My iRobot colleagues honored me with a farewell celebration this evening. Many kind words were spoken and I was humbled by the attention and compliments. Mostly, though, I was grateful for the opportunity to personally thank so many of the people who have contributed to the success for which I am given credit. The Home Business Unit GM spoke of my accomplishments and loyalty to the company and people I work with. The SVP of Operations made fun of the way I dress, the way I pack for business trips, my competitive nature, and my penchant for photography. He presented me with a single-use Kodak camera after determining that any other photo related gift would be too expensive. The CTO spoke of his respect for my work-life balance and presented me with an inspirational coffee table book entitled “Great Journeys” which has already caused me to update my bucket list. My team presented me with a signed and framed montage of four photos I had taken over the years which chronicles the evolution of the iRobot engineering management team during my tenure. Earlier in the day I spoke by phone with the CEO and was encouraged by his support for the new company I am (tentatively) forming. I was truly touched by the entire affair. I tried to thank everyone who attended but as I look back at the photos, I realize there were many that I did not have a chance to connect with. For that I am sorry. I will always look back on my iRobot years with great fondness but I am also looking forward to the next chapter in my career.

Photo credits to Doug Marsden, Rob Figler and Youssef Saleh.

For years I have been dreaming about getting Canon’s first super-telephoto zoom lens, the 200-400mm f/4 with 1.4x extender. This is the ultimate field sports and wildlife lens which can potentially replace two of my current lenses (or so I tell myself to justify the purchase). With a retail price of $11,799 I have thus far been reluctant to take the plunge. I have been on the look out for a good used copy since its introduction but almost nobody who has one of these bad boys is interesting in letting it go. When I happened on a sale for a new one that was below the current market price for a used one in excellent condition, I jumped at the deal. It is due to arrive on Wednesday and I am already starting to plan a few national park excursions to put it to good use.

Eager to stretch our legs after two days of driving, Jeanine and I joined Mayela and Stephen for a walking tour of historic downtown Harrisburg. We started from City Island and crossed the Susquehanna on an old railroad bridge. Minutes later we arrived at the State Capitol, designed in 1902 in a Beaux-Arts style with decorative Renaissance themes throughout. The capitol houses the legislative chambers for the General Assembly, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. It is often referred to as a “palace of art” because of its many sculptures, murals and stained-glass windows. Our tour guide proclaimed it the most beautiful capitol building in the United States, a claim I found easy to believe.

After a bit more walking through the downtown area, we returned to City Island by way of the Market Street Bridge, a work of art in its own right. Mayela paused to make a snow angel before we departed for a second visit to Hershey, this time to tour the Hershey Museum.

After a half dozen attempts at the photograph below did the pair realize I was quite happy with the first shot. Neither complained.

Mayela and Stephen were treated to dinner by my mother and other sister, Alissa. We arrived shortly after they were seated to effect our second surprise of the weekend. All this a prelude to the main event, a concert by Mayela’s favorite group, We Banjo 3, a band from Galway, Ireland that plays traditional Irish, old time, and bluegrass music. The band is composed of two sets of brothers, Enda and Fergal Scahill and Martin and David Howley. I do not understand the name of the band as they are 4 in number and only 2 play the banjo. What I did understand by the end of the evening was what musical genius and flawless technique sounds like.

Included with our cottage accommodations was a continental breakfast at the nearby Bear Mountain Inn. The building has been called “among the earliest examples of a monumental rustic park lodge of a type that became common in state and national parks”. The meal was entirely forgettable but not so the architecture and interior of the building constructed in 1915. Our next destination was Hershey, PA which we reached by noon. There we stopped briefly at the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum before continuing on to Hershey’s Chocolate World where we purchased some confectionary gifts for my sister, Mayela.

We reached our hotel in New Cumberland, PA well before my sister and her husband Stephen who are traveling here from North Carolina. Immediately after they checked in, Jeanine and I knocked at their door claiming to be “room service” and gave her the surprise we had hoped for. We enjoyed an exceptional dinner at Bricco, a collaboration between the Olewine School of Culinary Arts and the Harrisburg Hotel Corporation, one of the areas finest restaurants featuring up-and-coming culinary stars. I had the Calabrian braised short-ribs and it tops my list of favorite meals I have enjoyed outside of Jeanine’s kitchen.

