For the second season in a row my soccer team, Concord United, won the Division 1 Championship for our age group besting the other 27 teams. Regulation play resulted in a 0-0 tie. The ensuing penalty kick shoot out ended with a score of 4-3 in our favor. I played despite a cracked rib and sore muscles from yesterday’s Tough Mudder and finally managed a good photo of the whole team. The winning PK by our stopper is shown below.

In other soccer news, Nicolai worked with the New England Revolution MLS team to have an amputee soccer demonstration (3v3 no goalies) during half time over their game this evening. The American Amputee Soccer Association flew in a couple of players for the event and they all stayed at our house last night. Here is an Instagram recording of the demo including a goal and subsequent forward flip by Nicolai.

Today I participated in the 2019 Boston Tough Mudder Classic. Billed as a 10 mile course with 25 obstacles it was closer to 8 miles for which I have no complaints. Pictured here is the 3-story cargo net Mudderhorn, the last and one of the easier obstacles with the Tough Mudder Village in the background. Organizers emphasize that this is not a race but rather a challenge. The goal is to complete the course and as many obstacles as you can with an emphasis on using teamwork to get everyone through. I successfully completed 24 of the 25 obstacles and helped teammates on the team oriented ones. I was unable to get all the way across the Funky Monkey inclined horizontal ladder which required more upper body strength than I could muster. The consequence is falling into a deep pool of water which at this point in the course is a welcome way to wash off all the caked on mud that you have accumulated. Below is a video from the Los Angeles version of this event which shows most of the same obstacles. The Gauntlet was by far the hardest one for me and the most satisfying to complete. I finished in a little over 3.5 hours and was completely spent by the end. My arms were so fatigued that lifting a can of Coke was a challenge. I have several cuts and scrapes and a broken or cracked rib. Am I glad I did it. Hell yes! Would I do another one. Not likely!

Pictured below are two of the easier but muddier obstacles. I went back after a shower and change of clothes with my camera to grab a couple of pictures. Crawling under the barbed wire is not that difficult but your knees take a beating on the embedded gravel and rocks. This trick is to lift your body up on your toes. Easier said than done. The net which is staked to the ground is very heavy. Ten steps in and you are exhausted. The trick is to work with teammates and to walk backwards. Doing so allows the netting to ride up more easily and once it is elevated teammates can pass under it with less effort.

I was able to visit my mom one more time this morning before my flight back to Boston. She is making slow but steady progress every day. Because she is unable to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time (general discomfort from being connected to so many tubes and nurses doing blood draws or other checks throughout the day and night, she now show signs of ICU delirium. She has wild and vivid hallucinations which can be very disconcerting. We are told this is not uncommon and that they should abate once she is able to get more sleep.

While In Minnesota I am staying with my brother Mark and his darling wife, Marie. This is my first time to see their new home. It is located within walking distance of the kids school and is quite spectacular. I helped my brother with some shop projects in between visits to the hospital where my mother is making slow steady progress. It is clear that her road to recovery is going to take some time. So far it has been two steps forward and one step back.

I flew to Minneapolis this morning to visit my mother in the hospital. She is recovering from surgery, which appears thus far to have been successful. She is expected to remain in the hospital until early next week and her prognosis at this time is guardedly optimistic. My mother is as energetic a 90 year old as you will ever meet which made it especially difficult to see her so fragile after her ordeal. She is already very skinny so the loss of several more pounds has been less than ideal. She cannot have any food or liquids until her digestion resumes which is not expected for another few days. She was aggressively treated for a dramatic drop in blood pressure this morning which had stabilized by the time I visited in the afternoon. She is connected to more tubes than I could keep straight and this has made it difficult for her to rest. She was alert and coherent during my visit and I left the hospital with a sense of relief.

