With the kids all living on their own now, I had surprisingly few photos of them to select among for my favorites of the year.

Today I am looking back at my favorite landscape photos of 2019. May 2020 be as bountiful.

Two days ago a three million dollar home in our community burned to the ground. Located on 13 acres overlooking the Sudbury River, the 120-year-old home was built by descendants of presidents John and John Quincy Adams. Located in an old part of Concord with no fire hydrants, firefighters quickly exhausted the 30,000-gallon cistern supply and had to truck water in from over a mile away allowing the fire to engulf the entire structure. Ironically the Sudbury River is less than 1000 feet away but down a very steep hill. The swimming pool could have provided another 30,000 gallons but was not used for some reason. This afternoon, I flew my drone over to survey the damage. An excavator was already on the scene to begin the cleanup.

I said goodbye to my childhood home for a second time today. The first time was when I left 40 years ago to begin my career at Bell Laboratories in Indianapolis. I was filled with mixed emotions on that day; happy to have graduated to adulthood, sad to be leaving my parents and siblings and the place I grew up. Today I drove to Schenectady, NY to retrieve all remaining items of artistic and/or sentimental value and to leave it ready for the new owners who will take possession next week assuming the closing goes off without a hitch. The house was built in 1908 by Percival Lewin in what is now designated the General Electric Realty Plot Historic Neighborhood (locally known as the “GE Plot”).

The GE Plot is an area of approximately 90 acres just east of Union College. Originally an undeveloped tract owned by the college, it was sold to General Electric at the end of the 19th century to help the college pay off a debt. The company’s executives subdivided it, laid out streets according to a plan (see an updated drawing of the plan made by my mother below) inspired by New York’s Central Park and built houses on the land, with covenants requiring a minimum lot size and house value. This was done to create a neighborhood that would help attract executives and scientists to Schenectady when the company was still in its infancy.

By 1927 approximately a hundred houses had been built for some very notable residents:

• 1297 Wendell Ave. Home to Charles Proteus Steinmetz, a genius in both mathematics and electronics, he did work that earned him the nicknames “Forger of Thunderbolts” and “The Wizard of Schenectady”. Steinmetz’s equation, Steinmetz solids, Steinmetz curves, and Steinmetz equivalent circuit theory are all named after him, as are numerous honors and scholarships, including the IEEE Charles Proteus Steinmetz Award, one of the highest technical recognitions given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers professional society. His home (pictured below), located immediately adjacent to ours was torn down in 1938 and is now Steinmetz Memorial Park.
• 67 Union Avenue. In 1900, the first home built for Edwin W. Rice, a GE executive and president of Schenectady Realty, considered one of the three fathers of General Electric.
• 1155 Avon Road. One of the first all-electric houses in the country when built in 1905.
• 6 Douglas Road. The first all-electric “Gold Medallion” house in the nation in 1901.
• Ernst Alexanderson House, 1132 Adams Road. Alexanderson, a pioneer in radio and television development, held 322 patents. The first television broadcast was received here in 1927. GE used it as a model for such houses
• Ernst Julius Berg House, 1336 Lowell Road. Home of the producer of the first two-way radio program in the U.S.
• William D. Coolidge House, 1480 Lenox Road. Home of the inventor of the modern X-ray tube. He served in his later years as GE’s director of research.
• Albert Hull House, 1435 Lowell Road. Home of the inventor of the magnetron, the later foundation for the development of radar and microwave ovens. He held 94 patents.
• Irving Langmuir House, 1176 Stratford Road. From 1919 until his death in 1957, this was the home of Irving Langmuir, winner of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the first industrial chemist so honored.
• George R. Lunn House, 1299 Stratford Road. Lunn was the first Socialist elected mayor of a city in New York. He later served as lieutenant governor for a term under Alfred E. Smith.
• Chester Rice House, 1161 Lowell Road. One night in the 1930s, Rice, a GE engineer, directed radio beams at nearby vehicles and got them to bounce back, one of the earliest practical demonstrations of radar.

