No matter how grown up they have become, I still think of them as my boys. Kyle heads to Costa Rica next week for a surfing vacation and Nico has arranged to take a leave of absence in the fall to train for the World Cup.

It’s official. Maya is now a graduate of Olin College and has earned a bachelor’s degree in Robotics Engineering. This right of passage is not complete without the kissing of the graduate by the parents, a tradition started by my cousin Heather and one which we have continued with our kids. On hand for the celebration were her brothers, aunt Susan, and cousin John William. Later in the evening, we hosted a party on campus for Maya, her suitemates, and their parents. The entire day was full of joy and we count ourselves truly fortunate to have been blessed with three children who have grown up to be such nice people, each with their own unique gifts.

As Olin graduates cross the stage to receive their diplomas, a narrator reads words that each has chosen to share with the audience. “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” were those selected by Maya; ones to live by for sure.

Not only did the day have a wonderful ending, it also started well. Having missed a week due to injury, I was happy to be back on the pitch this morning. I scored one goal and had one assist before leaving the game early to shower and change for the graduation ceremony.

Maya will graduate from Olin College tomorrow. Today, she asked if I would take some photos of her and her close friends. Pictured here are all but one of her suitemates. Not shown is Lauren who tested positive for Covid earlier in the week. Later in the session, we were able to get her in some specially designed socially distanced shots. The full set of photos can be found here.

We are making every effort to keep all of the trees surrounding the River House. Unfortunately, the ones standing where the attached garage will be located have to be moved. We are hoping to transplant them but their survival can not be guaranteed. One of the trees contains a bird’s nest. As demolition day approaches, I plan to relocate this home to another tree on the property.

Nico and his friend Oliver took the kayaks out on the Sudbury River this afternoon. He provided this wonderful photo taken by Oliver while on the water.

Jeanine and I were able to attend Maya’s SCOPE (Senior Capstone Program in Engineering) presentation at Olin this afternoon. Her team was sponsored by Amazon Robotics to develop the ability to operate fulfillment center robots at a great distance where network latency becomes a serious problem. All the Scope presentations can be seen here. Maya did a great job with her portion of the presentation and later we got to play with the prototype that the team built. Jeanine had to attend to some urgent Open Table business but I was able to hang around for a tour of Maya’s dorm suite followed by a father-daughter dinner at Sweet Basil.

For almost two years now, I have been jumping through hoops to get our new home construction project approved. This process included gaining signoff from the following parties:

• Concord Department of Natural Resources
• Concord Historic Preservation Commission
• Concord Building & Inspections
• Concord Board of Health
• Concord Planning Division
• Concord Tree Preservation
• Concord Municipal Power
• Concord Water & Sewage
• Concord Highway Department
• Concord Fire Department
• Concord Police Department
• National Grid

Last week our Building Permit (demolition phase only) was approved and I picked up the physical permit this afternoon. It is the most expensive sheet of orange paper that I have ever seen. Fortunately, all of the groundwork for this permit will apply to the Construction permit that we will file next week. With any luck, demolition will commence in June.

Jeanine celebrates the arrival of new furniture for their office. Until now they were using second-hand furniture donated by a local bank. The new items are light and colorful and much more fitting to the image of the organization than the dark and heavy bank furnishings. She is joined by the local business owner who donated the furniture and the designers who helped with the selection.

Jeanine was treated to a fine dinner prepared by Kyle and Nico who spent the evening catching up with Mom. Maya was in crunch mode at school with just one week left to graduation. The meal included lamb chops, a greek salad, and asparagus.

I spent the earlier part of the day readying the River House for demolition. I wisely chose to give my knee and ankle another week to recover before returning to the soccer pitch. My team managed a 2-1 win which made me feel better about my absence.

I spent the bulk of the day working with Kyle on his renovation project. Today we concentrated on framing and electrical rewiring. Our most visible accomplishment was the mounting of his heat pump condensing unit on the side of his house. We located the unit to cover the holes left where we removed the fill pipe and vent for his old fuel oil tank. Those holes will be repurposed to carry refrigerant and electrical power respectively.

An aspect of my visit to the Lazy Q Ranch yesterday that I failed to mention, was the fact that we spent an hour at a dead standstill on the highway to La Grange. A serious accident occurred less than 2 minutes in front of us that required a medical airlift. At first, I thought we were unlucky to have not started our journey a few minutes earlier. The more that I thought about it, however, I realized we were very lucky to have left exactly when we did. When traffic started moving again, I could see only one car off the road. Presumably, another was also involved and had been moved to the shoulder.

I spent the day in La Grange, Texas at the Lazy Q Ranch, a 2,200-acre state-of-the-art training facility for power line workers. Here, one of my clients has constructed a test facility for their robot which helically wraps fiber optic cable around power lines. A series of non-energized power lines near ground level (~8ft) are strung between shortened power poles. This allows testers to closely observe the robot as it crawls along the cable and over and under the insulators at each pole. Seeing the robot, pictured behind me, in person was extremely valuable. Although I had seen many videos and CAD files of the design, I still found myself completely surprised by some of the features I discovered and behaviors I witnessed. Fireproof clothing and hard hats are required while in the test area.

Another flight, another kidney stone. This makes four stones in five flights. I flew from Boston to Austin, TX today for a business meeting tomorrow. For reasons, I have yet to figure out, flying seems to initiate the passage of kidney stones in my body. This one measured just over 3mm. My current working theory is that this phenomenon is due to the reduced air pressure that exists in an airplane cabin.

Maya shared her core workout with us. Looks pretty brutal. I was very inspired and initiated my own core workout.