The New Croton Dam, part of the New York City water supply system, stretches across the Croton River near Croton-on-Hudson, NY. This masonry dam is 266 feet broad at its base and 297 feet high from base to crest. The dam has an unusual spillway, part artificial and part natural, which forms a waterfall that is both dramatic and unique. The total length of the dam and spillway combined is 2,188 feet and at the time of its completion, it was the tallest dam in the world.

Jeanine and I stopped to admire this marvel of civil engineering as a way point on our road trip to Harrisburg, PA where we are headed to surprise my youngest sister in celebration of her 50th birthday. We also made a brief visit to nearby Chuang Yen Monastery which houses the largest indoor Buddha in the Western Hemisphere. We spent the evening in Bear Mountain State Park in a stone cottage that sleeps 8 in four bedrooms. Unfortunately, the inside temperature was controlled by a single thermostat which our cottage mates kept set to 76 degrees. Unable to sleep in these sauna like conditions, I was up at 1am to quietly adjust it down to 66 degrees and again at 5am to reset it to 72 degrees.

I spent a good part of the day organizing my shop today. I would like to prototype an idea I have been thinking about and like to start with everything in order. For some reason a box of old newspaper clippings had found its way into a corner and I came across this snippet as I was moving it out. What a blast from the past. I don’t know what I found more humorous; the amount of hair on my head or the uniformity of dishevelment with the other wrestlers.

Another massive chunk of ice slid off the roof yesterday bringing down the rest of the gutter on the back side of the house. A solid slab standing 6 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 1 foot thick, it shook the entire house as it plummeted onto the deck. Not until the snow melts will we know the full extent of the damage done.

Every so often, I get in the mood to sell items that I do not use enough to justify holding on to them. I view it as a form of recycling and an excuse to spend time in my photography studio making product shots. Pictured here is a DeWalt Impact Driver which was one of a half dozen tools I put up for sale today on Craig’s List. I freely confess to being a tool junky in need of a 12-step intervention of some kind. I currently own five DeWalt cordless drill/drivers (a big 20V hammer drill, a medium-sized 20V drill, a small 12V drill/driver, and two 20V impact drivers; not to mention my assortment of corded and pneumatic drills). Even though each tool is unique in its specialization, it is impossible, even for even me to justify keeping them all. Any time I sell some tools (or photography equipment) I feel entirely justified in using the proceeds to purchase something new. In this case a cordless grinder and cordless oscillating multi-tool.

The Old North Bridge was deserted when I stopped in after dropping Maya off at school this morning. I fought my way through waist high snow to position myself for this photo. Aesthetically speaking it is not particularly strong but as a study in shadows, it is quite interesting indeed (to photographers, at least). See if you can determine where the sun is situated (answer at the end of this post). Last night, high winds proved to be the last straw in bringing down the gutter on the back side of our house. One more spring project to add to a long list of repairs that will be needed to recover from this winter’s extreme snowfall (note the 4 foot high bank which still resides on our deck).

~The sun is coming from behind the photographer whose shadow can be seen on one of the bridge supports. The remaining shadows are created by trees and not by the bridge as might first appear to be the case~

Another couple of inches of snow last night necessitated an early morning outing with my trusty snowblower. As weary as I have grown of this task, I am looking forward to the forecasted storm for later this week. Hopefully it will produce enough snow to establish the all time record snowfall for our area. Having endured the blizzards, I would like, at the very least, a record to show for it. During a few hours of the afternoon, temperatures rose slightly above freezing for a brief respite from the cold.

Maya’s futsal season came to an end this evening on a high note as her team won in decisive fashion against a strong opponent. The coach requested a team photo and I was happy to oblige. As I was switching the settings on my camera from shooting the action to shooting the portrait, I made the image below which I actually find much more interesting.

To celebrate the first day of spring, I decided to give snowshoeing a try today. Jeanine loaned me her gear and I ventured out on a three quarter mile circuit around the inside perimeter of the field behind our house. I was under the misguided impression that snowshoes allow you to remain on top of the snow. This was true to the extent that I did not sink all the way to the bottom of our remaining 30 inch base. Instead, each step would plunge 6 to 10 inches into the powder which made the relatively short trek quite a workout especially considering that I had spent an hour in the gym earlier in the day.

