It was appropriate that Nicolai was dressed in business attire this morning (he has a mock court appearance today in his constitutional law class). He is pictured here signing an endorsement agreement that we have negotiated with SideStix, the maker of his forearm crutches. Nicolai is now an Ambassador for the company seeking to promote sales, provide marketing collateral materials (video and still photos), represent the company at tradeshows, and generally evangelize the product. It is hoped that his accomplishments on the soccer field for the American Amputee Soccer Association’s US National team will make SideStix the crutch of choice for serious athletes. In exchange for his endorsement, he has received a modest equity stake in the company and will receive a royalty stream on all SideStix sales. He joins his brother in owning part of a business before the age of majority. Nicolai is excited about his new role and I am confident he will help SideStix grow significantly.

With all the rain we have had this spring everything has bloomed with greater than usual magnificence. I spent a few minutes after work exploring our gardens and settled on this pair of beauties for today’s photo. Jeanine spent part of the weekend in Schenectady with my sisters Mayela and Alissa and my mother and her sister Maruja. They completed what turned out to be a very successful estate sale as we continued to prepare the home of our youth for sale. It looks like the house should be ready to list in a few more weeks.

We enjoyed the first corn of the season as Jeanine prepared a wonderful dinner on the grill. We were joined by my nephew, John Quinn, who spent most of the weekend with us. I was in action on the soccer pitch this morning and played very well as my team kept our perfect season intact with a 2-1 win.

At Nico’s request, I added some glow-in-the-dark tape to his crutches so that he could find them in the dark. We have passed the idea along to SideStix and hope they will include this feature on future crutches. Next, I plan to add some reflective tape to make the crutches highly visible to night-time drivers. These two improvements add almost no weight or cost but significantly improve the safety and convenience of the crutches.

An 11 AM return flight to Boston afforded me a few hours of photography this morning. The Fremont Troll, pictured above, is a mixed-media colossal statue, located on Troll Avenue, under the north end of the Aurora Bridge. It is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle, as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above. Locals are quick to point out that the VW bears a California license plate. Despite a late departure from SeaTac which nearly cost me my connection through Dallas, I arrived in Boston by 11 PM and was fast asleep in my bed, exhausted from the jam-packed 3-day excursion, by midnight.

iRobot is negotiating with the University of Washington to expand a technology license agreement. I am here to conduct technical due diligence (assessing risk and development cost). My meeting lasted all day and was quite productive. For dinner I was joined by good friends, Rob and Cindy Shurtleff as well as my mentee from the MIT Gordon Engineering Leadership program, Nora, and her fiance Simon. We enjoyed sharing tapas at the Terra Plata (earth to plate) organic restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood (roughly equivalent to NYC’s Greenwich Village). It was truly a memorable evening and I was thrilled to introduce my friends to each other.

I left the house at 4 AM this morning for the airport. Today is a travel day to Seattle where I have business at the University of Washington tomorrow. I traded the ridiculously early flight for an early arrival in the Emerald City permitting some photography in the late afternoon. My first stop, pictured above is Snoqualmie Falls of Twin Peaks fame. I was not able to hike to the bottom due to construction but was lucky to catch them at peak flow. My next stop was Kerry Park which offers a classic view of the Seattle Space Needle and skyline. I was fortunate to catch a brief window without rain and a clear view of Mount Rainier some 60 miles in the distance.

My final stop was Seattle Center which is a treasure trove of photographic inspiration.

Boston has its Marathon… Pamplona has the bulls… New Orleans has Mardi Gras… San Francisco has the historic Bay to Breakers 12k run.

The 101-year old event is one of the world’s largest and oldest footraces, held annually in San Francisco. The name reflects the traditional course which takes tens of thousands of participants from the northeast end of the downtown area near The Embarcadero (the “bay” side of the city) to the west end of the city and the “breakers” of Ocean Beach. The 7.46 mile (12 kilometer) race features world-class athletes in addition to costumed runners and ‘fun-loving’ folks out for a great day of running and walking through San Francisco.

