Eastern Massachusetts is suffering from a severe drought this summer.  Residents of Concord are currently prohibited from washing cars or watering lawns. To help in the conservation efforts, I decided to tackle a long overdue home maintenance project today.  Three of the four toilets in our house have slow toilet tank leaks (a small trickle of water constantly flowing down the sewer pipe).  Over time I am sure it adds up to significant amount of waste and it also causes the tank valve to cycle throughout the day and night which is very annoying.  It took about 90 minutes to remove, completely rebuild and replace each of the toilet tanks. Not the most pleasant task in the world but well worth the effort.

Jeanine asked me to post a photo in remembrance of her mother, Eunice, who was born on this day in 1928.  She died at the age of 75 in 2003 having lived a life of service to her community and family. Initially, I do not believe she cared for me that much.  I drank orange juice from a water goblet, was living with her daughter before we got married, and drove a go-fast Porsche (probably mostly that middle thing).  In the end, I feel I had mostly won her over.  I think she admired my approach to parenting and recognized that Jeanine was happy and well provided for.  I never did learn to drink OJ from a juice glass, if not for which, I would have gained unconditional approval.
 

Maya saw action this afternoon against arch rival Acton-Boxboro even though she is still battling a cold. Regrettably, the team did not fare well suffering a 0-4  drubbing.  And yes, the AB players do seem Amazonian in comparison to Maya.  Also in action (for the first time) was my newly created Swivel Pod which performed exactly as I had hoped.  It is rather clunky to carry around, however, which may limit how often I elect to use it.

Problem:  I like to shoot soccer from a low angle. It makes the players look more heroic. Doing so requires that I either kneel or sit on a short stool in front of my heavy camera resting on a tripod.  Following the flow of play up and down the field requires constant repositioning of myself relative to the tripod and I miss shots during fast transitions.

Solution: I mounted an adjustable height monopod to a swiveling stool allowing me to comfortably follow the action with zero delay.  I call the contraption a swivel pod.  Pretty sure it is the first of its kind and I whipped it together in less than an hour with $4 of purchased hardware and components I had lying around the house.

Maya is suffering from a cold and did not play this afternoon as her team fell 3-4 to Weston. I decided to make the drive and photograph the game even though she was sidelined.  There was very nice light for half the game and I am pleased with many of the shots I got. Featured in this photo is Maddy Vergura, arguably the team’s best player.  There is no doubt she will go on to play for a top college and it will be fun to watch her soccer career develop over the coming years.  Despite her abundance of talent, she remains a true team player.  All photos from the match can be found here.

I was driving to work listening to the radio when normal programming was interrupted to announce that one of the Twin Towers in New York City had apparently been hit by an airplane.  When I arrived at the office 10 minutes later, I turned on the TV projection system in the cafeteria and together with my colleagues, watched the events of the day unfold.  I watched live as the second tower was hit and thought to myself the world would never be the same again.  On this fifteenth anniversary of that tragic day, I look around and look back and regretfully observe that we now live in a less civil and more intolerant society where ideological divisions have widened and hatred has become the currency of politics.

Before my soccer match this morning both teams circled up at center field and observed a moment of silence. In that time I prayed for peace.

High school soccer is mostly played on weekdays after school.  Occasionally, as was the case today, a game is played on a weekend evening.  This allows more parents and students to attend the game and lends a greater sense of excitment to the match.  Maya was in fine form this evening helping her squad to a 5-0 win over Chelmsford. She is learning to play more aggressively and with greater intensity which in turn is getting her more minutes on the field.  I hope her brothers have an opportunity to see their baby sister play one day. I think they will be very impressed.

Below, Maya unintentionally executes a painful face trap. She took it in stride and kept possession of the ball.  I winced as I watched through my telephoto lens.

A full set of photos from the game can be found here.

When I returned from soccer practice last night the sole of my left turf shoe separated from the upper when I was taking it off.  Having served me well over the past 6 years (25 games and 50 practices for a total of almost 1000 hours) I was reluctant to part with them but I saw no chance for repair.  Today I purchased a new pair with the sober realization that in all likelihood it is the last pair of soccer shoes I will ever purchase.  It is strange to recognize when you will be doing a thing for the last time in your life. Rather than lament the occasion, I chose to take my time and enjoy the experience and to be thankful that I am still playing soccer with my 58th birthday just around the corner.

UPDATE: I am still playing soccer at age 65 and have since purchased another pair of soccer shoes. They are almost worn out now and I am thinking about writing another post similar to this one.

For years now, the thought of losing my blog to a computer glitch or a malicious hacker has been of concern to me.  Knowing how I felt after losing 3 days worth of photos on my recent trip to Costa Rica, I can’t even imagine what I would feel like if my entire blog was somehow lost.  Today I found a web service that will convert an entire blog feed into an eBook in PDF format.  Although the formatting is a bit crude and the photos are of marginal resolution, I am thrilled to have a complete offline archive of my blog.  The book is 8,063 pages long, covering more than a decade of daily journaling and photography.  The Table of Contents alone is 187 pages!  As much as I would like to have a hard copy version, the near $1,000 cost for a bound version is a bit too rich for my blood.

During her first board meeting since accepting the position of Executive Director at Open Table, Jeanine received this very beautiful hand-made bowl in appreciation for all she accomplished as President over the last three years.  We are all very proud of our new family executive.

While traveling through the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York last week, Jeanine and I passed the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum.  We did not have time to go in but I could not resist stopping for this photo taken near the entrance.  It did not find a place in previous posts so I am sharing it today for the fans of aviation who follow this blog.

When I returned from Costa Rica last month, I did so without most of my camera gear which was stolen there.  While I was gone I suffered a second theft, this time at the hands of my dear wife.  She picked me up at the airport in my recently purchased BMW X1 rather than her own car and since then has commandeered it.  Given that I rarely travel beyond the range of my electric i3, I have no real grounds to object to this “arrangement.”  Volkswagon will buy back her Jetta Sportswagon as part of the “diesel gate” legal settlement as soon as it is approved by the courts at a price more than double the current Blue Book value. At that time, Jeanine will want to transport bikes with “her” new car.  To that end, I installed an after-market 2″ towing receiver on the X1, a project that took the better part of three hours and turned out very nicely.  Our hitch mount double bike rack mounts in less than a minute providing a very secure and easy-to-use solution.

When we selected our campground we had no idea is was located adjacent to the 10,000 acre Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. Although we were not successful at spotting any of the several Bald Eagles that reside here, our morning tour did provide me with the opportunity to take the photograph below which I am especially fond of.  The image I made of the Chittenango Falls, taken later in the morning, was not too shabby either.

We stopped in Albany on our way home to have a late lunch with my mother, sister Alissa and brother-in-law, John.  We enjoyed a lovely poolside meal and conversed for hours before completing the final leg of our 1400 mile 4-day road trip.

It has been decades since either Jeanine or I have been to Niagara Falls and it was well worth a second visit.  The sheer scale of the falls is as breathtaking as the mist induced rain was refreshing on this hot afternoon.  We enjoyed lunch atop the 520 foot tall Skylon Tower which offers exceptional views of the falls and surrounding area.

Our visit to Canada lasted only five hours. For all their natural beauty, the falls are surrounded by a tourism megalopolis which held little attraction for us. We made our way back across New York State stopping to camp very near Lock 25 on the Erie Canal.

An evening ice cream run took us into the nearby towns of Auburn and Skaneateles where I captured a nice image of my sweat heart.