For almost a decade now we have enjoyed the Fourth of July at the home of my high school friend and wrestling partner, Tom Metzold. Karen and Tom throw a fantastic party and this year they were giving away babies. Jeanine grabbed this one during the dessert buffet.
Our flight back to Boston is not until this afternoon leaving us the morning to explore Kobe on foot. The Ikuta Shrine is thought to be one of the oldest in Japan dating to the beginning of the third century. Our walking tour covered about four miles and included a lovely park near the waterfront where we met a Japanese woman who was all too happy to guide us in my pursuit of some ice cream.
My body clock had me up very early this morning and as soon as the sun rose, I decided to explore the area around my hotel. Less than half a mile away I found the lovely Takushima Central Park. There are few things I find more relaxing and pleasing to my senses than a Japanese garden. I share this passion with my mother who created an exquisite version of her own in the backyard of my childhood home. I was able to spend 2 hours exploring the park before returning to the hotel and preparing for my business meeting.
I don’t often feature stylized photos on this blog but am making an exception for the one below. Somehow this version conveys the feeling of the place more genuinely than the more accurately rendered original.
Examples of fine Japanese woodworking and design aesthetics were to be found at every turn. I took hundreds of pictures despite the gray skies and poor light.
After completing what proved to be a very fruitful day of business, all but one of my colleagues headed off in different directions. My traveling companion and I were chauffeured to Kobe where we would spend the evening before traveling on to Osaka for our flight home tomorrow. We arrived with just over an hour of sunlight remaining and decided to make a quick tour of the Nunobiki Falls, a short walk from our hotel. In Japan, Nunobiki is considered one of the greatest “divine falls” and includes four separate falls: Ondaki (top fall pictured below), Mendaki (bottom fall pictured below), Tsusumigadaki, and Meotodaki.
I am in Japan to meet with battery vendors and to learn how both nickel-metal hydride and lithium-ion batteries are made. After completing today’s meeting in the Shinagawa area my colleagues and I flew to Takushima for our meeting tomorrow. The flight took us past Mount Fuji whose peak could be seen poking through the cloud cover and over an oil tanker which was being docked to an off-shore depot pipeline.
At 2:30 AM I emerged from my cocoon and had a small breakfast before preparing for the final stage of my climb. The temperature at the summit is just above freezing so proper clothing is critical. I was on the trail by 3:15 AM equipped with a headlamp to illuminate the path. The trail grows progressively steeper and narrower as you approach the top which inevitably results in a traffic jam among the many climbers hoping to see the sunrise from the summit. My timing was perfect and I reached the top with 20 minutes to spare and even had time for this pre-dawn photo with the highest gate.
The morning air was crisp and clear offering a magnificent view of the sunrise as the sun broke through the sea of clouds which completely encircled the mountain.
Just as with Kilimanjaro, Fuji is a volcano with a tilted rim. To reach the actual summit you must circumnavigate the rim to the high side. This excursion adds another 90 minutes to the climb but is well worth the effort as it is mostly level. I am pictured below with the actual summit marker at the Kengamine peak which sits adjacent to a structure which appears to be a weather station.
Although my ascent and descent are both through clouds, I am lucky that conditions at the summit are crystal clear. Looking down upon the clouds is a rare and beautiful experience that I can recommend to anyone who questions why one would seek to climb high mountains.
During most of the year the top of Fuji is covered in snow. The climbing season of July and August is generally accompanied by an absence of snow but even now one can find plenty on the mountain. My descent took about four hours with last three spent in the clouds again. When I reached the fifth station I could barely see my hand in front of my face. I returned to Shinzuku to pick up my business gear and then took a train to Shinagawa where I rendezvoused with colleagues for our business meetings which start tomorrow.
Although I am in Japan for business, I have added two days of vacation so that I can fulfill a lifelong aspiration to climb Mount Fuji. A 7:40 AM bus from Shinjuku Station has me to the Fifth Station of the Yoshida trail by 10:30 AM. This is the most common starting point for the climb and sits at an altitude of 7,500 feet, roughly 5,000 feet below the 12,388-foot summit. Technically, the 2 month climbing season does not begin for another 2 days but as is evidenced by the photo, there are nearly one hundred other climbers that I will be sharing the trail with today. During peak times, as many as 10,000 people attempt the climb each day.
