It has been almost a year since iRobot reorganized from divisions with dedicated engineering into three business units with shared engineering. Last month we hired a new General Manager to run our Home Business unit thereby completing our senior management team. He has lived and worked all over the world and is currently relocating here from Stevensville, MI. He is looking for a home in Concord and this evening we had him and his family over for dinner. Pictured here are his children, ages 11, 9, and 6 who I managed to quickly (and secretly) photograph so that I could make a gift for their portrait.

As did both of her brothers before her, Maya will be traveling to Washington, D.C. with her 8th grade class later this month. Concord middle schoolers have been making this bus trip for the last 22 years and it is a highlight of their last year. This evening Maya and I attended the information session during which parents and students learned all about the trip logistics. This is my third time attending this session and I practically have the content memorized. I relegated all responsibility for taking notes and filling out forms to Maya who was more than up for the task. She was amused as the chaperones discussed safety when crossing streets in our nation’s capitol. After crossing 6 lanes of traffic in Mumbai, D.C. is going to be a piece of cake she quipped. I took this photo of the Lincoln Memorial in 2004 when I escorted Kyle and his friend Seth to a soccer tournament being held in Maryland.

I always find it very educational to visit the factories in which my team’s designs are produced. I gain a great appreciation for the time and hence cost involved with various design choices. Pictured here are one component of the wheels used on our PackBots (primarily used for ordinance disposal by bomb squads). They are machined out of slabs of exotic plastic, deburred, and dyed black. You would have to work hard to design a more expensive wheel for a robot without using precious metals.I plan to challenge my team with identifying a much more cost effective alternative when I return to Boston. On the home front, Nicolai and Jeanine worked with our college advisers to narrow the half dozen schools where he has been accepted down to a short list including only Carleton and the University of Miami. Nicolai will visit both, Carleton for the second time, over the next two weeks before making his final selection. Regardless of the choice, Nico seems settled on deferring admission and taking a gap year before entering college, a choice which we support.

After a busy morning in the office, I flew to Dayton, Ohio where I will be touring one of our two US factories tomorrow. I was joined by two iRobot colleagues for dinner with the CEO of GEMCITY and his Director of Operations. On the way to our hotel, I captured this image out the window of our rental car. It reminded me of the Midwest.

The morning started with my first outdoor scrimmage of the season. I played at wing midfield for a good 60 minutes but had to leave early so that I could shower and make it to church in time to see Jeanine and Maya speaking briefly about their Coming of Age adventure to India and lighting the Social Action candle. Afterwards I was able to take a few portraits of Maya with Jeanine and Nicolai.

Maya’s Message to the congregation:

My mom and I are happy to light this candle today for all the 243 girls who attend the school where we spent 3 weeks in Western rural, India. They are: Sonu, Runda, Devida, Jesshiree; girls from the Worli and Katkari tribes, who have a wonderful opportunity to go to school in a “racist free” environment because of the Unitarian church and Holdeen Program. Like so many service experiences, we received more love, attention, education, and friendship than we could possibly reciprocate with our teaching. To slow down and admire the beauty of a chameleon, to take time every night to talk to each other about all we had experienced and to laugh at ourselves with humility….. This is what it means to have a shared coming of age experience together. Allowing ourselves these life changing moments to be completely vulnerable so that we could learn about courage and learn a new way to relate to each other. May more mothers and daughters know how to have this together, to step out of their roles as wise and young and step into a shared experience of the unknown, both completely vulnerable and both equally curious so that they may know each other and life in a completely new way.

For Easter dinner we were joined by my nephew John William Quinn and two classmates from Babson, Radhika and Roy.

I spent the bulk of the day preparing for Jeanine’s 50th birthday party(s). We will celebrate with her local friends on April 6th, with just the family on April 12th (her actual birthday) and with extended family in June combined with Nico’s high school graduation party. Among other things, I am preparing a slide show which will run throughout the events. I have selected 700 photos from the 3500 I have of her which will advance every 5 seconds resulting in a one hour sequence. Included here are two of my favorite images of my sweetheart.

A quick stop at Great Meadows on the way home from work netted a nice Great Blue Heron photo. The sun was low on the horizon and I waited for about 15 minutes before this fellow lined up for the shot I wanted. Although not as dramatically lit, I am pleased with the in-flight shot below as well. Click on either one to zoom in for more detail.

