Jeanine and I enjoyed a walk on the Colorado College campus and through parts of downtown Colorado Springs this morning.  Seating and stages for tomorrow’s commencement ceremony were already set up and worthy of an aerial photo based on the colors and geometric symmetry. If you examine the set of black chairs on the right, you will notice that they form a point with two chairs at the end.  This is where I will be seated during tomorrow’s event, carefully picked for the angle it offers of the stage and unobstructed sight line.

After our walk, we rejoined the family and those of Nicolai’s roommates for a lovely brunch.  Afterward, we gathered the group for a photo in a nearby park my first such photo using the drone.

Later in the day, the sibs hung out while Jeanine napped and I set off to visit Seven Falls. It is worth a double click to examine these falls covering a drop of 181 feet. 

This evening we dined at Four by Brother Luck. Brother Luck (that is the chef’s real name) was the winner of Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay where he won the judges over with his love of pork and also a finalist on Food Network’s Chopped. Our four-course meal was delightful and shared with Nicolai’s roommate Thomas, his family, and Karuna. Afterwards, we attended Colorado College’s Commencement Reception and Dance where Nicolai performed on the keyboard with his band. It was the first time the family had a chance to hear him play in public and he was fantastic.

Earlier in the day Jeanine and Maya walked through, Kyle ran around, and I enjoyed photographing the Garden of the Gods. Despite overcast skies, it was nice to be in the great outdoors. Nico joined us afterward for a truly memorable breakfast at a nearby restaurant of the same name.

Jeanine, Kyle, Maya, and I flew to Denver this morning and then drove to Colorado Springs. There we were reunited with Nicolai and introduced to Kubo, the dog he gifted to his girlfriend Karuna. He is very nice and reasonably obedient. It is very clear that we are a dog family. Kubo received as much or more attention than Nicolai.

When Maya joined the ultimate frisbee team at Olin College she was new to the sport. Her only frame of reference was soccer which, for those who know the game, involves a great deal of physicality. Her Olin teammates were amused when she innocently inquired at the teams’s orientation meeting if ultimate frisbee was a contact sport; it is not, she was informed. During her first practice game Maya leaned heavily on her soccer training and apparently on the opponents she was guarding as well. This style of play quickly earned her the nickname “Punchy.” On most levels this is really not a very apt nickname for Maya, but it does have a slight ring of authenticity to it — a debate with Maya leaves you feeling like you just went 15 rounds in a boxing ring with the champ. It remains to be seen if “Punchy” will replace her current family nicknames of “Maya Moo” and “Maja.”

Earlier today she moved out of her campus dorm room and returned home having successfully completed her freshman year of college. She will be here for a couple of weeks before heading to Indianapolis where she will begin a summer engineering internship with Rolls Royce.

Before the rains struck yesterday, I was asked to photograph some Copenhagen Wheel-equipped bikes for an upcoming review article. If you look closely, this bike does not have a kickstand yet it is standing upright with no visible means of support. It is about two feet from the wall behind it and there are no strings or rods of any kind supporting it. Any guesses as to how this was done? I will share the answer in tomorrow’s post.

My work commute is bad enough under normal circumstances. Add in torrential rains and it becomes downright unbearable. It took me 1 hour to travel the first 3 miles of my return home this evening. I could have made better time on foot. The final 17 miles took another 30 minutes making for a very frustrating experience. I made a lot of experimental photographs while stuck in traffic including the one above. It is taken through my rain drenched windshield of the car and traffic lights in front of me.

Olin’s Expo is an end-of-semester celebration of student learning and achievement, where students from every class share their project work through poster sessions, interactive demonstrations, and artistic performance. The projects range in topic, including but not limited to course assignments, competition teams, passionate pursuits, and research projects. Jeanine, Kyle, Caleb (Maya’s boyfriend) and I were in attendance as Maya shared two of her projects. The first a mobile app called Thrifter, a sustainability project aimed at extending the life of used clothing by facilitating barter exchanges between interested parties. The second, a data visualization project showing the shooting location and conversion rates for NBA players compared to league averages over the last seven years. Maya was as confident as she was ebullient. It was an inconvenient time of day to miss work but I am very happy I did even if it meant staying at the office until 10:30pm to make up for it.

Having decided to give my knees a couple of weeks to recover from soccer competition, I decided to photograph my teammates as they cruised to an 8-0 win this morning. When you reach the over-56 age group, the game becomes less physical and more strategic. While just as satisfying to play it does not produce the same level of photographic drama that can be found in younger age groups. Even so, there was still plenty of action to shoot. A full set of photos from the game can be found here.

The 2,100-acre Crane Estate in Ipswich was home to the family’s summer country mansion built between 1924 and 1928.  The Great House, as it is called, contains 59 rooms and is surrounded by no less than 21 outbuildings. I stopped here briefly yesterday as I drove from Rockport to Plum Island where the final three photos were taken.

Rockport is a quaint and extremely photogenic fishing village and artist colony located at the tip of Cape Ann located about 40 miles northeast of Boston. I have visited several times and taken many photographs of the iconic Motif No. 1, a red fishing shack at the end of a granite wharf. The picturesque old structure may be the most photographed building in the United States, if not the world. It has also appeared in movies, as an award-winning float, on magazine covers, on a postage stamp, in a 1960s Winston cigarette ad and as a Kentucky bourbon bottle. Using my drone, I was able to capture some new perspectives of the shack and bay.

I was deleting old text messages this morning and came across this photo from Maya of a project she did with a partner at Olin. I believe they had to design a boat hull and then mathematically predict at what angle it would capsize followed by experimentation to confirm their calculations.

John F. Kennedy was born in a house on Beals St. in Brookline, about a mile from my office. Later this month will be the 101st anniversary of his birth. I decided to make it my morning walk destination. It is a rather simple home which really makes you appreciate the ambition of the Kennedy family. During my walk, I had a chance to enjoy some very beautiful spring flowers in bloom.

If the water isn’t frozen, you can expect to find crew teams training on the Charles every morning. Now that warm weather has arrived, I may elect to do a little rowing in the morning instead of walking. This will require switching vehicles with Kyle since the Audi is the only one of our cars fitted with a roof rack. I have kayaked the Charles before but have long since forgotten where I was able to park and put in.

A business meeting in Bedford took me past a lovely park this morning. I paused for a few minutes to see what I could see and was glad I did. I love living in such close proximity to beautiful natural settings. As Jeanine and I contemplate where we will move after downsizing, it is becoming increasingly apparent to me that I would not be very happy living in an urban center.