Our bonsai tree has yet to find a permanent spot in our new house. In the meantime, it has found a temporary home atop my Djembe drum fitted with a circular tray to prevent water from damaging the head. For now, it is enjoying light from two windows in our bedroom.

I neglected to share a photo I took yesterday of this bottle of champagne we received to celebrate the completion of the River House. Although we have our Certificate of Occupancy and have moved in, I still have a few more built-ins to complete in the main and guest closets as well as the mudroom. I completed the later this morning. Jeanine left for a mid-west road trip with her sister Susan. They are headed to Indiana where they will visit with her other sister, Lauren. Then all three will travel to Kentucky to celebrate her niece’s 40th birthday.

Although we have had the kids over for family meals, this evening, we hosted our first proper dinner party in the new house. It was certainly the first of many more. When we designed the house, we did so understanding that the kitchen is where everyone likes to gather and that was certainly the case today. We used the island as a buffet table, the coffee klatch as a drink station, and the pantry counter as a staging area. Everything flowed smoothly and seating at the round dining table was very comfortable.

My aunt celebrated her 97th birthday yesterday and I was so happy to see that my sister Alissa was able to attend the party. Having just completed building the home where Jeanine and I will spend the rest of our lives, I can’t help but wonder how many birthdays we can look forward to. Jeanine’s 61st will be the first, coming up in April.

Based on a very favorable earnings report, the stock price of the company that Kyle works for increased by more than a third last week. Part of his compensation includes stock grants and I was pleased to learn that he decided to cash out 10% of his position. One of the painful financial lessons I have learned in my life is that it is far better to diversify a large position in any one company gradually over time rather than trying to time a peak event.

I created the image above, not with a camera, but with a keyboard. I typed the phrase “baby otter snuggled inside the shirt of a young girl” into an artificial intelligence image synthesizer. I am left to wonder how this technology is going to transform the “art” of “photography”. I am curious to know who will hold the copyright for images generated in this fashion.

Using cherry wood harvested from the bunk beds I built for the boys when they were young, I made legs for an oval glass coffee table top. Jeanine is not a big fan of the design feeling that the components should have been built of thicker stock. I tend to agree with her and therefore will need to revisit this project when time permits. Ideally, we would like the base to have an organic form. I will keep my eyes open for an appropriate tree root ball.

With great regret, I posted listings to sell my remaining Sonos gear today. Although I regard the company and equipment as some of the best in the industry, there is simply no need for it in the new house because of the sound systems connected to our TVs and the open floor plan. I worked at Sonos as the head of engineering during the development of the Play5, pictured above. Of the 100+ products I helped to develop, this is one of my top five favorites.

While moving boxes into my new office, I have been systematically going through each one and digitizing anything I wish to save for posterity and disposing of the rest. I attended the Technical Program at Mont Pleasant High School and lettered in three sports; wrestling, tennis, and cross country. I have kept these letterman patches for over four decades and have never seen the light of day. Today they made their last appearance in physical form posing for this picture. Below is a picture of my wrestling in a match against the Jr. National champion from Poland. Children please note that your fat old father was once ripped!

Maya traveled to the Sunday River Resort in Maine with friends from work for a bit of skiing. If you do not get cold enough on the slopes you can enjoy an ice-cold beer in an igloo afterwards. I think Kyle may have made the wiser choice heading for the warmth of Austin Texas where he also has a nice cat to warm his belly.

Nicolai has been one of the wrestling coaches at Concord Academy for several years now. Today he drove to Lehigh University for the National Prep School Championships with the only wrestler on the squad who qualified for the tournament. Laura wrestles in the 100-pound weight class and placed third in the country. I am not sure who had the bigger smile.

For a nice break from building closet furnishings, I treated myself to a furniture project. Pictured above is my new office desk that I built in less than 4 hours including finishing with a 2-part hard wax oil. Now begins the more time-consuming task of organizing all of my office supplies and financial records.

I noticed that the performance of my woodshop dust collection system has been gradually declining over recent weeks. I figured it was time for some filter maintenance. I was shocked by the amount of dust that had accumulated within the fabric folds of the filter media. I estimate the pile of dust could easily fill a pair of 2-liter soda bottles. Predictably, when I returned the cleaned filter to service the dust collection performance was back to peak levels. Going forward, I think more frequent filter maintenance will be warranted.

I recently purchased a 5.1-channel AV receiver to complete our 2-person theater in the River House. Paired with some high-quality speakers that I used with my last surround sound system I am quite pleased with the fidelity and sound stage. Jeanine and I rented Oppenheimer which proved to be a perfect choice for testing the system and an incredible movie. Eventually, however, l noticed distinctly audible white noise during times when the soundtrack got very quiet. I grabbed my signal generator and oscilloscope to verify the issue. The oscillograph above shows a fairly significant noise component superimposed on what should be a pure sine wave. It should be noted that this is most perceptible only when the volume is turned up quite high. Even so, I must now decide if I will return the receiver because of this issue. It would be a no-brainer if the system did not sound so good otherwise. I have just under thirty days to decide.