Several weeks ago during one of my brother’s layovers in Boston (he is a commercial pilot for Delta Airlines) I wanted to photograph him in uniform. We were outside the terminal, it was cold, and I was wearing thin fleece gloves. As I was about to take the photo, I lost my grip on the camera and it fell four feet onto the concrete with the lens extended. Despite significant cosmetic damage it continued to function, producing perfect images. Today, however, it finally succumbed to its injuries and is no longer operational. Knowing my passion for photography you would be correct in assuming that this is not some cheap point and shoot model but a rather expensive high end compact. It has a huge one inch sensor and very high quality lens. The combination, given adequate light, is capable of producing images that rival my DSLRs in quality and I carry it with me at all times. Although I have special insurance for just this sort of scenario, I will probably not file a claim.  There will come a day when my seriously expensive DSLR and  lens is stolen or falls off a tripod and I don’t want to have depleted my good will with the insurance company. Several years ago, I filed a big claim when my camera and lens took an ever so brief dip in the North Atlantic rendering them both dead as a door nails.

My next travel adventure will be taken in these boots. Each year I receive a dividend from REI ($100 this time) which coincides with their 20% off one item sale. Back in December, I replaced my Merrell boots, which reached their end of life in Patagonia, with a pair from Soloman. Unfortunately, these have proven to be uncomfortable on hikes of more than a few hours. I need a boot that will allow me to trek all day without any fatigue or discomfort. Hopefully, these Lowa will do the trick. Kyle, you are welcome to my Soloman’s if they fit.

If followers of this blog have grown tired of grey photography, rest assured that I have grown equally tired of grey weather. I am looking forward to the “actual” arrival of spring so that I may tire you with images of budding trees, blooming flowers, and singing birds. Stay tuned as I turn my focus from shades of grey to wisps of color.

Warmer temperatures have led to rapid snow melt leaving all our local rivers swollen. The Sudbury River can more than triple in width in certain sections during the spring runoff. I must remember to capture an image of the river when it is at normal water levels for a frame of reference.

Taking advantage of the sunshine and and warmer weather, Jeanine and I went for an extended walk this afternoon. We started at the head of the Minuteman Trail which proved to be too muddy for Jeanine’s choice of footwear. We turned around shortly after reaching the barn pictured here which is very close to the capture site of Paul Revere. The rate of snow melt dripping from the roof line was equal to what you might expect during a rain shower. Unfortunately, my attempt to capture the feeling was less than successful. We continued our walk on the Rail Trail in nearby Lexington for a much needed, by me, bit of exercise. A bruised calf muscle has prevented me from playing soccer over the weekend. Later in the evening Jeanine and I had a second date. We went to see the movie Admission which was neither as funny or romantic as we were expecting but still an enjoyable film and particularly apropos in light of the timing of Nicolai’s college admission process. So far he has been accepted at Carleton College, the University of Miami, Boston University, the University of San Diego, the University of North Carolina, and Miami of Ohio. He is waiting to hear from Emory University before he makes a final decision.

What is the best food you have ever eaten? Up until now this would have been a difficult question for me to answer definitively. This evening we hosted a small dinner party which featured an Indian dish prepared by Jeanine which has set the bar for deliciousness. Discovered during her travels in India, she recreated a Parsi dish called Chicken Berry Pulave which was simply out of this world. Pictured here is the garnish tray for the main course which featured fried onion bits, dried cranberries, lime wedges, fried cashews, onions, and cilantro. Slicing and chopping of the latter two ingredients was my sole contribution to the meal.

I am rarely satisfied when I see an opportunity to improve on a design. This evening I turned my attention to a solution for portable flash photography with a light modifier. I own the latest hot-shoe (attaches to the top of your camera) mounted, battery operated flash which can be triggered by wireless remote (RF signal). Hot shoe flashes produce very hard shadows because of the small relative size of the light source. A common solution is to fire the flash into (or through) a stand mounted umbrella which increases the effective size of the light source by a factor of 50-100 and allows you to position it where needed. Several companies manufacture a swivel mount that connects your flash and umbrella to a standard lighting stand. The problem with every solution on the market is that the flash is supported in the same orientation as it is when used on camera which places the flashbulb significantly away from its optimal position in-line with the umbrella shaft. This offset produces a sub optimal and inefficient diffusion pattern and the body of the flash blocks a portion of the light when used with a reflective umbrella. This evening I prototyped a simple solution which places the flash in line with the umbrella shaft and reduces the blocked light by more than 50%. If I could source this design in plastic, I could make a pretty good business of selling these to fellow strobists.