After dinner, Nicolai and I experimented with some candlelight photography.

This afternoon the family plus Hannah drove to Schenectady to visit my parents for the weekend. My father has recovered nicely from recent health issues and my mom just never seems to age. Hannah just returned from a family vacation in Turkey and that made two of us who were jet lagged.

My final morning in Hong Kong is spent making a brief visit to our office there. Pictured is the building in which we are located and the exquisite view it affords of the city.

At each factory we enjoy lunch in the on-site VIP dining hall with our hosts. A single factory can employ and provide dormitory housing and dining facilities for more than 50,000 workers. Contrast that to the population of Concord which is 15,000. iRobot products require more than 2000 workers to assemble and test. After completing our meetings and tours we hop on a ferry and make the 90 minute voyage back to Hong Kong.

We travelled to the Hung Pu area this morning for another series of all day meetings arriving at the Crowne Plaza Hotel early enough to take a quick walk before a business dinner. Adjacent to the hotel is the 98% completed Science City campus. It is overwhelming in both it’s architecture and scale but what I will remember most was how eerily vacant it was. I saw more dead butterflies than people during my one hour walk. The surrounding four lane roadways were almost completely empty during rush hour. Felt very post apocalyptic.

This morning my colleagues and I got an early start and traveled by car to China (Shenzhen area) where we had all-day meetings. I was so tired by the time we checked into our next hotel that I skipped dinner and went directly to sleep.

Meanwhile, on the home front, Nico enjoys a surprise World Cup Finals birthday party with his close friends. Photo courtesy of Jeanine. My Droid phone does not work in China, so I had little contact with family while I was on the road.

After arriving in Hong Kong and checking into my hotel I spend a few hours walking around in the 100 degree weather arriving at the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront by nightfall. I will spend the coming week visitng our three factories in China (where photography is not permitted) and our Hong Kong office. I sleep for 5 hours and then wake up to watch the World Cup finals at 2:30 in the morning.

Today, I leave on a business trip to Hong Kong and China. The total elapsed travel time is about 24 hours, and with a day for night time zone change I will not arrive until Sunday evening, local time. Does the nose of this plane remind anyone else of a dog’s face?

Maya is on Nantucket with friends for the next week so she missed our family birthday party for Nicolai. He requested a macaroni and cheese casserole followed by a dessert of chocolate mouse with raspberry sauce in lieu of birthday cake. He was delighted with the sunglasses he received from his little sister and will need to wait a few days longer before his world cup soccer ball (from mom and dad) and replacement cell phone (from Kyle) arrive. I leave for China early tomorrow morning and will be on the road for a week so new posting may not show up until next weekend.

Nicolai shows off scars from two of the three holes in his belly put there since his mother gave him the first. 16 years ago to the day, I watched Nico come into the world, not quite able to comprehend the absence of his right leg. As I cut his umbilical cord I struggled to imagine what his life and our lives would be like from that day forward. Looking back now, I feel blessed for the precious gift we received on that day. Happy birthday Nicolai.

Catching up at work after a week of vacation is never an easy thing. Twelve hours in the office left little time for photography but I did manage to catch a nice sunset.

As a pilot, my brother Mark’s family enjoys free air travel. The only downside is that they are never guaranteed a particular flight and today they were unable to get seats. On the bright side we got to enjoy an extra day of their company and I took advantage of the opportunity to photograph my nieces, Sophia and Rose.

Checking the mailbox today after a week away we found a front page article in the Concord Journal about Nico’s Challenge (the film documenting our Kilimanjaro adventure). Despite a few factual errors, it is a nice piece, the full copy of which can be found by clicking on this link.