Maya scored a pair of goals in her futsol game today. She has quickly learned the sport and her foot skills improve each week. She is pictured below scoring one of her goals and winning a header.

My nephew, John, and two of his friends from Babson used our kitchen this evening to prepare a traditional Russian dinner. The rest of us were the beneficiaries of this endeavor. The meal, several hours in the making, included beef stroganoff and borscht followed by a Russian cake and cookies. The extent of my involvement was the construction of a meat tenderizer (pictured above) after I refused to offer up one of my normal hammers for the job. Jeanine was consulted often but left all of the work to the kids.

Scottish musician Caitlin McNeill posted an image of a dress on Tumblr with the question, “guys please help me – is this dress white and gold, or blue and black?  Given the virtual explosion of interest that resulted (answer is blue and black, BTW), I thought I would share this famous illustration designed to demonstrate how easily the the human visual system can be fooled. Which is darker? Square A or square B. The answer is that they are both the same color and brightness. Cut two holes in a piece of paper so you can compare the two squares while obscuring the background if you do not believe me.

I received this photo from good friend and mentor Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology. It was taken at the studios of Boston PBS TV station WGBH with their Senior Director of Production Technology on the right. WGBH-TV produces more than two-thirds of the nationally distributed programs broadcast by PBS including Nova, Frontline, Masterpiece, American Experience, The Victory Garden and This Old House. On a tour of the facility he noticed they were using an ISIS storage server that was my signature project during my Avid days (see flash back below). The WGBH installation can store 1.3 petabytes of information (1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes = 1 quadrillion bytes). It is extremely satisfying to know that so much of the TV I enjoy is being produced with the aid of products I helped to bring to market.

It has never been clear to me if the HVAC subcontractors who installed the system in our home understood the basic concept of a feedback loop. We have a four zone heating system (first floor, basement, master bedroom, rest of the second floor). The thermostat for the second floor was located in the upstairs hallway where it was influenced by air coming up the open foyer from the first floor rather than the second floor air in the bedrooms (whose doors remain closed for most of the day). Today I moved the second floor thermostat into Maya’s bedroom where it will ensure a closed feedback loop for at least one of the rooms. I believe the other bedrooms will be more comfortable as well.

In 1967, at age four, Jeanine pressed her cute little hands into a plaster of Paris mixture. After it hardened, she applied silver paint to create the keepsake shown here. Jeanine suggested that I photograph it before it got relegated to the attic or basement storage. Amazing that something so fragile has survived for 48 years without damage.

This session of my indoor soccer session came to a close this evening with playoffs. We won our first match by a score of 2-1 but were eliminated in the next round by a score of 2-4. I really need to improve my conditioning and plan to do so before the spring outdoor season begins. It gets harder each year to remain competitive. Playing in an over 40 league with many opponents 16 years my junior does not make the challenge any easier.

Jeanine braved the frigid temperatures for a cross-country ski outing today. She started with her friend Eliza but had to return home for warmer gloves. She continued solo across the field behind our house. Nala has taken immediate advantage of the path she created to venture further from the house than was possible for her before. I drove into Boston to meet with a lawyer who seems like a perfect fit to assist me with the legal details of setting up a new company, one of the options I am exploring at the moment. Maya coaxed me into joining her for a workout at the Thoreau Club and I am hoping this is something we can do more of in the future.

My niece Rachel is in town to visit Babson, one of the colleges she is considering, for a leadership conference. Quite the fashionista she looked the part of a CEO as she left the house for the overnight program.

I spent a good portion of the day clearing an ice dam on the roof which formed while we were away and has resulted in some damage to the ceilings of our master bathroom and breakfast nook. After removing large chunks of ice with a pry bar, I used a butane torch to melt a valley through the remaining ice so that melting snow would have a channel of evacuation.dam

Maya continues to investigate new techniques for rendering photos of her undesirable for publishing on this blog. It is a pointless exercise that has served only to generate a catalog of very funny images. Sleeping over this evening are my sister Alissa and her daughter Rachel (on the right) as well as Maya’s best friend Sarinnagh. While Jeanine and I were in New Orleans, Maya was visiting Nicolai at college in Colorado Springs. By all accounts she had a great time and was well protected (Maya can be quite a cutie when her hand in not plastered to her face) by her brother while socializing on campus.