This evening we hosted a two-generation party for high school friends of our children and their parents. It started at 7pm with dinner and continued until 11pm with various games. It did not take long for the kids to migrate down to the basement where the activities included some form of beer pong and darts.

At work, we use a high-speed camera to photograph our metal printing process. At 60,000 frames per second, it is an excellent resource for understanding what is going on. Due to the extremely bright deposition zone (white-hot molten metal), the rest of the image is underexposed so much that it is not visible. To overcome this limitation, I thought I would try using one of my camera strobes to illuminate the entire scene. The idea worked perfectly allowing us to see the contact tip and deposition line for the first time albeit for just a couple of frames.

Christmas morning is the one day each year we get to enjoy Jeanine’s famous popovers. They are a very special treat and once again she made them to perfection. I was in charge of grapefruit preparation and frying of the bacon, two tasks that take more dexterity than knowledge of food. The rest of the morning we continued with our tradition of sequentially taking one item at a time from our respective Christmas stockings. This took well over two hours and netted me a pair of reindeer antlers and a red nose among many other lovely gifts. The opening of Secret Santa gifts was pushed into the afternoon. I drew Maya this year and she received a small shoulder purse, Yeti thermos bottle, and a DMM (digital multimeter) from her father.

It would not be Christmas Eve without Zeppole Balls, a tradition that dates back to my childhood and to my father’s before me. Maya prepared the dough and I was tasked with the frying. The boys, normally night owls, went to bed before we even started and will be lucky if any remain by tomorrow morning. Maya recommended setting up a time-lapse video of the process which can be viewed here. Jeanine’s sister Susan is spending the holiday with us and we will be joined later in the week by her friend, Jean.

Before taking delivery of my Audi e-tron, I moved the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment; white box in background) to the front left of my parking bay. It had been located at the right rear position for my BMW i3 which had its charging port in that location. Today, I extended the charging cable to a support column in the garage to make it even easier to plug and unplug the car. It is a micro-optimization but will make the daily connection and disconnection process just a little bit faster. I estimate this will shave 40 seconds off my daily commute.

The entire family was home today and made short work of obtaining and decorating our Christmas tree. There were only 4 or 5 trees left at our local farm stand and we were surprised to find such a beautiful tree. Earlier in the day, Maya assisted me with the last task needed to complete a faucet replacement project on our Jacuzzi tub that I started last week. I needed someone small enough to enter the access hole and squirm under the tub to install the small hole cover in the foreground of the photo below. This is the same opening that I stuffed myself into for the faucet replacement work but could not maneuver my way far enough under the tub to finish the job. It is nice to have children in three sizes; small, medium, and large for various different tasks. Kyle was the perfect height to throw the Christmas tree over his shoulder as he carried it into the house while Nico was our go-to guy for high ornament placement.

The picture above represents a major technical milestone for my new company and a significant point of pride for me personally. While I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Formlabs, I never became deeply involved with the technology. My responsibilities were more focused on team management. At Digital Alloys, I am neck-deep in technology and frequently find myself unable to sleep because my head is bursting with new ideas. To celebrate the achievement or perhaps just because it was Friday evening, members of my team broke out an RC car and racing drone for what appeared to be a game of high-speed cat and mouse.

This week Open Table sent out their annual appeal which is appended below. If you have enjoyed good fortune this year, please consider supporting a cause that makes a dramatic difference in the lives of people in our community. Follow the link to the actual fundraising page. I enjoyed photographing Svetlana and her family for this project and being able to lend my time to something that is so important to Jeanine.

Nicolai shared the news that he will be teaching History at Concord Carlisle High School come January. This is a big increase in responsibility and a major milestone for him. We are all extremely proud of him. He is pictured above practicing classroom discipline or perhaps this is the only photo of him that I could work into this blog posting.

