I hope the older of my two sisters is keeping up with this blog and taking note of the fine cook her son Johnny has become.  Each week his Sunday dinners just seem to be getting better and better. Jeanine provides a modicum of advice but it will not be too long before the roles will be reversed.

Jeanine and I spent a good part of the day finalizing our travel plans for our upcoming trip to southeast Asia.  We leave Wednesday for Thailand where we will connect with Kyle through the weekend. Our next stop will be Cambodia and then on to Vietnam before returning to the southern part of Thailand.  It speeds things up if you bring passport type photos with you for the various visas that are prepared as you enter each country.  Here are the shots we will be using.

Jeanine and I will be traveling out of the country during the Primary Elections in Massachusetts.  We generally support the same candidates but this year our votes will only serve to cancel each other out.  Had neither one of us voted we could have saved the postage.  Still, there is something about participating in the democratic process that feels empowering and uplifting.

I think we can agree that this cake looks extremely yummy.  Being asked to photograph it by your wife before she takes it away for other people to eat, therefore, would be seen by many as cruel and unusual punishment. Such was the case this evening as Jeanine prepared another recipe from her memoir cookbook for external beta testing. The things I endure for love.

Full disclosure: Jeanine returned from her party hours later having saved a small piece for her photographer.

Timed perfectly for a break in the arctic cold we have been experiencing, Maya and a pair of her friends climbed 3,166 ft. Mount Monadnock today. I still remember, as though it were yesterday, when Maya and I climbed this mountain and camped overnight at its base some five years ago.  I cannot express with words how happy it makes me that all three of our children share their parents love of the great outdoors.

Kyle’s diploma from Santa Clara University arrived in the mail today. We will safeguard it for him until he returns from Thailand where he is having what can only be described as a grand adventure and unique learning experience.  Jeanine and I are very proud of Kyle and can’t wait to see him next week when we travel there to visit with him.

Confident, smart, and beautiful, Maya is the best Valentine’s Day present Jeanine has ever given me. The pair left for upstate New York this morning where Maya will tour Union College, my undergraduate alma mater on Monday.

This shot may or may not be used at work but it is what I envisioned when building the black printer pedestal.  I spent the morning doing more photography for work while Jeanine and Maya had the cracked windshield on the Audi replaced.

I left work a little early to photograph our new Mark Two printer.  The project proved quite challenging because I had to avoid reflections in the plexiglass visor and deal with specular highlights all over the place.  It took several hours but I finally got an image that I liked.

Nicolai was the subject of a post on A Woman’s View, a blog by Lenore Buth, titled Are heroes born or made?

It is a wonderfully written piece and it brings us joy to see that Nico continues to be an inspiration to so many.

The post makes reference to an interview that Nico did with Impressive Magazine.  I was not aware of that article but was able to locate it with a quick search; The Amazing Story of Nico Calabria.

I left work early to buy paint and lay down a first coat on the printer pedestal I am building.  I am starting with a matte black finish but may change to grey or white once I see how it looks with a printer on top.  It is shown here lying on its back.

Later this week I will be taking a “hero” shot of our recently announced Mark Two printer.  I have decided I would like to place it on a slightly undersized pedestal so that it really stands out from its environment.  The pedestal will also be useful at work if it is not commandeered as a base for a permanent display in our lobby. I began construction this evening and it should be ready for painting tomorrow.

Joseph Smedley was a childhood friend of Nicolai’s.  This weekend we learned that he died late last year. A student at Indiana University, his body was discovered floating in Griffy Lake near the Bloomington campus.  The police have ruled his death a suicide but after reviewing the details of the case with his sister and brother-in-law this weekend, I am 100% certain that this was not the case.  A note (image below) was found in the apartment he shared with brothers of the Sigma Pi fraternity. According to his sister, this is not Joseph’s handwriting.  To my way of thinking it reads like an attempt to discourage a search for a missing person rather than a suicide note. Furthermore, Joseph did not have a passport or the financial means to leave the country.  This blog entry would grow quite lengthy if I conveyed all the additional information suggesting that Joseph did not take his own life.  Given the note was likely a forgery and was placed in his apartment it seems obvious to me that his roommates were involved in his disappearance.  Jeanine has introduced Joseph’s sister to several of our contacts in Indianapolis who should be of help in reopening the investigation and solving the mystery of his death.

