister Alissa and Maya were both in the stands watching, Maya with a camera in hand. I am still miserably out of shape but managed to play a reasonable game. Afterwards, Maya joined me for an after game pool party at the Morrison’s before we returned home to prepare for a party of our own.

We hosted a gathering of my direct reports and their significant others to welcome our new Director of Hardware Engineering to the company.  Jeanine prepared an exquisite menu, Maya was a great conversationalist (she is fluent in nerd) and I successfully brewed my first cup of coffee (ever) with the aid of a new Nespresso machine. I am very lucky to be wed to such a great cook and the father of such a socially confident child.

The rising full moon was particularly beautiful this evening and I arrived home (a few minutes before 8 PM) just in time to capture it while still low on the horizon.

For the fourth time in as many days, I have spent a good portion of the day performing a failure analysis on a returned printer. I find it very satisfying to identify root cause for a failure mechanism and trace the sequence of events that led up to it. Using macro photography, I am able to “see” better than with my woefully inadequate eyes plus glasses.

I took a break this afternoon to join Maya and her cousin John on a tour of MIT. She visited Dartmouth College yesterday with her mother. Maya goes back to school next Tuesday to begin her junior year and is putting her last week of vacation to good use by getting a leg up on college visits.

As MarkForged is still quite small, we all wear many hats. Today I spent a few hours doing a detailed failure analysis. It is important to document the process with good photographs and as my eyes get worse, I study the photographs to better see what is going on. In this case, our contract manufacturer failed to align a part properly before press fitting into another part. This resulted in the metal shavings that can be seen at the bottom of the receptacle. The loss of that material from the sides caused the press fit to fail allowing one part to rotate within the other. There is something very satisfying about solving a mystery and even more so when I get to use photography to help me do it.

I found this photo among the ones taken in California by either John, Rory, Mario, Kyle or Nicolai during their cousin reunion. I think it is an exceptionally good photo and would like to know which of the boys made it and the details of where it was shot. It appears to be some type of automated storage system with a robotic gantry used to retrieve entire boxes. Will the creator please step forward?

Every now and then Jeanine invites her friends over for a “leftover” party. In theory, each brings leftovers from their respective refrigerators to share. Of course these “leftovers” are anything but. I generally try to keep a low profile and pop up only to sample the food. This evening, I was specifically instructed to forget anything I may have overheard of their conversations. What is said on the Calabria’s sun porch, stays on the Calabria sun porch, so to speak. No such admonition was issued regarding photography, however, and I will leave it to the viewer’s imagination to extrapolate from this photograph.

The weather was distinctly crummy today and I spent a good bit of the day catching up on work stuff and doing chores around the house (hung new blinds in Maya’s room and replaced a leaky hose on our kitchen sink faucet). I also found some time to document an idea that I had yesterday. Normally, I communicate my design thoughts on a whiteboard. Now that I have learned 3D CAD, I can quickly do so on a computer.

Although I probably have the days wrong it looks like the cousins made their way to both the coast and the redwoods. I still have not heard any direct reports (Jeanine is the major conduit of communications) but I believe they had to abort their plans for camping. I am glad they still had a chance to enjoy some time in nature.

Not pictured is Nicolai who took this photo of his cousins and brother during their California reunion. To a man they are excellent cooks and judging from all the photographs they took, food was the organizing principle of their time together.  What I do not understand is how they eat so much and stay so trim.  It must be all the exercise they get including the yoga workout led by Rory, the youngest and tallest of the cousins.

The male, Calabria side cousins have gathered in northern California at Kyle’s invitation for what I hope will be the first of many similar reunions. The boys (technically, men; I will withhold the use of that term, however, until a review of their behavior over the next few days suggests it is warranted) are very similar in age and have been very tight-knit since early childhood. My understanding is that they will spend at least one-night camping (Big Sur, I believe) and one day touring San Francisco. Johnny, visiting California for the first time, has lined up a couple of job interviews and will stay on for a few extra days.  Should Maya one day choose to extend this tradition, she will have an equal number of female Calabria side cousins to invite.  Adding Jeanine’s side of the family would bring the total number of first cousins to an even dozen.

The nature of working at a startup is that you wear many hats. In addition to my other responsibilities, I am occasionally pressed into service as the company’s photographer. Today I took some photos that will be used for a company blog posting which speaks to our obsession with strength testing of our materials. Pictured here is one of our top scientists (affectionately nick-named the Bone Crusher) conducting a strength test on a small carbon fiber beam that we printed.

I have been testing a new thermal imaging device that connects to my iPhone. Pixels within the image are mapped to a color palette that reflects the temperature at that location. Pictured here is one of the machines we use at work to produce nylon-impregnated carbon fiber.

