Most Concord residents have driven past this building thousands of times and probably never really stopped to admire its beauty. It is the Old Concord Reformatory Building located immediately adjacent to the Massachusetts Correctional Institute, a medium-level security prison located on state Route 2 just off the main rotary. Its 1,350 inmates once included Malcolm X and it was visited in 1988 by Mother Theresa. As far as I have been able to ascertain, no one has ever escaped from the facility, the oldest men’s prison in the state.

Members of iRobot’s Defense and Security Business Unit sampled a dozen different chili recipes to determine the best overall, hottest, best flavor, and most original. Not a fan of foods which cause pain, I decided to watch and wait before selecting a few of the milder chilies to sample. The noon meal included cornbread, salads, desserts, and all the fixings and made for a very nice interlude to an otherwise hectic day. I used soccer practice this evening as justification for more than one visit to the dessert table but discovered that poor fuel makes for poor athletic performance.

My excitement over having found a sub 2 pound pair of trekking boots quickly dissipated this evening during a brief 30-minute training hike. I was born with flat feet and they do not respond well to any footwear which attempts to enforce an arch of any kind. Even though these new boots feel as comfortable as a well-worn pair of lambskin slippers, the muscles in my feet were in agony after just the first mile. I suspect that if I wear them for several days my feet will eventually adapt but I cannot take that risk so I am back to square one in my search for ultralight boots. Foot pain aside, I did enjoy some nice fall scenes on my walk.

Nothing has a greater impact on your comfort when trekking over great distances than the right pair of boots. After much searching and experimentation, I believe I have found the set that will carry me over the 150 mile Nepal trek I am planning for December. Pictured on the right are my Lowa Renegade’s. These are my go to boots and I love everything about them. The problem is that they are rather heavy at 2.8 pounds/pair. It is estimated that every pound of boot weight is the equivalent of five pounds of pack weight. On my trek I will take roughly 300,000 steps so think me not crazy as I look to shave every gram off my boot weight. In the foreground are a pair of Solomon Synapse which I purchased this evening and are likely going to be the boot I take to Nepal. They weigh a scant 1.9 pounds and are both waterproof and insulated. I don’t like the way they look but a few coats of mud should tone them down a bit. The remainder of the boots do not measure up for one reason or another. One pair will be returned, another I have gifted to Kyle, who shares my foot size, and the last will be relegated to yard work duty. For the next several weeks I will live in my new boots to ensure that they are broken in and fit for purpose.

Despite her fine play, primarily at center mid, Maya’s high school soccer team suffered their first loss today to Acton Boxborough by a margin of 0-1. The game was very close and the difference, in my estimation, came down to bench strength and finishing. AB had 12 subs to Concord’s 2 and by the end of the match, we did not have the legs to score an equalizer despite several excellent opportunities. I believe a second encounter with this team will produce a very different outcome. Maya has really developed a strong sense of the mid field position and I think it is a very good fit for her skills and playing style.

Another beautiful fall day dominated by rain. My soccer team faced Belmont this morning in what proved to be a very even match, resulting in a 1-1 tie. Normally, I tend to play better in foul weather, perhaps because it adds a certain amount of unpredictability to the game and I am quick to capitalize on small mistakes of the defense. Although I played well today, I was not able to capitalize on either of two scoring opportunities that I had. The first was on a fairly spectacular diving header in the first five minutes off a long cross which missed the net by a matter of inches. It is the kind of attempt that no one in my league is expected to make. Had I been a little quicker it would have been one for the history books. With minutes remaining in the game, my second opportunity was another header. I was unmarked in front of the net and received a perfect cross. I miss timed my jump and sent the ball over the cross bar on what for me should have been an easy put away. It was a long drive home replaying that attempt in my mind knowing I could have won the game with a more focused effort.

