It has been 19 years since my family last reunited for Thanksgiving in Minnesota where my brother Mark and his family reside. We missed my sister Mayela and her husband Stephen who were not able to make the trip from North Carolina. Joining us for the gathering was Jeff, Rory’s tennis coach, who would have otherwise celebrated the holiday alone. To know my brother is to understand that the Thanksgiving meal would be something to remember for years to come. The feast lived up to our highest expectations and then some. Most enjoyable for me was watching the 9 cousins interacting. The boys all look like men now and the girls are all going to break hearts. Here are a few portraits of the young beauties.

Dinner was preceded by an assortment of cheese, sopressata, home made pate and pesto, with freshly baked bread. The 22 pound turkey just barely fit in the oven with wings just touching the sides. Mark insisted it rest for 40 minutes before serving. While this no doubt produced a more succulent result, it caused near mutiny in the kitchen as the aroma tortured us with the promise of what was to come.

Maya had her hair done today. I am not sure exactly what the process entails but I believe at some point her head is placed inside a vice. I like the new look and enticed Maya to sit for me. She got the idea to throw her hair about and I have 2 dozen photos, each better than the last. We both had a lot of fun and enjoyed reviewing the results.

It has been a few days since Kyle returned home from college and I have been delinquent in posting a photo of him. He reports that he is enjoying his classes and doing well scholastically. His various injuries have healed to the point where he is running and lifting regularly. He looks very trim and healthy again which is helping to motivate me to get back in the gym where I could stand to shed more than a few pounds. His sleeping schedule is still quite shifted from ours, a combination of the three hour time zone difference and the three hour college lifestyle difference. Last night I tried to repair his computer which is no longer functioning after he attempted to water it (more beneficial for plant life, as a future reference) and he is experiencing withdrawal symptoms from Facebook. Fortunately, he did not water his phone which is now his only lifeline into his social network.

About this time each year, our home is visited (invaded) by legions of Ladybugs. They gravitate to the top corners of our highest ceilings where they huddlle together for the winter in a state of diapause. As day length in spring increases, they are among the first insects to return to the gardens where they provide a very helpful function by feeding on aphids and spider mites. Coccinellids are found worldwide, with over 5,000 species of which more than 450 are native to North America alone. I have a live and let live policy with respect to Ladybugs. Our cleaning ladies take a different view.

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.

Nicolai gave what is likely to be his last interview regarding the amazing goal he scored this season and the video of it which went viral. The segment will air next April in the United Kingdom on a television show produced by October Films. His publicity manager (yours truly) was able to negotiate a $500 appearance fee for his efforts. I think we are all ready to put this chapter of Nico’s fame behind us now. One can only imagine what he will do next.

This evening after work I joined several colleagues at Waxy O’Connor’s Irish Pub to bid farewell to a pair of long time iRobot employees who are leaving the company. The setting did not afford an opportunity to make any speeches but I did have an opportunity to personally thank both guys for their fine work at the company and to wish them well in the future.

With the winter months approaching I have been giving serious thought to my next solo trekking adventure. The Patagonia region of Argentina and Chile has long been on my bucket list. This morning, Jeanine suggested I invite Kyle to join me. I loved the idea but didn’t expect him to want to spend 2 weeks of his winter break climbing through the Andes with his father. To my great surprise and delight, he said yes. It has been 7 years since Kyle and I traveled to Belize for his Coming of Age Adventure and I am really looking forward to adding another chapter to our story. Perhaps this will mark the beginning of a new tradition.

From the time they were mere toddlers, I have cut the hair of my boys. Motivated initially by a desire to save money, I long ago came to enjoy the father-son intimacy it offered. I still have fond memories of my mother cutting my hair as a child. During their early teen years each haircut would end with a tirade about my total incompetence as a barber if even 4 or 5 hairs were cut too short. Now, I am more likely to be asked to make another pass because I have not cut the hair short enough. Despite my purported total lack of ability, I am pleased that my only two clients have remained with me all these years and look forward to cutting their hair for years to come.

