Even with 4 and a half inch heels on, Maya appears petite compared to her prom date, Chris Ruediger, an excellent student and talented musician (Chris’ website). We hosted a pre-prom party at our house for a large group of Maya’s friends providing an opportunity for everyone to get photographs of the kids before they boarded a bus for the Boston Park Plaza where the event was held.  I orchestrated some group shots in the backyard (will post tomorrow) and did indoor and outdoor portraits for many of the couples. Because my photo studio is adjacent to my woodworking shop, some of the kids found objects to use for props. I am particularly fond of the photos below featuring matching hearing protectors. I am still working on a clever caption.

For 11 years now I have been posting a photo and short message every day on this blog.  It all started with the photo of Maya above taken when she was 5 years old.  According to my website this is the 6,194th post I have made.  There have been many days when I struggled to find the inspiration or energy to create an entry. Fortunately, I managed to persevere and am very proud of the journal I have created for the benefit of my family and friends. At some point, when Maya graduates high school perhaps, I imagine I may scale back to weekly postings. I am also starting to look for some software that can convert this blog into a PDF book. When I am long gone and no one is left to maintain this website, I’d like to ensure that there is a permanent record of this photo journal for my kids and theirs.

We could not have been prouder of Maya who was presented three academic awards this evening by the Principal of Concord Carlisle High School. She earned High Honors for Academic Excellence, an Excellence Award for Electrical Engineering, and a Certificate of Merit with Highest Honors from the Society of Women Engineers for three years of excellence in science and mathematics.

I returned to the hospital this morning to find my mother feeling quite well and in good spirits. Her surgeon felt that she had tolerated the procedure well and could be released. We made our escape by early afternoon and joined her sister, Maruja, for a late lunch. My mom will stay with her sister and brother-in-law for at least a week at which time she needs to check in with her doctor again for the all clear.  They live just minutes from the hospital on the shore of Little Neck Bay.

My mother was hospitalized on Sunday when she began to experience severe pains in her abdomen while dancing at a studio in Astoria, NY.  She was taken by ambulance to St. Francis Hospital on Long Island where tests suggested that she had an infected gallbladder. Her symptoms subsided after being treated with antibiotics but the doctor recommended it would be best to remove the organ.  At 87 any surgery is risky but we all agreed that it would be best to have the operation.  I left early in the morning for NY so I could ensure that she was being well cared for and provide some measure of comfort.  My cousin Edward, a Nassau County police officer, also stopped by and threatened to arrest her if she did not cooperate with hospital staff. The 1 hour laparoscopic surgery was successful and she was resting comfortably when I left the hospital late in the evening. The surgeon said the gallbladder was 8 times the normal size and was “nearly gangrenous”. The decision to have it removed was clearly the right course of action.

I prepared another batch of items for sale on Craig’s List today including a macro lens, subwoofer, and high resolution computer monitor. Photographing black objects can be very challenging. The trick is to emphasize the highlights and I enjoyed discovering the best lighting arrangements to do this.  These three items alone will net over a thousand dollars so the work to get good images is well worth the effort.

Maya prepared breakfast in bed for a Mother’s Day treat. The meal included French toast, eggs, sliced apples, and coffee.  I managed to score a couple of slices of French toast in the deal.  The boys both called to wish Jeanine a happy Mother’s Day and all three kids are off the hook for their recent dismal performance on her birthday.

I called my mother to wish her well and am posting a couple of pictures of us together for her enjoyment. Yes, I once had a lot of hair and yes my mother is and was a beautiful woman, both in appearance and spirit.

I played one of my better soccer games this morning but not well enough to help my squad defeat Belmont.  I almost scored on a diving header which would have been a spectacular way to break the 0-0 tie we had to settle for.

In preparation for Maya’s pre-prom party to be held here next weekend, I constructed a massive light panel to aid in full-length couples photography.  The panel, measuring 6ft x 4ft, is made of three light troffer fixtures that I salvaged from a remodeling project at work some ten years ago (I knew they would come in handy someday). I refitted the fixtures for LED bulbs and mounted the whole affair on casters.

Maya’s Amplifier from Carl Calabria on Vimeo.

Play the video and have a listen to the amplifier that Maya built for a school project. She also made the enclosure. Little doubt we have another engineer in the family.

My workshop is illuminated by more than 50 fluorescent bulbs each 4 foot long and all powered by instant start electronic ballasts. The ballasts seem to last for about three or four years before they burnout which makes for a tedious repair task. I decided to replace all the fluorescents with LED bulbs which have a rated life of 50,000 hours, consume half the electricity and do not require a balllast at all. The conversion required removal of the ballast from each fixture, installation of new bulb sockets on one end, and rewiring of the lights. The project took the entire day but was well worth the effort. There is nothing more enjoyable than a well lit workspace except one that uses half the electricity.

For years, Jeanine has saved the cutoff pant legs from Nico’s trousers. Now she has decided to make a quilt out of the them. Clearly a labor of love, I am looking forward to photographing the final result.  Whether she will keep it for herself or, at some point, gift it to Nicolai remains to be seen.

I spent a good portion of the day scanning old photographs I located while cleaning out the attic. Pictured here is my future bride who is still just as cute and lovable today.

Part of our downsizing effort includes digitizing all paper documents and artwork for more compact digital storage.  I came across this long-forgotten invitation I received to attend the 1976 Olympic Training Camp. It arrived after I won the NY state freestyle wrestling championship during the summer after I graduated high school. I chose to take a job with Bell Labs in the fall rather than training for the Olympics. Looking back, I realize what a critical fork in the road that decision represented.  I am left to wonder how my life would be different today had I taken the other path.

Maya has been offered a summer internship at the prestigious Brookhaven National Labs located in Upton, NY on Long Island. She will be working for physicist Dr. Lijuan Ruan who is studying the fundamental properties of the Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP) using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). The RHIC, one of two in the world, has accelerated gold ions to 99.995% the speed of light and achieved temperatures of 7 trillion degrees Fahrenheit when they are crashed into each other. Ryan has built a new detector to measure muons, heavier counterparts of electrons. By comparing muon-muon to electron-muon pairs, she is hoping to separate the production of different kinds of quarks (known by the whimsical names of “charm” and “beauty”) from the “shine” of this early-universe matter, known as Quark Gluon Plasma.

Maya will be assisting with analysis of the experimental data.  The trick now will be to find her a place to live over the summer within commuting distance of the lab.