The photo below was taken with the camera level and shows the effects of massive winter avalanches on the vegetation on the lower part of the trail.
As is common at this time of year, much of the ascent is through a layer of clouds which renders visibility quite limited. With only one stop for lunch, I made a continuous climb of about 6 hours before reaching my destination for the evening, a mountain hut at the 8th station. I prefer a slow steady pace with no stopping to greater speed and frequent breaks (which other hikers seem to favor). I must admit that the climbing was harder than I anticipated and with limited visibility it was also quite unrewarding photographically speaking. The trail is an unrelenting ascent. If not for the numerous mountain huts starting after the seventh station there would not be a scintilla of level ground to be found anywhere.
The Japanese custom is to pause at one of the mountain huts for dinner and a few hours of rest before leaving early in the morning so as to time your arrival at the summit with the rising of the sun. A typical mountain hut includes a small dining area with tables and a common sleeping room. I had a reservation for space number 24 and it was as comfortable as a five-star hotel bed after the day’s climb. 24 is also the number of inches separating me from my fellow guests.
After a few hours of sleep and a hot shower, I took to the streets in search of dinner. The Shinjuku train station is Tokyo’s largest, serving as the main connecting hub for rail traffic between central Tokyo and its western suburbs on inter-city rail, commuter rail, and metro lines. The station is used by an average of 3.8 million people per day, making it, by far, the world’s busiest transport hub (and registered as such with Guinness World Records). Putting this into perspective, about one-quarter of the population of Tokyo moves through this station each day. Naturally, the area surrounding the station is unbelievably crowded with 100-foot-wide cross walks to accommodate all the pedestrians. It is also packed with great places to eat and shop. I must confess that I stopped in one of Japan’s mega camera stores for more than an appropriate amount of time. Fortunately, prices were high enough to keep me from making an impulse buy.
The Tokyo Skytree is a broadcasting, restaurant, and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. At 2,080 feet high, it is the tallest tower in the world and the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa. I passed it while on the express train from Narita Airport to Shinjuku Station. Combining the 16-hour journey with the 13-hour time zone shift it is actually Friday in Japan when this photo was taken. I spent the evening at the Shinjuku Prince Hotel where I rested comfortably before readying myself and gear for a climb of Mt. Fuji.
I was delighted this morning to find our baby robins being cared for by both parents who alternated bringing food to the nest. I set up my long lens and comfortable seating on our sun porch so I could observe the feedings which happen every five to ten minutes. By the time I returned from work, they all appeared to be quite strong. The big one, however, can reach up higher than his siblings and seems to be getting more than his fair share of the “food”.
I leave for Japan tomorrow morning and will probably not post again until my return on July 3rd. I have business in Tokyo and Osaka next week and am leaving early so I can spend the weekend climbing Mount Fuji (snow conditions permitting).
While a couple of Yard Dogs were trimming back creeping vines from the side of our house they discovered a robin’s nest with four newborn chicks. Jeanine had them stop work to preserve the nest and pointed it out to me when I returned from work. I found the chicks extremely weak and with no parents in sight. I decided that the extremely high temperature and loss of shade on their nest had left them dehydrated. I used a straw as a pipette to give them each some water. They all perked up and I was able to get this close-up of one of them. Hopefully, their parents will return and they will still be alive tomorrow.
With the super moon still nearly full, I planned to frame it directly behind the First Parish clock tower this evening. I have an iPhone application that gives me the exact location, trajectory, and timing of the sun and moon rising and setting. I drove downtown after 10 PM and set up in exactly the right spot. With any luck, I would have an 8-minute window to get the shot I was after. Unfortunately, the moon was masked by cloud cover and I had to settle for a much less artistic photograph. I have not had great luck when it comes to rare astronomical events and clear skies. I will simply have to persist.
Jeanine hosted a book signing party this afternoon for an author friend which drew about 40 people. No sooner had it ended, when 50 or so of Nicolai’s friends started arriving for his graduation party. It featured his band performing an outdoor concert followed by a dance in the basement and a brief interlude to witness the supermoon rising.
