Maya is traveling with friends in Europe and sent this photo from Lisbon. Her parents look forward to every message and photo we receive. Meanwhile, her brother Nico has extended his visit to Colorado and has sent zero photos thus far (yes, this is a hint).
A month ago my mother elected to forego all further medical intervention after a botched surgical procedure left her with a dismal prognosis. She was prepared to die on her own terms and said her goodbyes to family and friends. Today she celebrated her 91st birthday and is showing every indication that she is on a road to recovery. She still needs to gain some weight and rehabilitate her atrophied muscles but I predict I will be posting a photo of her dancing at her 92nd birthday party a year from now.
Kyle, our first born child, turned 27 years old today. It seems like only yesterday that Jeanine and I were starting our journey as new parents. We could not be more proud of the person he has become.
Kyle lives in the Seaport District of Boston where he works as a Data Analyst for Cengage, a digital textbook company which just merged with McGraw Hill. I have always admired him for his brains and athleticism but more recently have come to appreciate how genuinely empathetic and kind he is (no doubt gifts from his mother). Happy Birthday Son!
I finally had some free time today to work on our lawn irrigation system. The first order of business was removing the yellow jackets nest that had been constructed around the underground valves for the sprinkler heads. A few week ago, I sprayed the nest and it appears that all of the residents departed for greener pastures or are now part of the pasture helping to make it greener. Nests of this type are engineering marvels; structured to maximize enclosed volume with a minimum of supporting wall material. Even more amazing is the fact that construction is done by multiple members of the colony in parallel. Imagine if 100 humans were each tasked with building one room of a 100 room hotel. What do you think the chances are that it would all just fit together perfectly? Regrettably, once I was able to access the valves, I could only isolate one of two that is stuck in the open position. Without a map to the location of other underground control valve boxes, my chances of finding the right one are pretty slim. I rarely outsource home maintenance work of this type but lacking the equipment needed to trace the control wires and locate the other boxes it is time to call in the pros.
Meet Noah. He is the 6 week old son of a Formlabs colleague and I was very happy to snatch him up for some baby time. It has been far too long since my last baby fix. He was being heavily guarded but I managed to grab him when attentions were diverted. If not for his ever vigilant grandmother, I might have successfully kidnapped him for the afternoon.
Maya joined us on our journey into Cambridge for the baby party so we could drop her off at the airport afterwards. She is headed to Portugal where she will connect with her best friends, Sarinnagh and Fiona for further travel to Spain and Amsterdam. Although she is a veteran traveller we still worry about our kids when they head out on adventures.
After saying goodbye to Maya we drove into the Seaport District to drop off Kyle’s golf clubs and then on to Lexington for a mystery date. I chose a nice Italian restaurant where we dined before Jeanine revealed our mystery date. She had tickets to see Lori McKenna in concert. McKenna was raised in a Boston family of six children. She met her husband Gene in third grade. They have five kids. And over the last three decades, as she became a wife and mother, she has also emerged as one of the most respected, prolific singer-songwriters in popular music. Her 2016 release The Bird and the Rifle netted three Grammy nominations. Then, she made history: In 2016, she became the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year two years in a row thanks to co-writing Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” and penning Tim McGraw’s no. 1 “Humble and Kind” solo. Both songs also clinched back-to-back Grammy wins for Best Country Song. In 2017, she became the Academy of Country Music’s first female Songwriter of the Year.
There are upwards of 350,000 species of beetles worldwide, the largest order of the animal kingdom. My best efforts to identify this one, found in our garden, have proven fruitless. If there are any entomologists among this blog’s followers who can identify this little fellow, please drop me a line.
Sadly, Nicolai did not win the $25,000 grand prize for the benefit of the American Amputee Soccer Association in the Major League Soccer MVP contest. He was on hand at the MLS All-Star game in Orlando, courtesy of the NE Revolution for the announcement of the winner. As a regional winner, he did earn $1,000 for the organization and built a number of important connections with the MLS organization with which we are hoping to partner with in the future. He will fly from Florida to Colorado for some vacation time in the mountains.
My team at Formlabs has been very busy over the last few weeks as shipments of our third generation printer, the Form 3, have commenced. Essential at this stage of the program is to closely monitor feedback from both the field and the factory, jumping on any issues which may arise. We are all very excited about the product and if initial orders are any indication, we have another hit on our hands. Our biggest challenge now is making them fast enough while holding our quality standards.
For only the second time during the year I have been with Formlabs, the senior management team went offsite for the day to work on strategic planning. The meeting was held in the Canopy Room of the Bow Market near Inman Square, a very eccentric event space that set the perfect tone for our meeting. Participants were more than happy to pose for a casual photo at the end of the day. Dinner with the team followed putting a nice finish on a productive and enjoyable day.
Lot’s of rain and sunshine have brought out the best in summer flowers. I found this nice grouping on a walk and used my cell phone for the capture. The large depth of field which is a characteristic of all cell phones is an advantage over my full frame camera when it comes to shots like this.
Artists from around the world carved works of art from sand for the 16th annual Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival held this weekend. Last year Jeanine and I were among the 1 million visitors to the festival and decided to go again this year.
After our visit we decided to explore nearby Nahant where we discovered beautiful beaches, homes, and ocean views.
Egg Rock, sometimes called Elephant Rock, pictured below is located in Nahant Bay about a mile off shore. The three acre island once had a lighthouse but is now an uninhabited bird sanctuary.
Jeanine and I took it easy today with a relatively short trip out to the French King Bridge. We paused in Millers Falls where we spent quite some time observing this butterfly which was both photogenic and seemingly happy to pose for portraits. We had lunch at the Great Falls Harvest in Turners Falls before pausing at Cabot’s Camp on the Connecticut River from where I launched the drone for a full span photograph of the French King Bridge.
When I attempted to start up our automated sprinkler system earlier this summer, I discovered that two zones were stuck in a permanently on position rendering the entire system unusable. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the valves for these particular zones were fully encapsulated in a large yellow jacket nest. Because yellow jackets mostly eat other insects and do very little pollination (their bodies are not fuzzy) and because I could see no other option to service the valves, I sprayed the nest last night with a product designed to neutralize the colony. I investigated this morning and detected no activity. I am not looking forward to the next step which is a careful dissection and removal of the hive. I am guessing that any survivors are going to be pretty angry so will approach the task with great caution.
Today I would like to feature another project from the Formlabs hackathon held last weekend. It is important to remember that this project was completed in three days, in this case by our team located in North Carolina. A link to the full story as posted by the projects leader can be found here. Stories like this back up my assertions that Formlabs has some of the most talented engineers in the world.