For the second day in a row we indulged in beignets at the Cafe Beignet and are now prepared to declare them better than those of the world renowned Cafe du Monde. Heresy some will say, but we stand by our findings. The flight back to Boston was uneventful but we were not happy when our car service failed to meet us on arrival. The car had become stuck in the snow, a vivid reminder that we were back in New England. Fortunately, we bumped into friends returning from Mexico and they were able to drive us home.

We had a delicious brunch at The Court of the Two Sisters while enjoying the music of a live jazz trio. A great way to start a day, the remainder of which would be spent at the Hyatt Regency working a trade show booth for the benefit of the American Amputee Soccer Association. Prior attempts to recruit players to the sport have been hit or miss. This year we decided to attend the annual meeting of the American Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists (AAOP) hoping these professionals could help us get the word out to top athletes who might be interested. Our “booth” was a small table which we used to display a banner, several action photos and a continuous loop video of the game being played. This strategy was a huge success. Not only did we distribute a thousand contact cards to prosthetists for display at their offices, we identified several promising prospects who were in attendance at the show. We shared the work with Eric Lamberg, head coach of the US National Team which allowed me time to venture from the booth to speak with potential sponsors.

Exhausted from all the standing and talking, we treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at Pascal’s Manale followed by drinks in the French Quarter at a jazz club.

The first order of business this morning was a visit to Cafe du Monde to sample their world famous beignets. The bar was set very high. Next, it was off to the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, first for a short hike and then for a boat tour of the bayou (swamp). Spotting a bald eagle before even setting a foot outside the car was a good omen for the encounters with wildlife that would follow.

This armadillo, also known as a Texas speed bump, was our first sighting on the bayou.

Next an array of turtles and numerous birds (Snowy Egret, White Ibis, Blue Heron).

We did not see any of the five venomous snakes that are native to the bayou but we did find several alligators. The one pictured here is of a mother in her den with one of her babies. Only the tip of her mouth is visible but an interesting perspective nonetheless.

Alligators in Louisiana can grow to 14 feet in length but the largest we encountered were about half that. It does most of its hunting in the water, swallowing small prey whole and drowning larger prey by dragging it underwater. They have up to 80 teeth which are replaced when they wear down. Over an alligators lifetime, it may go through 2,000-3,000 teeth.

Not expecting to find any fine dining near the bayou, we were quite surprised to enjoy one of our best meals at the Restaurant des Families just outside the park.

Jeanine and I flew to New Orleans this morning for Mardis Gras. We arrived in time to catch two parades. The first was a bust. A vanilla flavored, family oriented affair with floats, marching bands, and fire trucks, something you might see anywhere in the country. The second was a jackpot. Dancers wearing huge feather clad costumes rhythmically moving and singing to the pulsating beat of their traveling percussion ensembles. Technically, the parade had ended but participants spilled over into side streets with no apparent intention of ending the party. The costumes were so intricate and large that it was often hard to find the human faces of the occupants. The New Orleans Police Department was out in force to redirect traffic around the numerous parades happening today.

We spent the late afternoon driving around the lower ninth ward where much of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina remains readily apparent. Spared by the storm were the two Doullut Steamboat Houses. In 1905, Paul Doullut, a steamboat captain, designed and constructed a home facing the Mississippi River. The captain wanted a home reminiscent of the steamboats he and his wife, who was, also, a steamboat captain, guided up and down the river. In 1913, he had a second, identical home built a few hundred yards from his for his son.

We finished the day in the French Quarter which eventually turned into a sea of inebriated and wildly costumed revelers.

By my count, there are 15 visible workers with 2 snow blowers removing snow from the roof of the riding arena across the street from our home. I suspect there are an equal number working on the backside. Record snowfall in the past few weeks has collapsed many a structure and it is very common to see folks clearing their roofs. Fortunately, our roof is both steep and covered in slate which prevents large buildups.