My day was filled with less reason to party. My soccer team lost our first match of the season in a penalty kick shootout in the divisional championship match to a team that we beat twice earlier this season. I played well despite the 100F temperature on the synthetic field (90F elsewhere) and ended with a respectable six goals on the season. Despite the bitter loss, our 11-0-1 record was enough to secure promotion to division one for the fall season.
We are fortunate to live so close to Verrill Farm. In addition to enjoying field to table produce for much of the year there are a number of festivals that bring the community together. Today was the Strawberry Festival and I found this little guy sampling the goods while his mother was nearby picking significantly more ripe specimens. I couldn’t interest anyone else in the family to join me so I stopped in for a quick lunch and picked up a quart of strawberries to bring home. Maya requested dinner at Not Your Average Joe’s for her family birthday celebration. There she opened presents including a 14-piece lock pick set with a book and DVD on lock picking from her father. Lest you think I am trying to guide my daughter into a life of crime, I should point out that this item was on her birthday wish list. Movies like the Italian Job and TV shows like Elementary have sparked her interest in the art of lock picking. To be successful one must truly understand the mechanics of a lock and I am thrilled she has developed this interest. When we returned home, Maya and I watched the video chapter on pin and tumbler locks. We then set out to pick our first locks. Within 10 minutes Maya picked her first lock. She then defeated another three in less than five minutes each. I was also successful but not as fast as Maya.
Jeanine alerted me to a great photo opportunity with the full moon rising over the Concord Fair. I quickly drove to the exact vantage point she described in time to capture this image.
Aided by two Yard Dogs from Kyle’s company, we were able to deconstruct our deck in about 3 hours. Planks had to be cut into 7-foot sections to fit within our Dumpster in a Bag (a very interesting DIY debris removal service) which also made them easy to carry. In addition to the planks, I removed a small area of siding and the stair risers which all showed signs of water damage. I will spread the reconstruction task out over several weeks to ease the burden. We are still trying to decide between the latest synthetic materials and wood.
Pictured here are two of my direct reports participating in a competitive relay race held yesterday during my annual All-Hands Engineering meeting. The exercise was designed to illuminate a distinct preference at iRobot for clever engineering over flawless execution. I believe the point could not have been illustrated more dramatically despite great furor over interpretation of the specifications. A large contingent of participants felt that a totally legal solution to the constraints listed below was to skewer the soccer ball (a grapefruit, in this case) with duct tape covered rope and drag it behind them with the rope affixed to their hips.
You will be dribbling a “soccer ball” which may look more like a fruit.
Each team will be provided a roll of duct tape and a length of rope.
Only the duct tape may contact the ball (non-sticky side).
Only the rope or ball may contact the duct tape.
The rope may be attached to the participant but never touch their hands, arms, feet, legs, or head.
The debate centered on the interpretation of the word “dribbling”. Many felt that the contents of the grapefruit oozing from the puncture points constituted dribbling while I only permitted the Merriam-Webster definition pertaining to soccer: to propel by successive slight taps or bounces.
Maya graduated from Concord Middle School this morning and has been the center of attention all day long. During the student led event she served as co-Master of Ceremony. Wearing her Panda hat from China and a pair of Blues Brothers sunglasses, she was poised, funny and unflappable. When a chipmunk wandered on stage and hid below the upright piano, Maya quipped to the terrified audience, “I hope the next person playing has on closed toe shoes.” After a 15 minute delay during which students and teachers chased the chipmunk from the auditorium the ceremony resumed. Tracking the dislocated rodent was easy; you need only look to the section of the audience squealing the loudest. The ceremony resumed with a pseudo student talent show interleaved with award presentations by the faculty. Yesterday, Jeanine was alerted by the school that Maya would be winning a “big” award and that we would want to be in attendance. This news left me with a tough decision. Also scheduled for today is my annual, full day, Engineering All-Hands meeting during which I am expected to give the opening and closing remarks and generally officiate over the proceedings. In the end the choice was simple. Being present to witness Maya’s big honor was my top priority. It is nice to work with a group of professionals I can count on to step in for me knowing they will do an excellent job in my stead. The Morton R. Seavey Award was established by the CMS faculty in 1966 in honor of Mr. Seavey, who was a Principal in Concord from 1937 to 1965. The award goes to a member of the eighth grade, voted by the faculty as having made outstanding contributions in the areas of service, leadership, character and loyalty. The final award of the ceremony, Maya was genuinely surprised when it was her name that was called to receive this prestigious honor. In addition to the plaque she received, her name will be engraved on the memorial plaque at the school where it will remain in perpetuity.
