We learned today that Nicolai has been named a Master Certified Environmental Educator in the state of Colorado by the Colorado Alliance for Environmental Education.  From his notification letter:

“As a part of the certification process, you are among an elite group of individuals who have demonstrated strong knowledge and skills in quality environmental education. By demonstrating your understanding and skill in environmental literacy, the foundations of environmental education, professional responsibilities, planning and implementation, and assessment and evaluation you are joining a network of educators in only a handful of states who have attained this level of certification.”

We are very proud of all he has accomplished.

Jeanine alerted me to the presence of seven deer in our backyard this morning.  I managed a nice photo of this grouping of four thanks to Nala’s barking from the boundary of her electric containment fence. To her intense embarrassment, the local wildlife has figured out that she cannot leave our yard to pursue them. She seems truly dejected when they ignore her and go on about their business.

Daddy’s Home 2 the sequel to Daddy’s Home is now filming a Christmas scene in downtown Concord. It is amusing to watch as they shovel man-made snow back onto the sidewalks after the town spent weeks doing just the opposite.

I use big soft boxes to create soft light for many of my studio photographs. Creating soft lighting for movies is no different except for the matter of scale. This is one of two cherry-picker-mounted lights that will be used for the movie. Time permitting I may try and return to see if I can get photos of the stars (Mark Wahlberg, Will Ferrell, Mel Gibson, and John Lithgow) when filming commences later this evening. 

Well I did not see any celebrities when I returned but I did get to see the crane lights in action.  The first was positioned over the intersection of Main Street and Walden Street taking on the appearance of a monstrous alien head. The second was positioned to illuminate the Trinitarian Church which never looked so good at night. 

Finally, after days and days of rain, there has been a break in the weather. While it has been uncharacteristically dreary, the promise of replenished aquifers and reservoirs is something to be grateful for. Last year’s drought and consequent watering restrictions killed major portions of our lawn.  Any chance of reviving it will be predicated on permission to use our irrigation system this summer.  It’s a shame we cannot simply store some of the water in the swollen local rivers before they discharge into the ocean. Plans to do some kayaking will have to wait until the water level drops a bit allowing for passage under the bridges.

Kyle begins a new job today as a Portfolio Analyst with City National Rochdale. This 30-year-old wealth management firm is a subsidiary of City National Bank which is owned by the Royal Bank of Canada. They provide personalized portfolio management for high-net-worth individuals, families, and institutions with over $31 billion under management and a client retention rate of over 90%. Kyle will be working in their San Francisco office located on the 20th floor of 455 Market Street, pictured above.  Kyle turned down a position with Symphony Asset Management in favor of CNR which offered a move from the back office (internal operations) to the front office (client-facing) and a better work-life balance. We could not be prouder of or happier for Kyle and wish him all the best on his first day.

Our nephew, John, created another wonderful Sunday dinner for us. Pictured above is the early stages of a sauce he prepared. Chopped onions simmering in a bath of olive oil gradually turning from white to a rich yellow. We were joined for dinner by Maya’s moot court co-counsel as they took a brief break from preparations for their next trial. The spring season opener for my over-50 soccer league was canceled due to lingering snow on our home field. I expect to be back in action later this week with a makeup game or scrimmage. 

Maya has been accepted at a total of 8 colleges. She has already ruled out three, all in California. Her analytical approach to decision-making is evident in the whiteboard she prepared this morning to help her decide among the remaining five. We are so proud of her and look forward to learning of her decision.

It seemed fitting that we should have a winter storm on the evening of Maya’s nordic ski team end-of-the-season banquet. Maya was co-captain of the women’s team which placed 4th in the state this year. Her coach had wonderful things to say about her and she was just as eloquent in her praise of him on behalf of the team.

We have experienced an inordinate amount of rain over the past few days. Given last year’s drought and water use ban, we are happy to have it. The Sudbury River looked more like a lake this morning and I am looking forward to getting out for some kayaking when the temperatures ease upwards a bit.

