I grew up in Schenectady, NY where my family lived on Wendell Ave two blocks from Ellis Hospital. Over the years you become so accustomed to the sound of an ambulance siren that you sleep right through it. At the Road House, we are located across the street from Emerson Hospital. As was the case in my youth, I sleep through the sound of an ambulance (or fire truck or police car) like a baby. The same cannot be said for the sound of a helicopter. On rare occasions, we get a medical emergency landing at the hospital. For the longest time, I have wondered where the landing pad was. Initially, I assumed it was on the roof. While flying my drone today, I discovered that it is located directly behind the hospital.

Kyle returned from his Costa Rican vacation today but not without some excitement while returning his rental car. Apparently, there was some damage to the underside of the bumper. It does not look too serious and he also purchased the insurance option. We can’t wait to hear all about his Central American adventure at our next family dinner.

My left hamstring was sufficiently healed to allow me to play soccer this morning. I played for about 60 minutes before tweaking my right hamstring (I stopped immediately and I think it is entirely possible I will be back in action next week. for our final match of the season). The game was very close, tied at 1-1 until we scored a really nice goal with 5 minutes to go.

This afternoon, I attended a combination 60th birthday, 40th wedding anniversary, and retirement party for one of my soccer teammates from Concord United. It was quite the event, held at the Dover, MA home of his daughter-in-law’s parents. The celebration featured live music and was held outdoors on the absolutely spectacular grounds of the 6-acre estate. Pictured below is the garage. The main house is so well nestled into the landscaping that it was hard to photograph.

Meanwhile, Nico offered to share an extra Lake Street Dive concert ticket with Maya who jumped at the opportunity to join him on a road trip to Burlington, VT for the show. Jeanine decided to join them and all three spent the night at her sister’s house.

SimpliSafe offers a comprehensive suite of highly regarded, DIY home security devices. It is one of the systems I am considering for our River House project. The CEO was a former colleague at iRobot and he recently contacted me to see if I would be interested in a consulting opportunity at the company. Today, I had a Zoom call with their CTO which went well and I have agreed to take them on as a new client. My consulting business has grown quite substantially in a short period of time and I feel very fortunate that I can be selective about who I work with. I will only say yes to an opportunity if I am really excited about the team or technology (in this case, both).

Kyle is on vacation in Costa Rica taking surfing and Spanish lessons. He shared this and several other photos with the family but included no commentary. I conclude that he is too busy having fun to spend time writing about his exploits. Rest assured, he will be interrogated upon his return.

I had business in Watertown this morning and remembered to bring my drone for further exploration of Howe Tower. In a previous post, I promised to get an aerial view of this very beautiful work of architecture.

Jeanine and I enjoyed a wonderful Memorial Day party in Gloucester, MA at the family home of one of Jeanine’s colleagues. The home is situated on a high rock outcropping overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the grounds are just gorgeous. The food was delightful and the company even better.

Jeanine informed me that we would be meeting her quota of 10,000 steps today. The first leg of our journey would be completed on a new section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail. While en route we passed by an ugly two-car crash, a sober reminder of how quickly one’s fate can change. We encountered a large snapping turtle on our walk, which Jeanine recognized from an outing earlier in the week. It appeared stranded on the newly constructed footbridge over Route 2. Jeanine insisted I not lift the turtle by the back of its shell (later confirmed to be the recommended method). Instead, she proposed that we use a big orange barrel to capture and transport the snapping beast. At first, I was not too keen on the plan, but it proved to be a very safe and humane way to return the snapper to its natural environment. Jeanine recorded the operation on video and I will try and add it to this post when I get more time.

Jeanine and I spent some time today driving around looking for attractive exterior color schemes to inspire our choice for the River House. We are in full agreement that we will not be choosing orange for any component of the palette although I could not resist stopping for a photo of these carrots while grabbing a snack at Wilson Farms in Lexington.

I was in Cambridge for a meeting this morning and decided to swing by the Boston Common when it ended early. I find the Memorial Day Flag Garden to be a moving reminder of the cost of conflict. Each of the 37,000+ flags represents a Massachusetts service person who paid the ultimate price in service of our country.

We are very pleased to have found someone who is interested in recycling many of the windows from our River House. They will be used to build a greenhouse. Pictured above are the empty openings with the removed windows on the ground in the background.

My sister Alissa, attended the first annual Forbes/Shook Top Women Wealth Advisor Summit in Palm Beach, FL where ~$500,000 was raised to support the Susan G. Komen foundation. She was one of nine women out of 450 selected to participate in a “best practices” sharing and was joined at the conference by her daughter, Rachel, who got to celebrate her 25th birthday in lofty style and company.

The kids stopped by for dinner so we could present Maya with a graduation present. Kyle came up with the gift idea and did all the leg work including finding the “card” pictured above. It has been a couple of weeks since we had a family dinner and it was really nice being together again.

Maya and I rented a 3/4 ton pickup truck this afternoon and spent a total of 5 hours moving her tiny house from the River House lot to the Road House lot. A two-phase procedure was required to exit the driveway. We backed the house out from its plot while aligning it with the driveway. Next, we decoupled the truck, and drove it around the tiny house and up the driveway (the back of the house appears jacked up to its full height in the photo above during the decoupling operation). We then recoupled and began the 1.5-mile trip to the Road House. On the way, we encountered some low-hanging phone lines which caused a minor delay. Maya fashioned a scaffolding in the bed of the truck and used a long pole to lift the wires over the roof as I slowly advanced the truck. The rest of the journey was uneventful and the tiny house is now parked in our backyard where Maya will complete the remaining interior bathroom and trim work before starting her new job at Formlabs on July 1.