The Boston University Pumpkin Drop is an annual Halloween tradition hosted by the physics department, where dozens of pumpkins are hurled from the roof of the Metcalf Science Center. The event serves as a festive, messy lesson in physics concepts, including gravitation, velocity, and energy transition, as the pumpkins filled with various gooey substances fall 70 feet to the plaza below. When I heard about this event on the radio this morning, I decided I had to drive into Boston to witness it for myself. While in the area, I enjoyed photographing the Center for Computing & Data Sciences, also known by the nickname “the Jenga building” due to its unique stack-of-books architectural design. 

In the evening, Jeanine and I attended the Conantum Haunted Woods celebration (photo album here) before attending an adult party with neighbors.

Kyle is on his way to Miami to attend a wedding, while Maya and Nico enjoyed the holiday with friends. Maya’s costume did not arrive in time, so she had to improvise.

I spotted this red-tailed hawk as it took up a surveillance post above the river in our backyard. I suspect it is a male which are somewhat smaller than the females. Unsurprisingly, the squirrel and chipmunk activity in the yard came to an abrupt halt when it arrived. One look at those talons and you know this bird means business, although I have yet to see one actually catch something.

The combination of wind and rain we are experiencing today is bringing down much of the remaining leaves in droves. It is feeling very much like the end of autumn and time to order more bamboo plywood for the winter projects I have planned: a desk, drawers, and bookshelf for Jeanine’s office, and a new bed with nightstands and shelving for our bedroom.

Jeanine hosted her Buddhist Sangha this morning and asked if I would make a fire so the group could meet outdoors. I was happy to oblige. With the right combination of kindling, dry wood, and an industrial-sized propane torch, I produced the pictured fire in under four minutes. Later, I added a couple of full-size logs, which provided warmth that lasted for the one-hour duration of the gathering.

Last week at the Bionic Project Fundraiser, Will Border, the president and co-Founder, included the cartoon above in his presentation. It had such a powerful impact on me that I wanted to learn more about its creator.

Michael Giangreco, a University of Vermont education professor in the special education program, has written more than 300 comics lampooning the bureaucracy, absurdity, and challenges he saw in the implementation of special education. The strips were collected in three volumes, all subtitled Absurdities and Realities of Special Education.  In the early 1990s, when he was making presentations of his research, he often used humor to make his point by including cartoons such as those of Gary Larson’s Far Side. It was difficult, however, to find cartoons that were specifically on point, so he eventually started writing his own. Because he was not very good at drawing, he enlisted the help of his friend and Burlington, VT fine artist Kevin Ruelle. The two have been collaborators ever since.

It is these gentlemen we have to thank for this poignant and thought-provoking image.

When my perspective on an issue is changed in an instant, I call that a 2×4 moment, as in being whacked in the head by a heavy bit of lumber.

The Eustis Estate is a historic family estate located in Milton, Massachusetts. Its centerpiece is a large, three-story mansion built in 1878 and designed by the prominent architect William Ralph Emerson in an eclectic Late Victorian style. The mansion features local stone construction with red and yellow brick accents, a red tile roof, Romanesque arches on its porte-cochere, and six chimneys with decorative brickwork. The estate covers 110 acres with forests, ponds, gardens, orchards, and several outbuildings, including a gatehouse, stables, greenhouses, and barns, reflecting a self-sustaining property with its own water and ice supply and even electricity generated in later years. The estate was developed by William Ellery Channing Eustis, a Harvard-educated engineer who owned mines and smelting companies, and his wife Edith Hemenway, who inherited the land from her mother. The estate remained in the Eustis family until 2012, when it was sold to Historic New England, which now operates it as a museum.

I decided to visit the mansion while driving ahead of schedule to an appointment with my urologist, whose practice is in Milton. There, I learned after an ultrasound that I have a 3mm kidney stone in each of my kidneys and “multiple” bladder stones with the largest being 8mm. The latter are ticking time bombs. 7mm is generally considered the largest size stone that can be passed without potentially getting stuck. Should one become lodged in the urethra, it is considered a medical emergency and needs to be treated immediately to prevent permanent kidney damage, among even less desirable outcomes. With my luck, this will happen while I am in Antarctica or on the Bolivian altiplano. With this in mind, I will have surgery to remove the bladder stones and during the same procedure address the root cause, an enlarged prostate (68 grams compared to the normal size of 25 grams). I am still evaluating the various surgical options and will try to schedule around my soccer season and travel plans. Fun!

The video posted above was prepared for the Bionic Fundraiser that we attended last Friday. It is a short and succinct summary of what the Bionic Project, where Nico is the Lead Educator, is all about.

Despite the fact that many of my soccer teammates were in Vietnam for a tournament this weekend, the rest of us took care of business with a decisive 7-0 drubbing of Raynham this morning. It was not one of my better matches, but I was grateful to be on the pitch at all, given how bad my hip had been hurting earlier in the week. I did manage a pretty assist during my 65 minutes of playing time.

After the match, we gathered for our customary post-game aprés, this week hosted at our house. In addition to my over-62s team, we had players from the over-48s and over-55s join us. Jeanine prepared a magnificent chili, which was a big hit, as were the fresh cider donuts she purchased from a local farm stand. Our first outdoor fire of the season took the chill off the crisp fall air and was so big it was still ablaze as the sun set.

