My iRobot colleagues honored me with a farewell celebration this evening. Many kind words were spoken and I was humbled by the attention and compliments. Mostly, though, I was grateful for the opportunity to personally thank so many of the people who have contributed to the success for which I am given credit. The Home Business Unit GM spoke of my accomplishments and loyalty to the company and people I work with. The SVP of Operations made fun of the way I dress, the way I pack for business trips, my competitive nature, and my penchant for photography. He presented me with a single-use Kodak camera after determining that any other photo related gift would be too expensive. The CTO spoke of his respect for my work-life balance and presented me with an inspirational coffee table book entitled “Great Journeys” which has already caused me to update my bucket list. My team presented me with a signed and framed montage of four photos I had taken over the years which chronicles the evolution of the iRobot engineering management team during my tenure. Earlier in the day I spoke by phone with the CEO and was encouraged by his support for the new company I am (tentatively) forming. I was truly touched by the entire affair. I tried to thank everyone who attended but as I look back at the photos, I realize there were many that I did not have a chance to connect with. For that I am sorry. I will always look back on my iRobot years with great fondness but I am also looking forward to the next chapter in my career.

Photo credits to Doug Marsden, Rob Figler and Youssef Saleh.

For years I have been dreaming about getting Canon’s first super-telephoto zoom lens, the 200-400mm f/4 with 1.4x extender. This is the ultimate field sports and wildlife lens which can potentially replace two of my current lenses (or so I tell myself to justify the purchase). With a retail price of $11,799 I have thus far been reluctant to take the plunge. I have been on the look out for a good used copy since its introduction but almost nobody who has one of these bad boys is interesting in letting it go. When I happened on a sale for a new one that was below the current market price for a used one in excellent condition, I jumped at the deal. It is due to arrive on Wednesday and I am already starting to plan a few national park excursions to put it to good use.

Eager to stretch our legs after two days of driving, Jeanine and I joined Mayela and Stephen for a walking tour of historic downtown Harrisburg. We started from City Island and crossed the Susquehanna on an old railroad bridge. Minutes later we arrived at the State Capitol, designed in 1902 in a Beaux-Arts style with decorative Renaissance themes throughout. The capitol houses the legislative chambers for the General Assembly, made up of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, as well as the offices of the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor. It is often referred to as a “palace of art” because of its many sculptures, murals and stained-glass windows. Our tour guide proclaimed it the most beautiful capitol building in the United States, a claim I found easy to believe.

After a bit more walking through the downtown area, we returned to City Island by way of the Market Street Bridge, a work of art in its own right. Mayela paused to make a snow angel before we departed for a second visit to Hershey, this time to tour the Hershey Museum.

After a half dozen attempts at the photograph below did the pair realize I was quite happy with the first shot. Neither complained.

Mayela and Stephen were treated to dinner by my mother and other sister, Alissa. We arrived shortly after they were seated to effect our second surprise of the weekend. All this a prelude to the main event, a concert by Mayela’s favorite group, We Banjo 3, a band from Galway, Ireland that plays traditional Irish, old time, and bluegrass music. The band is composed of two sets of brothers, Enda and Fergal Scahill and Martin and David Howley. I do not understand the name of the band as they are 4 in number and only 2 play the banjo. What I did understand by the end of the evening was what musical genius and flawless technique sounds like.

Included with our cottage accommodations was a continental breakfast at the nearby Bear Mountain Inn. The building has been called “among the earliest examples of a monumental rustic park lodge of a type that became common in state and national parks”. The meal was entirely forgettable but not so the architecture and interior of the building constructed in 1915. Our next destination was Hershey, PA which we reached by noon. There we stopped briefly at the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum before continuing on to Hershey’s Chocolate World where we purchased some confectionary gifts for my sister, Mayela.

We reached our hotel in New Cumberland, PA well before my sister and her husband Stephen who are traveling here from North Carolina. Immediately after they checked in, Jeanine and I knocked at their door claiming to be “room service” and gave her the surprise we had hoped for. We enjoyed an exceptional dinner at Bricco, a collaboration between the Olewine School of Culinary Arts and the Harrisburg Hotel Corporation, one of the areas finest restaurants featuring up-and-coming culinary stars. I had the Calabrian braised short-ribs and it tops my list of favorite meals I have enjoyed outside of Jeanine’s kitchen.

The New Croton Dam, part of the New York City water supply system, stretches across the Croton River near Croton-on-Hudson, NY. This masonry dam is 266 feet broad at its base and 297 feet high from base to crest. The dam has an unusual spillway, part artificial and part natural, which forms a waterfall that is both dramatic and unique. The total length of the dam and spillway combined is 2,188 feet and at the time of its completion, it was the tallest dam in the world.

Jeanine and I stopped to admire this marvel of civil engineering as a way point on our road trip to Harrisburg, PA where we are headed to surprise my youngest sister in celebration of her 50th birthday. We also made a brief visit to nearby Chuang Yen Monastery which houses the largest indoor Buddha in the Western Hemisphere. We spent the evening in Bear Mountain State Park in a stone cottage that sleeps 8 in four bedrooms. Unfortunately, the inside temperature was controlled by a single thermostat which our cottage mates kept set to 76 degrees. Unable to sleep in these sauna like conditions, I was up at 1am to quietly adjust it down to 66 degrees and again at 5am to reset it to 72 degrees.