Another 16 inches of snow fell in Concord this weekend bringing the total to a record 90 inches in the last 23 days. The height of snow on our bedroom balcony gives a good sense of the resulting accumulation. At some point, even those who do not believe in climate change science will have to acknowledge the distinct increase in severe weather events all over the planet. After the snow subsided, high winds and frigid temperatures made this a day to stay indoors. For the first time I can remember since I have known her, Jeanine remained in her pajamas all day long. Interestingly, she had a most productive day, organizing and downsizing her massive collection of cookbooks, china, and teapots. We enjoyed a nice visit with both boys this evening. Nico has started a teaching internship and is thinking about pledging the Kappa Sigma fraternity. Kyle has adjusted to his new living quarters, is doing very well academically, and seems more organized than usual. Maya will be visiting Nico in Colorado next week, but after hearing about Kyle’s attempt at a Valentine’s Day getaway with his new girlfriend, I am wondering if we should send our little cupid his way instead.

Earlier this week Maya called into question the romantic integrity of “WBUR roses,” a Valentine’s day gift which Jeanine has received for several years now. For those outside the Boston area, WBUR is our local PBS affiliate. A portion of the price paid for the roses is used to support the radio station. To my way of thinking, the roses are a double gift since Jeanine and I both have our radios locked on WBUR and frequently discuss stories we have heard while driving. Not to let Maya’s accusation go unchallenged, I did not send roses this year but instead will be taking Jeanine to New Orleans for Mardis Gras next week. It is not clear whether this gesture will pass muster with Maya since I will also be attending a conference while there. To be sure, I also took Jeanine out for a romantic lunch and later we watched “When Harry Met Sally,” a movie we saw together during the early days of our courtship.

In the four years since his death, my father’s ashes have remained in the box in which they were received. I am very thankful to my sister Alissa who took it upon herself to transfer them to this beautiful raku ceramic urn, a befitting resting place for a man who so deeply appreciated the arts.

I spent the morning in Milford, NH visiting a contract manufacturer that iRobot is considering for future work. During the one-hour drive there, I paused in Townsend for a picture of this church. It is not immediately apparent from the photo but the pile of snow on the right is easily 15 feet high as was the mound on which I positioned myself for the shot.

A galette des rois (also known as a Kings cake) is a type of cake associated in a number of countries with the festival of Epiphany at the end of the Christmas season; in other places, it is associated with the pre-Lenten celebrations of Mardi Gras/Carnival. Pictured here is the upper layer during construction as Maya prepared the delicacy for a French class project (I remember no such treats when I was studying the language). French tradition holds that the cake is “to draw the kings” to the Epiphany. A figurine, la fève, which can represent anything from a car to a cartoon character, is hidden in the cake and the person who finds the trinket in his or her slice becomes king for the day and will have to offer the next cake.

At midnight I generally prefer to be asleep in my bed rather than napping on an indoor soccer field. My match this evening did not start until 10:40 pm and finished an hour later. We played with only one sub and ran out of gas by the end of the match losing 3-4 in the final few minutes. I scored our first goal but was relatively useless after that and even more so after knocking heads with an opponent. I was so tired after the game that I needed to rest before I could muster the energy to drive home. For reasons that now seem less than sound, I am playing in the over-40 age group this session rather than the over-50 age group that I qualified for 6 years ago.

A second record setting snowstorm has engulfed the Northeast in recent days and is still going strong. Snow depth on our deck (an area immune to drifts) now stands at 33 inches. School has been cancelled and most iRobot employees are working from home today. A FaceTime chat with Kyle this evening was the perfect antidote for our worsening cabin fever. He shared this photo he took of the meal he had just prepared for himself. He used the panini maker that Maya gave him for Christmas for the first time. He was in great spirits having completed some midterm exams and we were thrilled to see him eating so healthfully.

Surrounded, as I am, by magnificent cooks it is rare when my culinary exploits venture beyond the preparation of toast. Last night, when I proposed waffles for breakfast today, there was vigorous support but an absence of volunteers to prepare them. My offer to be the cook was met with laughter by Maya and Jeanine who view me as inept in the kitchen. Unswayed by this overt lack of confidence, I nonetheless prepared Belgian waffles for breakfast this morning. I used a formula which did not require yeast as this would have meant starting preparations last night. I measured ingredients with great precision unlike Jeanine who just eyeballs proportions. I separated eggs with only one post processing operation required to remove bits of shell. I beat the egg whites to within an inch of their life creating a wispy foam that I carefully folded into the rest of the batter. The first prototype is pictured here and full production was approved after initial customer sampling. I thawed frozen raspberries harvested from our garden to complete the offering. On a scale from “terrible” to “as good as mom’s” I received a very respectable “they are good” from Maya and her friend Fiona.