I just came across this video on YouTube of an interview Nico gave to Prove People Wrong more than a year ago. If memory serves me, he earned $1000 for his participation which he donated to the Concord Carlisle Soccer Team.

This photo (not mine) is for a very brave person I love.

A huge shakeup at work today as the CEO announced a new leadership reporting structure which did not include Jeff Beck, my boss and Chief Operating Officer. The General Managers of our three business units will now report to the CEO, the head of Operations will report to the CFO, I will report to the CTO, and the position of COO will no longer exist. This change came as a complete surprise to the entire team but transitions such as this often do. Jeff was the driver behind the most impressive business turn-around I have personally witnessed and is easily the best boss I have ever worked for. I am very sad that he is leaving but grateful for all he has taught me. My new boss was the former CEO of Evolution Robotics, a company which we acquired about a year ago. He is now the Chief Technical Officer and is based in Pasadena. He is an extremely bright technologist and insightful strategist with a proven business track record. We already have a good working relationship and the new reporting structure unifies the entire engineering organization in a way that I think will be highly beneficial for the company in the long run. Tomorrow I will embrace all the new possibilities but today I can only lament the departure of someone who I have truly enjoyed working for.

I put in my final training hike today, an 8 mile excursion from Mount Misery around Walden Pond and back in just over 3 hours. The temperature was in the low 20s with an average wind of 15 mph and gusts to 40mph, perfect conditions to prepare me for the higher altitude sections of the Annapurna Circuit. It was a little chilly when I was exposed to the full force of the wind but otherwise I was quite comfortable. My boots felt great, my pack felt great, and I am feeling like my body is ready for the challenge that waits from me in Nepal. Given the temperature, I did not stop often to take pictures but could not pass up this flock of birds as they swooped into feed on what I can only imagine was a large worm convention.

Both boys are now home for the Thanksgiving Day holiday. I picked up Nico from the airport late last night and Kyle with his friend Omar this afternoon. Somehow both have evaded my camera thus far but I did manage a photo of Maya midway through the process of taming her hair. I don’t quite understand the entire process or chemicals involved but her hair starts small, then grows VERY big, then is knotted into submission somehow. It seems like a lot of work compared to my routine which includes exactly one step: wake up.

Earlier in the week I described some modifications I made to my pack that allow me to access my tripod and trekking poles independently and without removing my pack. A colleague who follows the blog requested that I post an image of this arrangement. I am very pleased with the setup and I know it will save me time and energy while on the trail. The black padded pouch at my waist holds two cameras. Both are Canon SL1s which are the lightest and smallest DSLRs on the market today. One is paired with a 10-22mm zoom and the other with a 50-250mm zoom. In full frame equivalent terms, this gives me a focal range of 16-400mm which will handle everything but distant wildlife. Having two bodies gives me redundancy in the event one fails and eliminates the need to swap lenses in what is sure to be a dusty and windy environment.

Software engineers in general don’t make very good mechanical engineers (and vice a versa). Not so at iRobot, where the software department produced some very high quality catapults during their offsite team building event. I am looking forward to seeing some photos of these bad boys in action. It is too bad we have not preserved all of the artifacts from the most recent team building events. We could have staged a relay race with cardboard cars and boats, being filmed from above by camera carrying gliders, all while being bombarded with projectiles launched from catapults and balloon launchers. Do a search here for “team building” and you will see all the necessary elements.

Marie, my sister-in-law, is in town on business and arrived this evening to spend the night with us. We rarely get to enjoy her company without some number (from one to four) of my nieces and nephews and/or my brother. While we love the whole clan it was really nice to spend a few hours in adult conversation with no distractions. Regrettably, she is set to fly back to Minnesota tomorrow and our time together will be all too brief.