Jeanine and I enjoyed an exquisite dinner with former neighbors Gabby and Stephan aboard their Gunboat catamaran off one of the Boston Harbor Islands this evening. The 60 foot carbon fiber sailing vessel is a thing of beauty, equipped with state of the art electronics and all the amenities you would expect to find in a luxury home. The crew of Sebastian and Sophie prepared dinner and saw to our every need as we enjoyed the sunset over a distant Boston skyline. A better way to spend a late summer evening I cannot imagine.

On a bike ride this morning I traveled under the railroad bridge on Main Street where work is underway to increase the height of the bridge over the roadway. The decapitation of more than one truck by this bridge has been well documented on this blog over the years and it is about time that something is being done to address the situation. It would have been far easier to lower the roadway, so I can only imagine that the water table was too high to permit doing so. Pictured in the foreground is the new bridge which has been staged on temporary supports. I imagine it will be lifted and placed by cranes when the old bridge is removed. What is not at all clear to me is how they will increase the height of the tracks to match the new bridge height without disrupting daily commuter train traffic. Rest assured I will be monitoring the situation carefully.

MarkForged, the startup I recently joined is expanding rapidly. We have totally out grown our current facility, an extremely funky converted machine shop in Somerville. Locating a new facility fell to my team which worked on a very short schedule to secure space in this building, located a stone’s throw from the Alewife station in North Cambridge. We will occupy the first floor (production and shop area) and half of the second floor (offices). We will make the move in phases starting in about 6 weeks. The location is as near perfect as one could hope for. The northern terminus of the MBTA Red Line, Alewife station is a short walk from the office which is equally accessible by car from Route 2. Bike riders will have easy access to the Minuteman Bikeway, Cambridge Linear Park, and the Fitchburg Cutoff Path. We will be right across the street from Fresh Pond which is surrounded by several parks and a golf course. The most important attribute of our new location is that it will greatly increase the pool of talent from which to recruit. Our current location is very attractive to urban dwellers (predominately recent college grads) but not very attractive to suburban dwellers (mostly more experienced folks with families). The new location strikes the perfect balance. My commute will be shortened from 17 to 15 miles. Amazingly this will cut my commute time in half because of the terrible traffic as you approach Boston.

Caught this little fellow outside the kitchen bay window this morning. He and his buddies are frequent visitors to our back yard where Jeanine sets out her own hummingbird nectar recipe. When things settle down a bit at work, I will endeavor to get a nicer photo rather than shooting through the window.

Jeanine requested a photo of this magnificent Cobb salad which I am posting a little delinquently with apologies. A lucky man is wise to know he is a lucky man.

It pleases me to no end that the kids have all developed into excellent photographers. The first two images are by Kyle and the third by Maya. Had Nico remembered his camera, I am sure he would have had some wonderful images as well.

Maya will be interning at MarkForged again this week. Today she was given her first design project. She was asked to create a machine for measuring the tension of our fiber extruder assembly and completed her design in one (long) day. It features a sled to which a digital force gauge is secured that slides along the length of an aluminum rail on one end and a registration and anchoring post for the device under test (obscured intentionally) on the other end. A fiber is passed through the extruder and clipped to the force gauge which is then pulled along the track while a maximum force reading is recorded. The design works very well and will be used extensively this week to test new extruder refinements. The magnetic clip may look funny but using it has greatly increased the speed of testing.

Pathetic is the only way to describe my soccer scrimmage this morning. It is incredible to me how much conditioning I have lost in the 4 weeks since my last game. Each year it seems to get harder and harder to maintain the level of fitness I need to be competitive.  Starting Monday, I need to start training seriously for the fall season.

I spent the afternoon editing video footage from our recent tidal bore rafting adventure on the Shubenacadie River in Nova Scotia.

Our return to the United States was by way of the Nova Star ferry into Portland, Maine through the Casco Bay. We were greeted by the Portland Headlight locate on Cape Elizabeth. The light station, completed in 1791, sits on a head of land at the entrance of the primary shipping channel into Portland Harbor. It is the oldest lighthouse in the state of Maine. The light station is automated, and the tower, beacon, and foghorn are maintained by the United States Coast Guard, while the former lighthouse keepers’ house is a maritime museum within Fort Williams Park.  Running to the other side of the ferry, I had a chance to photograph Fort Georges and an abandoned light house.

Digby Neck is a peninsula extending into the Bay of Fundy. Along with Long Island and Brier Island, it forms the northwest shore of St. Mary’s Bay. On Long Island, we hiked the 1.5 mile trail and descended 235-steps to the viewing platform for Balancing Rock, a narrow 30 foot tall vertical column of basalt, balanced on its tip. It was only a matter of minutes before the kids figured out a way off the platform and up to the rock formation for a closer look. A second short ferry ride carried us to Brier Island where our exploration and another short hike took us to a seal colony on the Bay of Fundy side. Jeanine was hoping to find seals all vacation long and it was wonderful to satisfy that desire on our last full day in Nova Scotia. The colony included some two dozen seals with several pups.