Kyle and a group of his college friends participated in this years event and he just sent us this photo. More than 30 years ago, while at Stanford, my college roommate and I also ran in the race. I am glad Kyle embraced the spirit of the spectacle by wearing what appears to be a monkey hat. My conventional track suit stuck out like a sore thumb in a field which included a 100 person centipede and several naked runners. Only in California.

Our peonies and azaleas are in full bloom right now, thanks to the efforts of the local bees, which pollinate them. It took some time before I was able to capture one of these flying wonders in focus. To my eye, they appear quite drunk as they migrate from flower to flower, covered in pollen.

Less than 15 minutes from Ferry Beach I never fail to visit the Scarborough Marsh, Maine’s largest salt water marsh. It is a wonderful bird sanctuary and one of my favorite photographic subjects in this neck of the woods.

My team’s soccer match against Hudson this morning proved to be an epic battle. We secured an early goal and defended vigorously until the final minutes when we put the match out of reach with a second goal. This victory gives us a first place finish in Division 2 and guarantees promotion to Division 1 in the fall. I took great caution (jets dialed down to 95%) to keep from re-injuring my hamstring and saw a lot of action. I had a nice midfield run beating a couple of defenders to set up our final goal.

I spent the balance of the day configuring a new computer which is blissfully faster than my last one. As image sizes continue to increase and my photo library expands this upgrade was more of a necessity than a luxury.

Ferry Beach means different things to each member of our family. Jeanine enjoys biking, socializing on the porch or beach, and playing games in the evening. Up until two years ago her favorite activity was preparing meals for the camp in its industrial strength kitchen. This is now handled by the camp staff and I know she still misses the opportunity to cook with big pots. Maya enjoys the talent show, running in and out of the waves on the beach, playing “nukem” (an odd variant of volleyball) and being reunited with her twin, Maia (pronounced Maya) Rose Pedula, pictured here in the first portrait. The girls share first and middle names and are like peas in a pod. Nicolai enjoys hanging out with the other teenagers in his peer group and is always the first to initiate a serious game of volleyball or to compete in the croquet tournament. Kyle always enjoyed Ferry Beach and we really miss not having him with us this year.

I usually bring my kayak but this year with only one day to spend at camp I focused on my other passion, photographing all the kids. Pictured here are some of my favorites from this year. The complete album can be viewed at this link.

I need to return to Concord this evening for a pivotal soccer match tomorrow morning against Hudson. A win will guarantee our team promotion to Division 1 and I want to ensure a restful night’s sleep before the match. I was awakened at 4am this morning by Maya’s snoring and was not able to fall back to sleep after I got up to rotate her off her back.

Memorial Day weekend is synonymous with Ferry Beach for the Calabria’s. Each year we travel to Maine for a Unitarian Universalist church retreat with members of Concord’s and Lexington’s First Parish congregations. My favorite iRobot benefit is a summer hours program allowing folks who have already worked 40 hours to take off at noon on Fridays. I used this option to get a head start on the two-hour drive avoiding the otherwise brutal traffic. After the sunset, I put a recently acquired camera through its paces as I photographed Maya and her friends playing with glow sticks in near-total darkness.

I watched this little fellow as he jumped from branch to branch munching away on the tiny blooms and buds of this tree. Not clear to me where all the food was going as every photo I took showed him with a beak full of food. Occasionally he would swoop down to the ground for a worm or grub. Unlike some of the other birds I have photographed, this guy is very easy to keep track of.

Nicolai recently began testing a new pair of crutches from SideStix with prototype grips. In the background, I have been negotiating with the co-founders on an agreement to formalize his relationship with the company. We are hopeful that this will result in a mutually advantageous arrangement for both the company and Nicolai. Details to follow if the deal comes to fruition. Nicolai has been a very effective ambassador for the company over the years and his field testing of their new products has led to design changes that have substantially improved the durability of the crutches.