Maya and Lauren visited Watkins Glen State Park yesterday and again this morning as their road trip approaches its conclusion. One of my all-time favorite state parks, I am very happy that Maya took my advice and added this detour to their itinerary. I generally prefer that places of natural beauty remain undeveloped. Watkins Glen is an exception. The way the trail has been integrated into the canyon walls and behind the waterfalls really allows for a more engaging experience and they have been built in a way to blend into the surroundings. These photos we received from Maya make me went to jump in the car and head there myself.

Jeanine and I attended a Sake Tasting event this evening organized by the Concord Nanae Network and held under a tent at Verrill Farm. The group fosters Concord’s relationship with our sister city, Nanae, located on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The connection to Hokkaido dates back to 1876 when Dr. William Clark, then President of Massachusetts Agricultural College (now the University of Massachusetts in Amherst) was invited to help create the Sapporo Agricultural College (now Hokkaido University). Accompanied by three graduate students, including William Wheeler of Concord, their primary mission was to introduce northern agriculture and dairy farming to the region. Clark served as President of the college until 1879 at which time Wheeler took over. A century later, Massachusetts and Hokkaido became official sister states in 1990, and in 1997 Concord and Nanae, which share the same geographic latitude, officially became sister cities.

Bearing gifts of fine Japanese Sake, Setsuo Ohmor, the Consulate-General of Japan in Boston, talked about our special relationship with Japan and some of the finer points of Sake making. I had an opportunity to speak with him for some time and learned that he grew up in a very rural part of Japan and wanted to experience something more. He has since lived in Brazil, the UAE, Sudia Arabia, and now Boston.

All in all, it was a delightful evening where I also had an opportunity to reconnect with a former colleague and a new Conantum neighbor with very similar interests.

Maya stopped at Niagra Falls on her way back from Chicago. She has been on a road trip for the past week or so and stopped there to pick up Lauren, her college roommate. I am not sure what type of camera she used for the selfie below but I am fairly certain her legs are not that long in real life.

I have been so busy with my consulting work and design of the River House that I failed to pause last month to note the 17th anniversary of this blog. According to my Dashboard, I have added 8,257 posts during that time (in the early days, I would treat each image as a stand-alone post which explains why the number is higher than 17 x 365 = 6,205). It is hard to believe so much time has passed since I started. It is also sobering to realize just how much time I have invested in creating the content which appears here. Assuming 20 minutes per day to capture a photograph, import it, edit it, post it and compose the text entry that equates to a total of 2,068 hours or 52 work weeks of effort. Was it worth it? In some ways, that is not for me to judge. What keeps me going, however, is knowing how many people look in from time to time. Over the course of a year, the number is roughly 325,000 which works out to an average of about 900 visits per day. To all of you, I am grateful for the inspiration you provide.

Over the coming days, I will be migrating the blog to a new hosting company. My current provider is prone to hacker attacks of which I was a recent victim (for about the fourth time). The transition to a more intrinsically secure provider should be seamless but if the site goes dark for a few days, that will be the reason for it.

Nicolai spent the weekend in Dallas training with the US National Amputee Soccer team. He is seen here mimicking a statue in front of Toyota Stadium. What a clown. For the third time, he has been named captain for the team that will compete at the World Cup to be held in Istanbul this fall.

Maya has been on a solo road trip through the midwest for the last week. She is pictured here in Kentucky with her second cousin, Charlie (Jeanine’s niece’s daughter). We had hoped to meet her when we traveled to Indianapolis for her uncle’s wedding last year. Unfortunately, Covid intervened and we missed that opportunity. Maya will travel to Chicago next to meet up with her college roommate, Lauren, and the two will drive back to Boston together.

I spent a good part of the day with Kyle working on his basement renovation project. We removed the oil-fired furnace, relocated the fuel oil tank, and began the installation of a new exterior door to the garage. Note to Kyle: Please send your father some of the photos you took.

With Father’s day around the corner, I decided to sell some of my less frequently used camera gear. This included one camera body, and three macro lenses. They will join the 2 drones I have already listed on Craig’s List and FredMiranda.com . I find that demand for such items peaks just ahead of Father’s Day.

We are very pleased that we found someone who was interested in recycling the River House windows prior to demolition. They will be used to build a greenhouse in their second life. Most were removed successfully but the one pictured above shattered during the process. Because the glass is tempered it remained in place with a very mesmerizing fracture pattern. It is so interesting, that I have half a mind to preserving it in some way for the new house build.

I spent the day working on the River House in preparation for demolition which should commence any day now. The septic tank and pump chamber must be moved to accommodate the future garage. This necessitated pumping out both which happened this morning. In the afternoon, I harvested all the blue stones from our entry walkway. I am not sure yet what we will use them for but I am certain an application will emerge. If not, I got a really terrific workout for free.

Yesterday, I received a new drone which I ordered some time ago. For the second day in a row, I found an excuse to fly it. I have wanted to contextualize the location of our River House ever since we purchased the property. I finally found the right altitude and angle to do so. In this shot, you can get a sense of just how close our house is to the Sudbury River and how thoroughly surrounded by nature we are. You can also get a good sense of what we describe as the “long view” of the river which is available at ground level looking past a few tree trunks.

I grew up in Schenectady, NY where my family lived on Wendell Ave two blocks from Ellis Hospital. Over the years you become so accustomed to the sound of an ambulance siren that you sleep right through it. At the Road House, we are located across the street from Emerson Hospital. As was the case in my youth, I sleep through the sound of an ambulance (or fire truck or police car) like a baby. The same cannot be said for the sound of a helicopter. On rare occasions, we get a medical emergency landing at the hospital. For the longest time, I have wondered where the landing pad was. Initially, I assumed it was on the roof. While flying my drone today, I discovered that it is located directly behind the hospital.

Kyle returned from his Costa Rican vacation today but not without some excitement while returning his rental car. Apparently, there was some damage to the underside of the bumper. It does not look too serious and he also purchased the insurance option. We can’t wait to hear all about his Central American adventure at our next family dinner.

My left hamstring was sufficiently healed to allow me to play soccer this morning. I played for about 60 minutes before tweaking my right hamstring (I stopped immediately and I think it is entirely possible I will be back in action next week. for our final match of the season). The game was very close, tied at 1-1 until we scored a really nice goal with 5 minutes to go.

This afternoon, I attended a combination 60th birthday, 40th wedding anniversary, and retirement party for one of my soccer teammates from Concord United. It was quite the event, held at the Dover, MA home of his daughter-in-law’s parents. The celebration featured live music and was held outdoors on the absolutely spectacular grounds of the 6-acre estate. Pictured below is the garage. The main house is so well nestled into the landscaping that it was hard to photograph.

Meanwhile, Nico offered to share an extra Lake Street Dive concert ticket with Maya who jumped at the opportunity to join him on a road trip to Burlington, VT for the show. Jeanine decided to join them and all three spent the night at her sister’s house.

SimpliSafe offers a comprehensive suite of highly regarded, DIY home security devices. It is one of the systems I am considering for our River House project. The CEO was a former colleague at iRobot and he recently contacted me to see if I would be interested in a consulting opportunity at the company. Today, I had a Zoom call with their CTO which went well and I have agreed to take them on as a new client. My consulting business has grown quite substantially in a short period of time and I feel very fortunate that I can be selective about who I work with. I will only say yes to an opportunity if I am really excited about the team or technology (in this case, both).