The river menu today included a pair of wood ducks. As the temperature increases, so does the variety of birdlife on the water. Regrettably, the recent spate of warm weather will be short-lived as cold temperatures are expected to return next week. For the second week in a row, Jeanine and I joined the kids at Kyle’s apartment for brunch. Featured was a french toast casserole and Nicolai’s signature egg sandwiches. I suspect a picture of these delights would have been a nice break from all the recent wildlife images but I forgot to bring my camera with me.

Today’s visitors included a pair of beavers. They can be hard to distinguish from muskrats but the combination of some tail slapping on the water and a telltale photo of one sitting on the bank left no doubt. They appear to be building a lodge about 20 feet down the shore from our house. If that is the case, you can expect to see a lot more of this couple (they mate for life).

A female and male hooded merganser on the river today. The lighting was not good and once again I am shooting through a double-pane glass. In our new house design, I will strategically locate windows that open for taking better photos of this type.

Jeanine spotted this bird when it landed on a branch just outside our living room and immediately alerted me. We were not sure if it was a juvenile bald eagle or a red-tailed hawk. After posting the image to our neighborhood list server, several resident experts confirmed it was a red-tail hawk. I was between work meetings and had to shoot this quickly through a window which did not help with the quality. Still, I never imagined I would be photographing a scene like this from inside our house.

Pictured above is my Zoom meeting setup. I use my mirrorless camera positioned over my computer screen aimed down the Sudbury River. Strong lighting is needed to balance the exposure of the outside scene. This setup gives my audience a lovely background and allows me to look at an angle that simulates “eye contact”.

If Maya was an ancient dinosaur she would have been one of the nice ones. I am not sure why this image of her skeleton that she sent me made me think of that, but I did. Unfortunately, she is experiencing lingering back pain from an injury she sustained while moving a heavy Fuse printer at Formlabs when she was interning with them last year. We are hopeful that some good chiropractor work will address the situation.

Maya sent these pictures of a Rex Begonia that she is studying for an assignment in living organism observation. Clever girl that she is, she used a handheld magnifier held up to the lens of her iPhone camera for a macro close-up.

Kyle texted us this photo of his Sunday dinner. I thought we were living large when we joined him and the rest of the family for brunch earlier in the day. Then, we were treated to takeout from Tatte and various scrumptious pastries. Apparently, he had even grander plans for dinner with his girlfriend Sabriya. In offspring news, Nicolai starts a new teaching assignment at Lexington high school on Monday, Maya is in the thick of her studies at Olin, and Kyle has decided to pursue a master’s degree in computer science. He plans to apply to Georgia Institute of Technology’s on-line program which will allow him to continue working at TouchPlan while obtaining his degree.

For those who know me well, it will come as no surprise that I spent 20 hours today (5 AM until 1 AM) refining the floorplan for our new house project. I must have completed at least two dozen versions before settling on this one. The massive effort was triggered when Jeanine and I agreed that we would move our main bedroom from the first floor to the second. Since we are hoping to age in place here, we initially decided that a first-floor bedroom would be advantageous when eventual infirmity makes stair climbing less desirable. When that day comes, in our new concept, we will move from the upstairs main bedroom to the downstairs guest room which is being designed for wheelchair accessibility. Hopefully, that day is a long way off and in the meantime, we will enjoy what are arguably the best views of the river from the second floor.

I completed my third model of our new house this evening. Each one has been a refinement of the previous one both in terms of design and fidelity. At this point, the basic shape feels right (plus or minus some roof pitch adjustments) and the next phase will be tuning of window size and placement. Although it will probably be a year or more before our new home will be a reality, it must be said, that I really enjoy the design process and the phase we are in now.

After many days of sub-zero temperatures, we finally got a small break from the frigid cold. Our collection of icicles were in melting overdrive. I was lazy and shot this image from indoors through a window. A more determined photographer would have gone outside and set up an off-camera flash to really freeze the motion of these streaming droplets.

On a walk through our neighborhood, I encountered no less than three snow people. This one was my favorite. I am a fan of the carrot for nose school of design and also felt the hair treatment was upstanding (outstanding).

