With Jeanine set to begin her sabbatical travel next week, I am getting ready for the kitchen makeover I will be doing while she is away. We renovated the kitchen when we moved in over 16 years ago and kitchen fashion has changed since then. In order to ready the house for sale, I will be painting much of the existing cabinetry a very light gray. In the coming weeks, you will no doubt hear about other elements of the project. Today I constructed a painting booth within my workshop. I will be using an HVLP sprayer to make quick work of the 44 doors and drawer fronts I need to paint. Doing so requires a dust-free area and some method of containing the overspray. I used 2mm polyethylene to fashion walls and leftover house wrap for the floors of my make-shift 8’x18′ paint booth. Access is by way of a flap door at the front and ventilation will be through the sliding patio doors at the back.

I apologize for the number of food shots posted this week but between work and helping Jeanine with photography for her book, I have had little time for anything else. I took this photo earlier in the week and am now wondering what came of the subject which I would very much like to sample.

Food photography for Jeanine’s book continued this evening. This was the most difficult shot yet; not because of the lighting or composition but rather the anticipation of the meal.

More food photography for Jeanine’s book this evening after a long day at work. The camera work took no more than a few minutes. Setting up the shot, however, took a very long time. I wish my mother was here. She has an eye for still life composition that neither Jeanine or I can come close to. Jeanine’s self-imposed deadline has her cranking away down the home stretch.

As has been the case in the last two presidential primary elections, Jeanine and I voted for different candidates. Even so, we are very much aligned on what we want in a president and I have no doubt we will be voting for the same person in November. We were a little disappointed that only one of our children took advantage of this opportunity to vote. I am confident that this situation will be rectified in the national election.

One of Jeanine’s first goals while on sabbatical is to complete her memoir cookbook. To that end, she has asked me to help out with the food photography which I am more than happy to do. The job pays extremely well; all the cookies you can eat!

This evening we dined with the boys at the French restaurant, Colettes to celebrate the start of Jeanine’s sabbatical. It was great to catch up with them and to discuss our respective thoughts on candidates for next week’s primary election in Massachusetts. Kyle reported on his new job and the difficulty in saying goodbye to his current colleagues. Nicolai who has not been all that thrilled with his master’s degree coursework at Lesley is now in a class with a teacher he admires and it sounds like he is having fun. We missed not sharing the meal with Maya, especially knowing that she is suffering from the flu which she contracted from her roommate.

Had I been more interested in a nice dinner than a photo of these stupid turkeys, I would have run them over when they ran across the street right in front of my car. Fortunately, I was not very hungry.

Today is Jeanine’s last day on the job as Executive Director of Open Table before her 3-month sabbatical begins. Yesterday when she was contemplating gift ideas to leave behind for her staff, I suggested a modern-day equivalent of the Magic 8 Ball. Her team can ask questions of this device and it will respond with pre-recorded answers from Jeanine. We made the recordings last night and I programmed them into the “Ask Jeanine” button. My favorite response; “That’s a very good question. Give me a few months to think about it.”

Maya continues to enjoy her term abroad in Amsterdam. Safe to say she has immersed herself in the culture (and fashion) of the Netherlands. The COVID-19 outbreak in Italy has curtailed her plans to visit there this weekend but we are sure she will find other ways to take advantage of her time in Europe.

Exciting news from Kyle today. He has accepted an offer from Touchplan, the software division of MOCA Systems as their Senior Business Intelligence Analyst/Developer. The company is located 3 blocks from Boston City Hall and an 18-minute walk from his Seaport District apartment. The company develops project planning and management software for the construction industry. It was a tough decision to leave Cengage where he has enjoyed great mentorship and camaraderie but the offer was too good to pass up and will allow him to more quickly advance his career objectives.

I am not one for jumping on viral social media trends but find myself compelled to do so this time. The tragic death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter, Gianna, and seven others last month has given rise to the #girldad movement, celebrating Kobe’s joy in being the father of girls and his desire that they enjoy the same rights, opportunities, and privileges as boys. So here is to my girl.

Nicolai returned last night from a week-long vacation in Colorado Springs where he was reunited with Karuna and Kubo. We have received very few details of the visit beyond this photo and can’t wait to hear more.

Jeanine and I enjoyed the afternoon outdoors taking advantage of unseasonably warm weather. We were motivated by news of river otters sightings at the Needham Reservoir. A half-mile hike around the reservoir yielded no encounters so we drove to nearby Cutler Park Reservation where we completed a 4-mile hike down to the Charles River, pictured above. Although we never spotted any otters, we did come across many swans, ducks, geese, and several water dogs.

Jeanine and I drove into Boston today to have lunch with Kyle. He is looking terrific and we used the occasion to discuss some exciting new options on his professional horizon. Jeanine spent the balance of the afternoon making plans for her three-month sabbatical which starts next Friday. Later we went to see The Call of the Wild, the release of which we have both been eagerly awaiting.

While having our weekly townhall style lunch at work today, the power suddenly went out. The interruption affected all buildings in our immediate area and lasted for well over an hour. Some employees continued to work by flashlight while others used their cell phones to illuminate the foosball table for a “night match.”