With no assistance from her mother, Maya did a little baking this afternoon. She prepared galette des rois as part of a french class assignment. My offers to conduct quality control testing were rejected. Instead I got a good workout with my chainsaw. I had to fell a rather large pine tree which had been badly damaged by our recent snow storm. The weight of the wet snow brought down many large limbs and left the trunk of the tree badly compromised.

Other than eating, my day was composed of exactly three activities. I shuttled Maya to and from her 4 hour ACT exam in Belmont, spent a few hours photographing the spectacular snowscapes that can be found everywhere today, and binge watched the entire third season of The Newsroom. It was the most relaxing Saturday I have enjoyed in quite a while. The Newsroom is hands down my favorite TV series of all time. The characters and writing are exceptional. The show holds up a highly polished mirror to the American news media, politics and capitalism as three couples, clearly destined for each other, pursue the most circuitous paths to happiness.

The first serious storm of the winter dumped half a foot of very wet snow over the region. Although it is the most photogenic type of snow, it can also be the most damaging. Jeanine reported a number of very large downed limbs and I left work a little early to survey the damage. The sun had just set as I crossed the Sudbury River leaving the sky tinted with a soft red brush.  My chainsaw is certainly going to get a workout this weekend and one of our larger pine trees will have to come down but fortunately our house was undamaged.

Friends alerted us to the fact that Nico was featured in this week’s issue of the Concord Journal. Neither of us were able to attend his speaking engagement so it was nice to see this image of him in action.

My mother, at 87, can dance circles around women half her age. I hope I am equally active 30 years from now although I doubt I will be able to find an over 80 soccer league to play in. According to my sister, who posted this video on her Facebook page, my mom had already been dancing for three hours when this video was made of her partnering with the class instructor.

Maya’s nordic ski season concluded today with both the CCHS Boys and Girls Varsity teams winning the Mass Bay West Conference. Maya elected to compete even though she was suffering with the flu. She looked very puny but turned in a great performance nonetheless. She finished the 5.4km course in 20:17 shaving an unbelievable 3 minutes off her last race.

As a result of my annual physical exam last week, I was treated to a cardiovascular stress test this morning. I enjoyed the workout but was not so happy about having patches of my chest hair shaved off.

Jeanine is nearing completion of her memoir cookbook and has asked me to start taking photos that will be used in the publication. Food photography is a field unto itself and I don’t consider myself particularly well qualified in this area. Nonetheless, I will do my best. The unique thing about this type of photography is that you can eat your subject when you are done. We hosted a small dinner party this evening which featured the pictured menu items.

These 3D parts were not printed on a new Markforged printer which will not be announced at SolidWorks World 2016 on Monday.  My team has not been working nights and weekends nor have we pushed 3D printing to a new level.

One of my favorite views of downtown Boston (click the image for more detail) can be had from a hilltop in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, just minutes from my office. I decided to spend my lunch hour enjoying the beauty of the cemetery and will no doubt be revisiting this site many times throughout the year. Their policy on amateur photography is both enlightened and respectful. The grounds and monuments are simply exquisite.

Earlier in the morning I went in for my annual physical. I try to get one every three years or so. Triglycerides were way too high and my body mass index is too high (need to lose some weight. ) John has offered to put me on a regime which I am calling the caveman diet. You can only eat what nature provides with no processing after that.

At the request of a bridge enthusiast and long time follower of this blog, I am posting a photo of the newly completed bridge renovation project near the South Bridge Boat House. The project involved raising the height of the bridge over the roadway to prevent the frequent decapitation of box trucks, which occurred with surprising regularity. During construction, one track was kept operational at all times except for one weekend when a crane placed the new steel structures in place.

