I start each calendar year with a departmental meeting during which we briefly review prior year accomplishments and present plans for the new one. This year the audience was expanded to include our newly merged engineering and technology teams (~250). Speakers included the General Managers of our three business units and our Chief Technical Officer (my new boss) who laid out our product and technology road maps respectively. Also featured was our first-place finishing Robot in Three Days team and their robot, El Toro. I took the photo above from the podium during my opening remarks. Those smiling are familiar with this blog, the remainder now have one more reason to think me strange.

The winter storm forecasted for today produced up to a foot and a half of snow in parts of the state but left others, including Concord, with little more than a couple of inches. I was not at all disappointed to miss another workout with the snow blower, especially in light of the arctic cold air that has temperatures in the single digits. Maya and I enjoyed some father-daughter time this evening as we prepared her for the vision quest she will undertake this weekend as part of her Coming of Age program at church. She will be spending several hours alone in the wilderness and our preparations have ensured she will do so in warmth and style.

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning;

Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.

Due to the rotation of the Earth, storm systems travel from west to east in the mid-latitudes. A reddish sunrise, caused by particles suspended in the air, often foreshadows an approaching storm, which will be arriving from the West, within the day. Conversely, a reddish sunset often indicates that a storm system is on the west side (same side as the sunset), travelling away from the viewer. Maya alerted me to the notable sunrise this morning and sure enough the weather service has predicted a significant winter storm for this evening.

Welcome to the new look for my website. In addition to the new visual style, the site has been optimized to run on mobile platforms and on computers of different sizes. On smaller screens, access to the archives will be at the very bottom of the page, and on phones you will select titles before images are downloaded to conserve bandwidth.  I will be making minor enhancements over the coming days and hope to add an integrated photo gallery in the near future.

It was far too beautiful a day, however, to spend it all doing website redesign and I got out for a few hours to enjoy the fresh snow.

Rarely have I encountered a more cooperative flock of birds. I suspect these pigeons, pictured here on the famous Old North Bridge, have grown accustomed to human presence. Still, it does not explain how they learned to pose in such a nice formation. Jeanine and I saw the movie “Her” last night and I am still thinking about it. It is the first non-malevolent depiction of artificial intelligence I am familiar with and left me wondering about a world where computers “evolve” beyond their creators.

The largest snowflakes I have ever seen began floating to the ground this morning. Maya and her friend Maddie needed little encouragement before they were outside trying to catch them on their tongues, dancing, and posing for me. A few minutes later the snowflakes returned to normal proportions so all were happy that they seized the moment.

People often ask when I find the time to keep up with this blog. The answer is simple. I generally wake up at 5 AM every day. Ever since she has gone back to work, Jeanine now often wakes up before I do to check her e-mail or to sleep sitting up in front of her computer :-), hard to tell which really. Finding her in the kitchen, illuminated by the glow from her laptop I was compelled to grab a quick photo this morning.

Because of my Italian heritage, I am routinely treated to the foods of my people. Jeanine has out done herself this time and I am looking forward to another bowl.

Weather conditions conspired to create black ice on the roads this morning. On the positive side it also produced some rather lovely scenes in the garden. Maya has been asked to design the bumper for her robotics club entry into this year’s FIRST competition. When I returned from work she shared her ideas and drawings with me. It is now ever more clear to me that Maya would make an exceptional engineer should she choose to go down that career path. Later, Nicolai and I began the arduous task of tracking down friends and acquaintances from more than a decade ago who appear in home video I shot while we lived in Indianapolis. Clips from these videos may be used in an online/on-air marketing campaign featuring Nicolai and we need to secure their consent to be included.

A present from her sister Susan, Jeanine has been growing shiitake mushrooms since Christmas. They are now ready for harvesting and I fully expect a couple of these puppies to be part of dinner this evening.

While trekking in Nepal I managed to lose about 10 pounds. Amazing what a diet limited to dal bhat (lentils with rice) and 8 hours a day of hiking with a 30 pound pack will do for your waist line. Since returning, I have managed to reclaim all 10 plus 5 more for good measure as I over indulged in all the unhealthy snacks I had avoided while in the mountains. Today I got serious about reversing the trend and getting back to soccer playing form. Eggs are considered to be one of the few dishes I can prepare well enough such that others might be tempted to try them. This morning I added poaching to the cooking variations I can execute. The photo was taken before I added the water.

My sister Alissa, of all my siblings, has been the only one to follow in my parent’s footsteps as a highly accomplished ballroom dancer. She performed today at an exhibition to celebrate her love of dance and to mark the end of the beginning of the next chapter in her life. Jeanine generously offered to cover my Sunday school teaching assignment so I could drive to Albany, NY with Nicolai and Maya to support her. My mother, her sister, and three of my cousins drove up from New York City with the same goal. All were surprised by our arrival since we were not expected. Alissa’s performance was as beautiful and graceful as she is. Her daughter Rachel is carrying the family tradition into the next generation and was equally impressive. Naturally, my mother could not resist the temptation to demonstrate where her daughter and granddaughter derived their talent and managed to pick up a good-looking guy 30 years her junior for a spin around the dance floor during intermission.

The second of two major home products that my team has been working on over the last two years was announced at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas earlier this week. The Scooba 450 is a floor-scrubbing robot designed to replace a mop and bucket. Cool videos describing the product and design can be found at the iRobot website. Initial product reviews have been extremely positive and the company has high hopes for the success of this robot.

I found myself alone at home this evening and decided I would head out to pick up some food and do a little night photography. This is the Trinitarian Congregational Church with roots in the First Church, established in Concord by the earliest settlers in 1636. The original meeting house was extensively renovated in 1898, resulting in a Victorian structure with a corner steeple and stained glass windows. In 1924, that church building was leveled in a devastating fire and the building you see here was constructed in its place.