Jeanine’s niece Erica lives just outside of Louisville, Kentucky where we drove this morning to visit her, husband Nick and their kids, Lilly and Will. Jeanine stayed for another day while I flew back to Boston.

Jeanine and I flew to Indianapolis where she was born and we lived together for almost 20 years to attend the wedding of Sara Parker and John Thoe. Sara’s mother, Becky, was my administrative assistant and office manager at Truevision, the company I co-founded. I have known Sara since she was 7 years old, watching her grow from an effervescent little girl to a radiant woman.

In total there were four Truevision alumni at the wedding including Becky, Brian Thome, and Valerie.

While in town we stayed with Jeanine’s sister and brother-in-law, Lauren and Bob, and had a chance to visit with her nephews Luke and Gabriel (pictured below with his son Bradley on his back).

Because this post is being created in the future, I have the option to use a photo that has not yet been taken. This is a photo of a meal I will enjoy two days from now while visiting with Jeanine’s niece, Erica in Kentucky. I was just too busy with work for any new photos today.

Day three for Maya at MarkForged saw her operating our huge Haas CNC milling machine. Programming was done by our engineers and her job was to load material, start the machining process and unload the completed parts. The smile on her face the first time she started the mill (which hums like a jet engine when running) was priceless. I had an equally satisfying day as I met with a vendor who has a component that will work nicely for a design I have in mind, got promising results on a new carbon fiber line I am experimenting with, interviewed a couple of potentially interesting ME candidates, and visited one of two sites which are in the running for our new office.

On her second day of interning, Maya graduated from soldering and crimping to 3D CAD design and printing. The CEO gave her a photo of a retention clip used by one of our customers to keep the fiber from jumping off our dispensing spools. Maya took it from there. She made measurements of the spool, used OnShape (a program she had begun teaching herself only yesterday) to complete the design, and Eiger (our software) to prepare the part for printing. By the end of the day she had designed and manufactured her first part and it worked perfectly.

Maya started an engineering technician internship at MarkForged today. She was immediately productive, spending most of the day making cable assemblies (crimping connector pins to wires and soldering connections). She worked for 12 hours on her first day, demonstrating that she could keep up with anyone in the shop. I could not be more happy. Even though she worked ten feet from my desk, I was also very busy and barely had five minutes to check in with her. Our two hour round trip commute, however, gave as plenty of time to chat and compare notes. Did I mention how happy this makes me? More importantly, I think Maya had a great time and even better learning experience.

This evening I taught Maya how to solder. Pictured here is one of her practice assignments. She starts an internship at MarkForged tomorrow which requires this skill. As with anything that involves great manual dexterity and attention to detail, Maya was a natural, producing perfect solder joints from her first attempt.

There is something intensely satisfying about eating food that was grown down the street. We are very fortunate to live near Verrill Farm where we are members of their CSA. I stopped in today for lunch after an exhausting soccer workout in the blazing sun and high heat. I managed 5 goals in the small-sided scrimmage including the game winner. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening working on a document describing my initial impressions of MarkForged after one month on the job. It will be part of a read-ahead package for the Board of Directors that needs to go out next week and I am glad to have it completed ahead of time.

Nico returned late this evening from Georgia where he spent the last three days at a speaking engagement for Camp Coleman, a program of the Union for Reform Judaism, serving campers from the Southeast United States.  In addition to sharing his personal story he played soccer with the kids in each of the eight sessions he conducted. He looks exhausted but his main complaint was that he did not bring a soccer cleat with him.

I hope to augment this post with a picture of him at the camp which he is presently trying to obtain.

On the opposite coast, Kyle has been offered an internship with Decker and Co, a leading Asian emerging and frontier specialist broker. He is seriously considering the offer but has not made a final decision yet.

Maya returned this evening from her near 3 week adventure in France near the border with Italy. She was there with her friends, Sarrinagh and Emma and Emma’s family. Her exploits included paragliding, class 5 white water rafting, hiking in the Alps, and sampling the fine local cuisine. She returned with a treasure trove of photos a few of which are featured here today.

Having taken Monday as a vacation day and been on the road for two more, I found myself crushed by work upon return to the office. I arrived home at 2am this morning, was in the office by 10 am and worked passed midnight. No time for pictures today so here is another from South Dakota.

Our business meeting this morning wrapped up by 10:30am giving my colleagues and I a few hours more for exploration before our afternoon flight. We visited Jewel Cave National Monument and Wind Cave National Park only to find all tours fully booked. We did come across a heard of bison and had a chance to enjoy lunch/dinner at the Purple Pie Place which also featured exceptional ice cream.

It was back to work today. I dropped Jeanine off at the airport, returned our rental car and a few hours later picked up a new rental car and my arriving MarkForged colleagues. Our business meeting lasted from 11am to 5pm but with sunset not until 8:30pm we had time to do some sightseeing. We visited Mount Rushmore by way of the Needles Scenic Highway. Even though this was a repeat for me, I was happy to see these sights again. For dinner, I ordered an Indian Taco, something Jeanine had read about and wanted to try.

After much driving yesterday, our focus today turned to hiking. We started with the base trail around Devil’s Tower which we enjoyed immensely. It is a place of great spiritual significance to Native Americans and home to many birds which fill the air with song. The Vore Buffalo Jump is an archeological site in Crook County, Wyoming and our next destination. A sinkhole, formed where gypsum soil was eroded, leaving a steep-sided pit about 40 feet deep and 200 feet in diameter. Native American hunters would stampede bison into the pit, which was deep enough to kill or disable them. Used between 1500 AD to about 1800 AD, archeological investigation estimates place the number of buffalo remains at 20,000.

After a delightful lunch in Spearfish we explored the canyon of the same name. There we visited Bridal Falls, Spearfish Falls, Roughlock Falls, and made an extended hike to a local swimming hole featuring a natural rock slide. The hike is up a very narrow canyon and it is necessary to cross the stream within it dozens of times. After our first few attempts at dry crossings we decided it would be easier if we just walked through the water with our shoes on. Jeanine is pictured below traversing a tricky section of the “trail” by clinging to the canyon wall and sidestepping along a narrow ledge.

By evening we had returned to Rapid City, exploring the old downtown and enjoyed dinner at a restaurant on the Main Street Square where hundreds were gathered for “Movies Under the Stars” night. The free film featured this evening was The Boxtrolls.