This afternoon I discovered a canal paralleled by a dirt road that was chock full of birds and alligators. I was able to drive down the road and get out anytime I spotted something interesting. I literally encountered dozens of alligators. Fortunately, 90% of them were on the opposite side of the canal.
I spent the morning doing a little macro photography before stowing my gear for the return trip to civilization.
After sleeping like a baby I arose to enjoy a magnificent sunrise which bathed the island in golden light.
As I had hoped, the island was a photographic treasure trove and I spent hours wandering the beaches in search of interesting subjects.
I am the only human on the island but I am not without company. Less than 50 yards from my tent is an osprey nest and the pair seem oblivious to my presence affording me a great source of viewing enjoyment.
My first order of business is setting up my tent above the high tide mark and planning my exploration around the tide table I have brought with me. Many sections of the beach disappear at high tide and it is virtually impossible to travel inland forcing you to wade through the ocean, something I was trying to avoid while carrying all my camera gear.
After breakfast I make arrangements with a local outfitter to drop me off on Panther Key, an uninhabited island just outside the Everglades National Park boundaries in the Ten Thousand Islands chain. We navigate through a virtual maze of islets until we reach the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico where we shoot north until we reach our destination. Panther Key is less than a mile wide and less than two long with almost 50% of its shoreline covered in beaches. The interior has dense vegetation and is completely impenetrable. After off loading my gear and provisions I make arrangements to be picked up tomorrow. Just like that I am off the grid and totally on my own.
This morning I get an early start and head to the Everglades City Rod and Gun Club for breakfast. I arrive too early to dine but this photo of the lobby makes the trip entirely worthwhile.
After pitching my tent in Collier-Seminole State Park I head out on a nature walk in the waning light and am rewarded for my effort with these two photographs. The first features what must have been a century long battle between an enormous strangler fig and an equally massive tree. The second is of the endangered Wood Stork perched over a tiny lagoon.
My first destination is the city of Cape Coral, home to Florida’s largest population of Burrowing Owls. When development first began in the area of Cape Coral and the land was clear-cut for homes, these owls found suitable habitat in the sandy soil of freshly cleared lots and set up residence. The owls either create new or make use of abandoned burrows to live in and nest. They stand approximately nine inches tall and weigh roughly four ounces.
Jeanine drove me to the airport early this morning for my 6AM flight to Fort Myers where I will start a 5 day solo adventure centered on exploration of the Everglades and surrounding areas. This photo taken on approach sums up southwestern Florida quite well. In the foreground is Lovers Key State Park a pristine wildlife sanctuary with Fort Myers Beach and its back to back high rise hotels just across the channel in the background.
Today was my final day at Sonos. Although I am very excited about my new opportunity with iRobot, I am going to miss the friends I have made over the last two years. I learned a great deal and am very proud of what my team and I were able to accomplish. There are many many things I am going to miss about Sonos but the commute through rush hour traffic (pictured above) is not one of them. Knowing this was the last time made the journey just a tad more tolerable. The heavy heart over saying goodbye had the opposite effect.
I leave early tomorrow morning for the Everglades where I will spend several days on a solo kayak and camping adventure. I hope to come back with some great images and will post again late next week. The children have given me a great deal of advice on how best to avoid being eaten by an alligator. I will heed it all.
Jeanine and I love the fact that Hannah is a serious student and has introduced Kyle to the concept of a study date. Without the time demands of a varsity sport to deal with Kyle has taken his academic performance to a higher level and the hard work is paying off.
Any visit to the optometrist which does not result in a stronger prescription is one I am happy with. I wish the results of my soccer match this evening were as good as my checkup. We came from behind to tie the game at 4-4 but gave up two goals in the closing 2 minutes. I found the back of the net once with a line drive from 25 yards which the goalie was unable to handle.
This is the brush assembly from the electric motor which raises and lowers our downdraft ventilator in the kitchen. The narrow dingy yellow device on the right side of the image is a thermal overload interrupter which was tripping after a few seconds of motor use. Bypassing the device and rebuilding the motor revealed shorted windings and a replacement is now on order. It took several hours of work to disassemble the ventilator before I discovered the root cause of the problem. On the bright side, the replacement motor costs $150 compared to a new ventilator which runs $1400.
I used a long exposure to capture this image of Maya’s soccer team during an indoor training session. I like the resulting photograph more than the ones that more faithfully depicted the scene.
The rain we have been deluged with for the past few days has subsided, and the local rivers are all swollen. This is a view of the Sudbury River from the South Bridge Boat House. Note the height of the water on the bridge in the background. Normally, there is about 6 feet of clearance under the three barely visible arches.
Jeanine is at a workshop this weekend, and I have had the kids all to myself. Maya started the day with a dance lesson and finished with a birthday slumber party. In the middle, she had a soccer game in which she played goalie for a bit. Her team was down 3-0 and came back to win in the final seconds by a score of 5-4.