Kyle with his girlfriend, Sabriya, on the Cape visiting his buddy’s airplane hanger earlier in the week. Jeanine is attempting to lure the kids home for Valentine’s Day with the promise of homemade lasagna. I spent a few hours building a foam core model of the new house. Doing so led me to make a few dimensional adjustments to the roof heights and I will make one more model when all of the window elevations have been finalized.

Jeanine is taking advantage of our recent snowfall to get some outdoor exercise. This morning she set out on her snowshoes for an early hike around the neighborhood. This is what happy looks like.

The fun continues at work as we continue to experiment with new shapes. Now that we have cracked the code on our metal deposition, we are printing a new part every day. This one is interesting because it would be very hard to machine using conventional methods given the hardness of the material and the thinness of the wall. It is just a tad smaller than a tennis ball. By next week, I predict we will have printed a part that is impossible to make using machine tools.

The Holy Grail for metal 3D printing. An unsupported 45-degree thin wall part. This morning, my team achieved what is arguably the ultimate milestone in our development journey thus far. Today, the uphill battle may have transitioned into a downhill sprint. While there is still much refinement to be done, we have without a doubt reached an inflection point in the life of the company. We celebrated at the office with Champagne and ice cream.

Using last week’s discovery, my team printed this cylindrical tube demonstrating our ability to print arbitrary shapes. Tomorrow we will go for broke and try to print a part with a cantilevered structure. It is the last hurdle we need to clear to demonstrate the ultimate value of our technology. Fingers crossed.

The icicle pictured here was hanging from our carport this morning. When I first noticed it, there was little to distinguish it from all the other icicles dangling from the roofline. Then I realized that what I assumed was a forming water droplet at the tip was actually frozen solid. As I scanned the other icicles, it became clear that this was a very unique occurrence, especially when one considers how necked down the pinch point is. The whole experience was a poignant reminder to me about how much beauty can be found around us if one simply pauses to look for it.

This morning we woke to more snow and further evidence of our resident coyote’s penchant for strolling up and down the frozen Sudbury River. While the ice is thick enough to support a coyote, I opted not to test it with my weight despite a great desire to make a closer inspection of the tracks. Jeanine suggested we set up her trail cam near the shoreline and perhaps we will see a future post featuring the results of that effort.

This morning, I spotted a coyote crossing the frozen river behind our house. By the time I got my camera, he was gone. Fortunately, one of our neighbors also spotted him and got a photograph which I am sharing here. Later in the day, Jeanine located some fresh tracks in the snow directly behind our house which were almost certainly made by the same fellow.

Yesterday was a super exciting one at work. Members of my team printed a single voxel wide perimeter wall using a new and very novel method. This breakthrough will allow us to print with a minimum feature size three times smaller than we thought possible, produces the best wall finish we have ever seen and should enable us to print cantilevered structures. I can’t overstate what a major breakthrough this is for the company.

Having embraced the DeWALT cordless tool family, I own more than twenty tools and half as many batteries. The relatively new one pictured above is a 60V 6AH FlexVolt which no longer takes a charge. Given it costs north of $120, I decided it was worth trying to repair rather than sending it to the dump. After opening it up, I identified a single defective cell of the 15 in this pack. I then carefully carved away the plastic holding it in place and removed the spot-welded tab from both sides. It slid out easily and I ordered a replacement cell on Amazon for $4. It should be here in a week and I will report out if the patient survives the surgery.

Normally, I would never fly my drone over Walden Pond because of all the people that are present. Even during the off-season, many enjoy walking around the trail that borders the lake. After yesterday’s massive snowfall, however, I felt that I would not encounter a single sole while conducting a flyover.

Although it affords us a great measure of privacy, our 250 foot long driveway is much less of a desirable feature when it comes to digging out after a Noreaster that left us buried in 15 inches of snow. Having sold my snowblower prior to moving, we had to have the driveway plowed to the tune of $330 (everything here gets the Concord markup). Suffice it to say, I see myself acquiring a new snowblower, perhaps not this season, but definitely next. I can’t stand paying for work that I can do myself, especially when it offers the added benefit of outdoor exercise.

As the temperature fluctuates above and below the freezing point, the ice formations on the river change daily. Today, it took the form of an ice dam with water on one side and a thin sheet of ice on the other. With up to 18″ of snow forecast for later in the day, I decided to work from home and made sure those who did choose to drive in left early enough to avoid the worst of it.