It was bitterly cold today with windchill dropping the 24F air temperature into the low teens.  This was less of an issue for Maya during her second cross country ski race of the season than her parents who froze various body parts off while watching her compete. Her form has improved from last season and she looked strong throughout the race.  Her Girls Varsity team finished in first place with 462 points ahead of Acton Boxboro (450), Lincoln Sudbury (438),  Westford (397), Wayland (339), Nashoba (324) and Winchester (321).

We received about three inches of snow last night, the first of the season which warranted a workout with the snowblower. It was a light fluffy snow which makes for easy clearing but not so great photos.  By the time I paused to make this image, much of the snow accenting the trees had blown off.  Wet snow clings to the trees and makes for the best photographs.

All but one of my bonsai trees perished when I moved them out of my office at iRobot almost a year ago.  On that day we were experiencing an arctic blast and it only took a few minutes of exposure to prove deadly.  I have since nursed the one survivor back to health and today purchased a companion for it which I will take to work tomorrow.  Kyle gifted me this tree by way of a gift certificate to our local bonsai nursery the Christmas before last.  I thought today would be a special day for the purchase as it is his first full day in Thailand.  I will think of him every time I admire this miniature jade tree.

I am accustomed to doing root-cause failure analysis at work. I enjoy the forensic challenge of identifying new failure modes.  It is essential to work to improve quality and reliability.  When it comes to products I purchase, however, I like to think someone else has made the effort to do this. I recently purchased new studio lights and one of three did not operate properly.  Pictured above is the source of the problem (two fractured solder joints on the high-voltage capacitor).  This failure was obviously caused by mechanical trauma sustained during shipping. I sent the photo to the manufacturer and hope they will endeavor to improve their packaging or reduce the mechanical stress these joints are exposed to.  I re-soldered the connections and my light is as good as new and I did not have to wait for weeks while it shipped back and forth to the service center.

As promised, here is a video of Maya’s infinity stairs.  Watch the marble as it climbs the stairs and then descends through a rotary gate before repeating the cycle.

This Rube Goldberg contraption was the creation of Maya and two classmates for their engineering class automaton project.  Although it was completed months ago the teacher has been holding on to it as an example for other classes. The same teacher requested to hang on to Maya’s recent amplifier project. She agreed on the condition she could get back her infinity stairs.  A photograph does not do justice to this machine and you can expect a forthcoming video.

I was the beneficiary of another fine culinary invention by Jeanine this evening.  When asked to identify the ingredients of our dinner, I correctly recognized the grapefruit sections before reaching the limit of my knowledge of healthy cooking components. I can say with some expertise, however, that the finished meal was delicious. I am genuinely a lucky man.

Thus far this winter there has been little snow to speak of.  During my evening commute, it looked like we were in for a pretty good storm but a few hours later the snowfall had completely fizzled out.

It is not every day you drive by a house being demolished.  I stopped briefly on the side of the road as this old house, located on the grounds of the Concord Country Club, succombed to the power of a giant excavator.  I am very curious to know why it had to come down and what will replace it.  No doubt you will find the answers to these questions in a future post as this site is one I pass every day on my way into work.

Jeanine hosted a volunteer appreciation brunch for the leadership team of Open Table today. Needless to say, the food was wonderful as was the sense of community in the room. It takes very special people to give so generously of their time in support of those less fortunate. This is the third such event but the first my schedule has allowed me to attend.  Here is a link to the team.

Nicolai heads back to Colorado College tomorrow with his friend Oliver. They will share driving on the 2000-mile journey which will take them three or four days to complete.  Since they plan to get an early start we decided to have a farewell brunch today at Nancy’s Airfield Cafe, one of our favorite breakfast spots.

Standard issue desks at Markforged are IKEA plain white tops on a pedestal.  Today we received a large shipment of rolling filing cabinets/drawers that will afford people some local storage space. These units feature an upholstered top allowing them to do double duty as a chair or as a perfectly acceptable office sled as demonstrated in the video above.

