This evening after work I joined several colleagues at Waxy O’Connor’s Irish Pub to bid farewell to a pair of long time iRobot employees who are leaving the company. The setting did not afford an opportunity to make any speeches but I did have an opportunity to personally thank both guys for their fine work at the company and to wish them well in the future.

With the winter months approaching I have been giving serious thought to my next solo trekking adventure. The Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile has long been on my bucket list. This morning, Jeanine suggested I invite Kyle to join me. I loved the idea but didn’t expect him to want to spend 2 weeks of his winter break climbing through the Andes with his father. To my great surprise and delight, he said yes. It has been 7 years since Kyle and I traveled to Belize for his Coming of Age Adventure and I am really looking forward to adding another chapter to our story. Perhaps this will mark the beginning of a new tradition.

From the time they were mere toddlers, I have cut the hair of my boys. Motivated initially by a desire to save money, I long ago came to enjoy the father-son intimacy it offered. I still have fond memories of my mother cutting my hair as a child. During their early teen years each haircut would end with a tirade about my total incompetence as a barber if even 4 or 5 hairs were cut too short. Now, I am more likely to be asked to make another pass because I have not cut the hair short enough. Despite my purported total lack of ability, I am pleased that my only two clients have remained with me all these years and look forward to cutting their hair for years to come.

We just learned that Nicolai has been nominated as one of four finalist for Disabled Athlete of the Year by U.S. Soccer. You can vote for Nico at this Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/officialussoccer/app_347627388581014). Be careful to select the correct button (upper left corner relative to Nico’s photo)

Voting ends on Friday, so there is little time to get the word out. Online voting counts for 50% of the total votes. The other 50% will be cast by members of the national media and U.S. Soccer representatives. Being nominated is a great honor for Nicolai but winning will be a function of getting out the vote. And just when you thought the election was behind us 🙂

There are times as a parent when you feel like strangling a child. Fortunately for Kyle, he has 3000 miles working in his favor in this circumstance. Before returning to college this fall, he decided to sell his Ford F150 truck and the box trailer he purchased for his landscaping business. Procrastinating until the last week of his vacation, the truck and trailer remained unsold, the former parked in our driveway and the latter stored miles away on a friend’s horse farm. Unable to control her motherly instincts, Jeanine volunteered to assist Kyle with the sale. I made it clear that I wanted no part of the endeavor. After numerous flakes and no-shows responded to the Craig’s List advertisement, Jeanine was contacted by a hot prospect who was in dire need of a trailer and wanted to drive up from Brockton to check it and the truck out. The buyer arrived with his brother at 10 PM. This is generally the hour at which I begin looking forward to a good night’s sleep rather than the beginning of a 2 1/2 hour negotiation.

All-in-all not my idea of late-night fun on the evening before I am scheduled to appear before the Board of Directors. In addition to a loving welcome, delicious food, and the comfort of his old room, Kyle can look forward to a significant “make good” assignment when he returns from California this Sunday for the Thanksgiving break.

Nicolai is now a veteran of the CCHS Varsity Soccer team whose season came to an end this evening with a loss to North Andover in the state cup quarter-finals contested at Lynn’s Manning Field. The team amassed an impressive 14-3-2 record and Nicolai became the first one-legged soccer player to score a goal in varsity high school competition. With his “shot seen round the world” Nicolai earned the respect of soccer players from every corner of the globe and will have a fond memory to look back upon for the rest of his life. Of the team’s 19 games this season, I attended 18 and photographed 17. I estimate I took roughly 8000 pictures and posted some 1500 which can be seen HERE. While I would have liked to have seen the boys make it to the finals, my camera is happy for the rest.

Although my soccer season has ended, most members of my team continue to knock the ball around on Sunday mornings. I played for an hour before tweaking my right calf muscle and deciding it was time to take a break. I used the balance of the day to do a little painting around the house and to continue with the massive task of organizing my digital photo collection (tagging with metadata, ranking, editing). Applying myself to the task for an hour a day should allow me to complete the project in about half a year. Even though most of the leaves are down now, there are still pretty landscapes to be found in the area.

Nicolai saw action today against Pentucket in the state championship tournament. The 4-0 victory advanced CCHS to the round of eight, securing the third of six matches needed to win the state title. Nico played for twenty minutes and managed a powerful shot on goal which sailed just over the bar. Meanwhile, Jeanine is having a great time in NYC. She visited Rockefeller Center, had lunch at a French Provencal restaurant, enjoyed a Manhattan at a famous NY bar, and took in Cougars The Musical and Mama Mia. On the home front, my brother Mark and his son Mario are here visiting Northeastern University. The new Bond film proved to be the perfect catalyst for a boy’s night out which ended with a couple of pints of ice cream back at the ranch.

My nephew Mario arrived today from his home in Minnesota. He will be visiting Northeastern University tomorrow and we have the benefit of his company for a couple of days. Anticipating his arrival, Jeanine prepared enough baked ziti to feed a normal family for a week. I predict it will be gone before 24 hours have passed given that we will also be joined by my nephew Johnie and my brother Mark who is flying in later this evening. The three cousins can pack away more food than any three humans I know. How they remain skinny as rails is a mystery to me.