Jeanine requested that I leave her with a map so that the family can plot my progress as I begin to traverse the Annapurna Circuit starting next week. The one pictured above has distance in miles on the horizontal axis and elevation in feet on the vertical axis. The entire trek generally takes anywhere from 17 to 21 days to complete. I plan to take it slow and give myself plenty of time for acclimatization to the high altitudes. Thorung La is the summit pass located 17,769 ft above sea level. In December there is a strong possibility it will be impassable due to snow or threat of an avalanche. If this is the case, I will wait a few days for conditions to improve or turn back and return the way I came. The Annapurna Circuit is widely regarded as one of the top ten treks in the world with many placing it at the top of the list. It has long been an aspiration of mine to make this journey and I find myself filled with great excitement and a certain measure of trepidation as the day of my departure for Nepal grows near.

Just over a week now before I leave for Nepal to trek the Annapurna Circuit. Upon arrival I will need to obtain a visa, a TIMS (Trekker Information Management System) card, and an ACAP (Annapurna Conservation Area Project) permit. Each requires 2 passport-size photos. Bringing these with me and filling out applications in advance will save considerable time when I arrive in Kathmandu where I would rather spend my time exploring the city than navigating the bureaucracy.

No better way to start the week with a bang than to have a power utility transformer explode and catch on fire. The folks I was meeting with were happy to continue working despite the loss of power until we were ordered to evacuate the building. The Fire Department was on scene and the fire was out before I could make my way to the designated rally area. A power crew was quick to follow and electricity was restored to the building within a few hours.

Jeanine joined me this morning for a return to the Middlesex Fell Reservation. We covered 4 miles in 2 hours under grey skies. I spent the balance of the day refining my backpack to optimally carry my tripod and trekking poles. Normally these items are fastened by straps to the sides of the backpack. To access them, you must stop and remove the pack. This not only takes time and energy, it is also unpleasant. During strenuous trekking, the back of your shirt becomes drenched in perspiration. When you remove your pack you get an immediate chill and putting the pack on again is just as bad. By sewing on some additional straps, I have devised a way to carry both items on my chest and above my camera bag. Either can be deployed in seconds and neither prevent me from getting to my cameras without obstruction. This arrangement, although a little strange looking, also serves to place the load I am carrying more directly over my center of gravity, leading to better stability and less fatigue while hiking.

Middlesex Fells Reservation, often referred to simply as the Fells, is a 2,575-acre Massachusetts state park located in Malden, Medford, Melrose, Stoneham, and Winchester. Today I completed a 4 hour, 8-mile hike with a 30 pound pack on what turned out to be a glorious day.

I principally followed the mountain biking loop trail as it featured the most aggressive ascents and descents. So far this training hike has come the closest to what I can expect in Nepal. When I finished, I was tired and my feet were sore but I felt I could do the whole thing again tomorrow (which I may) a good sign of my readiness for the Annapurna Circuit. Obviously, the AC involves much greater elevation changes and will eventually reach an altitude of 17,769 feet which presents entirely different challenges. Still, I am pleased with my progress and am confident my calf muscle has fully recovered and will not be an issue on the trek. Jeanine and I dined with the former President of Open Table and his wife at 29 Sudbury, a newly opened restaurant featuring modern American food with an Italian influence. The meal was delightful as was the dinner conversation.

A work week abbreviated by the Veteran’s Day holiday came to a tasty end as iRobot employees threw a mini baby shower for one of our colleagues. The cake did little to help my efforts to trim down for Nepal and Jeanine’s homemade risotto dinner only added to the challenge. I am sure to lose a dozen pounds on my trek but it would be so much healthier to lose those pounds before I start. The weekend weather forecast sounds good and I plan to put in some serious training hikes which should offset the caloric damage done this week.

The Concord Police department has begun to use automated license plate scanners mounted on their patrol cars. These devices record the license plate numbers for all parked and moving vehicles that cross their path. The plate numbers are compared to a database for stolen cars and outstanding bench warrants in near real time. On average, these broad and indiscriminate sweeps are said to identify 5 stolen cars for every one million plates scanned. Given that no additional effort is required of the police officers these systems are very popular with law enforcement agencies and have been widely adopted. They are increasingly becoming the source of public controversy and I believe we will soon see a case which makes its way to the Supreme Court, testing the limits of this form of surveillance and the length of time for which the records can be archived. This technology will soon evolve to support facial recognition and the costs will drop allowing fixed systems to be placed in every traffic light.