While on my lunchtime walk around Fresh Pond I noticed several very interesting ice sculptures formed upon the branches dipping into the water. Regrettably, I had only my iPhone to capture the images which do not do justice to their beauty.

Nala cornered this opossum on the front walk to our home. When threatened or harmed, they will “play possum”, mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. This physiological response is involuntary (like fainting), rather than a conscious act. I can now say from first hand experience that this survival mechanism is 100% believable. Moments after we cleared the area, the possum made a miraculous recovery and scampered off into the brush.

For the second time this week I completed a three mile (2.9 to be exact) circuit around Fresh Pond during my lunch hour. The walk takes 45 minutes and I stop at Chipotle to pick up lunch which I bring back to the office. It is the perfect distance for a noon time stroll and I hope to make a routine of it. I am even considering converting my weekly staff meeting to a walking meeting. Perhaps that should wait until temperatures get above the freezing mark, however.

This Christmas my Secret Santa gave me a 7-foot-wide umbrella. It is big enough to keep an entire soccer team dry, but my use for it will be in the realm of photography as a giant reflector to be mounted on one of my strobes. The shaft of the first umbrella I received was incompatible with my strobes despite highly misleading advertising claims to the contrary. It was returned for the one I received today. Unfortunately, this one has a serious design flaw which caused it to come apart during my first use. An hour and a half later, I was able to put things back together. A trip to the hardware store for a replacement screw a quarter of an inch longer than the one supplied should prevent future problems. I am looking forward to my first photos illuminated by this bad boy.

Maya spent several hours in my shop this evening working on her electrical engineering class amplifier project. All attempts to assist her were rejected but she did tolerate being photographed. I have a tiny bench devoted to electronics set up with a soldering station and test equipment. I am delighted to see it being used by someone other than me. Earlier in the day I spent an hour at the same bench repairing a brand new studio light that was DOA (dead on arrival). Two solder joints had fractured during what was no doubt a traumatic shipping journey.

When making a fine piece of wood furniture, I generally avoid the use of all hardware, fabricating necessary joints from wood and glue. When I need to build something really fast, there is no more useful method of joining two pieces of wood than a pocket hole screw. Fifteen years ago, I fashioned a pneumatically clamped pocket hole jig with components from the Kreg company. It is one of my most often used tools. Today I rebuilt the fixture incorporating new design features that further expands its versatility and the speed with which it can be used. Rather than clamping the jig in my table vise, I have added switchable magnets so that it can be secured directly to the top of my table saw. This allows me to angle the fixture so that I can use it with even the longest pieces of wood and reduces setup and breakdown time. Next, I made provisions to allow the clamp to work with wood stock up to a 4 inches (previously I was limited to 2 inches). Finally, I added left and right stops so to ensure symmetrical and repeatable joint location. The heart of the new fixture is a right-angle, 3D printed bracket for the pneumatic cylinder which incorporates features that enable it to be repositioned easily. I also printed two knobs which are used to fix the bracket in place.

What better way to start the New Year than with Belgian waffles? Jeanine prepared a huge batch of batter last night which fed our 9 house guests and 4 family members this morning. Pictured here is Maddie, one of Maya’s friends and one of my first customers (I was in charge of cooking the waffles).

A busy New Year’s Eve on the Calabria home front. Nicolai hosted a party for twenty or so of his close friends. Maya returned after midnight from a party with her friends for a sleep over. Jeanine and I attended a party with our friends but returned at about 10:30 to make sure nothing got out of hand. Jeanine has prepared the makings for a waffle breakfast and only then will we learn how many guests elected to spend the night.

I underwent six hours of First Aid and CPR training at work today. Several employees participated in the class which bodes well for anyone at the company who finds themselves in need of medical attention. In the photo above, I had to immobilize an impaled hand, something I have personal experience with. In my case, it was a framing nail through the flesh rather than a magic marker tucked between fingers.

The family plus Karuna celebrated Kyle’s college graduation at the Beehive in Boston where we enjoyed live jazz and brunch. Kyle has accepted a job with Decker & Co., a small financial brokerage startup, that will take him to Thailand for at least three months starting mid-January. He will then have the option to remain in Southeast Asia or return to California. We are all very excited for him and proud of his accomplishments.

