My soccer season came to a close this morning as we played our most difficult opponent thus far. We competed in Sherborn against Medfield on grass which is not our best surface. With half a dozen of our players sidelined by injury, those of us who were able got plenty of playing time. The first half was scoreless with many close attempts from both sides. In the second half, we gave up an early goal but managed to equalize shortly thereafter and to score again to capture the lead at 2-1. Medfield responded almost instantly knotting the score at 2-2. We spent the remainder of the game relentlessly attacking, scoring one, then two, and in the closing minutes a third unanswered goal to produce a 5-2 victory. Although this season will not go into the record books because of Covid-19, it nonetheless was our third undefeated season in a row and my first to complete without a single significant injury.
Ever since I started working in my late teens, I have saved all of my federal and state income tax returns. That’s over 40 years of filing documents, financial records, receipts, and other supporting materials. Today, I used the paper shredder at work to destroy all but the last seven years’ worth of supporting documents. I decided there was no value in continuing to store these in our new house where we are trying to downsize everything. I could not bring myself to shred the actual returns but that will probably make sense at some point. Pictured above are two waist-high trash bins of five that I filled to the top with shredded paper.
Every now and again, the combination of clouds and sunrise makes for a very lovely scene when viewed down the long extent of the field behind our house. Today we were treated to such a pairing. I am sure our new home will offer many equally enchanting sunrise views, but I suspect that they will be very different than the ones we have enjoyed here for the last 17 years. With that knowledge, I paused to enjoy this morning’s entire show which lasted for all of about two minutes before the vivid colors and patterns morphed into something much more mudane.
Last month we printed our first commercial part at Digital Alloys. The print quality of the tool steel part was fantastic but it took forever to print. Today, we hit a new speed record of 6100mm/min and we will begin the analysis to determine if we have been able to do so without compromise to quality. This represents a 61x improvement in speed and puts us above the threshold for economically attractive printing. Our next challenge is to achieve speed in this range on a much larger part.
When I learned that Bald Eagles routinely fish in the Sudbury River in close proximity to our new home, I could not have been more excited. Today one of our new neighbors posted the picture above of a bobcat taken with his trail camera which has me equally delighted. Although our closing continues to be delayed, we have made arrangements to occupy the residence until it does and took possession of the keys this morning. We will start gradually moving in over the next two weeks.
Yesterday afternoon, I started passing another kidney stone and the pain peaked earlier today leaving me in no mood for taking any photographs. Instead, I found another taken by Maya of her housemates. Bryce’s dog has since returned to his parents and Maya is going through animal withdrawal symptoms.
On the way home from my soccer match, I stopped to photograph a small herd of Holstein Friesians cattle which have been hanging out in a field near our home for several months now. Known as the best dairy cow bread, it appears these ones are heifers and not yet ready for milk production.
In an effort to get a more competitive soccer match today, we played a Division 1 over-49 team which were 10 years our junior. They requested modified rules due to Covid-19. Specifically, headers were disallowed, throw-ins were replaced by kick-ins, and slide tackling was not permitted. We were compelled to accommodate their request even though I believe none of these make sense. We were ahead at the half having scored a single goal. In the second half, one of our defenders cleared a corner kick with a header (very hard to change 50 years of habit) earning our opponent an indirect kick from very close range. They scored and we had to settle for the tie, an unfortunate consequence of the silly rule changes.
My sister Alissa is 4 years my junior and still strutting her stuff on the ballroom dance floor. I am glad to see that the pandemic has not prevented her from pursuing her passion at a time when we all need to be finding ways to preserve some semblance of normality.
I generally only post my photos on this blog, but occasionally I come across an image that is just too good not to share. Today, I have a pair related to animal photography.
I completed work on our expanded walk-in closet today and returned the original shelving and storage units to their original locations. The new owners are going to have custom-made, built-in furnishings fabricated, as was my initial plan. Until then, these should serve them well. What is not shown in the photo is the remaining 1/3 of the closet which should offer enough space to create a nice seating / dressing area.
Pictured above is the amount of junk we have acquired over 17 years of living at our current home, roughly 3 cubic yards. Next week it will be picked up and taken to the dump. We have done our best to recycle everything that has residual value or use but some things just need to be thrown away. I just hope that my extremely efficient packing of this dumpster bag has not made it too heavy for the waste disposal company to remove.
Followers of this blog may recall that we got into a bidding war for our new home, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over the asking price and fair market valuation. Prices in the real estate market have been driven up by the Coronavirus pandemic in which many are seeking safe refuge from the virus in suburban settings such as Concord. We made some of that back on the sale of our current home which was buoyed by the same market forces. The remainder, I made back today when I sold several positions in the cruise and air travel industries. Both of these sectors tanked when the financial implications of Covid-19 first became apparent and I decided to invest heavily since the fundamentals of both suggested they would eventually recover. With the promise of an effective vaccine on the horizon, they surged to new recent highs and I walked away with a 2.5x return.
Jeanine has a new best buddy, Kobe. He is part of her posse enjoying the weekend together on Martha’s Vinyard. I had a productive day both on and off the soccer pitch. We played Hopkinton, the third-place team in the league, and defeated them soundly. I got my first goal of the season, a blistering half volley from the top of the box. It is the kind of shot that makes you feel like you know what you are doing. Unfortunately, two of our wing halfbacks pulled up lame with strained hamstrings, leaving us no subs at that position. We face our toughest opponent in the league next weekend and I am in no kind of shape to be playing for 90 minutes straight. I hope our manager will be able to find some reserve players to help us (me) out. On the home front, I was able to pack and move most of my shop from the basement to a staging area in the garage.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