The Fruitlands Museum, founded in 1914 by Clara Endicott Sears, takes its name from an experimental utopian community led by Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane which took place on this site in 1843. The campus is home to five collections on 210 acres of meadows and woods including:

• The Fruitlands Farmhouse, the site of the experiment in communal living led by Alcott and Lane in 1843
• The Shaker Museum, the first Shaker museum in the country and home to the largest archive of Harvard Shaker documents in the world, housed in an historic building moved here from the Harvard Shaker community.
• The Native American Museum, which houses a significant collection of artifacts that honor the spiritual presence and cultural history of the first Americans.
• The Art Museum, including a collection of over 100 Hudson River School landscape paintings and over 230 nineteenth century vernacular portraits.
• The Wayside Visitor Center, exhibiting information on Fruitlands’ landscape and environment.

I happened upon it today while scouting locations for our next home. It is situated on high ground with a great view of Mount Wachusett.

After my brother’s recent sudden cardiac arrest, I have invested in a full cardiac work up to identify possible risks I might be facing.  I have had one treadmill EKG, one static echocardiogram, one treadmill echocardiogram, and one treadmill nuclear imaging test. I wore a loop recorder for 24 hours, have been measuring my blood pressure every day for two months (charted above), and have had my blood work done twice. Today I met with my cardiologist for the results. Drum roll, please….. I have a healthy heart with no detected anomalies in structure or electrical function and good blood profusion to the heart muscles.  My average blood pressure is in an acceptable range (136/82) and my ejection fraction is 65%.  I do have high cholesterol which I will attempt to regulate with more exercise and a better diet before considering other alternatives.

More good news on the college front as Maya learned she is in at Carnegie Mellon University which has a 13% acceptance rate for the School of Engineering.  We are expecting to hear from the remaining schools to which she applied by the end of the week.  Fingers crossed.

On a totally unrelated subject, I thought I would document a goal I scored yesterday during pre-season soccer practice. There are no photos or video to memorialize the event so I am writing about it as a future reminder to myself. We were playing 8v8 on a short field. My team earned a corner kick. The kick was an in-swinger which was dead flush with the end line by the time I reached it as it sailed past the far post. From this position it is geometrically impossible to score without “bending” the ball (hitting it with spin thus causing it to travel in an arc). Good soccer players can do this easily when striking the ball with their foot.  I managed to score from this position with a header. I do not claim to have made any plans to bend the ball in the fraction of a second I had to reach it, but I will tell you that the ball wound up in the net and I have 15 witnesses who were just as stunned as I was when it did. It is highly unlikely I will ever score a more seemingly impossible goal in my life and I hope to hold this memory for that duration.

I spent the bulk of the day processing photos I took while in Cuba last week. Today I am posting a random collection which did not find there way into prior posts.

Jeanine and I returned to the US last night after a week of being 100% off the grid to the best possible news. Maya has been offered one of only 81 spots at Olin College. She is pictured above at last month’s Candidate’s Weekend where she was evaluated by staff and students during a team project and in a final interview.  Her acceptance letter included a $100,000, 4-year scholarship.  We could not be more proud of or happier for her.

Located on the top floor of the eclectic early 20th-century Gómez Vila Building, 115 feet off the ground, the Cámara Oscura provides a 360-degree real time panoramic view of much of Old Havana and was our final destination on our last day in Cuba. It is the only one of its kind in Latin America. Camera obscura (from the Latin “camera”: (vaulted) chamber or room, and “obscura”: darkened) is the natural optical phenomenon that occurs when the image of a scene is projected through a pinhole (the first ever “lens”) onto the opposite wall of a darkened chamber. The camera obscura concept was eventually developed into the modern photographic camera in the first half of the 19th century when camera obscura boxes were used to expose light-sensitive materials. The word camera thus originated from the word chamber.

Cuba’s Cámara Oscura uses two lenses and a mirror located on a periscope. The image that is captured by the periscope is projected on a concave platform 6 foot in diameter, located inside a dark room. On a bright day this room sized camera is able to project panoramas or zoom in on people miles away in any direction.

After the demonstration we ventured out onto the rooftop to inspect the periscope and enjoy the spectacular views of the city.  A more perfect way to cap our visit to Cuba we could not have hoped for.  Our ride to the airport in another vintage car was the frosting on the cake.,