Sadly, I was unable to make it to Maya’s Nordic ski racing event today.  Thankfully, Jeanine was there and captured a great image of Maya after the race. In her mother’s words, “she left everything on the course.” She races again next week and I plan to be there come hell or high water.

Jeanine and Maya made a day trip to Pittsburgh today to visit Carnegie Mellon University, one of the schools she is considering for a degree in engineering.  It was extremely fortunate that the blizzard which paralyzed much of the Eastern seaboard over the weekend did not reach this far inland.

My nephew, John Quinn, celebrated his 23rd birthday today. He has taken a job in the Boston area with a small marketing startup and is living here with us. He is a wonderful guest and we enjoy having a “replacement” for our boys who are far away in Colorado and Bangkok. John contributes to the household in many ways including preparing dinner each Sunday night. He has been studying under Jeanine’s culinary tutelage and produced another incredible feast this evening. My sister will be pleased to know that her son is turning into a remarkable cook. Earlier in the day we touched base with Kyle who just completed his first full week on the job in Thailand. He is working 14 hour days and reports he is losing weight because he cannot find the time to eat. You could hear the excitement in his voice as he explained his job to us. He settles multi-million dollar Asian stock transactions with local banks and brokers. The slightest mistake can cause delays during which equity values may change, exposing his company to financial risk since they must honor the original execution price. Further complicating his job, every transaction may involve different institutions each with a slightly different set of settlement requirements. He is already taking about extending his stay in the region beyond the initial three month commitment. We are looking forward to visiting him when we travel there next month.

More nervous than I would have expected for someone who has learned to drive so expertly, Maya took and passed her driving test this morning. Starting on Monday (when we convert her insurance status from student driver to licensed driver) she will be free to drive by herself. Of our three children, she has been the most anxious to reach this milestone, perhaps because her siblings are out of the house and she has no one to hang out with except her parents. As was the routine with her brothers before her, she learned to drive from a ridiculously young age, seated on my lap with me operating the pedals. I will forever enjoy wonderful memories of teaching my kids to drive and hope they will remember those lessons with equal fondness.

For weeks now I have been struggling with the seating configuration choice I made when ordering my new Tesla Model X.  The SUV can be had in either a 5, 6, or 7 seat configuration.  Given we are a 5 member family, my initial choice was a 5 seat configuration (3rd row seats not present) leaving a ton of cargo space in the back.  At the time, the amount of information about any of these configurations was EXTREMELY limited.  Over the past month, as the first cars have begun to ship, owners have been posting videos and photos that have provided great insights and caused me to revisit my thinking. There are many things to admire about the Model X; zero-emissions, 250 mile range, extremely safe design, insanely high performance, and the latest technology. Had Tesla stopped there, they would have had an affordable (less than 6 figures) SUV that would have sold in huge numbers. Instead they went on to add falcon wing doors and second row seating that tilts forward, all in the name of improving ingress and egress from the third row seats.  Unfortunately, the design tradeoffs they made for this approach included fixed headrests, 2nd row seats that do not fold flat and the inability to mount a roof rack. The first severely limits rear view visibility and the second and third make it impossible to carry anything longer than 5 feet.  I have opted to change my order to the six seat configuration (middle, second row seat absent).  Rear visibility is unrestricted and it will be possible to carry items up to 10 feet in length (think lumber).

I never expected that my photographic skills would contribute so significantly to my work at Markforged.  One of my highest priorities at the company is to see that we consistently enhance the reliability and quality of our 3D printer.  To that end, I personally inspect every machine returned from the field with the goal of understanding the exact root cause of each failure.  For every new failure mechanism identified, we take steps to ensure that it will be eliminated.  Macro photographs play an essential role both in the discovery process and for documentation purposes.

This evening’s meal featured an all-Lebanese menu. How lucky am I that Jeanine is fluent in all the foods of the world?  Seriously, there is nothing she can not make!