When I decided to leave Formlabs, I gave two months’ notice to facilitate a smooth transition. During that time, my boss allowed me to work at Digital Alloys for two days in exchange for two make up days to be “paid back” after my start date. Today I spent the first of these IOU days back in Somerville on a day featuring relentless snow and sleet. Pictured above is a picture I took back in August when we had just started shipping the Form3 printer. Since then the company has shipped many thousands of printers that have been well received in the market. My day was consumed in back to back meetings and I very much enjoyed spending time with my former teammates. Over the lunch hour, I met with the COO at Superpedstrian and learned of his plans to take a new position in NYC in January. I will truly miss our sporadic lunch dates.

I established a new record time for my morning commute. I managed to shave 2 minutes off my previous personal best for a door to door time of 20 minutes. The early hour helped my cause but one really long stoplight worked against me. I believe I will drop into the high teens as I fine-tune my route.

My sister, Alissa, is putting together a book of my mother’s sculptures and paintings. This evening my mom asked if I would update one of the photos of a sculpture that currently resides with us. She requested that it be photographed where it is displayed on our sunporch. To do so would require actual sunlight to look natural. Realizing that I have been leaving and returning from work every day in the dark, I thought it best to bring it into the studio. This sculpture was carved from laminated sheets of plywood and stands about 4 feet tall. My father was an avid classical and flamenco guitar player.

Yesterday morning, Jeanine and I both received a text from our cleaning lady who reported that the faucet in our master bathroom would not shut off. Jeanine was the first to return at 6 pm and was quite proud of her resourcefulness in using a big crescent wrench to turn off the stubborn supply valve. I am not looking forward to our next water bill after a full day of watering the septic tank. Today, I set about to replace the faucet with a more modern looking one which also necessitated changing out the drain flange (because it was of a different finish). By the end of the day and after two trips to Lowe’s, I replaced the faucets and drains in two other locations. The effort left me with sore muscles everywhere from contorting my body into the various small workspaces I had to navigate.

On her last day as an intern for Blue Origin, Maya was required to give a major presentation covering the work she completed. Despite her anxiety leading up to it, she reports it went very well. She received much positive feedback and an offer to return as a full-time employee after she graduates. She is pictured above with her cohort of interns. We are really looking forward to her return.

I am not at liberty to share details about this photograph other than to say that it represents a major breakthrough for my new company, Digital Alloys. At Formlabs, I really enjoyed the non-technical challenges of my job. There were far smarter people than I already working the technical issues. At my new company, I have hit the ground running and already feel I am making significant technical contributions to the team.

I am now pictured as part of the management team on the Digital Alloys website. I took great pains to match my self-portrait with the ones already in use by the company. I decided to stop short of scaling horizontally to create the head in a vice appearance of my colleagues. Either that or I have a really big head. Last week the company issued a press release announcing my addition to the team and it was picked up by a number of internet publications.

https://3dprint.com/260979/3d-printing-news-briefs-12-3-19/

https://www.3dprintingmedia.network/carl-calabria-leaves-formlabs-joins-digital-alloys/

https://www.develop3d.com/blog/2019/12/digital-alloys-boosts-rd-with-former-formlabs-hire-CTO-3D-printing

https://www.tctmagazine.com/3d-printing-news/digital-alloys-carl-calabria-chief-technology-officer/

https://3dprintingindustry.com/news/new-3d-printing-industry-jobs-and-career-moves-bigrep-nscrypt-markforged-regenhu-xjet-digital-alloys-165916/

Jeanine hosted her book group at our home this evening and I was the beneficiary, helping myself to shrimp cocktail, a lovely cheese plate and a delightful stew. I had another very productive day at work, meeting for the first time with a customer. It was nice to get a first-hand acknowledgment of the need in the industry for what our technology can deliver. I am not at liberty to disclose the customer but their revenue last year was close to $4B.

This is a tensile test coupon printed in titanium on a Digital Alloys 3D printer. It will be machined into a standard shape for destructive testing (we pull it apart with a machined designed to measure tensile strength). The bottom plate and first 20mm or so of the tower will be cut off in preparation for machining. It is not a particularly creative photograph but I was only willing to invest five minutes for setup after a 14 hour day in the office. The print is also rather old and shows some discoloration so I will wait for a more beautiful part before pulling out all the stops.

