During her return flight from Seattle, Jeanine flew over one of the wildfires raging on the west coast and took this photo. In Massachusetts, much of the state is under an air quality alert due to the smoke which has travelled here from across the country, an indicator of just how massive these fires are. I can only imagine how bad things are for folks closer to the devastation. My heart goes out to anyone who has suffered due to this natural disaster.
You can tell if you have Morton’s toe just by looking at your foot. If your second toe projects out farther than your big toe, you’ve got it. A study of American college students found that 45.7% of men had longer second toes. Other populations report the frequency to be less than 10% for this hereditary feature. Research suggests that Morton’s toe may even be an advantage in athletics. A 2004 study comparing professional athletes to non-athletes found that professional athletes tended to have Morton’s toe more frequently than non-athletes. Toe length aside, this post is about the passage of time. The bruise under my big toenail has been growing out since December when a heavy piece of deconstruction debris fell on my cuticle. There is a good reason why professionals wear steel-toed boots when doing this kind of work. I estimate it will take another 3 or 4 months before it has grown out completely.
Pictured above is the Concord Carlisle High School campus. The nearer of the two soccer fields is my team’s home turf. I showed up there at 8 am this morning expecting to find my teammates for a practice session. I must have mixed up my days because I was the only one present. Instead, I returned home where I did a stationary bike workout while watching the second half of the US National Women’s Soccer team’s match against New Zealand. Later in the day, I replaced the drive belt on the dryer that was left here when we acquired our new house. It self-destructed yesterday while drying our only set of sheets and towels (we are in “camping” mode until the new house is built). Amazing how unpleasant sleeping and bathing are without these essentials. I was amazed that I was able to secure an overnight replacement for a dryer that is probably twenty years old. The repair took about an hour and I now have dry linens and will look forward to a better night’s sleep.
Someone in this building holds the keys to my upcoming travel to Iceland and Denmark. When I booked the trip many months ago, I checked to ensure my passport would still be valid. I did not realize that when traveling to countries in the European Union, your passport must be valid for 6 months after your scheduled return. My passport will expire in October providing only 2 months of extension. Renewing a passport by mail, even with expedite fees is currently taking three months. My only option now is an emergency renewal which must be done in person in this building not more than three days in advance of travel and by appointment only. The problem is it is currently IMPOSSIBLE to schedule an appointment. The online system for doing so was taken out of service on Wednesday because third-party bots were booking all available appointments and selling them to desperate would-be travelers. The automated phone system they put in place to replace it is currently non-operational and no matter what you do, you wind up with a busy signal. Out of desperation, I drove into Boston to try and get an appointment in person. The very well-armed security staff there made it abundantly clear that you could not enter the passport office without already having booked an appointment. What a complete and total cluster f**k.
Jeanine travelled to Seattle this morning to attend the wedding of her close friend Tess. She has been living with her partner, Ed, for something like 20 years. Apparently, they have concluded that they like each other and are ready to tie the knot. I thought my six-year courtship of Jeanine was prolonged. These guys are in a league of their own.
As it is now in the public domain, I feel comfortable sharing a photo I took of my whiteboard from work. It provides a tiny window into my penchant for innovation and preference for visual expression (note the ratio of words to pictures). Also, note the dollar bills taped near the top. Whenever I am confident that my view of a technical issue is correct, I will bet an engineer with a different perspective a dollar that I am right. Over the course of my career, I have never lost such a bet, but have only made enough money to pay for a couple of cups of coffee. Even so, the bragging rights are priceless and hence the prominent display.
The Italian Home for Children campus is located in Jamaica Plain. Their mission is to provide an integrated network of powerful and effective programs to help children and families with emotional, behavioral, and educational challenges thrive in their communities. The devastating influenza epidemic of 1918 orphaned many Italian children of Boston’s North End, and the community and clergy responded by establishing the Italian Home for Children to care for these orphans. As decades passed, the needs of the children arriving at the Home began to reflect more complex crises. The daughter of one of my soccer teammates recently joined the organization as its Director of Communications and one of her first priorities is creating a promotional video. She learned from her father that I am an aerial photographer/videographer and he asked if I would be willing to capture some footage for her. I did so this morning and think she was quite pleased with the results. I will post a link to the finished video when it becomes available. Located across the street from the campus is the Arnold Arboretum where I spent the next 2 hours on a very long and enjoyable walk.
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The number and different varieties of mushrooms that can be found in our yard are growing by the day. The one pictured above also features two insects on its stalk. Some of these literally emerge from the ground in a matter of hours. Most get eaten by the local squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs, all of which seem to be stoned after dining. It has been joyous to discover and witness the amazing ecosystem that exists just outside our door.
It has been raining on and off, but mostly on, for the last several days. All the rivers in the area are overflowing their banks, including the Sudbury on which we live. Pictured above, you can see the main channel of the river on the right going under the bridge. On the left, the flooded areas have reached lake-like proportions. Fortunately, the lowest portion of our basement is still 64″ above the waterline, as we are located on a small bluff. Pictured below is the Elm St. bridge which looks to have 3 or 4 feet of clearance before its arches are covered.
I am fairly certain this insect is a robber fly. I spotted it on the ground while walking in the yard today. If you click on the image to enlarge it and look carefully, you will see that it is pointy on both ends. It eats most insects including other robber flies. It will not sting or bite humans unless provoked and I am happy to report that he took little issue with being photographed at a close distance.
The gentle sound of raindrops falling upon the earth set the perfect mood for the celebration of Birgit Caliandro’s life. Family and friends gathered in an open-air pavilion to remember and honor a woman whose spirit was as generous as her smile and whose love for her children was boundless. Birgit did not surrender an inch to the cancer which took her last April. She lived life to the fullest and her impact on those who knew her was profound. Her daughter, Isabella, was a classmate of Nicolai’s growing up and the two have remained close friends to this day.
On my first day of work at Markforged in 2015 as their new EVP of Engineering, the then CEO told me that the company would be out of business in 45 days if we could not resolve a production problem with their carbon fiber printing filament (pictured below along with the printer). The original supplier of the carbon fiber had redirected their production to automotive applications and when the company switched to the only other supplier in the world, yield plummeted to near zero. Customers who had been waiting for the material for 9 months were threatening to return their printers and the sales team had lost confidence in any schedule commitments from engineering. The situation was bleak and analogous to trying to sell ink jet printers with an IOU for black ink. During my time with the company, we quickly sorted the carbon fiber problem and introduced a much more reliable second-generation printer that sold like hotcakes. Yesterday, the company started trading on the New York Stock Exchange with a market cap of nearly two billion dollars and the stock I acquired when I left the company is now quite valuable.
A brief tour of the yard yielded a couple of interesting mushroom profiles. These two were in close physical proximity and I am led to wonder if the one below is a younger version of the one above. I will have to keep an eye on them to see what develops.
Also featured today is a television news piece on the Amputee Golf Tournament that Nicolai played in earlier this week.
As we near the start of our new home construction, I took a special interest in this massive new building foundation being built near Kendall Square. I was in the area for a meeting with a potential new client in the life science sector. I have secured three advisor/consulting engagements thus far and would like to pick up one or two more. My goal is to work no more than half-time in aggregate until I transition into full retirement. Anticipating potential traffic and parking delays, I arrived early. I used the extra time to photograph this construction site, launching my drone from the parking garage top level. Every time I see one of these huge buildings going up, I can only wonder what impact it will have on traffic.