Each 4th of July, the USS Constitution (“Old Ironsides”), the world’s oldest ship of any type still afloat, sails 1 nautical mile from the Charlestown Navy Yard to Castle Island and fires a 21-gun salute. She is often incorrectly described as the oldest commissioned warship. That honor, however, belongs to the HMS Victory, but she has been in dry dock since 1922. This morning, I drove down to Fort Independence to experience the 21 cannon salute in person. It was quite thrilling and definitely worth the effort. I hope one day to photograph her with more than one tiny sail deployed.

On my way home, I stopped at the Mount Auburn Cemetery and climbed Washington Tower for a view of downtown Boston. I contemplate returning in the evening to photograph the fireworks from this vantage but learned that the cemetery closes at 8 pm.

Jeanine is spending the long weekend with her sister in Burlington, VT. I spent most of the day at Kyle’s new house where I helped him to deconstruct part of the basement. When he purchased the house, he did so with an eye to renovating and then renting out this space. We spent a little more than 4 hours removing walls, drywall, ceiling tiles, and paneling. Nicolai arrived at noon with burritos which we enjoyed while watching the Denmark vs. Czech Republic UEFA/Euro 2020 quarterfinal soccer match. We put in another hour of work before relaxing to the England vs. Ukraine match. Although my back continues to bother me, Kyle did all of the heavy lifting and I otherwise thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with my boys.

My semi-retirement is off to a good start. I picked up two additional technical consulting clients this week and have a line of sight on two more. My goal is to work no more than half-time in aggregate and only on projects that are really fun. Speaking of fun, my soccer team had our end-of-season dinner in the Seaport District at Davio’s, a northern Italian steakhouse. The food was phenomenal, as was the company. With each season, the tales of past glory seem to grow ever more impressive.