An all-day offsite meeting of the Formlabs leadership team concluded with dinner at the home of our CEO and co-founder.  Significant others were also included and it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening.  Within the last 3 months, the company has added a new Head of Engineering, CFO, Managing Director/GM of EMEA, and a GM of a soon-to-be-announced business unit.  A fantastic time was had by all and it was really nice getting to know all the new members of the team.

Today I introduced a new approach to Performance and Compensation Management to the Engineering organization at Formlabs.  I did so in a series of four one-hour meetings with groups of approximately 30. I am most comfortable addressing audiences of this size and they are also more comfortable asking questions.  By the end of the sessions, I was seriously exhausted and was beginning to lose my voice. Afterward, I received a good bit of positive feedback which made the effort completely worthwhile.

Maya is headed to Boca Raton to join several friends from Olin College for a week of fun in the sun.  I dropped her off at about 6:30 am before heading into the office.  I have encouraged her to make a return visit to the Kennedy Space Center.  It has been 14 years since we took the family there after visiting Disney World.

For me, a tent represents an escape from my daily routine, an opportunity to enjoy nature, and something I look forward to very much.  I am wondering how my perspective would change if it represented my permanent home in an urban setting?  A stark reminder of my good fortune.

Several weeks ago I listed our custom-made king-size bed on Craig’s List as we continue to prepare to move into a smaller home. As I thought more about it, I decided that it made more sense to simply downsize the bed. In total, I spent about 6 hours on the project and am pleased with the outcome. I was even able to salvage the box springs. Pictured here are the after and before.

No picture today.  Instead the text of an interview with Jeanine published by the Concord Journal.

As the federal government shutdown continues, local food pantries have stepped in to help furloughed employees make ends meet.

Open Table, a nonprofit organization that offers community dinners in Concord and Maynard and food pantry services in Maynard, has been preparing for an increase in families seeking support, according to Executive Director Jeanine Calabria.

Calabria said she had started to see an increase in families attending the organization’s community dinners at their Jan. 3 dinner at First Parish Church in Concord.

“We did have a couple families in anticipation of (missed federal paychecks) come Thursday night,” Calabria said. “And they let us know that there are more families planning to come.”

Calabria said before the shutdown, the nonprofit had prepared for a decrease in attendance due to a newly defined service area. While community dinners are still open to all, pantry services were reduced to 23 municipalities surrounding Maynard and Concord.

“Initially we were expecting 20 percent fewer customers, but now we haven’t seen that,” Calabria said.

During the shutdown, roughly 800,000 federal employees nationwide have either been sent home or made to work without pay.

Calabria said that Open Table expects demand for its services to increase after the first missed paycheck, Jan. 10.

“We’ve actually reached out to Hanscom and have been working with people there to get the word out and let employees there know that our services are available,” Calabria said, referencing Hanscom Field, one of the larger federal employers in the region.

With funding for most military personnel secured through 2019, Calabria said the anticipated increase in attendees was from civilian employees of Hanscom Field and their families.

In addition to their dinners and food pantry services, Calabria said that Open Table would be holding a special pantry service for federal employees on Jan. 19, should the shutdown still be ongoing at that time.

“We want everyone who needs us to know we’re available,” Calabria said.

 

“A wise man named Confucius Berg once said. A team that eats Chinese food together, builds a better 3D printer together.”  So started the e-mail reminding members of one of our product teams of their annual team Chinatown dinner.  The food and ambiance were both wonderful. I had to leave at the two-hour mark just as our CEO and his wife arrived and the real party seemed to be getting started.  The drive home proved to be an exercise in careful battery management.  The cold temperature and extra trip into Chinatown left me with only one mile of range when I finally pulled into our drive.  I was tempted to take a lap around the neighborhood to discover what happens when the range reaches zero but thought this unwise given how cold it was.

Pictured is one of three boats which caught on fire late Tuesday night.  The other two sank.  My morning walk took me to the Charlestown Marina where I paused to capture the scene.  Fortunately, there are no reports of injury.  Property loss is reported to be $1,000,000.

All new Formlabs employees must attend Print School, a half day intensive course that teaches the proper way to utilize our 3D printers.  Because my start date did not line up with the normal on-boarding period, I missed the November cohort of new hires and instead joined the December cohort.  I believe we hired something like 25 new employees last month so 4 different classes were required to accommodate all the students.  Even though, I started printing on my own several weeks ago, I learned a great deal in class and enjoyed the opportunity to mingle with other new hires.

Some images speak for themselves.

Nala is now 11.5 years old, which is roughly 77 years old in people years.  Today she refused to eat and has been limping badly.  I am afraid she is approaching the end of her life and that our family will soon be faced with some difficult decisions and grief. As she was resting in her “dog house,” an antique Japanese palanquin, I decided to take what may be one of her last photos.  It was very dark and I did not want to disturb her by turning the lights on or using a flash.  Instead, I took a 15-second exposure on a tripod.  Just as I tripped the shutter, she decided to get up and investigate which resulted in this ghost-like image.  It is hard for me not to read into the unlikely coincidence.

Few residents of Concord ever discuss the medium-security men’s prison that is part of our community.  Its presence here is quite incongruous with virtually everything else. I have been told that it is a significant contributor to our tax base and the reason we can afford to leave so much of the town’s land undeveloped.  I took time this morning to explore a new section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail which goes right past the prison and ends (current construction phase) a short distance later. I continued on along the undeveloped part of the train corridor over Nashoba Brook and across Route 2 until further progress was blocked by water and/or vegetation..

Several of Nicolai’s close friends from Colorado College have been visiting with us over the past several days.  Time seems to be spent equally between watching sports, playing games (console-based and old-fashioned), searching for or making food, and eating.  I took advantage of all this brawn to help move the king-size bed in our master bedroom in preparation for its sale early next week.

Jeanine, Maya, and Kyle all traveled to Minnesota this weekend to visit with my brother’s family.  Pictured above is my niece Sophia as photographed by Jeanine wearing a new pair of jeans that were a gift from her aunt.  Work commitments prevented me from joining them and probably just as well.  Nicolai is hosting four of his college friends here in Concord and it probably does not hurt to have some adult supervision on the home front.