This lovely scene courtesy of Jeanine who is riding through the French countryside with my cousin, her husband, and his brother and wife. I can picture them all having coffee and croissants under that umbrella. Jeanine is part French and speaks the language fluently (she will claim she is rusty). I have no doubt she is chatting up all the locals at every turn and will return with her proficiency restored.

Meanwhile, I have decided to take a long holiday weekend and will leave for Utah and Arizona tomorrow. I plan to revisit some of my favorite places and also to explore some new ones (see my recent Geo Detective post for one example). This weekend being the only one of the spring without a scheduled soccer match and weather forecasts showing three dry days at my destination, I decided not to squander the opportunity.

I had lunch today at the CambridgeSide Galleria. A few more blocks of walking took me to the banks of the Charles where I launched my drone and flew down to the Hatch Memorial Shell for a nice cityscape. From the back, the shell looks like a full dome and I must remember to photograph it again from an angle which reveals its true nature.

Kyle requested some update portraits this weekend and I was happy to oblige him. If I can find some time (not likely) I would love to add a voting option to this post to see which picture people prefer. For family members, feel free to register your opinion directly with Kyle by e-mail.

The only soccer match my team has failed to win this season was against Wayland. We played them to a tie in our first contest. This morning we sent them home with a 6-0 defeat to make up for our initial lackluster showing. After the match I took a team photo which I will need to retake because a few guys couldn’t manage to stand still and smile for 10 seconds. I also made this image of the team surrounding our hard core fans. Pictured to the right of our goalie (in red) are his parents who come out to every match, rain or shine, to cheer us on. Also joining us today was the wife and daughter of one of our field players, sitting to the right of them.

Kyle, Maya and I joined my sister Alissa and her husband John to witness the graduation of my niece, Rachel, from Babson College. She graduated cum laude and already has a job at Vision Government Solutions in Hudson, MA. Founder and CEO of AOL, Steve Case, gave the commencement address which was essentially an appeal to reinvent capitalism. He compared America to a startup and talked about the importance of continuing to lead the world in innovation. All speakers spoke about the importance of being an inclusive society and how we are moving further away from that ideal.

Nicolai left early for NYC where he has organized an amputee soccer practice for an East coast team he is trying to put together.

Jeanine left for a much needed 10-day vacation in France today. She is joining my cousin Heather and her husband Burton for a guided cycling tour. She flew into Bordeaux and will be be biking in and around the towns of Les Eyzies, Cadouin, and St. Cybanet. Regrettably, work obligations prevented me from joining her. My team is putting the final touches on our recently announced next generation 3D printer and there is much work remaining to ensure a smooth launch. I hope to receive and post many photos from Jeanine’s adventure over the coming days.

This group of kids are either very inept paddlers or practicing how to right a capsized canoe. Although spring has arrived, I do not doubt that the water in the Sudbury River is still way too chilly for this type of activity.

This seemed like a rather creative approach for a basketball goal backboard. Probably best not to over run the baseline, however.

I tried a new route for my morning commute only to discover a missing bridge that was a rather important element of the plan. I swear it was there on Google Maps when I checked this morning. I will have to remember to check progress on construction. I would love to get a picture of a crane suspended steel beam being lowered into place while a train is passing below.

It is hard for me to believe that I have been posting daily to this blog for the last fourteen years, a total of 7236 “journal” entires (higher than 365×14=5110 because my early hosting software required separate entries for every photo). It started with the image below of Maya holding something in her hand. I thought it fitting to include another image of Maya holding something for today’s entry. Jeanine and I visited her this morning for Olin Expo where students displayed their recent engineering projects. After having breakfast on campus with her, Maya showed us three of her projects, a phase shift keyed optical transmission channel, a discrete transistor operational amplifier circuit, and a user centered design project for the roller derby.

Assuming an average of 100 words per post and an average of 250 words per page of a book (per google search) this blog is the equivalent of a 2900 page book. I estimate the blog now contains roughly 10,000 photos. If these were placed four to a page that would require an addition 2500 pages. There was a time when I was considering turning this blog into a printed family history book for each of the kids. Doing so at this point would require a 400 page book for each of the fourteen years. I think a big PDF file might make more sense at this stage.

My mom was and still is a beauty. While I am thankful for all of the characteristics my father passed along to me, there is no doubt that I am more genetically similar to my mother. She has the mind of an engineer, the eye of an artist, and a head for business. At 90 years old she goes ballroom dancing regularly (the Tango being her favorite) and can out preform women half her age. It is said that you can pick your friends but not your parents. I feel like I won the lottery when I was born and am thankful for all the gifts I received from my mother.

I invited Jeanine on a mystery date this afternoon. Last week I learned about the opening of the American Heritage Museum in Stow, MA while listening to NPR. Billed as one of the most extraordinary museums of military history in the world it was created after the massive collection of tanks, armored vehicles and military artifacts from the family of Jacques M. Littlefield were donated to the Collings Foundation. The non-profit foundation was created to organize and support “living history” events and the presentation of historical artifacts and content that enable Americans to learn more about their heritage through direct participation. When we arrived at the museum, Jeanine was less than enthusiastic about spending a beautiful spring afternoon looking at tanks and such. Instead we opted for lunch in nearby Hudson and then a short hike in the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. Pictured above is the wood fired oven at the restaurant.

Jeanine and I dined with former colleagues and friends from my iRobot days this evening. Oscar, on the left, heads up manufacturing and supply chain while Christian, on the right, is the COO. We have good friend Rob Shurtleff to thank for the wonderful evening. He sent me a nice note about a positive interaction he had with iRobot Customer Service. I forwarded his note to the CEO who passed it on to Christian which caused him to reach back and suggest the gathering. It took a couple of months to coordinate busy schedules but was well worth the wait.

I managed a brief tour of our gardens this evening. Brilliant colors can be found everywhere and would have been even more potent had the sun not been obscured by clouds.