Pictured here at her 90th birthday party last year, my mother underwent emergency surgery early this morning for an obstructed bowel. She is visiting my brother and his family in Minneapolis which is fortunate because they were quick to seek medical attention when she fell ill and there she has access to a world class health system and excellent doctors. Surgeons removed a section of her upper intestine and feel she will make a full, if lengthy recovery. I will leave tomorrow to visit with her and try and lend a hand to Mark and Marie who have had to handle this difficult situation alone.

While at Fenway yesterday, we learned a bit of Green Monster trivia. The ladder pictured to the left above was used to access the roof for maintenance before it was replaced with additional seating. No longer needed it was left in place and has figured prominently in two major plays in which a fly ball took an unexpected carom off the ladder. A close-up of the American League standings reveals Morse Code embedded messages in the vertical white stripes. It will be left as an exercise for the reader to determine their meaning.

The family treated Maya to a baseball game outing at Fenway Park to belatedly celebrated her twentieth birthday. Kyle managed to get us great tickets at the last minute (see out view of the field below). Unfortunately, the Red Sox did little to make the game memorable as they lost to the Toronto Blue Jays 6-1. Later we dined at the Yard House while watching the tail end of the France – Brazil World Cup match.

Also in attendance but seated in a different area were my cousins who received complimentary tickets from an inside connection as well as a nice welcome on one of the giant screens in the outfield.

Earlier in the day my soccer team won our semi-final championship match by a well earned margin of 3-1. Next Sunday we play in the finals for all the marbles. I will be competing in a 10-mile, 25 obstacle Tough Mudder on Saturday so it remains to be seen how much I will be able to contribute to that effort.

After Nicolai cooked breakfast for everyone, Jeanine and I joined my cousins, the Sanchez family, for a paddle down the Sudbury and Concord Rivers to the Old North Bridge. There we went ashore for a tour of the grounds and brief history lesson.

Later in the afternoon, we visited Kimball Farm for mini golf and ice cream. Please note that we all enjoyed small portions compared to the banana split I could not resist photographing even though it was ordered by someone else.

Tony, Nick and Dom are the children of my cousin Gina’s son Rob and his wife Jennifer. I believe this makes them my cousins twice removed. The entire family is staying with us this weekend having travelled here from Chicago. Each summer they take a vacation to visit a different baseball stadium (Fenway in this case). This year they are also using the trip to visit colleges. Below is a picture of the older two with our kids and more cousins from Rob’s brother, Vincent.

I had a doctor’s appointment this morning which is located a couple of blocks from the Audi dealership through which I ordered my e-tron. I stopped in to get a status update on my car which has been sitting at the Davisville port in Rhode Island since June 3. I counted 8 e-trons on the lot, none of them mine which only adds insult to injury given that I know for a fact that my reservation was placed before all of these cars. After receiving exactly zero help from my salesperson, I reached out to a dealer I know in California. He was able to look up my order and discovered that the dealership had placed my name in the “notes” field of the order form rather than the “customer’s name” field which is where it belongs. He believes this explains the hold up. Learning this I was fit to be tied. On a positive note, I have had some very serious nibbles on my i3 which I am selling privately.

Maya, who turned twenty years old today, was treated to dinner by her former boss from Rolls Royce. She interned with RR last summer at their Indianapolis facility which produces jet engines. He wrote Jeanine and I a very thoughtful and complementary letter after her internship ended and was and continues to be a great champion for her. He is in the area on business and we were happy to have a chance to meet him and thank him for being such a great first manager for Maya. We will be celebrating Maya’s birthday as a family this weekend.

This week construction commenced on a new life sciences building located just a few blocks from my office. I spoke with the construction manager who told me it was to be an 11 story building with a 4 story subterranean garage. Scheduled duration for the project is two years. As much as I enjoyed watching the heavy equipment at work, all I could think about was the additional traffic this new facility will bring. City planners here seem inexplicably unconcerned with the traffic challenges that are going to hit like a tidal wave when all of the new office buildings going up in Cambridge and Somerville start operating.