After standing for nearly three hours so I could witness Maya’s special recognition, I was all too happy to be seated in the car and on the way to my meeting. I arrived just in time for lunch and had ample time to set up a team building activity that would take place later in the afternoon. Worthy of its own blog entry I will simply leave you with this picture.
As soon as my Engineering meeting wrapped up I sped home just in time to photograph Maya and her friends as they prepared to depart for the 8th Grade Dance (middle school prom equivalent). I have known many of these girls since they were 5 years old and find it hard to fathom how they have transformed into such beautiful young women.
With all that has transpired today, I may have forgot to mention that it is Miss Maya’s 14th birthday. I suspect this is a day we will all remember for quite some time.
When we renovated our deck six years ago I fully expected it to last at least 20 years. We paid a premium for a low maintenance composite material that was supposed to be superior to wood in every way and was made in large part from recycled materials. Instead it has degraded to the point where it looks shabby and in another year will be unsafe. The fabricator of this product, which carried a ten year warranty, went bankrupt shortly before I tried to contact them two years ago. The contractor who recommended and installed the material has washed his hands of responsibility even though his company failed to install the material according to the manufacturer’s recommendations which certainly exacerbated the speed of failure. This time I will replace the deck myself with some help from Kyle’s company, Yard Dogs. His crew is coming later this week to remove and haul away the old material. Each morning and each night for the past couple of days I have been removing a couple of hundred screw fasteners in preparation. I estimate there are 1200 in total.
Torrential downpours have swept through the region for the better part of the day leaving local rivers swollen. My plans to do a little kayaking this week may have to wait until the waters recede enough for me to squeeze through under some of the lower bridges.
Maya captured this portrait of me during a post-match pool party at the home of our team’s goalie, Rob Morrison. Our team emerged victorious (2-0) from our semi-final play-off match this morning making for a very happy celebration. I was joined by Jeanine and the kids (plus my nephew John) who quickly found their way into a doubles ping pong match. Maya surprised everyone with her skills and game-winning shot.
For years it has been my ambition to photograph a humming bird. Photographically speaking it is significant challenge. At about two inches in length, you either need to be very close or use a big telephoto lens. Then there is the matter of those wings, beating at up to 30 beats per second, requiring a very fast shutter speed and/or short duration flash. Finally, you need to find one and track it through the air. Jeanine’s recently filled nectar feeder removed one of the big variables and all I had to do was wait for about thirty minutes before this little fellow showed up. I noticed he likes a particular flower in the garden as well. Perhaps I will catch him there with a more pleasing background next time.
Somewhat larger in size, Nicolai did some of his own mid-air hovering on the campus of Wellesley College. Jeanine, my nephew John, and Nico watched Maya’s last soccer game of the season before we took a few moments to make some videos of Nicolai doing front and back flips with and without his crutches. He is putting these clips together for another SideStix promotional video. Here we added to his collection of “levitation” photos.
Occasionally, my photography proves extremely valuable to my work. This afternoon I took a series of macro photos which helped us understand a failure mechanism in one of our products. Pictured here is a floating contact used in a charging station. The black pitted area at the top of the dimple is not supposed to be there. Once a failure mechanism is understood it is generally fairly straightforward to engineer a solution.
It was a long day in the office but I made it home just in time for the setting sun to light up Mattison Field in golden light. I feel very fortunate to live surrounded by such beauty.
Work has been extremely hectic this week due to the simultaneous emergence of a couple of engineering issues which demand my full attention. I handle this kind of stress best when I take time to pause momentarily each day to clear my head. On the way into the office this morning, I stopped for 15 minutes at the Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge to charge my batteries before another high intensity day at the office. The little white objects on the lilies in the foreground are actually drops of water.
During a lunchtime stroll today I had occasion to make this image. Does anyone care to guess what or how big this object is? You would be correct if you guessed that it is the brush from a street sweeper which is little more than a Roomba the size of a dump truck. Whereas the Roomba uses a brush that is 10″ long and an inch and a half in diameter this one is more than ten times bigger in every dimension. My initial reason for photographing the brush was to test a new lens I received last week (a great subject for testing critical focus and depth of field). Eventually, my interest turned from technical to artistic and I settled on this perspective as my favorite.
