My team recently released a new wet floor care robot into production. Despite or perhaps because of its diminutive size this is one of the most complex products I have ever been involved with. Motorized wheels, pumps, clean fluid reservoir, dirty water reservoir, brushes, battery, cliff sensors, bump sensors, anti-spill mechanism, … There is nothing like it on the market today.
Nico can spend hours at a time playing the piano and I never tire of listening to his music. He ceased taking lessons years ago and has no desire to restart. He plays for his own relaxation and pleasure. When we purchased a grand piano more than 15 years ago it was a big expenditure. Looking back, it has been an incredibly worthwhile investment.
Jeanine prepared two Aioli platters for this evening’s Open Table volunteer appreciation dinner. Open Table was founded in 1989 to provide weekly nutritious meals and a food pantry to anyone who wanted them — no questions asked. Their purpose is to address the hunger that exists in our area and to do this in a manner that respects the privacy and dignity of any guests and provides them a few moments of respite from their daily challenges. Jeanine has really enjoyed her service to this organization.
I spent the entire day bringing up this website to potentially replace my existing blog site. Problems with image uploading have persisted there for a week and Google has done nothing to address the issues. It took a few hours to select an appropriate hosting service, a few more to select and learn an appropriate web design program (WordPress), a few more to import my existing blog, a few more to settle on a design layout I liked, and a few more to test with different web browsers. It was 1:30am before I was sufficiently satisfied with this site before going live. Work will continue on the site over the comings weeks but I hope to keep the basic blog operating as it has in the past.
This winter has been one for the record books. Just when we thought it was behind us we got what is hopefully a final reminder that nature defines her own calendar. Fortunately the wet and heavy snow quickly began to melt and it was not necessary to take the snowblower out of summer storage. On the positive side, the wet snow made for beautiful snowscapes as it clung to the trees.
A large group from work gathered at the Beacon Grille to bid farewell to a 14 year veteran of iRobot who played a significant role in many of the company’s most successful products. An extremely bright, high energy and charismatic character with a flare for creative use of language, Chris is leaving us to take up a VP of Engineering role at a smaller local company and will be missed. As a member of my team he was the consummate professional and a pleasure to work with.
A rather one sided indoor soccer game this evening for Maya whose team won by a ten point margin. Team development always reaches a point where the players discover the power of passing and movement off the ball. Once they reach this point it is possible to dominate opponents who have not. Maya plays mostly in defensive roles but enjoyed scoring a goal while assigned to a striker position.
I did not get a chance to post this photo of Nico and his friends from the weekend and thought I’d start the week with it. Relatively warm weather inspired the boys to take Nala out on the large field behind our house and to play a little Frisbee. It has been a long, cold and snowy winter leaving us all with a desire to be outside as the weather improves.
Temperatures were in the mid 30s today and I spent the morning on the soccer pitch in a scrimmage match against Nashoba (one division up from Concord). My team was in fine form and we secured an 8-1 win. I had three assists and a nice goal despite my very poor state of conditioning. I can already feel my chronic patelar tendinitis starting to act up so it remains to be seen how long my season will last. The fine weather inspired a little nature photography today.
Each year the high school holds a fund raiser featuring a professional hypnotist who brings a group of roughly twenty seniors to the stage and proceeds to hypnotize them. The ensuing antics left Jeanine and I sore from laughter. I must confess an initial degree of skepticism. After watching the enitre show, however, I found myself a believer. It was an entirely entertaining evening and capped a lovely day with Jeanine who I joined in a Zoomba (dance exercise) class earlier in the day.
Maya left for a New Hampshire ski weekend today, the guest of a friend from her soccer team. Jeanine and I were joined by the boys for dinner out at Not Your Average Joes. Kyle and Nico are rarely available on a Friday night and we distinctly enjoyed their company and adult oriented conversation. We are all starting to bemoan the approaching departure of Kyle for college even though it is still many months away. His interests are clearly leaning to business with a keen interest in psychology.
Team members had an opportunity to grade the performance of the product development leadership team in addressing challenges they identified when I first arrived. Shown here is one sheet of seven representing the issues and the grades received (Green=Good Progress, Yellow=Neutral, Red=Needs Improvement). We paused for a nice lunch and enjoyed a cocktail hour at the end of the day.
Today my team and I went offsite for an all day departmental meeting. Yesterday was my one year anniversary with iRobot and I chose the meeting date with this in mind. We spent about a third of our time reviewing what has been accomplished in the last year and the remainder looking forward to our plans for the coming year. My direct reports each had an opportunity to present their organizations, accomplishments and objectives. All did so wonderfully and I was very pleased with the outcome. Of this group of 51 only 6 had the same boss and same title as they did one year ago which indicates the magnitude of organizational restructuring that has taken place. Over the same period of time our stock price has increased from $14 to $30.
Jeanine was recently elected to the Board of our Homeowner’s Association and hosted a meeting this evening for the august body. I interloped momentarily to capture this photo and spent the remainder of the evening driving Maya to/from piano lessons and trying to help Kyle prepare for a physics test. I am not sure I was very helpful. Even though I could solve all the problems, my methods were different from those taught in class and I think he was more interested in learning/using the teacher’s method.