We just learned that Nicolai has been nominated as one of four finalist for Disabled Athlete of the Year by U.S. Soccer. You can vote for Nico at this Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/officialussoccer/app_347627388581014). Be careful to select the correct button (upper left corner relative to Nico’s photo)

Voting ends on Friday, so there is little time to get the word out. Online voting counts for 50% of the total votes. The other 50% will be cast by members of the national media and U.S. Soccer representatives. Being nominated is a great honor for Nicolai but winning will be a function of getting out the vote. And just when you thought the election was behind us 🙂

There are times as a parent when you feel like strangling a child. Fortunately for Kyle, he has 3000 miles working in his favor in this circumstance. Before returning to college this fall, he decided to sell his Ford F150 truck and the box trailer he purchased for his landscaping business. Procrastinating until the last week of his vacation, the truck and trailer remained unsold, the former parked in our driveway and the latter stored miles away on a friend’s horse farm. Unable to control her motherly instincts, Jeanine volunteered to assist Kyle with the sale. I made it clear that I wanted no part of the endeavor. After numerous flakes and no-shows responded to the Craig’s List advertisement, Jeanine was contacted by a hot prospect who was in dire need of a trailer and wanted to drive up from Brockton to check it and the truck out. The buyer arrived with his brother at 10 PM. This is generally the hour at which I begin looking forward to a good night’s sleep rather than the beginning of a 2 1/2 hour negotiation.

All-in-all not my idea of late-night fun on the evening before I am scheduled to appear before the Board of Directors. In addition to a loving welcome, delicious food, and the comfort of his old room, Kyle can look forward to a significant “make good” assignment when he returns from California this Sunday for the Thanksgiving break.

Nicolai is now a veteran of the CCHS Varsity Soccer team whose season came to an end this evening with a loss to North Andover in the state cup quarter-finals contested at Lynn’s Manning Field. The team amassed an impressive 14-3-2 record and Nicolai became the first one-legged soccer player to score a goal in varsity high school competition. With his “shot seen round the world” Nicolai earned the respect of soccer players from every corner of the globe and will have a fond memory to look back upon for the rest of his life. Of the team’s 19 games this season, I attended 18 and photographed 17. I estimate I took roughly 8000 pictures and posted some 1500 which can be seen HERE. While I would have liked to have seen the boys make it to the finals, my camera is happy for the rest.

Although my soccer season has ended, most members of my team continue to knock the ball around on Sunday mornings. I played for an hour before tweaking my right calf muscle and deciding it was time to take a break. I used the balance of the day to do a little painting around the house and to continue with the massive task of organizing my digital photo collection (tagging with metadata, ranking, editing). Applying myself to the task for an hour a day should allow me to complete the project in about half a year. Even though most of the leaves are down now, there are still pretty landscapes to be found in the area.

Nicolai saw action today against Pentucket in the state championship tournament. The 4-0 victory advanced CCHS to the round of eight, securing the third of six matches needed to win the state title. Nico played for twenty minutes and managed a powerful shot on goal which sailed just over the bar. Meanwhile, Jeanine is having a great time in NYC. She visited Rockefeller Center, had lunch at a French Provencal restaurant, enjoyed a Manhattan at a famous NY bar, and took in Cougars The Musical and Mama Mia. On the home front, my brother Mark and his son Mario are here visiting Northeastern University. The new Bond film proved to be the perfect catalyst for a boy’s night out which ended with a couple of pints of ice cream back at the ranch.

My nephew Mario arrived today from his home in Minnesota. He will be visiting Northeastern University tomorrow and we have the benefit of his company for a couple of days. Anticipating his arrival, Jeanine prepared enough baked ziti to feed a normal family for a week. I predict it will be gone before 24 hours have passed given that we will also be joined by my nephew Johnie and my brother Mark who is flying in later this evening. The three cousins can pack away more food than any three humans I know. How they remain skinny as rails is a mystery to me.

The Nor’easter that moved up the Eastern seaboard petered out before hitting Concord but did manage to deliver the first snowfall of the season. The precipitation turned from snow to rain by mid-morning and our white blanket was gone by late afternoon.

Jeanine and Maya will be traveling to NYC this weekend to visit with friends. Maya will be attending the birthday party of her friend Izzy, who she met at Farm & Wilderness Camp. Jeanine will connect with Monica Frost, a close friend from Indianapolis, who is flying in to join her. The adults plan to take in Cougar The Musical while the girls will see Wicked. Initially, it appeared that Hurricane Sandy would disrupt this long-planned excursion. Friends in the city, however, indicate that life is returning to normal and the best way to help with the recovery is to keep the tourism dollars flowing.

Mother and daughter did a little apparel shopping in preparation for their travels and Maya was all too happy to model her new outfit for me.

I love voting in Concord. The process here is intimate. At the same time, it is a community event during which you are likely to meet neighbors and friends. I am pleased to report that all but one of my votes (the Death with Dignity ballot question) carried the day. Jeanine and I voted together which was a very nice way to start the morning. I spent the balance of the day offsite at the Babson Executive Conference Center with my boss and a number of colleagues working on product road maps. The session ended shortly after 5pm allowing me just enough time to make the one hour drive to Danvers where Nico’s soccer team was competing in the second round of the state title tournament. CCHS emerged victorious by a margin of 5-3. Temperatures hovered at the freezing mark and probably contributed to the high scoring (goalie’s hands don’t work as well when numb).