My team has been working around the clock on a new robot which we introduced to the world today at the Infocomm Expo in Orlando. Developed for our fledgling Remote Presence business unit we partnered with Cisco to integrate their Executive Video Conferencing system with our AVA mobility platform. This robot can autonomously navigate through a facility to any destination you select and once it has arrived initiate a video-conference call allowing a person to participate in meetings, tours, or simply “walk around” a remote site which could be on the other side of the world.
My soccer team won our final match of regulation play for the spring season this morning by a margin of 3-1. Our record was a perfect 10-0-0 and we will be going back up to division one again where I believe we will fare much better this fall than last. With 6 goals, I was the second leading scorer which is not too shabby considering I missed 2 games to injury and played 3 at wing midfield rather than striker. Next week the top 2 finishing teams from the north and south regions will begin the Divisional Championship Playoffs. The winners will advance to the finals the following weekend.
Meanwhile, Jeanine has been kidnapped by her sisters for a secret 50th birthday adventure and I am told I can expect her to be returned safe and sound on Tuesday.
Nicolai graduated today from Concord Carlisle High School with National Honor Society distinction. The ceremony was held indoors due to heavy rains yesterday (rendering the normal venue a soggy mess). Unfortunately, this meant that only Jeanine and I could attend (due to the seating limitation of the gymnasium) even though my mother and sister and Jeanine’s sisters and friend all traveled here to celebrate with us. The commencement speaker was one of the school’s Spanish teachers and he delivered the best commencement addresses I have ever heard. He was funny, irreverent, and connected intensely with the students. His main theme was “Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained.” Two of our standard graduation photos, Maya inside the robes and parents kissing the graduate were taken before the ceremony (anticipating that Nico might return without his mortarboard).
We returned home after the ceremony to an intimate family celebration and small feast. The cake Maya made for her brother was the featured desert and was enjoyed by all.
Nicolai plans to attend the University of Miami in the fall of 2014 after he takes a gap year during which he will intern with SideStix just outside of Vancouver, Canada, travel across the US for a month, intern as a teaching assistant with Rivers and Revolutions, work as a gymnastics camp counselor over the summer, and who knows what else will be added to the constantly expanding list. Had it to do all over again, I would have taken a gap year between high school and college as well as between college and graduate school. Why rush the some of the best times of your life.
Normally I use a macro lens to shoot small objects since they are expressly designed for this purpose. Today I received a new 35mm wide angle lens and took it for a test run outdoors. Such a lens is the last I would pick to photograph a bee pollinating flowers but when the opportunity presented itself I get in very close and took the shoot.
Macro photographers tend to try and isolate their subjects from what can be distracting background elements. With the 35mm, I was able to isolate the bee with a narrow depth of field but still capture enough surrounding details to give a sense of the environment. If not for the fact that this new lens is so sharp, I would not have been able to crop for the composition I wanted and still have enough detail in the image. This new lens is definitely going to be a keeper.
Jeanine is preparing to send out a graduation announcement for Nicolai and asked me if I would provide two photos of him (one when he was younger and one that is current). I decided to make a composite image and this is the result. I still remember that little guy and can’t believe how quickly time has passed and how much he has grown (and in so many ways). We love the big guy just as much and are extremely proud of all he has accomplished.
Lauren, one of Jeanine’s two sisters, arrived this afternoon from Indianapolis. She is here to join in celebrations for Nico’s graduation and Jeanine’s 50th birthday party for relatives (yes, this is about the sixth 50th birthday party; Jeanine has been quite content to get all the mileage she can from this milestone). After preparing a healthful dinner of homemade falafel for the family, Lauren joined my nephew John and I for a short trip to the Nashawtuc Country Club to hear Nico and his band performing during the CCHS Senior Dinner. Later the sisters and I went for an evening stroll and I had an opportunity to catch up on family news.
The sun had just set and I was still without a photo for the day so I went out into the front yard in search of something interesting to shoot. It didn’t take long before I came across this fly resting on a flower. I knew immediately that I wanted a perspective that would place the fly in profile entirely in front of the white petal. It took some real contortions and patience to get the exact framing I wanted but I feel it was worth the effort.