A year ago Nicolai attended a wrestling clinic given by Anthony Robles of Arizona State. This weekend Anthony won the NCAA National Wrestling Championship at his weight class of 125 pounds demonstrating what can be achieved through hard work and a determination to defy the limitations others would impose on you. Anthony is one of the nicest people you will ever meet and we are thrilled for his success and for Nico’s opportunity to meet and train with him.
I spent the entire day outdoors doing yard clean up and exterior repairs. The family helped for the better part of the morning collecting downed limbs which we burned off in a massive bonfire (with appropriate permit from the Concord Fire Department). In the afternoon I felled four trees that had been killed by vines, creating fuel for an even larger fire. As the sun set I prepared to photograph the super perigee moon. Only once every 18 years does the moon reach it closest distance to earth and appears 15-30% larger than normal.
One of my favorites from the series. I love my little ballerina.
Maya received a new ballet outfit for an upcoming recital and was happy to pose for me. It was a fun session and yielded many nice photographs.
Nico graces the cover of the February edition of Exceptional Parent magazine which features an article written by Jeanine and several of my photos including this one.
Today started with a visit to the dentist for purposes other than routine cleaning. Of my last 12 fillings (the cost of a poor brushing regime as a teenager – are you paying attention children) I had 6 done without and 6 with Novacane. Today I tried a new type of Novacane that wears off almost instantly (delivered via the syringe pictured here) and think this is probably the best compromise. When I arrived at work my day was immediately brightened when I received news that a local engineering legend had decided to accept an offer to join my team. He starts on Monday and I am really looking forward to the collaboration.
With spring like temperatures, the Concord River has swollen to near flood stage due to all of the snow melt. Frequent visitors to this blog will recognize this view. Enough snow remained on the ground to prevent me from finding a more original angle without falling into the river which I decided would not be a worthwhile risk (could it be that I AM gaining wisdom with age?)
Jeanine, armed with a flashlight and tick removal tools, performs an under carriage inspection of Nala who spent most of the day outdoors enjoying the fine weather we are having. I finally persuaded her that it would be easier to invert the canine rather than the human and thus oriented she quickly located and removed a deer tick.
I spent the better part of the weekend upgrading our computers to Windows 7 and setting up a new laptop for Jeanine with Microsoft office. It is amazing to me how difficult this is and I cannot imagine how anyone without serious technical chops can overcome the numerous challenges and incompatibilities I encountered. Fortunately, all of the problems I encountered were known issues and with the help of Google I was able to locate the needed fixes. Hopefully, this effort will pay dividends now that I have all PCs in the house synchronized with the same configuration of operating systems and applications. Next weekend I will tackle the kids computers (all Macs) which in my prior experiences do not play nicely on PC networks.
This evening Maya and I attended the annual St. Patrick’s Day Father-Daughter Ball for the last time. Regrettably, she will be too old next year to attend. We dined in elegance at Serafina’s before hand and agreed that we should establish a routine father-daughter dinner and that we should schedule a weekend camping excursion this spring. Maya has developed into a wonderful little dancer and we made quite a show of her talent at the ball.
Rivers and creeks are swollen everywhere as the massive amount of snow we received this season begins to melt. I discovered this little stream today which is 1 block off my regular commute.
Jeanine and I attended Nicolai’s end of the season wrestling banquet at the Nashawtuc Country Club this evening. Although he missed the tail end of the season with a shoulder injury the team finished the season placing first in the D2C MIAA Sectionals and with head coach Eric Rivera winning Coach of the Year honors.
We have really enjoyed the company of Jeanine’s sister, Susan, who has been visiting us since Sunday. I learn something new about my own kids every time she comes because she asks them questions designed to elicit more than the typical “fine”, “OK, and “good” responses I often receive. She departs today for her home in Burlington, VT.
Today we received an e-mail from the co-founder of SideStix, the manufacturer of Nico’s favorite crutches. She attached this photo of a poster being used by the Mountainfilm organization to promote their Moving Mountain’s Symposium. One of her customers noticed the crutches and thought she would be interested in seeing the photo. I love the tag line: Celebrating the Indomitable Spirit. Because of Nico my photography has been featured on the cover of two magazines, numerous newspapers and blogs, and now on a poster. Nico had to perform this one arm hand stand several times for me to capture him in a perfectly vertical posture. I am really glad we both put in the effort to get this very special image.
This evening Jeanine prepared a grand Sunday dinner for a number of guests including her sister, Susan, who drove down from Vermont earlier this morning, Hannah, and Maya’s friend Annabel. Afterwards we had a family debate over the relative virtues of the Apple versus PC (basically, kids versus adults). Little do they know that I was one of the earliest adopters of the Macintosh and owned several generations before switching to the PC. I captured this cute sequence of Kyle and Hannah as he reacts to comments on Nico’s Facebook page in response to something that he has nefariously posted under his brothers name.
Maya and her friend Annabelle worked together to create a lemon poppyseed pound cake. Their work of art was devoured in minutes during Sunday dinner.
Meet AVA (on the right), a concept robot created by our Advanced Development group. This mobility platform for a pad based head has a full suite of sensors and can autonomously navigate between arbitrary locations at speeds of 2m per second. The holonomic drive used allows it to move in any direction without having to turn its body and it is able to extend its torso to match the height of a short adult. A major departure from our usual floor care products this is a very exciting project for the team.