I spent a good part of the day organizing my shop today. I would like to prototype an idea I have been thinking about and like to start with everything in order. For some reason a box of old newspaper clippings had found its way into a corner and I came across this snippet as I was moving it out. What a blast from the past. I don’t know what I found more humorous; the amount of hair on my head or the uniformity of dishevelment with the other wrestlers.

Another massive chunk of ice slid off the roof yesterday bringing down the rest of the gutter on the back side of the house. A solid slab standing 6 feet tall, 3 feet wide and 1 foot thick, it shook the entire house as it plummeted onto the deck. Not until the snow melts will we know the full extent of the damage done.

Every so often, I get in the mood to sell items that I do not use enough to justify holding on to them. I view it as a form of recycling and an excuse to spend time in my photography studio making product shots. Pictured here is a DeWalt Impact Driver which was one of a half dozen tools I put up for sale today on Craig’s List. I freely confess to being a tool junky in need of a 12-step intervention of some kind. I currently own five DeWalt cordless drill/drivers (a big 20V hammer drill, a medium-sized 20V drill, a small 12V drill/driver, and two 20V impact drivers; not to mention my assortment of corded and pneumatic drills). Even though each tool is unique in its specialization, it is impossible, even for even me to justify keeping them all. Any time I sell some tools (or photography equipment) I feel entirely justified in using the proceeds to purchase something new. In this case a cordless grinder and cordless oscillating multi-tool.

The Old North Bridge was deserted when I stopped in after dropping Maya off at school this morning. I fought my way through waist high snow to position myself for this photo. Aesthetically speaking it is not particularly strong but as a study in shadows, it is quite interesting indeed (to photographers, at least). See if you can determine where the sun is situated (answer at the end of this post). Last night, high winds proved to be the last straw in bringing down the gutter on the back side of our house. One more spring project to add to a long list of repairs that will be needed to recover from this winter’s extreme snowfall (note the 4 foot high bank which still resides on our deck).

~The sun is coming from behind the photographer whose shadow can be seen on one of the bridge supports. The remaining shadows are created by trees and not by the bridge as might first appear to be the case~

Another couple of inches of snow last night necessitated an early morning outing with my trusty snowblower. As weary as I have grown of this task, I am looking forward to the forecasted storm for later this week. Hopefully it will produce enough snow to establish the all time record snowfall for our area. Having endured the blizzards, I would like, at the very least, a record to show for it. During a few hours of the afternoon, temperatures rose slightly above freezing for a brief respite from the cold.

Maya’s futsal season came to an end this evening on a high note as her team won in decisive fashion against a strong opponent. The coach requested a team photo and I was happy to oblige. As I was switching the settings on my camera from shooting the action to shooting the portrait, I made the image below which I actually find much more interesting.

To celebrate the first day of spring, I decided to give snowshoeing a try today. Jeanine loaned me her gear and I ventured out on a three quarter mile circuit around the inside perimeter of the field behind our house. I was under the misguided impression that snowshoes allow you to remain on top of the snow. This was true to the extent that I did not sink all the way to the bottom of our remaining 30 inch base. Instead, each step would plunge 6 to 10 inches into the powder which made the relatively short trek quite a workout especially considering that I had spent an hour in the gym earlier in the day.

Maya scored a pair of goals in her futsol game today. She has quickly learned the sport and her foot skills improve each week. She is pictured below scoring one of her goals and winning a header.

My nephew, John, and two of his friends from Babson used our kitchen this evening to prepare a traditional Russian dinner. The rest of us were the beneficiaries of this endeavor. The meal, several hours in the making, included beef stroganoff and borscht followed by a Russian cake and cookies. The extent of my involvement was the construction of a meat tenderizer (pictured above) after I refused to offer up one of my normal hammers for the job. Jeanine was consulted often but left all of the work to the kids.

Scottish musician Caitlin McNeill posted an image of a dress on Tumblr with the question, “guys please help me – is this dress white and gold, or blue and black?  Given the virtual explosion of interest that resulted (answer is blue and black, BTW), I thought I would share this famous illustration designed to demonstrate how easily the the human visual system can be fooled. Which is darker? Square A or square B. The answer is that they are both the same color and brightness. Cut two holes in a piece of paper so you can compare the two squares while obscuring the background if you do not believe me.

I received this photo from good friend and mentor Bill Warner, founder of Avid Technology. It was taken at the studios of Boston PBS TV station WGBH with their Senior Director of Production Technology on the right. WGBH-TV produces more than two-thirds of the nationally distributed programs broadcast by PBS including Nova, Frontline, Masterpiece, American Experience, The Victory Garden and This Old House. On a tour of the facility he noticed they were using an ISIS storage server that was my signature project during my Avid days (see flash back below). The WGBH installation can store 1.3 petabytes of information (1 petabyte = 1 million gigabytes = 1 quadrillion bytes). It is extremely satisfying to know that so much of the TV I enjoy is being produced with the aid of products I helped to bring to market.

It has never been clear to me if the HVAC subcontractors who installed the system in our home understood the basic concept of a feedback loop. We have a four zone heating system (first floor, basement, master bedroom, rest of the second floor). The thermostat for the second floor was located in the upstairs hallway where it was influenced by air coming up the open foyer from the first floor rather than the second floor air in the bedrooms (whose doors remain closed for most of the day). Today I moved the second floor thermostat into Maya’s bedroom where it will ensure a closed feedback loop for at least one of the rooms. I believe the other bedrooms will be more comfortable as well.