I took my BMW into a windshield repair shop a few blocks from work this morning to address the small chip I picked up last week. After inspecting the dime sized crater, the technician said he would have me in and out in 15 minutes. Half way through the procedure he announced that the entire windshield would need to be replaced and showed me how an 8 inch crack had started to propagate from the original point of impact. Fortunately, it was an easy walk to work and they said my car would be ready by the close of business. When I returned that evening they were just wrapping up the job and I was very pleased with the quality of the workmanship.

For Father’s Day I requested a one hour portrait session with the family. It is a great opportunity to practice my hobby and it produces images that will be cherished forever. This year I purchased a set of tee-shirts that I thought particularly relevant for our family. Absent the usual grousing that accompanies such sessions, it was a ton of fun as the kids really got into character. Earlier in the day, my soccer team won our final soccer match of the season by a score of 3-0. We lost two midfielders to injury and I wound up playing an exhausting 75 minutes. We finished the season in first place for D1 South. Two more wins among the top two teams in D1 South and D1 North will determine the overall league champion. Hopefully my injured teammates will be back in action before then.

Before they had to leave for the airport and return trip to Minnesota, Maya, Jeanine and I joined Mark and Marie for a nice 3 mile walk to Walden Pond and back. Later in the day I assisted Maya as she began to install the flooring in her tiny house. Much progress was made.

Not a week after listing my BMW i3 for sale, I caught a stone this morning which chipped my windshield. I am fairly certain the repair will be covered by insurance (hopefully without a deductible). I have arranged for the work to be done next Monday and do not know yet if a repair or replacement will be required. I feel as though my car is trying to tell me that it does not want to be sold.

My brother and sister in law stopped in today on their return from a vacation in Maine. They will stay with us until their flight back to Minneapolis on Saturday. Maya took charge of creating a veritable feast which satisfied requirements for both the 30 day cleanse we are on and my brother’s list of off limit foods. Mark and Marie used their time in Maine to relax as well as to scope out potential homes/property for vacation and/or future retirement We are highly supportive of any investments that will bring them closer to Boston.

“Q5 is an immersive learning experience leveraging the curiosity, knowledge, and passions of students and faculty to foster complex thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration. Q5 complements our academic program and seeks to inspire students and faculty to pursue shared interests and ideas.”

At CCHS, where Nico is teaching, they offer a variety of one week long, end of the school year, elective programs for non-seniors. Nico is staffing the All Things Paddleboarding course in which students spend half the day learning to paddleboard and the other half kayaking. Today they are headed to the Charles River and Nico will be paddling in style using the kayak I built several years ago.

On the day after climbing Mount Fitzroy in Argentina, I noticed blood in my urine, never a good sign. It persisted for a few days and then everything returned to normal. When I got back to the US, I saw my GP and then a urologist who ordered a CAT scan which revealed a number of kidney stones (5mm, 3mm x 2, 2mm). I decided to give them 6 weeks to pass before considering more invasive remedies. The journey from the kidney to the bladder can be excruciatingly painful (renal colic) and totally debilitating. The pain comes in intense waves that last for 30-90 minutes. Once in the bladder, passage out of the body is not as painful. Starting last Thursday, I have been having 2 to 3 episodes per day. Yesterday on the way back from my soccer game (non-driver in a car pool), I had a particularly painful attack. This morning, I produced over a hundred tiny stones, mostly sub millimeter, several 1mm, and a couple of 2mm. I believe that the strenuous activity may have helped break down the 5mm stone into all the remnants pictured above. Time will tell.