The Nor’easter that moved up the Eastern seaboard petered out before hitting Concord but did manage to deliver the first snowfall of the season. The precipitation turned from snow to rain by mid-morning and our white blanket was gone by late afternoon.

Jeanine and Maya will be traveling to NYC this weekend to visit with friends. Maya will be attending the birthday party of her friend Izzy, who she met at Farm & Wilderness Camp. Jeanine will connect with Monica Frost, a close friend from Indianapolis, who is flying in to join her. The adults plan to take in Cougar The Musical while the girls will see Wicked. Initially, it appeared that Hurricane Sandy would disrupt this long-planned excursion. Friends in the city, however, indicate that life is returning to normal and the best way to help with the recovery is to keep the tourism dollars flowing.

Mother and daughter did a little apparel shopping in preparation for their travels and Maya was all too happy to model her new outfit for me.

I love voting in Concord. The process here is intimate. At the same time, it is a community event during which you are likely to meet neighbors and friends. I am pleased to report that all but one of my votes (the Death with Dignity ballot question) carried the day. Jeanine and I voted together which was a very nice way to start the morning. I spent the balance of the day offsite at the Babson Executive Conference Center with my boss and a number of colleagues working on product road maps. The session ended shortly after 5pm allowing me just enough time to make the one hour drive to Danvers where Nico’s soccer team was competing in the second round of the state title tournament. CCHS emerged victorious by a margin of 5-3. Temperatures hovered at the freezing mark and probably contributed to the high scoring (goalie’s hands don’t work as well when numb).

Kyle sent me a number of photos from California and a nice note with an update on his extracurricular activities, excerpts of which I am including below.

I have become more active in a group on campus called In To The Wild. I took a trip to a beach in Santa Cruz the second weekend back to school, and last weekend we traveled to San Francisco Bay and sailed a catamaran under the Golden Gate Bridge. I got an up close look at Alcatraz. I am planning on going on a hiking trip this weekend and hopefully every weekend they offer activities. I am also attending a viewing session of this indie documentary called The First 70 which documents California’s attempt to close down the first 70 national parks in an attempt to reduce the deficit.

I joined the boxing club today with my friend Athan. I just turned in the forms last night and will be traveling to a gym in Sunnyvale tonight to start training. College boxing has relatively well padded gloves, as well as padded head gear. I haven’t decided whether I plan on competing or not, but for now I will just be training with the team to get in better shape. I am very near my peak soccer/ wrestling shape. My bench press has nearly reached my old weight and reps, I am down to weighing 142 lbs (my wrestling weight) and I run regularly. Last weekend I went for a 10.5 mile run and plan on running a school-sponsored 5k this Saturday. The stretching has really helped, and I have learned to work out regardless of minor injuries. I am just more careful not to over exert my injured muscles.

While Jeanine was in Burlington I spent some time completing projects around the house. For the master bathroom, I built a wood frame to surround the mirror, added new light fixtures, and hung various artwork. For the laundry room, I built a two-level, ten foot long shelf above the washer, dryer and laundry sink area. I tend to spend more time on indoor projects as the winter months approach.

My outdoor soccer season concluded today on a redemptive note. We won our first game of the season beating Canton, the divisional champions. I created several scoring opportunities, forced a number of turnovers, and left the field very satisfied with my play and totally spent. Our record for the season was 1-5-4. An optimist would conclude we only lost half of our games and beat the top-finishing team in head-to-head play. The realist would observe we failed to win 90% of our games, resulting in relegation to Division 2 next season. As for me, I am happy with any season that ends with my ability to walk unimpaired.

Yesterday while at Maya’s game, I was approached by a parent from the opposing team. She asked if I would be posting the images. I explained that I was not a professional and was only taking pictures of Maya. She gave me her e-mail address and asked if I would send her any photos that happened to include her daughter, the goalie, in the same frame. I got the sense that this woman probably had few, if any, pictures of her daughter in an athletic setting and decided to shoot a small series which I sent to her yesterday. Today, I received a very nice thank you note which ended in the following quotation and left me very moved.

The man said ”Don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, with starfish all along it? There’s too many, you can’t possibly make a difference!” The young girl bent down and picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea and said…. “made a difference to that one”

Jeanine is spending a writer’s weekend in Burlington, VT with her sister Susan. Meanwhile, I am charged with the care of the dog and Maya. Nicolai, for all intents and purposes, is self-sufficient these days. Maya’s schedule: 8:30 am outdoor soccer match in Natick, 11:30 am ballet class in Concord, 2:15 pm dance recital rehearsal, 4:10 pm indoor soccer game in Acton, 5:10 attend birthday party until 9 pm. I am tired just typing it out. Maya is planning to spend next weekend in NYC making this her last outdoor game of the season. She finished in fine form.