Is it just me or do you think that Maya is getting more beautiful all the time? Although I miss my “little girl,” it is a joy watching her turn into such a wonderful young woman. I am planning to spend some time in the workshop fashioning a large wooden club which I suspect I am going to need if this trend continues.

Possibly the most inappropriately named place in all of Massachusetts, Mount Misery is anything but. Reaching a height of 284 feet, it would be more accurately described as a hill. Located in the Lincoln Township Conservation Area it was one of our stops on a vigorous walk this afternoon intended to offset some of the caloric damage sustained over the last few days.

Jeanine makes pop-overs but once a year on Christmas Day.  Amazingly, they seem to get better with every passing year as affirmed by our resident quality control tester/musical entertainer/reindeer.

When Kyle is in town, even a simple portrait with Aunt Susan can veer towards mayhem.

Possibly confusing Halloween with Christmas this year, my children really seemed to enjoy seeing me put on some of the gifts I received in my stocking.

I always try to get portraits of the kids when they are home for the holidays.  I found Kyle in the dining room working on his computer and Nicolai in the living room grooming his beard.  Oddly, I was unable to locate Maya.

As has been our tradition for 13 years, we dined at Chang An, our local Chinese restaurant. We were joined by the Budris family and for the first time the Franck family.  It is a nice way to give Jeanine a break from cooking and to catch up with our friends. Later we attended church service where Jeanine and Susan were on duty as ushers.

Upon returning home, the kids set about making a favorite holiday treat, Zeppole balls.  Kyle decided to change things up a little and created the first ever Cougar Gold Sharp Cheddar Cheese filled dough ball.  He named it the Cougar Ball.

Twas the night before the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even Maya asleep on the couch.  Jeanine’s sister, Susan, will be visiting with us for Christmas and we spent the evening trimming the tree and listening to various obscure bands (Too Many Zooz, Black Violin).

At work we are trying to identify the best material to use for our printing nozzles. They need to have good thermal conductivity and stand up to constant movement over carbon fiber, an extremely abrasive material.  Last night I made a crude but highly effective accelerated life test fixture from an inexpensive drill, timer and scraps of old counter tops.  Even the short testing I completed to verify the test fixture yielded considerable insight and I will gather more data today.

An even more impressive engineering project was Maya’s audio amplifier circuit which she demonstrated for me this morning in exchange for a 9V battery from my stash of rechargeables.

This evening we celebrated a combination holiday party and new facility open house at Markforged. It was a great opportunity to meet the spouses, partners, family, and significant others of our employees while taking stock of how far the company has come from its humble beginnings. I was joined by Nico, Kyle, Johnny and Jeanine. Maya had cross country practice and opted to stay home to tackle a mountain of homework. We had to leave a little early so I could build a nozzle tip abrasion testing fixture that we urgently need. Expect to see it featured here tomorrow.

Misha (our name for her) is a 6-week-old Siberian cat. Her brother, Dmitry (same), is mostly black with white boots, just as cute, and the most athletic kitten I have ever seen. After Jeanine, Maya, Nico, and I made the 90-minute drive to New Hampshire to visit the breeder we all fell in love with these siblings. We told the owner that we needed to think our decision over as we left. Five minutes into our drive home we texted her to say we would take both as soon as they got all their shots and medical checks taken care of. The euphoria of the moment began to evaporate as Jeanine started to show signs of an allergic reaction. This breed is one of the most hypoallergenic but regrettably, not enough for Jeanine to tolerate. As sad as we all were, it was still a wonderful day playing with these amazing felines.

Which do you think would be a better month to change the oil in ones backup generator, June or December. This is not a trick question. Only a moron, or the author of this blog, would choose to do this on a bitterly cold and windy day. Still, better to take care of this basic maintenance task than to be left without electricity in an emergency situation. I also ordered a thermostatically controlled battery heater from China which should arrive in a couple of weeks at which time I will pose the question; January or July.