Kyle sent me a number of photos from California and a nice note with an update on his extracurricular activities, excerpts of which I am including below.

I have become more active in a group on campus called In To The Wild. I took a trip to a beach in Santa Cruz the second weekend back to school, and last weekend we traveled to San Francisco Bay and sailed a catamaran under the Golden Gate Bridge. I got an up close look at Alcatraz. I am planning on going on a hiking trip this weekend and hopefully every weekend they offer activities. I am also attending a viewing session of this indie documentary called The First 70 which documents California’s attempt to close down the first 70 national parks in an attempt to reduce the deficit.

I joined the boxing club today with my friend Athan. I just turned in the forms last night and will be traveling to a gym in Sunnyvale tonight to start training. College boxing has relatively well padded gloves, as well as padded head gear. I haven’t decided whether I plan on competing or not, but for now I will just be training with the team to get in better shape. I am very near my peak soccer/ wrestling shape. My bench press has nearly reached my old weight and reps, I am down to weighing 142 lbs (my wrestling weight) and I run regularly. Last weekend I went for a 10.5 mile run and plan on running a school-sponsored 5k this Saturday. The stretching has really helped, and I have learned to work out regardless of minor injuries. I am just more careful not to over exert my injured muscles.

While Jeanine was in Burlington I spent some time completing projects around the house. For the master bathroom, I built a wood frame to surround the mirror, added new light fixtures, and hung various artwork. For the laundry room, I built a two-level, ten foot long shelf above the washer, dryer and laundry sink area. I tend to spend more time on indoor projects as the winter months approach.

My outdoor soccer season concluded today on a redemptive note. We won our first game of the season beating Canton, the divisional champions. I created several scoring opportunities, forced a number of turnovers, and left the field very satisfied with my play and totally spent. Our record for the season was 1-5-4. An optimist would conclude we only lost half of our games and beat the top-finishing team in head-to-head play. The realist would observe we failed to win 90% of our games, resulting in relegation to Division 2 next season. As for me, I am happy with any season that ends with my ability to walk unimpaired.

Yesterday while at Maya’s game, I was approached by a parent from the opposing team. She asked if I would be posting the images. I explained that I was not a professional and was only taking pictures of Maya. She gave me her e-mail address and asked if I would send her any photos that happened to include her daughter, the goalie, in the same frame. I got the sense that this woman probably had few, if any, pictures of her daughter in an athletic setting and decided to shoot a small series which I sent to her yesterday. Today, I received a very nice thank you note which ended in the following quotation and left me very moved.

The man said ”Don’t you realize that there are miles and miles of beach, with starfish all along it? There’s too many, you can’t possibly make a difference!” The young girl bent down and picked up another starfish and threw it into the sea and said…. “made a difference to that one”

Jeanine is spending a writer’s weekend in Burlington, VT with her sister Susan. Meanwhile, I am charged with the care of the dog and Maya. Nicolai, for all intents and purposes, is self-sufficient these days. Maya’s schedule: 8:30 am outdoor soccer match in Natick, 11:30 am ballet class in Concord, 2:15 pm dance recital rehearsal, 4:10 pm indoor soccer game in Acton, 5:10 attend birthday party until 9 pm. I am tired just typing it out. Maya is planning to spend next weekend in NYC making this her last outdoor game of the season. She finished in fine form.

Until today, the only components of his crutches that Nicolai has failed to break were the carbon fiber tubes. Now he can add that to his list. His soccer team came from a 0-2 deficit against Belmont, in the opening round of the DCL championships, to win 3-2 with a golden goal in overtime. In the exuberance of the ensuing celebration he collided with a teammate who fell on the crutch and snapped the carbon fiber tube just below the junction with the handle/cuff assembly. I was able to cut off the damaged portion and extend the foot adjustment to compensate for the shorter tube. Good as new.

The patio off iRobot’s in-facility cafe was empty when I decided to enjoy my lunch, a hot cup of beef stew, outdoors. Temperatures have dropped sufficiently to keep most employees inside the cafeteria. It did not take long, with no one to talk to, before I noticed the movement of several butterflies among the bushes. This Cabbage White rested long enough for me to get a closeup.

I happened upon the beaver pictured above within a short walk of iRobot during my lunch hour. It never ceases to amaze me how much wildlife abounds if you simply take the time to look for it. Pictured below is a male hooded merganser. During breeding season his plumage changes color. The head, back, and neck become black, with white stripes near the chest and tail, and a white crest develops on the back of the head that can be extended to attract mates.

