Today was my first day on the new job at Sonos. This is the view out my 6th floor office window overlooking Cambridge. The inbound commute leaving at 7:30AM took 90 minutes. The return home at 8PM took 35 minutes (the same as my Avid commute). I am definitely going to time shift my day to work around rush hour or may opt to take the commuter rail and work on the WiFi enabled trains. The company has a great vibe and I can already tell this job is going to be a very good fit for me.
This evening for family night we went to the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in search of a family of foxes that have been seen in the area. We did see a ground hog and a mallard duck but no foxes. Nico grew bored and suggested a sequence of interesting photos which we post processed at home.
On the way back from the match I ran across this fellow grazing in a field and had to stop for a quick photo.
Kyle took this picture of me this morning as I was leaving for my game. We played Lexington on their home field which has artificial turf. This surface plays very fast and favors my style of play. I scored a pair of really sweet goals to help my team to a 4-1 win and we remained undefeated on the season. The sun was out and it was surprisingly hot. I downed a gallon of lemonade when I returned home and was still thirsty.
Kyle has taken on the job of mowing our lawn. Apparently he thought he would work on his tan at the same time. He displayed an interesting finger gesture when he discovered I was photographing him from the porch. Kyle is certainly no red-neck, but you can get a very nice look at a soccer tan by clicking on this photo for a larger view.
Maya, every bit as tough as her older brothers, fends off a much larger opponent during her game this morning. By establishing inside shoulder position she is guaranteed to win this ball. Maya had her first chest trap and full volley in this game which ended in a 3-3 tie.
This evening Jeanine hosted another healthy cooking teaching session. Pictured here are an assortment of beans that will make their way into the final dishes. Jeanine, working with my sister Alissa, came up with a catch phrase for her new business . The Earth Mama: Collaborative cooking, nourishing the heart, body, and soul.
Our walk concluded at the Wayside Inn and the kids paused for a group photo framing a plaque commemorating Nathaniel Hawthorne. The careful observer will note that I have lost one of my charges. Fear not for he is behind the rock. I will say that the boys in this group were rather rambunctious and it took more than a little self restraint to keep from tying the whole lot together.
We started at the Hillside Burying Ground where we lined up the children before seperateing them into smaller groups. I had Maya, Julia, Kyle, Avi, Connor, Jack and John. Our tour focused on the pre-1775 homes and I shared information about life in Concord at that time, the architecture of the homes, the families that lived there and some funny stories we had learned about during my training the week before.
Today I joined Maya’s 2nd grade class for a field trip to historic Lexington Road in downtown Concord. It has been a very long time since I rode a school buss and I was surprised by all the memories that came flooding back. I was also amazed by how little has changed.
I woke up to find Maya eating breakfast on the stairs with her pig. Oddly, this passes for normal behavior at the Calabria house. Today marks three years of continuous posting on my photo blog. What started as an exercise to improve my photography has morphed into a journal of our lives. Although it does take considerable time to keep up, I think it is one of the projects I will look back on with the greatest pride and hopefully be something the kids revisit for many years to come.
Here I am in the process of bonding the deck and hull together (inside joints). I built three suspension cradles so that I could let gravity help me for a change. Fitting a 2 inch wide fiberglass tape to the internal seam over a 16 foot length is no easy task. I attached a brush to a 4 foot stick to allow me to reach into the far ends.
Today I made great progress on the kayak. Here I am using a high intensity lamp to speed the epoxy cure time on the hip plates (this is where the back band attaches). I made a nice little reflector (triangular affair sitting on the bottom of the hull) to focus the heat from above on both plates. In the background you can see two hatch cutouts and one of the two bulkheads.
Today after school Maya and Jeanine went out to make animal track castings. This plaster of paris casting is of a mink. See if you can make out all five toes.