This female Eastern Downy Woodpecker is a regular visitor to the trees around our property, as are its much larger cousins the Pileated Woodpecker. I am pleased to say that so far they have shown no interest in our house, which cannot be said for the last two we have owned in Concord. At one point, I thought I heard a woodpecker pecking on our aluminum roof, which seemed quite implausible to me. I have since theorized that it was pecking on a dead branch that had fallen on top of the roof. Since our roofs are fairly low-pitched (3:12), detritus can often remain there until a good rain storm or strong wind comes along. One of the selection criteria for our siding was that it not attract woodpeckers or rather that it would not host the insects that they are hunting for. So far, knock on non-wood, we seem to have achieved our goal.

This evening, Jeanine, her friend Barbara, and I attended the Western-themed Bionic Project fundraiser held at Loretta’s Last Call adjacent to Fenway Park. I volunteered to photograph the event, which proved to be quite a challenge given the dim and multi-colored lighting, as well as the dark ceilings, walls, and floors, making bounce flash impossible. Still, I made a good go of it. The full set of images can be found here.

Country Western music was provided by the Clay Street Unit after an emotionally stirring video explaining the work of the Bionic Project, a message from the Chairman of the Board, and a live auction. The event was a great success, and I would estimate that they raised $100,000.

Pictured below are the prettiest cowgirls of the evening and two handsome dudes.

Over the years, I have taken several aerial photos of the Concord Carlisle High School. Today, I discovered an entirely different perspective, which may well be my favorite. The reason I have never considered this angle before is because it features the back side of the school. I think the architects might have gotten the orientation decision wrong. The only reason I can think of to support their choice is that construction on the new school started while the old one remained in use. This no doubt would have limitted some options and complicated the logistics.

I had a deep tissue massage this morning to try to get my hip in shape for my soccer game this weekend. It helped, but I will be hitting the Ibuprofen pretty hard if I am going to make it onto the pitch.

At Jeanine’s request/insistence, out of concern for my safety, I will be joining a photography tour when I travel to Bolivia in March. This afternoon, I secured my reservation with a small group led by a Peruvian photographer that will visit the Uyuni Salt Flats and Altiplano Desert. I hope to combine this with a visit to Guyana, where I plan to visit the Kaieteur Falls. I generally prefer to travel alone on such photo adventures, but I can see the wisdom of going with a guide. Since the group is composed exclusively of photographers, I am hopeful that the itinerary and shooting times (sunrise/sunset) will be similar to what I would have chosen if traveling solo.

My hip has been bothering me so much since Saturday that I failed to notice a foot injury I sustained during my soccer match on Sunday. This is what happens when a defender wearing cleats steps on your foot. It is a tactic used by unscrupulous players to slow down attackers. In this case, however, it was inflicted unintentionally. If anything, I was more of the aggressor last weekend and felt compelled to apologize to my defender after the game for being too rough. I consider this injury to be karmic payback that I deserved.

With fall color peaking in Concord this week, I don’t even need to leave the house for a great photo. This shot, taken on our first floor, reminds me of a photo I took in December of 2023 from the basement window directly below it. I am now inspired to capture all four seasons through the same window with the same framing and perspective. Stay tuned.

Jeanine and I joined the Thoreau Fitness Center yesterday and went in for our first session today. I had the good sense to take it easy, given my left hip remains quite tender. Even so, I can tell I will be waking up with some sore muscles tomorrow. We have scheduled two workouts a week that we will do as a couple, and a third, which will remain floating for the time being.

iPage is the web hosting service I use for this blog. Each month they send me usage statistics generated through their hosting control panel and analytics modules. A “visit” represents a single session of activity from a unique visitor until the visitor leaves or remains idle for roughly 30 minutes.

Over the last few month the number of visits to this site have increased substantially to nearly 7,000 per day and I have no idea why. In the last year, the number of visits was more than 1.2 million which is hard for me to wrap my head around given my target audience is just friends and family.

After further investigation, I learned that for hobby-level websites like mine, it is common for between 30% to 80% of all visits to be from automated bots or scrapers. I wonder if the recent increase in daily activity is linked in some way to the increased use of AI.

Regardless, it is nice to know that more than a few people take a moment each day to visit and this serves to motivate me to keep posting.

Fall color is now moving through our neck of the woods. Pictured above is an aerial view of the section of the Sudbury River adjacent to our home, the roof of which can be seen on the left bank. Also visible in this photo, if you look carefully, is a kayaker and a Great Blue Heron.

Yesterday, I woke up almost completely unable to walk with severe pain in my left hip joint. Apparently, all the driving I did on Friday (10 hours in the car) did not sit well with my hip, pun intended. A combination of Ibuprofen, icing, walking (4 miles), and a massage from Jeanine made it possible for me to play soccer this morning, a seemingly miraculous recovery. Not only was I able to play, but I also scored my first goal of the season, and a beauty at that. I intercepted a pass at midfield and made a Nico-class juke to evade my defender. I then passed to a teammate who attacked the goal. His shot was rejected and fell to their sweeper, who I stripped and then beat a second defender to face the goalie one-on-one from the 18-yard line. He charged to cut down the angle as I fired a left-footed rocket which bounced off the inside of the far post for the goal.

I should note that this is the first game I played with a new set of cleats that I purchased to replace the pair I blew out last month, making them forever lucky.

Jeanine and I attended the Concord No Kings Rally at the Minute Man National Park today. Considering that we are a town of 18,300, the turnout was significant. I estimate close to 1,000. The photo’s resolution is good enough that you could actually get an exact count if you were so inclined. I was able to spot Jeanine in the image, but only because I knew where she was standing. As one would expect of Concord, it was a peaceful demonstration that was as frivolous as it was sagacious.