No picture today.  Instead the text of an interview with Jeanine published by the Concord Journal.

As the federal government shutdown continues, local food pantries have stepped in to help furloughed employees make ends meet.

Open Table, a nonprofit organization that offers community dinners in Concord and Maynard and food pantry services in Maynard, has been preparing for an increase in families seeking support, according to Executive Director Jeanine Calabria.

Calabria said she had started to see an increase in families attending the organization’s community dinners at their Jan. 3 dinner at First Parish Church in Concord.

“We did have a couple families in anticipation of (missed federal paychecks) come Thursday night,” Calabria said. “And they let us know that there are more families planning to come.”

Calabria said before the shutdown, the nonprofit had prepared for a decrease in attendance due to a newly defined service area. While community dinners are still open to all, pantry services were reduced to 23 municipalities surrounding Maynard and Concord.

“Initially we were expecting 20 percent fewer customers, but now we haven’t seen that,” Calabria said.

During the shutdown, roughly 800,000 federal employees nationwide have either been sent home or made to work without pay.

Calabria said that Open Table expects demand for its services to increase after the first missed paycheck, Jan. 10.

“We’ve actually reached out to Hanscom and have been working with people there to get the word out and let employees there know that our services are available,” Calabria said, referencing Hanscom Field, one of the larger federal employers in the region.

With funding for most military personnel secured through 2019, Calabria said the anticipated increase in attendees was from civilian employees of Hanscom Field and their families.

In addition to their dinners and food pantry services, Calabria said that Open Table would be holding a special pantry service for federal employees on Jan. 19, should the shutdown still be ongoing at that time.

“We want everyone who needs us to know we’re available,” Calabria said.

 

“A wise man named Confucius Berg once said. A team that eats Chinese food together, builds a better 3D printer together.”  So started the e-mail reminding members of one of our product teams of their annual team Chinatown dinner.  The food and ambiance were both wonderful. I had to leave at the two-hour mark just as our CEO and his wife arrived and the real party seemed to be getting started.  The drive home proved to be an exercise in careful battery management.  The cold temperature and extra trip into Chinatown left me with only one mile of range when I finally pulled into our drive.  I was tempted to take a lap around the neighborhood to discover what happens when the range reaches zero but thought this unwise given how cold it was.

Pictured is one of three boats which caught on fire late Tuesday night.  The other two sank.  My morning walk took me to the Charlestown Marina where I paused to capture the scene.  Fortunately, there are no reports of injury.  Property loss is reported to be $1,000,000.

All new Formlabs employees must attend Print School, a half day intensive course that teaches the proper way to utilize our 3D printers.  Because my start date did not line up with the normal on-boarding period, I missed the November cohort of new hires and instead joined the December cohort.  I believe we hired something like 25 new employees last month so 4 different classes were required to accommodate all the students.  Even though, I started printing on my own several weeks ago, I learned a great deal in class and enjoyed the opportunity to mingle with other new hires.

Some images speak for themselves.

Nala is now 11.5 years old, which is roughly 77 years old in people years.  Today she refused to eat and has been limping badly.  I am afraid she is approaching the end of her life and that our family will soon be faced with some difficult decisions and grief. As she was resting in her “dog house,” an antique Japanese palanquin, I decided to take what may be one of her last photos.  It was very dark and I did not want to disturb her by turning the lights on or using a flash.  Instead, I took a 15-second exposure on a tripod.  Just as I tripped the shutter, she decided to get up and investigate which resulted in this ghost-like image.  It is hard for me not to read into the unlikely coincidence.

Few residents of Concord ever discuss the medium-security men’s prison that is part of our community.  Its presence here is quite incongruous with virtually everything else. I have been told that it is a significant contributor to our tax base and the reason we can afford to leave so much of the town’s land undeveloped.  I took time this morning to explore a new section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail which goes right past the prison and ends (current construction phase) a short distance later. I continued on along the undeveloped part of the train corridor over Nashoba Brook and across Route 2 until further progress was blocked by water and/or vegetation..

Several of Nicolai’s close friends from Colorado College have been visiting with us over the past several days.  Time seems to be spent equally between watching sports, playing games (console-based and old-fashioned), searching for or making food, and eating.  I took advantage of all this brawn to help move the king-size bed in our master bedroom in preparation for its sale early next week.

Jeanine, Maya, and Kyle all traveled to Minnesota this weekend to visit with my brother’s family.  Pictured above is my niece Sophia as photographed by Jeanine wearing a new pair of jeans that were a gift from her aunt.  Work commitments prevented me from joining them and probably just as well.  Nicolai is hosting four of his college friends here in Concord and it probably does not hurt to have some adult supervision on the home front.

A bit of bit organization was the theme for the day.  Customized tool storage is one of my favorite personal applications for 3D printing.  The two holders on the left have narrow column spacing to maximize density and wide row spacing to facilitate finger access.  The one on the right was design specifically for the nut driver set taking into account the individual size of each bit.  I spent less than an hour designing all three of these bit holders and am sure that investment will pay dividends over a lifetime of quick access to the tools I need.  Pictured below is a CAD view from the underside.  The holders are designed to use a minimum of material and to prevent wood dust from accumulating at the bottom of each cavity.

Little surprise that I have designed and 3D printed yet another tripod to add to my collection.  This small tabletop model is constructed of 5 plastic components and uses a single cap bolt to simultaneously capture the leg pivots and secure the ball head to the apex.  The legs have positive stops for both the open and closed positions. 

Jeanine and I enjoyed a nice walk along a recently opened section of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail which passes near our home. We turned around at Concord Junction (memorialized by the installation pictured above) where 120 trains a day would pass during the time of the Industrial Revolution.  Quite a stark contrast to today. Now, one of the intersecting lines has been turned into a 25-mile linear park open for all but motorized activities.  We crossed over the Assabet River on a newly constructed pedestrian bridge which reflects the railroad heritage of the trail .  We are very lucky to live in a place with such easy access to nature and a commitment to historical preservation.

On the last day of the year, I like to look back at all the photos I have taken during that time.  In this case, the number of images I chose to keep is 5,267.    That works out to an average of 14 per day.  In reality, I shoot only 2 or 3 on any given day but occasionally shoot hundreds at a time while on vacation or during special events.  I should also note that for every photo I keep, I usually discard 3 or 4.  Just viewing the collection is a four-hour project (@ 3 seconds per).  Regular followers of this blog will have already seen ~10% of them (generally speaking, the better ones).  Here is one that did not make the cut but I think is deserving of a spot in the 2018 lineup.

Jeanine and I spent some time house-hunting after a late breakfast at the Blackbird Cafe.  While driving through Arlington Heights, we came across this most impressive water tower. It was constructed between 1921 and 1924 (the year my father was born) in the Classical Revival style, to provide water storage for Lexington and the higher elevations of Belmont and Arlington. The design is said to have been inspired by the rotunda from the Samothrace temple complex in Greece. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.