This morning we faced the top team from the other flight in our division, the Black Rhinos from Wellesley. We took a 1-0 lead at the thirty minute mark and scored three additional unanswered goals in the second half for a 4-0 result. I had a blistering one touch shot that rang off the cross bar. Obviously, it would have been far nicer if it had gone in but to strike the ball with such power is a nice feeling in and of itself. After the match I lined everyone up for a team photograph and could not be more disappointed with the results. I put the sun to our backs so we would not be squinting and had a fill flash mounted on the camera that was suppose to provide the correct exposure for faces. It did so for the guys standing but not for those on a knee. This is exactly what you would expect if you exceed the camera’s flash sync speed, which I did. When in that situation you turn on the HSS (high speed sync) function to prevent it from happening, which I did. Clearly, something went wrong and I have to figure out the mystery. Because the photo does not meet my standard, I will have to coerce everyone into posing for another one before the season ends. I will no doubt catch a bunch of grief when I request the do over.

Several years ago I tiled over our brick fireplace and hearth. Unfortunately the tiles that were subject to intense heat eventually cracked. Today I removed the damaged tiles and poured a new concrete base in the heat zone and behind the fireplace screen. Other than making a hot mess of the kitchen when I over revved the mixer I was using, the project came out well.

Maya is spending the summer completing work on her tiny house. What remains to be done are the built in cabinets and flooring. After about a week in the design phase she is now working on construction. Pictured here are a number of plywood panels to which she is gluing 1/2 inch solid stock edging. In the background she is doing the same to stretchers that will divide drawer sections. She is using a European style frameless cabinet to maximize space utilization and has opted for push to release closures to eliminate the need for handles. Eliminating handles buys back an inch and a half of extra maneuvering room for occupants of the kitchen.

I ordered a new flash for my camera system earlier this week and it arrived this evening. This unit features a round reflector in contrast to the rectangular system used by most flashes. The result is a much more uniform field of illumination but not the reason I ordered it. Whenever I use flash I make every effort to bounce it off a white ceiling or wall. When used this way the uniformity of light pattern makes little difference. What attracted me to this unit is a much improved user interface and mechanical coupling to the hot shoe. Anytime I update my system I put up the replaced item for sale. Below is one of two flashes that are now up for sale on Craig’s List.

I discovered an additional video featuring Nicolai from last weekend’s US National Amputee Soccer Team training camp. This one produced by the team’s host, MSL Soccer League team FC Dallas.

I took advantage of delightful weather for a lunch hour walk to the Boston Museum of Science. I didn’t have time to go in but did pause to photograph the 5-story Foucault Pendulum in the lobby. Originally  conceived as an experiment to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth, the device is mesmerizing to watch.

Nicolai spent the weekend in Texas at a US National Amputee Soccer Team training camp. Local TV covered the story.

With my new Audi e-tron set to arrive shortly (I placed my reservation last September) it is time to put my BMW i3 up for sale. I cleaned it from top to bottom and photographed it for listings on Cars.com, eBay Motors, and Craig’s List. Earlier in the day my soccer team was in action against the top team in the other flight in our age division. Our over-56 league has two divisions (1 and 2). Each has a North and South section. We are in the D1 South section which has two 4-team flights. We play teams in our flight twice and the other flight once. Winners of each flight go to through to the playoffs with the North section to determine the best of the 28 team league. We went up 1-0. They scored two in a row. I was credited with the equalizer when a teammate headed the ball off a corner kick into the top of my back from there into the net. Hardly a goal to be proud of but it gave us the tie and preserved our undefeated season.

The field behind our house is hayed a couple of times each year. The farmers who do the work charge us nothing and in return get to keep all the hay. It is really something to watch the expertly choreographed operation. Another tractor proceeds this pair to leave the grass piled in straight rows. While these guys were at work, I relocated the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment) used to charge my electric car. It is essentially a box with fuses, a big contactor, a 25 foot cable, charge port connector and a little logic. My BMW i3 has its charge port at the back right whereas my soon to arrive Audi e-tron has its charge port at the front left. The whole project took less than 2 hours and will allow me to easily connect the cable to my new car rather than draping it over the roof. I went on to completely clean and organize the garage with Maya’s assistance.