The weather was magnificent this noon hour so I decided to walk to Felipe’s for a burrito. As I was returning through Harvard Yard, I paused for this photo of a self service leaf raking station, something I have never encountered before and wondered if it would work in our backyard. Minutes later, police and SWAT officers began appearing everywhere and two helicopters could be seen hovering over the campus. Everyone in the yard and students in four adjacent buildings were asked to exit immediately as the area was cordoned off. I later learned that a bomb threat had been reported and the magnitude of the emergency response was not surprising in light of the recent attacks in Paris. Fortunately the threat was deemed to be unfounded after a 5-hour search of the buildings.

Temperatures dropped significantly by early evening when I drove to Lynn to watch as the Concord Carlisle Girl’s Soccer team won the D2 state title.

Maya had a busy day in Washington D.C. at her National Youth Leadership Mission conference. In the morning she heard from the ADL’s National Director, Jonathan Greenblatt, who discussed the importance of speaking up when you see injustice. The lunchtime speaker was Marion Ingram, a Holocaust survivor and civil rights activist, who talked about her experiences in Germany and the US. Workshops focused on the relevance of the speakers’ stories to the lives of the student delegates, to the delegates’ encounters with prejudice, and to their roles as leaders in actively promoting respect for all people. In the afternoon the New England contingent toured the Washington Mall before attending ADL’s National Concert Against Hate at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts later in the evening.

Maya is one of 60 students in the country selected as a representative to the Anti Defamation League National Youth Leadership Mission .  Founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all,” the ADL is now a civil rights/human relations agency whose mission is to fight anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defend democratic ideals and protect civil rights for all. Maya is pictured here with fellow students representing the New England Chapter upon arrival in Washington D.C. where they will attend a conference and visit the  United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I am very fortunate to have a very spacious workshop that also doubles as my photo studio.  Each year at this time I like to organize my shop in preparation for the winter months when I generally do most of my woodworking. Pictured here is one section of the shop which I like to think of as my hardware store.  For the last several days I have spent an hour or two organizing everything so I can quickly find what I need. This morning I completed the task and will soon turn my attention to adding a new vacuum outlet to my dust collection system.

Even while using the navigation system built into my car, I like to use Waze on my iPhone for real-time traffic conditions and early warnings for speed limit enforcement. I have struggled for some time to locate my phone where I can easily see the screen without taking my eyes from the road. Not able to find a commercially available solution that I liked, I decided to design my own. The biggest challenge was finding a point of attachment for the stalk which positioned the phone cradle in the optimal position and at the ideal angle. I achieved a robust and easy-to-install solution by designing a perfectly sized insert for my center column cup holder. I used carbon fiber in the stalk and made two matching inserts for my other cup holders.  This invention of necessity was good enough for first place at today’s Part of the Week contest. When Jeanine spotted the new addition to my car she immediately requested that I build her one.

Jeanine alerted me to a beautiful sunset that I caught at the last second.

I have been developing a prototype for an improvement to the way we dispense Nylon from a large spool. Our current approach uses a hub and axle. If a strand of Nylon filament comes off the spool, as it is prone to do, the print will be ruined when the Nylon gets tangled around the axle. The new approach uses rollers to support the spool. It does not prevent Nylon from coming off the spool but it self-clears every time with no negative impact on printing. This entire assembly fits inside of a dry-box which prevents the Nylon from being degraded by moisture.

One of our very talented mechanical engineers created this prosthetic hand on our 3D printer. Nylon is a wonderful engineering material but it is really hard to photograph in a pleasing way. I like the way this one turned out based on the background selection (a tool drawer where we store drill bits). It should be no wonder why it is so difficult to win Part of the Week when you are up against this caliber of design talent.

With my new Festool Kapex miter saw fully setup it is off to Craig’s List for my trusty Makita. It cleaned up very nicely and should bring a good fraction of its original price.

For the first time since I can remember, my soccer team did not make it into the post season playoffs. We did manage to finish on a strong note against a very good Belmont side and avoided relegation. For the second time in as many weeks we ended the game with only ten men on the field (due to a red card) and had to settle for a 2-2 tie. Still we played well and I am pleased to have completed an entire season without any major injuries (another first).