On our return to Beaver Lake, we paused in Annapolis Royal. It was the French settlement of Port Royal (briefly Charlesfort) until the Conquest of Acadia in 1710 by Britain. The town was the capital of Acadia and later Nova Scotia for almost 150 years, until the founding of Halifax in 1749. It was attacked by the British six times before permanently changing hands after the Conquest of Acadia in 1710. Over the next fifty years, the French and their allies made six unsuccessful military attempts to regain the capital. Our tour of Fort Anne and its dry moats helped us to understand why it was able to resist so many attacks. Our visit to Annapolis also included a brief tour of North America’s only tidal power station and a visit to Ye Olde Town Pub, allegedly the smallest pub in Nova Scotia. Here we sampled Rapee Pie, quite possibly my new favorite food in the world.

Our new place is quite wonderful, located on Beaver Lake just outside the town of Meteghan River. The kids (led by Nicolai) opted for another round of golf while Jeanine and I did a little touring in the area.

We visited the lighthouse in Gilbert’s Cove and Église Sainte-Marie, a Catholic church in Church Point, the largest and tallest wooden building in North America. The church is exposed to the strong winds from St. Mary’s Bay, so 40 tons of stone ballast were used to stabilize the steeple, and canvas, rather than plaster, was used for the walls.

This morning we packed up all our gear and left the Atlantic coast destined for our second Airbnb on the Bay of Fundy coast. Along the way we paused briefly at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park where we enjoyed many encounters with the residents, a small sampling of which is shown here.

By midday, we reached South Maitland where we had reservations for a tidal bore rafting adventure. The greatest tides in the world occur in the Bay of Fundy with an average spring range of 47.5 feet (vertical) and an extreme range of 53.5 feet. The tide rises so rapidly that it creates a wave, called a tidal bore, which travels against the current up the rivers which feed the bay. The bore is only a foot or two high but the interaction of the river current and the competing tidal current set up enormous standing waves which make for insane white water rafting. Our guide was a 16-year veteran of the river and maneuvered us expertly into the biggest water on the river. The boat was filled with water more often than not. I took more videos than photos but none do justice to the intensity of the waves.

Thoroughly exhausted after our two hour adventure, we drove to Wolfville where we had reservations at the Troy Restaurant, owned by a relative of Maya’s friend Maddie. There we celebrated Kyle’s 23rd birthday in style enjoying some of the best Mediterranean food I have ever sampled.

Everyone slept in this morning (we all stayed up late last night to complete a jigsaw puzzle) before setting out for the Halifax Seaport Farmer’s Market. It was nothing to write home about but did get us into the city where we walked along the waterfront and eventually jumped on to a Harbor Hopper tour (Halifax equivalent of a Boston Duck Boat). It was an equally informative and enjoyable tour which offered great views of the city from both land and sea. After lunch, the kids commandered the car so they could play a round of golf while Jeanine and I took a vigorous walk to nearby Gammon Lake.

After two full days on the move, the family opted for a “relaxing” day at the beach combined with lots of exercise. Jeanine started the day with a bike ride while Nico and Maya took the kayaks out for a spin at high tide. Kyle ran to the beach where a lot of soccer and Frisbee took place in addition to the occasional splash in the ocean. My exercise came in the form of chasing the kids around with a camera.

Our ferry docked in Yarmouth at 7am. After clearing customs we were directed by a local resident to the Grand Hotel for breakfast. With full bellies we worked our way up the southern shore with stops at Shelburne, Mahone Bay (for lunch), Lunenburg (home port of the Bluenose 2 sailing vessel), Blue Rocks (my favorite), and Peggy’s Cove. We reached Halifax in time for dinner at the Economy Shoe Box restaurant (gets an A for ambience but only a B for the food) after which we strolled down to the waterfront where we caught one good and one bad act of the Halifax International Busker Festival. Another 30 minutes of driving brought us to Lawrencetown where we are renting an Airbnb home for the next three nights. The place is right on the water and could not be more magnificent.

The Nova Star ferry operates between Portland, Maine and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia where the family is destined for a one week vacation. The 1-year old Nova Star measures 528 feet in length and has a 30,436 HP engine which propels the vessel along at 21 knots. The over-night voyage takes ll hours during which we spent most of the time sleeping in our cabin. In addition to accommodations for 711 passengers, the boat features a casino, several restaurants, a Karaoke bar, a piano bar, and an outside dance floor. While waiting to board the ferry the kids entertained themselves playing hacky sack. We set sail at about 8pm with a pilot boat escorting us out of the harbor past Fort Scammell on House Island.