Nicolai left for Vancouver this morning where he will spend a few months working as an intern for SideStix, the manufacturer of his crutches. It is a fantastic learning opportunity in which he will participate in all aspects of the business from manufacturing and assembly to customer service and marketing. He will live in a one room cabin overlooking the Strait of Georgia on the Sunshine Coast just outside a little town called Roberts Creek. His departure was complicated by the fact that his ticket was originally booked for Friday which he only realized when the owners of SideStix, who had graciously offered to pick him up at the airport, called from Vancouver wondering where he was. Fortunately, Nico was able to explain the situation to the gate agent who was nice enough to re-book him on today’s flight without a penalty fee. The 5:30AM airport run served double duty as my brother Mark, having completed his business in Fitchburg, was headed back to Minneapolis on an early flight. With Jeanine in Vermont and Maya insistent on completing her homework, I spent much of the rest of the day hiking and photographing the fall foliage. I completed a 6 mile hike with my full Nepal pack weight (30 pounds) and had a chance to test out a new set of trekking poles. Despite the overcast skies, great fall scenes were in abundance and I returned home with hundreds of wonderful photos.

Maya’s soccer team is undefeated on the season and has yet to give up a single goal. Today they faced a very tough opponent in Westford High School which gave them a run for their money. Maya played the full game, much of it at center midfield, where she did an excellent job of ball distribution, a key responsibility of the position. The girls played hard and emerged with a 2-1 victory. I took very few photographs as much of the match was played in the rain. On the drive home I paused for a few photographs. Fall color this year is spectacular, the best I can remember in some time. Now if I could only get one sunny day before the show is over, I would be a happy man. My brother Mark arrived last night and spent the day in Fitchburg attending to a rental property that he owns there. When he returned we enjoyed a fine lamb stew that Jeanine left for us followed by an excursion to Bedford Farms for ice cream. Jeanine left early this morning for Burlington, Vermont to visit her sister Susan. There they will be celebrating the 70th birthday of close family friend Jean Cass.

Roughly once a month, iRobot employees are treated to a late afternoon beer party. A different group each time is charged with establishing a theme, dressing in costume, and distributing the beer and munchies throughout the facility using several push carts loaded with coolers. As is often the case, and of no consequence, it was not clear to me what the theme was this month. The addition of Halloween candy to the usual mix was a nice touch.

Nicolai took the Smart Car in for service today and returned with this loaner. $66 to replace one headlight and one brake light. $333 to replace both seat belt buckles (I wonder what the chances are that both failed but are not related to a design defect). $510 to replace brake pads and rotors. It would have almost been cheaper to buy a new car.

Maya’s CCHS Freshman team is doing very well this season, scoring 7 unanswered goals against Newton South in today’s game. Maya played a variety of positions including wing striker, wing midi, and outside defender, all on the left side. She follows in the family tradition of seeing the field well and making very deadly passes not to mention a penchant for headers.

I endeavor to include one of my photographs with every daily post. Today, however, I am going to depart from that tradition to include this 3 minute, YouTube video that was shared during the leadership training I attended last week. It illustrates, through an experiment with two Capuchian monkeys, the importance of equitable pay. Of all my responsibilities at work, there are none I take more seriously than ensuring equitable compensation and titles for members of my department. Against the advice of most HR professionals, I have on occasion gone as far as reducing the pay of the over compensated so that I could adequately fund raises for those who were deemed to be under compensated. When presented with my compensation philosophy, assessment model and data, I have found that most engineers favor the rather unconventional approach and extents to which I will go to ensure a fair outcome.

There is nothing I would rather do on my birthday than spend time in the great outdoors on a spectacular fall day. My morning was spent on the soccer pitch where I played well and managed not to re-injure my recovering calf muscle. Unfortunately, we lost a hard-fought battle that could have gone either way. The real treat was an afternoon hike in the Ipswich River Wildlife Sanctuary with the love of my life and her avian friends.

Meanwhile, Nicolai is visiting Colorado College located at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado Springs. He is visiting a friend and checking out the school as a possible alternate to the University of Miami where he is scheduled to begin his freshman year next fall.

With all of our work and evening social engagements this week, Jeanine and I have had little time to spend with my mother who is visiting us to celebrate my upcoming birthday. Today, however, we got to spend time together including a hiking excursion to the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. There, among other things, we discovered a frog-laden pond and this potential prince. Later, my mother joined me for a shopping run to REI where I obtained a few final items for my rapidly approaching Nepal trek. My mother turned 85 over the summer and I used this opportunity to provide her the belated gift of warmth (a down jacket, fleece mittens, cozy socks, and a pair of ear muffs). She is pictured below modeling a beautiful jacket that Jeanine gave to her for her birthday.