Living in a house with hard water necessitates an annual regime of shower head decalcification. Normally, I submerge the shower head in a cup of mild acid (CLR) suspended from the shower neck and let it soak for several hours. Before leaving for tennis this morning, Jeanine, in the name of maintaining household organization, decided to put the new bottle of CLR that I purchased for this purpose into a place I would never think to look for it. Anxious to complete the task, I decided to remove the shower head and use the small amount of CLR remaining from last year in a smaller cup than needed for suspension at an angle. This proved to be a costly decision. As I began to remove the head, the shower arm to which it connects broke off at the drop ear elbow behind the marble tile leaving the threads inside the elbow. All attempts to remove those threads proved futile and the thought of replacing an unmatchable marble tile or cutting an access panel in the wall papered drywall from the other side started to enter my mind. Since either of these options would be extremely expensive I decided to perform plumbing surgery from the marble side. I used a diamond saw to make an opening just big enough to operate through but small enough to later cover with a standard faceplate. I tried to unsolder the elbow but eventually decided I would be more likely to set the house on fire than remove it. A recently acquired oscillating saw proved the perfect tool to cut the elbow off. At the hardware store I discovered a Shark Bite drop ear elbow which proved the perfect repalcement solution allowing me to press it onto the pipe rather than soldering. This was not how I had planned to spend my morning but I was relieved that a simple maintenance task did not turn into a major remodeling project.

I am a huge proponent of a working hard towards concrete objectives and celebrating as a team when they are met. My team recently achieved a very important production milestone addressing the top concern of management when I joined MarkForged less than 5 months ago. This afternoon the entire company left the office early for a celebration at the Lanes & Games bowling alley. Bowling is a ton of fun and great for team building. Few people are very good at it and almost all can eventually knock some pins over. The event was a huge success and I managed some nice photos despite the really challenging lighting.

My 12″ Makita miter saw was one of the top rated units on the market when I purchased it some 18 years ago. It is my most used power tool and I have easily made more than 10,000 cuts with it. It is a great tool in every regard but one. Dust collection is abysmal. Having just replaced the shop vac I use with my miter saw (the rest of my shop tools are serviced by a 3hp cyclonic dust collector), I decided to replace my Makita with a Festool Kapex compound sliding miter saw. Dust collection on this unit is unbelievable. Laser guides on both sides of the blade are incredibly convenient, especially for someone with poor vision. This miter saw is simply in an entirely different class than any other I have used or seen. My Makita will either go up on Craig’s List or be fitted with a new blade and relegated to cutting metal.

For 15 years my Fein shop vac has provided unsurpassed performance and reliability. Unfortunately, I managed to destroy the motor last weekend while operating it for an extended period of time while full beyond capacity with sawdust. My first instinct was to repair the motor but after disassembling the unit it became apparent that this would not be possible. I decided to replace it with an identical model but the company has long since “upgraded” it to a newer design. My research on the internet indicated that the new version was every bit as good, maybe slightly better, as a vacuum but that one feature which I rely on took a step backward. The unit features an auto on/off capability. You plug a tool, a miter saw in my case, into an outlet on the vacuum and it turns on when it detects that the tool is in use. Very handy. The newer model, however, will only support tools drawing 6 amps or less compared to 15 amps (what my miter saw requires) for the older one. Knowing this in advance, I salvaged the old auto switching electronics and packaged them in a standard electrical outlet box which I wired into my shop. I simply plug my miter saw and vacuum into the respectively labeled outlets and everything works perfectly. I also plan to recycle the main body of the deceased Fein as a pre-separator to eliminate the need for bag replacement on my new one.

It is a short walk from my office to Harvard University where I discovered a Farmer’s Market setup when I arrived at noon.
I was tempted to pick up my lunch here but forged on to Felipe’s for the best burritos you will ever find. I am trying to do a little more walking since the demands of my new job offer much less time for exercise.