This evening Maya’s indoor soccer team secured a first-place finish in their league. The final match was a come-from-behind draw that was settled with a penalty kick shoot-out. Maya took turns playing on defense, offense, and in the goal where she turned away all attempts on net.
I spent more than 20 hours this weekend organizing and streamlining my photography collection. I was able to cull 5000 images bringing the total to just over 80,000. Every photo I take is named according to the time of capture (YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS ###) and a 3-digit sequential count (some of my cameras can take 5 pictures per second). To remain agnostic to the various picture database programs that come and go I use keyword metadata contained within the files to describe search characteristics (who, what, when, where, rating, etc) to facilitate searching. For a little break from the monotony of keyword tagging, I redeveloped some of my favorite photos. Software has improved dramatically in the last several years allowing me to reprocess my original files into far superior prints. I took this photo in 2009 while hiking in northern Arizona.
Our first winter weather since the freak early storm we got last year led to the cancellation of Nicolai’s wrestling quad meet which I was looking forward to. Instead, I spent the entire day indoors working at my computer breaking only long enough to clear three inches of snow from the driveway. Nico benefited from an extra day to prepare for midterms and capped the day by hosting a dinner for a half dozen friends. He shopped for and prepared the meal which featured a Caprese salad followed by pasta with a choice of marinara or oil and garlic sauce.
After a strenuous work week, it is a great winter pleasure to just sit and relax in front of a nice fire. My father knew how to truly appreciate such moments and he would be pleased with how well I learned from him.
Meet the software development team that works in my department at iRobot. I have been methodically photographing each department for use on a new company intranet site. Unlike group portraits of my family, these folks are extremely cooperative and do not complain when I take ten minutes to pose everyone for the shot.
Nicolai scored his eighth straight pin and has now surpassed his father’s best-ever string. While winning by fall is the goal for which every wrestler strives, the downside is that Nico has yet to wrestle a full 6 minutes match. This may conspire against him later in the season when he faces the toughest competition. He will need to work that much harder in practice if he wants the brass ring.
Every once in a blue moon, I get a request from a family member for a specific blog photo. These are most welcomed as they alleviate the constant pressure to come up with my own ideas each day. Jeanine has been nurturing this flower for some time and today it was blooming in all its glory. I was so excited to have a subject for the day that I neglected to remember the name of this plant.
After joining me for a 6v6 soccer game this morning Nico invited a half dozen friends over to the house for a noon time brunch. Inspired, I believe, by our recent visit to the Paramount, Nico was taking individual orders and cooking all manner of eggs, bacon and pancakes with all the style (see photo of eggs being flipped) and speed of a seasoned short order cook. I was one of the beneficiaries of his efforts and could not have been more happy with my eggs over medium, bacon, and sour dough toast. Jeanine is to be credited with raising three children who all know how to and enjoy cooking.
Jeanine and I spent the night alone at my childhood home in Schenectady while Maya enjoyed a visit with her cousins. My top priority on this visit is to remove as many electrical wiring code violations as possible. A second objective is to do a room by room, wall by wall, photographic inventory of the homes contents for the benefit of my mother who continues to recuperate nicely in North Carolina where she is currently living with my sister Mayela. As we ready the home for sale she has been gifting her artwork and the other emotionally significant items to family and friends. The photographs will help her identify which items are still uncommitted and to create something of an inventory to help the rest of us track everything. We were joined by my brother-in-law Stephen who is in town for the weekend and will drive my mother’s Honda back to NC filled to the brim with items for his family. Pictured here is a portion of my father’s library from which hundreds of books have already been gifted.
Nicolai participated in a quad meet today with Acton Boxborough, the Latin School, and host Wayland. He wrestled at 106 pounds for the first time this season and looked positively dominant as he pinned all three of his opponents. For the remainder of the season there is a 2 pound growth allowance which should make this weight class just right for him. After the match Jeanine in her car and Maya with me in mine drove to Schenectady. I focused on bringing the electrical wiring up to code while the girls carefully packed a set of China that will be Maya’s one day.
iRobot recently launched a new internal website for the benefit of employees. I have been asked to create portraits for each group and department within the Home Robots divisions which will be used on the landing page for each organization. Today I photographed the smallest group within Product Development, our Systems Engineering team. This version of the photo is cropped differently from the one that will be used at iRobot because it includes a new design which we have not shown in its current form outside the company.
For only the second time this winter season we had snow this morning. On my way into work I made a 5 minute detour to Great Meadows and climbed the observatory in search of an interesting snowscape. Nothing appealed to me until I turned around to descend and decided to capture the virgin automotive and human tracks in the parking lot. After a half inch of accumulation the snow gave way to rain and our white pristine blanket has disappeared as quickly as it came.
The CCHS wrestling team faced Newton South this evening scoring a decisive victory. Nicolai pinned his opponent in the second period but not before reopening the mat burn under his right eye. Although he views it as something of a badge of honor now, such wounds can persist for the entire season if not aggressively managed. Worse yet they can become badly infected and leave lasting scars. Needless to say we are insisting Nicolai take extreme measures to protect it from further exposure by bandaging it before wrestling.
In the photo below, taken by another parent and stylized by me, you can see the shooting position I use when photographing wrestling. The low angle makes for a much more dramatic photo but also exacts a heavy toll on my neck and lower back muscles. In theory this is probably good exercise but after an hour and a half I feel like I have wrestled a couple of matches myself.
When I was in Schenectady with my mother last month I collected all the family photos I could locate as we began preparing the house for sale. It will take years before I am able to scan them all but it is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. This photo is of my father (lower left), his parents (Ernesto and Rose), his uncle and namesake Frank, and his siblings Ernie and Jacqueline. I may try and add one scanned photo per week to the blog to help sustain momentum on this project.