Following our strategic offsite meeting yesterday, the iRobot board met today for the company’s annual shareholder meeting and a review of current operating results. I did a presentation covering the recent restructuring of the engineering organization which went very well. For a second night in a row, I was invited to join the board for dinner, this time as they celebrated the service of one of the company’s co-founders and former Chairman, Helen Greiner. Helen had just returned from Peru and had hiked the Inca trail. We enjoyed comparing notes on the climb and I learned that we also shared Kilimanjaro and the Kalalau trails in common. I enjoyed hearing stories from the early years of iRobot and getting to know members of the board better. Colin Angle, our current CEO, presented Helen with photos of two pedestal-mounted robots she had helped to develop. The installations were too massive to transport to the restaurant and will be delivered later. All in all a very enjoyable evening.

Each year the iRobot Board of Directors and senior management participate in a day-long off-site strategy planning session. Today we listened to briefs by the former President of Bose and a colleague regarding their entry into the Chinese market, a professor at the University of New Hampshire on the cultural underpinnings of intellectual property theft in China, and President Obama’s Cyber Security Czar on threats in a networked digital age. We also heard from a board member on trends in consumer spending in the current economic environment and finally a look at defense spending projections. Following these presentations, we worked in small teams to formulate major strategic themes for iRobot for the next 3-5 years. Afterwards, a large subset of the participants shared dinner together and I enjoyed getting to know many of them better.

After three weeks off the pitch I tested my hamstring this morning in our match against Sudbury. When we had established a nice lead I went on in short shifts and was careful to avoid any full tilt sprints. It was great to get some touches on the ball and to rebuild my endurance. I had a nice intercept and assist on our final goal but more importantly did not re-injure my hamstring. We easily won by a margin of 6-0 keeping our undefeated record in tact. Nicolai and I worked together to repair the bumper on the Smart Car during the afternoon. He failed to slow down sufficiently for a speed bump at school and tore off the bumper and the undercarriage splash guard. When he learned that the repair would cost $1600 by the dealer he was all to happy to assist me as we did the work ourselves. He will still have to purchase a few parts to complete the repairs but it is unlikely the total bill will exceed $100. Later in the day Jeanine alerted me to the presence of a snake that she encountered on her walk around the neighborhood. I was all too happy to go after it with my camera.

After a week of what seemed like constant rain, the weekend is off to a spectacular start with high temperatures in the forecast for tomorrow. Perfect weather for harvesting hay. A local farmer comes a couple of times per year to cut and bale the grass that grows in the field behind our house. Jeanine and I watched Maya’s soccer match in the morning, had lunch with her at Helen’s after the game, and enjoyed a nature walk on the Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary grounds late in the afternoon, where love was in the air.

It was nice to receive an e-mail from Kyle this morning including this photo taken by a friend. Apparently, his date invited him to the school formal (facts here are a little fuzzy) and he had a great time. Kyle really seems to be enjoying his first year of college. He has done very well scholastically and continues to find great relevance in the class work to his ever-expanding Yard Dogs business. We are looking forward to his return which regrettably is later than most schools. Perhaps at that time we will learn more details of his mystery date.

Maya seeks to quench her thirst after completing the 4x400m relay at her track meet this afternoon. She also ran in the 800m event. Her form continues to improve and she looked very fast in the relay even though she is suffering from shin splints. She is currently dancing, running track, and playing soccer so it is not too hard to figure out why she is developing this painful condition. If the situation does not improve, we will have to cut back on one or more of these activities.

I can’t ever recall seeing Nicolai so well dressed over the course of a single week. Today is the first of three during which he will argue Roe v Wade in front of his Constitutional Law class. He and a partner will argue Roe while two other students will present Wade in front of the entire class which will question them as if the Supreme Court. It seems like a very powerful way to teach this course and I know Nico has worked hard preparing himself for the assignment. Other landmark decisions will be argued by the rest of the class providing everyone a first-row seat to our constitution at work. Nico, I have often thought, would make a good lawyer. It will be interesting to see how he fares in this highly charged and competitive class exercise.

Earlier this week this blog turned seven years old. It is hard for me to believe that I have kept at it for so long. I often wonder if the kids will ever go back to read any of the older entries or if one day they will show their children what was happening in their lives as they grew up. If nothing else, I plan to return to these pages in my old age to help remember all that transpired during this time of our lives. I will admit that there are days when it is more of a chore than a pleasure to create the next entry but on balance, I have come to enjoy the process.

We had a nice break in the weather this afternoon so I went for a walk on my lunch hour. Had I been in the mood for a turkey sandwich it would have taken no effort what so ever to capture this bird which found itself cornered against a building as I approached to photograph it. Knowing Maya had experience with poultry harvesting (beheading and plucking) and that Jeanine can make a delicious meal out of anything, I actually spent a few minutes considering how I might capture and transport this gobbler home before letting go of the not so unrealistic idea.

This evening I had a chance to post prom photos from the weekend and have settled on this portrait of Nico as my favorite solo of him. I must say that both of my sons know how to make a tuxedo look good. Probably because we trained them from an early age.

Last night after Nico’s pre-prom party I drove to Schenectady with a car full of tools and electrical components arriving at about 11PM. My one day mission is to convert the house from fuses to circuit breakers and to replace the antiquated knob and tube surface wiring with armored cable and modern fixtures. I started work at 5AM and finished 16 hours later before making the three hour drive back to Concord. An exhausting day by any measure. At noon my mother and I joined sister Alissa and her daughter Rachel for a lunch time celebration of Mother’s Day. Not too many moms would appreciate circuit breakers in lieu of flowers but I am pretty sure mine did. Pictured below is the “after” picture which can be compared to the “before” picture from last weekend.

Nicolai invited many of his friends and Jeanine invited all of their parental units to a pre-prom party and photo shoot at the house this evening. In total we had nine couples and 30 or so parents many of whom stayed on after the kids departed for our own little party. This was our first opportunity to meet Lila, Nico’s date. She was both charming and beautiful.

I worked like a mad man herding couples into the basement, a pair at a time, for a studio portrait and then corralling them all together in the backyard for a group portrait. Despite the time pressure, I am very pleased with results and think everyone will be pleased with the outcome. The kids could not have been more cooperative and into the photography which made it a lot of fun for me. I have posted the full album here.

Quite unhappy that she was not able to read her new book, Jeanine asked me to look at her Kindle this morning. It did not take long before I had completely disassembled the unit and identified the source of the problem. Although it looked fine from the front, the back of the viewing screen was badly cracked making a repair impossible. When I explained what had happened, Jeanine remembered “shoving” a water bottle into her purse containing the Kindle last night. Mystery no more.

I luckily arrived just in time to watch Maya run two events in a track meet with Lexington early this evening. She ran the 800m (improving her personal best by 6/10ths of a second) and the third leg of the 4x400m relay (pictured here). Later on, Nicolai joined me for soccer practice with my team. I did some light running and played for a few minutes at 25% intensity. My hamstring has healed faster than I expected but it was totally clear to me that I will not be ready to play this weekend. Nico looked nimble among the over-50 crowd and I suspect that he will gain a lot from practicing with us as he works to stay in shape for his next match with the AASA.

For reasons unknown to me, Maya decided to put on her point shoes after dinner. Rather than inquire what she was doing, I simply asked if I could photograph them. She was more than willing and we completed a series of two dozen images of just the shoes in various states of ballet pose. At the end of the session, I capture a few ful- body portraits. I cherish these times with Maya and will look back on these photos decades from now with fond, fond memories.