While visiting Kyle, who was working in Thailand at the time, we made a 3-day weekend excursion to Vietnam. It was little more than an appetizer which left me hungry for more. When Jeanine and I have both retired (only a couple of years away), I can see us spending several weeks, if not months, exploring this beautiful country.
As the new year begins, I am hoping it will offer an opportunity for adventure travel, something I have missed terribly since the start of the Covid pandemic. My 2021 motto is; “have vaccine, will travel.” In the blog this week, I will feature a new location each day where I hope to visit or revisit as soon as it is safe to do so again. Today’s entry is Greenland. I took the above photo from a commercial airliner while flying back to the US from Iceland.
At Digital Alloys, where I work as the CTO, we are focused on building a 3D metal printer with industrial capacity and commensurate proportions (think small car-sized). Today, I had the occasion to document one of the company’s early prototypes, a desktop version. As we seek new investors, interest in such a unit has been increasing and it would take very little effort to reactivate a program to bring such a model to market.
Light snow left the rhododendrons surrounding our house covered with a very pretty frosting. The rhodie leaves also offer a very predictable measure of temperature which can be ascertained at a glance. The colder it gets, the more the leaves droop. These bushes are very plentiful on our lot and I am looking forward to watching them bloom in the spring.
My youngest sister, Mayela, and her husband Stephen decided not to have children, but they have always had a loving family. Pictured above is her favorite “child, ” Peachy, who passed away peacefully today at the age of ten. I am fond of dogs and have lived with four over the course of my life. Peachy had the best qualities of all of them combined and was truly a special dog. She will be missed by all of us.
For the last two weeks, I have been on vacation. I have used that time to work on our new house and have been so busy that I have not been able to keep up with my daily blog entries. I have decided to forgive myself for this lapse and to consider it part of my vacation from normal daily routines. To start the new year, I thought I would take a look back at the kids when they were small. Few things make my heart happier than these tiny windows into the past and I can think of no better way to kick off a new year. I am happy to report that all three are gainfully employed and living independently, each less the 30 minutes away from us and minutes away from each other.
Out of an abundance of caution, we celebrated Christmas Eve outdoors this year. The kids joined us at our new home where we set up a temporary firepit just outside the house. There we enjoyed take-out Chinese food by the warmth of the fire. It was no less enjoyable than years past and perhaps even more so on a certain level. We certainly have a lot to be thankful for and our camping-like setting only minimized the distractions of modern life allowing us to focus more on each other.
Hoping to see the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn in the early night sky, Jeanine and I drove to a nearby field with an expansive view of the horizon. Already parked there were a dozen cars of similarly intentioned individuals. I immediately set up my tripod and mounted my camera and 600mm telephoto lens. I looked to the southwest by west direction and spotted a bright light in the sky. When I looked in the viewfinder, I could not believe how beautiful the image was. It kept changing colors as the clouds moved by. I was very excited that the predicted cloud cover was not obscuring the view. As I continued to take photos, I noticed that the object seemed to be moving. What’s more, the view through my lens did not match what I was seeing with my eyes. Long story short; I had aimed my camera at an approaching plane and my lens was not focused at the correct distance leading to exaggerated size and color effects. Below is a similarly defocused picture of our Christmas “tree” featured in a recent post.
Jeanine enjoys cooking over fire. The fact that our last home was one of only two in the entire neighborhood that was connected to natural gas was a big selling feature. Our new house is not and cooking over fire and will require the addition of a propane tank on the outside of the house. I have been encouraging her to consider an induction cooktop which offers many advantages if not familiarity. Today, she agreed to give one a test drive in our current kitchen which launched me on a research and shopping project. Although I found a couple of very nice units, lead times are running 6-8 weeks.
Between the Covid-19 pandemic and having just moved into our new house, we have decided to keep our Christmas celebration as simple as possible. Behold our Christmas tree. It proudly stands 24″ tall and is adorned with simple white lights.
While working on the house today, I managed to cut my wrist on a sharp piece of metal. Unable to locate a bandaid, I had to make do with a wadded-up paper towel and zip tie. Crude as it was, this improvised bandage did the trick and served its purpose until Jeanine could properly patch me up.
Note to my mother: This was not a serious injury. My tetanus shots are current. I will be more careful in the future.
Ever since moving into our new neighborhood, we have been amazed by the warmth and friendliness of the community. Today, our neighbors to the north stopped by to introduce themselves and deliver a lovely welcome basket to us. In the evening, we participated in an organized Covid-safe neighborhood stroll. We enjoyed a sampling of holiday lights, live music, singing, a barrel fire, and holiday treats.
I am making steady progress on plans for the renovation of our new home. Pictured above is the layout of the first floor only. It will occupy the as-built footprint of the house. We would like to trade our existing detached garage and dual carport for a 2 1/2 car attached garage if approved by the Concord Natural Resource Commission. The NRC must sanction any such projects that are undertaken within 200 feet of a river. While the approval process is very expensive and time-consuming, the work of the commission is why our rivers are so pristine. Our final plans will likely change once we involve an architect which we are hoping to hire next week after several months of vetting candidates.
In normal years, I spend quite a bit of time creating a trifold holiday card featuring my favorite family photos from the year. Last year, the entire lot of cards went into the trash when the kids voiced their dissatisfaction with the images I chose. This year, our card is a combination holiday card and moving announcement. Jeanine and I took the main photo this morning, taking advantage of a fresh snowfall. We got a good 7-8 inches and for the first time in my life, someone else took care of snow removal. Our new driveway is way too long for me to clear with a snowblower in any reasonable amount of time so we hired a local guy with a plow to handle the job.