I have now lost count on how many teeth I have broken. I grind my teeth while sleeping and am apparently quite good at it. At some point, I will need to have several teeth replaced but until their loss interferes with eating, I am in no hurry.

Meet Charlotte Grace Basile-Skinner, the daughter of Jeanine’s niece, Erica. She tipped the scales at 8 pounds 9 ounces despite being a couple of weeks early. Her family calls her “Charley.” Jeanine starts a three-month sabbatical in 2 weeks and plans to travel to Kentucky for a visit with the newest member of our extended family. Charley is pictured below with her siblings, Lily and Will.

I continue to replace my corded power tools with cordless (battery-driven) versions. My planar is one of the last to make the transition and is now on Craig’s List in search of a happy home. As soon as DeWALT offers a cordless biscuit joiner, my toolset will be complete.

Those who know me well understand that I have a special place in my heart for quality tools. Today’s goal was to shop for a multi-tool that will permanently live in my car. It will join a small set of tools already there that will allow me to address any number of repair challenges I may encounter while on the road. After half a day of research, I settled on the Letherman Free P2 and procured one at REI. Once I had a chance to actually use it myself, I have decided to return it in favor of the Letherman Charge+. While the P2 is among the latest and greatest from Letherman, it is optimized for ease of tool deployment rather than the utility of the tools themselves. The Charge+ has better tools and hopefully, it will only be used on rare occasions so a few extra seconds to access the desired tool is of no consequence.

I spent the better part of the day making repairs and improvements to our double wall oven whose doors have not worked properly for years now. Fortunately, I was able to locate the perfectly sized platform I built when I installed the ovens some 15 years ago which made extraction from the wall relatively straightforward. When I took the oven apart, I found all four hinge/spring mechanisms had been mechanically deformed due to excessive weight having been placed on the open doors. I was able to look up the replacement part number only to find that the $200 apiece components are no longer available anywhere. This left me no choice but to repair the mechanisms which was no picnic as each contained four high force springs and a mechanical linkage that could easily amputate a finger if not handled carefully. It took me two hours to come up with a safe procedure and make the repair to the first one. I completed the remaining three in less than an hour. This improved the door closure but it was still not perfect. The problem now was that the gaskets surrounding the opening to the oven had hardened over time. A thorough cleaning helped to soften them slightly but still no joy on total door closure. I finally solved the problem with four very powerful rare earth magnets strategically placed to make a magnetic closure (similar to a refrigerator door). The doors now work better than they did when the oven was new.

Those who know me are aware that the only radio station I listen to is NPR. It is also my habit to send Jeanine a dozen roses for Valentine’s Day and to support the station’s fundraising in so doing. This year, I decided to also give Jeanine a Meyer lemon tree. The one that was passed down to her by her father did not survive an attempt to re-pot it last year and I know its loss has left an empty spot in her heart. She was as thrilled to receive it as I was to give it.

Today I consulted at Formlabs. I had a total of 17scheduled meetings and a working lunch with my prior engineering leadership team. Although I was exhausted by the end, it was also a very satisfying day. I enjoy mentoring and coaching and on this occasion feel I made a positive difference for many I met with. I returned home to a lovingly prepared Valentine’s Day dinner with Jeanine and we enjoyed a quiet evening at home. I outdid myself with a gift for her which I will cover in tomorrow’s post.

There was a lot of excitement at work today as parts for a new printer arrived. Everyone chipped in with the build effort. Unlike the high volume products I have worked on in the recent past, we build our products in house. The base and gantry pictured here weigh over a thousand pounds which necessitates some pretty interesting construction techniques.

Winter thus far has been rather mild. I suspect we still have at least one big storm in front of us but would be just as happy if today’s light snow is the last of the season.

The last time I was in Amsterdam was with Nicolai in 2007. We had a layover there while en route to Tanzania. We had just enough time for a bus tour of the city before heading back to the airport. Nicolai has terrorized pigeons on 4 continents.

Maya shared a photograph of her breakfast taken in Amsterdam where she is studying abroad. I am counting on her for more pictures to help sustain my daily posting need for relevant photos.

Jeanine and I spent the night at the Elm Street Inn, a delightful bed and breakfast directly across the street from Smith College. After a fantastic breakfast, we went for a walk on campus passing by the President’s house, strolling through a small Japanese garden and visiting, at length, the Botanic Garden pictured below.

Jeanine and I traveled to Northampton, MA today to meet up with my cousin Heather and her husband Burton. They treated us to a wonderful dinner followed by a modern dance recital featuring the choreography of their daughter, Toni. The performance, which we enjoyed thoroughly, was her final project towards a Master of Fine Arts degree from Smith College.

A storm this evening left vegetation covered in thick ice at higher elevations.

At work, our 3D metal printers require an inert atmosphere in order to prevent oxidation. This is achieved by filling our hermetically sealed printing chamber with argon gas. We use so much of it that we have a large tank behind our facility which is replenished every time it runs low. This evening, I had a chance to watch as the “argon man” refilled the tank within the foggy mist created by the process.