I generally wake up every day at 5AM so leaving the house at that hour to retrieve Kyle from the airport was perfect. He spent a good portion of the remainder of the day making up for the sleep he lost on the red-eye from California. Running and lifting have left him fit and trim and ostensibly rehabilitated from his various muscle injuries.

I spent the bulk of the day completing a project to refit the house with LED light bulbs. This latest generation of lighting technology consumes 1/5 of the energy of conventional incandescent bulbs of the same brightness, start instantly, have a pleasing color temperature and are advertised to last for more than twenty years. The downside is that they cost more than $10 a pop and with close to 100 fixtures and lamps throughout the house it was quite an expensive undertaking. Reaching the nine fixtures in our vaulted master bedroom ceiling required me to set up a crude scaffolding which was the most time consuming part of the project.

After a delicious welcome home Sunday dinner, Jeanine took Kyle and visiting cousin Johnnie to see the new Lincoln movie. I spent the evening assisting Maya in my wood shop. She is constructing a miniature bookshop from plywood for her French class. Here she is seen laying out the patterns to be cut for the door and windows. Under my supervision, she used the table saw for the first time. It is the most daunting of wood-cutting tools and her first attempt resulted in a kickback. Fortunately, she was not hurt at all and the incident left her with profound respect for the power of this tool.