In the light of morning, I was relieved to learn that we had escaped the wrath of Hurricane Sandy. The yard was covered in small branches and clumps of leaves but nothing beyond that. By contrast, my commute to work took me past no less than half a dozen downed trees and power lines. Our main inconvenience was the loss of power for about an hour. When the lights went out, I initiated a mental countdown. 15 seconds for the standby generator to confirm a total black out, 5 seconds to auto start, 10 seconds to stabilize engine speed and voila…. and voila…… and…… nothing. After a minute elapsed, I went outside in the gale force winds to determine what went wrong. I tried a manual start. I tried resetting the controller. I verified the natural gas supply, still no joy. Having spent a good bit of time and money installing this generator it would be an understatement to say that I was not a happy camper. The unit does a self test every week and has started perfectly every time. I was perplexed and irritated as I read every detail of the owner’s and installation manual for a second and third time, searching, to no avail, for some kind of answer. About 5 minutes after our power was restored, I developed a failure theory and made a quick modification to confirm my hypothesis. I postulated that the only difference of consequence between the last successful test and the current conditions was the intense wind (gusting to 50mph). I used duct tape to cover the intake baffles which were fully exposed to the wind. The generator started on the first attempt. Mystery solved! Severe winds were entering through the intake baffles and either throwing off the gas-air mixture or pressurizing the chamber in such a way as to prevent combustion. Hard to imagine that an emergency back-up generator design would fail to consider this possibility. I will have to wait until the next big storm and power outage before I can feel any satisfaction with this generator and will be making a call to Generac, the manufacturer, to share my disappointment with them in the mean time.

Even the seagulls of Goldthwait Reservation in Marblehead, MA were hunkered down as Hurricane Sandy made its presence felt. Schools and many businesses (including iRobot) across Massachusetts were closed today at the request of the Governor. I ventured out to the coast for a few hours to experience the raw power of nature. Jeanine was not thrilled with the idea but I was not to be dissuaded. I have never seen anything like it and am glad I made the excursion. I kept a respectful distance from the water and returned to my car when the wind became dangerous.

It was eerily calm this morning, even as Hurricane Sandy began moving towards the Eastern Seaboard. It could be the largest storm to ever hit the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website. Anyone out there still doubting global climate change? My soccer game this morning was an hour and a half away in Fairhaven, MA which it appears will be in one of the most seriously affected storm surge areas come tomorrow evening. We were down 0-2 at halftime before clawing our way back with two goals for the draw. I had a very nice assist on the equalizer and saw about 70 minutes of playing time which left me content to spend a large portion of the remainder of the day on the couch. Our final game of the season will be next week against the division champions.

Sarinnagh and Maya pose after putting the finishing touches on their homemade Halloween costumes. They are attending a party this evening where they hope to earn a prize for their efforts. Maya had no less than 2 dance classes and an indoor soccer match today. I am guessing she will sleep well this evening. Jeanine and I did a little work around the house, readying it for winter and Hurricane Sandy which is predicted to impact us on Monday.

Maya hosted a slumber party for her friends after they attended their middle school Halloween dance this evening. One of the girls was admiring a photo I had taken of Kyle (or possibly was just admiring Kyle) and wanted to know how I made it look so good (answer being good lighting). I offered to show her and in less than 2 minutes all 5 girls were posing in my studio. Each one could be a model in her own right. Taken together with a small dose of teenage girl silliness and I had the perfect elements to create some very memorable photos.

It has taken several weeks, but I finally had a chance to find the story about Nico which appeared on CBS This Morning earlier in the month (follow link below). It is a comprehensive interview and includes very nice commentary by Jim Axelrod who described Nicolai as one of the 5 most impressive people he has ever met. The YouTube post of his amazing goal has reached 1.5 million views and appears that it will stabilize at that level. Interest in the story has all but faded although just today he agreed to a 2-hour interview with a TV show from the United Kingdom for which he will be paid $500.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feekESbg-ls

I did not download this photo, taken last Thursday, until today and felt it deserved a belated post. Perhaps inspired by the expression “as American as apple pie”, visiting Chinese exchange students were treated to an apple picking and pie baking activity shortly after they arrived last week. Pictured here is the pie/work-of-art created by Maya and Wu, the student staying with us. Maya, a seasoned pie maker, expertly trained over the years by her mother, was able to teach Wu how to cut the strips needed for the crust using only sign language. The results speak for themselves, no translation required.

I used my lunch hour to enjoy another great fall day. I have a standard 2-mile loop that takes me through some nearby wetlands. Peak color has passed but there are still many trees that have yet to start turning. I thought a touch of green would be a nice departure from all the recent orange, yellow and reds of recent posts.