In preparation for my travels to Brazil and Argentina next week, I did a high altitude test with my drone.  Pictured above is a portion of the Concord Country Club golf course which is across the street from our home.  I wanted to determine the amount of battery needed to reach and return from max altitude so I can estimate how many flights I can get on a single battery.   I will be returning to Mount Fitz Roy with Nico and one of my soccer teammates. On my last visit, I did not come away with a single clean image as the peaks are shrouded in clouds more often than not.  If I see an opening in the clouds I plan to stop, no matter where we are on the climb, and put the drone up immediately.  Check back in two weeks to see if I was successful in capturing a decent image.

IMAGINE (aka Sneha Shrestha) is a Nepali artist who paints mindful mantras in her native language and meshes the aesthetics of Sanskrit scriptures with graffiti influences. Being the first to mesh Nepali Alphabets with American graffiti, she has shown her work in several exhibitions, commissioned works, and public walls around the world including Boston, San Francisco, Bali, Istanbul, Geneva, and Copenhagen. Her mural on the side of this building in Central Square was not there when I was working at Superpedestrian.  It is really quite amazing and I will need to return for a better photograph.

Today the lock out on selling my Sonos stock expired and I decided to sell my remaining shares.  I exercised my options in 2010 and have sold them in three tranches since then.  Had I held them all until today, I would have been looking at a high seven-digit payday.  Even with my conservative diversification schedule, this has proven to be one of my most successful equity plays to date.  I learned a long time ago not to try and time the perfect sale.  Better to spread things out and take a bunch of singles rather than looking for one home run.

Members of my team recently completed installation of a Form Cell.  It is an array of eight Form 2 printers and a robotic automation system that handles the movement of build platforms from input tray, to printer, to wash station, and finally to an output collection area.  The Form Cell reduces manual labor, speeds production, and reduces the cost per printed part.  It is only offered to select strategic partners and is not available for general sale. 

Jeanine took Nico on a shopping spree yesterday to celebrate his new job.  This evening she tailored all the pants they purchased and I asked her to save the off-cut legs for this photograph.  Nico already has a quilt made exclusively of such material.  Earlier in the day I made a run to REI to stock up on dehydrated food and trail snacks for an upcoming trip to Brazil and Argentina with Nico.  

Recent heavy snow and rain have left our Iocal rivers quite high.  I decided to pay a visit to the Old North Bridge while running errands this morning to investigate.  I find the scene far more inspiring with water levels this high as opposed to the view when we are experiencing drought.

This evening, Jeanine and I joined Maya and cousin Rachel for dinner at The Local in Wellesley.  Although they attend different colleges, Maya is at Olin and Rachel is at Babson, their dorm rooms are only a couple of hundred yards apart.  It was nice catching up with Rachel, now a senior, whom we have not seen recently, and also learning about Maya’s schedule for this term (overbooked as usual).

Since returning from Colorado for the holidays, Nicolai has been working part time as the Assistant Wrestling Coach at Concord Academy.  Last week he was offered and accepted a full-time entry-level teaching position at Concord Carlisle High School.  He is pictured here departing for his first day on the job this morning.  He has also been offered the position of Head Coach of the Men’s Junior Varsity Soccer Team beginning in the fall.  As it stands today, he is planning to permanently relocate to the Boston area and do his Master’s Degree locally rather than at Colorado College where he has been accepted into their program.  We are thrilled to have all three kids within a stone’s throw.

I rarely use my iPhone as a camera but have been doing so increasingly with the Xs model I recently purchased.  Today I experimented with the portrait mode while waiting with colleagues for our monthly town hall meeting to start.  One day phones will replace cameras entirely but not yet.

The combination of wind, ice, and fluffy snow made for some interesting patterns on the field and utility lines behind our house.  Temps yesterday were in the single digits. Two days from now they are forecasted to be in the high 50s.  Is anyone still doubting that global climate change is real?

For the second time in as many weeks, I arrived home with 1 mile of range left on my BMW i3.  The last time it was anticipated because I did some additional driving beyond my normal roundtrip to Somerville.  Today it was a function of the brutally cold temperatures that affected my normal commute.  My round trip distance is 38 miles which meant that my range today was 39 miles.  The car is rated for a range of 81 miles. When I left this morning at 6:20AM the temperature was 1 degree F and when I returned at 8PM it was 3 degrees F.  I am not at all pleased with this situation and have contacted BMW and will be insisting they replace the battery.  Loss of capacity over time is to be expected.  Reduced capacity at low temperatures is to be expected.  But getting less than half the advertised range in any scenario is simply not acceptable.

We received our first snowfall of the season today.  The base was light and fluffy with an icy top coat.  I opted to wait for the lowest winds of the afternoon to start clearing the drive.  Blowing fluffy snow in high winds is generally an exercise in futility.  The denser top layer required me to advance rather slowly which stretched the job to nearly two hours.  Later I put the drone up for an aerial view of my handy work.

With a major storm set to hit later this evening, I spent several hours doing maintenance on our snowblower.  Always best to have it ready to start on the first pull.  The afternoon was devoted to building a platform for our newly resized queen bed.  The box springs I adapted last week were a placeholder.  The new platform will allow for better air circulation and a firmer base.  Hopefully, it will also be less “squeaky” when placed into harmonic motion.

As I approached a flock of birds feeding on the grounds of Paul Revere Park, they all took off at the same time making for an interesting foreground to the Zakim Bridge.  

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.

A bit of bit organization was the theme for the day.  Customized tool storage is one of my favorite personal applications for 3D printing.  The two holders on the left have narrow column spacing to maximize density and wide row spacing to facilitate finger access.  The one on the right was design specifically for the nut driver set taking into account the individual size of each bit.  I spent less than an hour designing all three of these bit holders and am sure that investment will pay dividends over a lifetime of quick access to the tools I need.  Pictured below is a CAD view from the underside.  The holders are designed to use a minimum of material and to prevent wood dust from accumulating at the bottom of each cavity.

Little surprise that I have designed and 3D printed yet another tripod to add to my collection.  This small tabletop model is constructed of 5 plastic components and uses a single cap bolt to simultaneously capture the leg pivots and secure the ball head to the apex.  The legs have positive stops for both the open and closed positions. 

Jeanine and I enjoyed a nice walk along a recently opened section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail which passes near our home. We turned around at Concord Junction (memorialized by the installation pictured above) where 120 trains a day would pass during the time of the Industrial Revolution.  Quite a stark contrast to today. Now, one of the intersecting lines has been turned into a 25-mile linear park open for all but motorized activities.  We crossed over the Assabet River on a newly constructed pedestrian bridge which reflects the railroad heritage of the trail .  We are very lucky to live in a place with such easy access to nature and a commitment to historical preservation.