Maya made this drawing of our family when she was in elementary school. Kyle and Nicolai appear to be larger than life, looking quite handsome and muscular. Maya is as cute as ever. Jeanine is rather small, although very fetching with her cocked head and big hair. Then we have the father who appears to have no arms of consequence, is smaller than Nico’s leg, lacks ears, and is the only member of the family, including the guinea pigs, that is not labeled with his proper name. My father, who was a psychologist and psychotherapist, would have had a field day analyzing this drawing. It is one of the dozens of drawing made by the children that I am systematically digitizing for posterity.

Jeanine and I decided to check out the Somerville Winter Farmers Market this afternoon. It is open on Saturdays from December to mid-April. There, we enjoyed live jazz while eating a very healthy lunch before setting about to check out all the vendors. The music alone was worth the trip.

On the drive home, we spotted a large group of young people all dressed up as Santas. I had to stop for a photo and to inquire about the motivation. I learned that they were on their way to attend SantaCon, a free pub crawl and mass gathering where people dress in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas / holiday characters and parade throughout Boston and several cities around the world. Last year, over 3,000 Santa’s participated in the Boston event which this year includes one route through Boston and one through Cambridge, both culminating in Fenway.

After another set of very productive meetings with the folks from Lincoln Electric’s Welding Automation team, we enjoyed lunch together. On the left is their representative to our Board of Directors and on the right their CTO. I was a little groggy today having spent several hours in the middle of last night documenting ideas I had from our meetings yesterday. We spent the remainder of the afternoon getting a tour of the Lincoln Electric Welding School, the first of its kind, set up in 1917 and of the factory floor. It is amazing how much I learned during the course of our visit. I am also now looking for the slightest excuse to buy a welder.

Headquartered in Euclid, Ohio, Lincoln Electric has 44 manufacturing locations, including operations and joint ventures in 19 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices covering more than 160 countries. The company was founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln with a capital investment of $200 to make electric motors he had designed. Today, revenues are in the billions and the company business model was listed as one of the most studied by the Harvard Business School. The company, recognized as the leader in the industry, manufactures welding products, consumables, and robotic welding systems. Our meetings with their CTO and his team proved to be unbelievably productive. It is clear to me that the project we are working on with them is going to lead to a very positive outcome.

This evening I flew to Cleveland, Ohio with several colleagues for meetings over the next two days with folks from Lincoln Electric, known primarily for their welding products. They are an early strategic investor in Digital Alloys and have offered to share their knowledge of high current power supplies with us. Pictured above is the interior of the Cleveland Airport where we spent much longer than necessary waiting to obtain a rental car. By the time we arrived at our hotel, I decided to skip dinner with my team and went directly to bed.

As if yesterday’s snow was insufficient, we were treated to an additional 8 inches today. Another work out with the snowblower and quick run into work. The weather was of little consequence to me today as I spent close to 14 hours in the office absorbing as much new knowledge as I could. I will apologize in advance for the reduced quality of the blog as I come up to speed in my new job. Only so many hours in the day.

I was hoping to get a very early start on my first official day of work at Digital Alloys. Mother nature had other plans. I woke up to the first snowfall of the season, a respectable 6-8 inches. If not for two broken shear pins and extremely wet snow, I would have been done snow blowing in an hour. Instead, the task took closer to two hours. On the positive side, very few cars were out when I did set out for the office making the commute extra short despite very slick roads.

We have really enjoyed having Maya back for the Thanksgiving holiday. Tomorrow she returns to Seattle for two weeks to complete her internship with Blue Origin and is scheduled on an early morning flight. In anticipation of a major snowstorm that started this evening we decided it would be best to have her spend the night with Kyle in his Seaport District apartment. There she will be within a stone’s throw of the airport which should greatly help with travel logistics and safety.