Why does an otherwise normal child seek to incarcerate herself in the dog’s crate? Answer: To avoid eating vegetables. Fortunately, Maya continues to eat enough to grow and may one day need a larger sanctuary.
Nala does her cute paw thing while having her neck scratched by Nico. Torrential rains helped me stay focused on completing performance reviews for my staff. Once finished, I will have fulfilled my final obligations at Sonos.
I constantly remind the kids to brush their teeth regularly. The price I paid for not following my own advice as a youth is helping to sustain the dentistry industry in Boston. I had 4 teeth worked on today and can still hear the drilling in my mind.
This evening’s meal featured the most delicious rice salad. Jeanine is a true artist when it comes to making foods that are both nutritious and delicious, her wheat grass and sunflower sprout smoothies aside.
Despite his initial reservations about being placed in this rehabilitation center with what he describes as a bunch of old people, three discoveries have changed his outlook. First he discovered the library which he will no doubt investigate from top to bottom. Second he was recognized by a VERY attractive speech therapist who attends my parent’s church in Schenectady and offered to work with him on his weak voice. Finally, he prefers the marginally nutritious but tasty food (sloppy Joe’s for dinner last night) to the healthy fare my mother prepares for him. I have little doubt I will find him teaching dance lessons to the residents and staff when I return for my next visit.
My father has been moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation center in Amsterdam, NY where he is working to regain his strength. I made the 7 hour round trip to pickup my mother and visit with him today. He appears to be recovering although he is still very weak. He is lucid and seeking to make the most of every conversation and we enjoyed both lunch and dinner together. He completed three hours of physical therapy and slept for several hours. I used the down time to work from a make shift office I set up in the lobby of the facility. Mark flew in from Minnesota last week, Alissa and John spent time with him over the weekend, and Mayela is flying in from North Carolina tomorrow so he is getting a lot of support.
Jeanine has grown this wheat grass and sunflower sprouts from seed. Each morning, she harvests a small portion, which goes directly into the blender and comes out a healthy concoction that tastes like, well, to be honest, something that is healthy for you or delicious if you are a cow.
Maya and I deconstructed a Roomba today to help me prepare for my new job at iRobot. Doing so has given me great insight into the engineering of the product and I already have a few ideas for improvements that I will pass along to the design team. Maya participated from start to finish and her attention to detail and understanding of the mechanisms was very impressive. Although she is interested in becoming a veterinarian she would also make a fantastic mechanical engineer. Click on the photo for a closer view.
Today was my last day working in my Cambridge office at Sonos. I will finish up my last two weeks working from home before a brief vacation and then on to iRobot. Two images of special significance to me. The first is from the refrigerator in our mini-kitchen. It appeared one day and made me smile every time I saw it. Not quite sure what it means but I liked it. When I arrived at Sonos almost two years ago there was not a single plant on the entire floor. I brought in several for my office and was pleased as I left the building today to see how many plants now grace the officescape.
I swung by the Old North Bridge this morning on the way into the office. This remains one of my favorite post snowfall photography sites. Had I arrived a few hours earlier there would have been a lot more snow still in the trees which would have made for an even better photo. With all that is going on this week, however, I gave myself permission to watch the sunrise from the comfort of my bed.
Kyle prepared a Mickey Mouse pancake for visiting cousin Rachel who returned with us from Schenectady. My sister Alissa and her son John William arrived last night after touring Babson and Bentley. Today they will join Kyle and Jeanine for tours of Boston Univeristy and Northeastern University. My father’s condition has improved although he remains hospitalized.
Today was a big day at work and the reason we had to leave Schenectady last night. I announced to my team and the company that I had accepted a position with iRobot as their Senior Vice President of Product Development and that I would be leaving Sonos. It was not an easy decision because Sonos is such a wonderful company which is doing extremely well in an economic climate where most others are not. The iRobot opportunity, however, represents a tailor fit role and exciting challenge for me. The 20 year old company was founded by MIT grad students and is headquartered in Bedford which will cut my commute time in half. I will transition out of my role at Sonos over the next few weeks and will start my new job mid March.
When we arrived in Schenectady my dad was not looking very well at all. While we were touring schools he went to see his physician who promptly summoned an ambulance and sent him to the hospital. When we visited, he was still in this examination room after almost nine hours as the staff continued to monitor his condition. The entire family visited with him briefly before we had to leave for our return drive to Boston. My brother Mark flew in from Minnesota while sister Mayela coordinated from a distance. The latest reports have my dad showing great improvement and the situation as summed up by my brother – He is not going to croak. For me it was the first time I ever considered that as a possible outcome and we are all very relieved that we will get to enjoy his laughter for a while longer.