My construction-detoured commute takes me through Inman Square where you will find a very wonderful mural painted on the second story of the Inman Square Firehouse.  The mural was painted in 1976 by Ellary Eddy to celebrate the nation’s Bicentennial and includes George Washington and Benjamin Franklin among the Cambridge firefighters of the day.  Washington and Franklin both served as volunteer firemen in their spare time. The apparatus shown is the 1960 Pirsch 1,000 gallons per minute pump which was Engine 5’s pump at the time. Is it me or is Ben wearing a pair of Converse.

This morning my soccer team held our first outdoor practice with our season opener only two weeks away.  Unfortunately, one of my teammates caught an errant elbow (not mine) which broke his nose.  I took him to the hospital where they fixed him up.  I am guessing he is going to have two black eyes in the morning and a wife standing in the way of his taking the field with us for our first match.  He was bleeding profusely after the injury but it was only a small fraction of the blood I saw later in the day.  Jeanine and I took a 3.5-mile walk on the Lexington section of the Minuteman Commuter Bikeway.  There we encountered several police vehicles, firetrucks, and a taped-off section of the trail.  Apparently, two bikes traveling in the opposite direction collided at very high speed.  There was a VERY large pool of blood on the bike path, two mangled bicycles, and one helmet on the ground.  One of the riders died and the other sustained serious injuries.

Local media coverage of our recent trip to Argentina.

With Nala no longer here to patrol the perimeter of our yard every day, we have noticed an increase in the number of critters that are visiting.  The geese and the presents they leave are not very welcome.  This coyote, however, is quite beautiful and I am hoping for a better shot of him one day.  I took this photo with less-than-optimal settings in dreary light.

Thanks to a former colleague (N.M.) and follower of this blog the significance of the mystery medal (posted two days ago) has been solved.  I could not be more thankful for his discovery and Jeanine is thrilled with the result.  My assumption that it was a military medal had me searching in all the wrong places.

The French Academic Palms recognizes those who have rendered eminent service to French education and have contributed actively to the prestige of French culture.  For those who are named and promoted in the Order of the French Academic Palms (l’Ordre des Palmes académiques), this esteemed distinction acknowledges their merits, talents, and exemplary activities.

Napoleon I first created the palmes académiques as an honorary title to recognize members of the University in 1808.  The academic palms became a decoration in 1866, under Napoléon III, at which time the honor was also extended to non-teaching persons who had rendered illustrious service to French education. Thus, the academic palms is the oldest non-military French decoration.

By decree of Président René Coty, the Order of the Academic Palms was instituted in 1955 as the first of ministerial orders recognized by the French Republic and was defined by three ranks: Chevalier (Knight), Officier (Officer), and Commandeur (Commander).  Jeanine’s grandfather’s medal corresponds to the rank of Officier.

Details beyond the ones I have already copied here can be found at https://www.frenchacademicpalms.org/information.html

The Ray and Maria Stata Center is a 720,000-square-foot academic complex designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Frank Gehry for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The building opened for initial occupancy on March 16, 2004. In contrast to the MIT custom of referring to buildings by their numbers rather than their official names, the complex is usually referred to as “Stata” or “the Stata Center.”  Above the fourth floor, the building splits into two distinct structures: the Gates Tower and the Dreyfoos Tower, often called “G Tower” and “D Tower” respectively.  I took advantage of the nice spring-like day to visit during my lunch hour.

Jeanine asked me to photograph and research this WWI-era medal that was awarded to her grandfather. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete the second part of my assignment.  I used a reverse image search and all conceivable Google search terms and still found nothing that would shed any light on the significance of this medal.

If you want to visit the Boston Museum of Science you need to be very careful to avoid the T-Rex that guards the entrance.  Thankfully, it is contained by the pictured fence which keeps visitors safe. As I continued my morning walk, I found another fence that served as a nice foreground for the Zakim Bridge.  All totaled, I covered 4 miles which is my goal for days I do not go to the gym before work.

Kyle was our photographer this evening and consequently not shown in this photo taken as the entire family dined together for the first time in quite a while.  Even though Nicolai is working at CCHS and house-sitting in Concord, we have not seen him in weeks.  Kyle lives in the Seaport District only 30 minutes away but without a car, it is not easy for him to make the journey home. Maya is on spring break and we hope to hang on to her for about a week.  We dined at Woods Hill Table, among the finest farm to table restaurants in New England and enjoyed their Sunday family style dinner.  Later Jeanine and I mostly spectated as the kids engaged in passionate debate on a number of topics while watching golf on TV with the volume off (one of many sports improved in this manner).  We are very proud of their independent thinking, articulate expression, and willingness to listen to different points of view.

Maya is back in town for spring break and so are her close friends from high school.  They spent the evening chatting about school, dating, the college admission scandal to name a few subjects.  Jeanine prepared a new cauliflower casserole recipe which disappeared quickly as did the girls after dinner on their search for ice cream. Upon returning they seemed determined to burn the guilty calories off in something that I can only describe as a synchronized circle-hopping routine that often ended in one of them jumping on another.  I must be sure to take a video the next time this happens.  It was so nice to have all this youthful energy in the house and we are looking forward to having the boys join us tomorrow.

A recent photograph of my mother and sister. Hope I age as well as these beauties.

The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, an irrational and transcendental number, pi will continue infinitely without repetition or pattern.  The first three significant digits 3.14 correspond to today’s date and hence the holiday.  Increasingly, mathematicians are losing out to bakers as more and more people celebrate the holiday as “pie” day including the fellow above who is feasting on a pizza pie.

I took a 90-minute lunch hour to complete a 5-mile walk to and from the Boston Naval Shipyard where the USS Constitution can be found.  Had time permitted, I would have liked to also take the 30 minute tour but my work calendar dictated otherwise.  Perhaps I will do this again when things are less busy (we have a big product launch coming up). I am signed up for a 10-mile Tough Mudder in June and my spring soccer season is just a few weeks away so I am trying to increase my fitness level.  I should be running, but long walks are far less aggravating to my patellar tendonitis.

It seems like there is new office construction everywhere you look in Somerville, Cambridge, Boston and the Seaport District.  All I see is an ever-increasing challenge for suburban commuters. Where are the roadway and rapid transit improvement projects that will support all this growth?  I am thankful to live in an area where business is thriving but at what point do we decide that more development is actually a net negative?