My mother, at 87, can dance circles around women half her age. I hope I am equally active 30 years from now although I doubt I will be able to find an over 80 soccer league to play in. According to my sister, who posted this video on her Facebook page, my mom had already been dancing for three hours when this video was made of her partnering with the class instructor.

Maya’s nordic ski season concluded today with both the CCHS Boys and Girls Varsity teams winning the Mass Bay West Conference. Maya elected to compete even though she was suffering with the flu. She looked very puny but turned in a great performance nonetheless. She finished the 5.4km course in 20:17 shaving an unbelievable 3 minutes off her last race.

As a result of my annual physical exam last week, I was treated to a cardiovascular stress test this morning. I enjoyed the workout but was not so happy about having patches of my chest hair shaved off.

Jeanine is nearing completion of her memoir cookbook and has asked me to start taking photos that will be used in the publication. Food photography is a field unto itself and I don’t consider myself particularly well qualified in this area. Nonetheless, I will do my best. The unique thing about this type of photography is that you can eat your subject when you are done. We hosted a small dinner party this evening which featured the pictured menu items.

These 3D parts were not printed on a new Markforged printer which will not be announced at SolidWorks World 2016 on Monday.  My team has not been working nights and weekends nor have we pushed 3D printing to a new level.

One of my favorite views of downtown Boston (click the image for more detail) can be had from a hilltop in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, just minutes from my office. I decided to spend my lunch hour enjoying the beauty of the cemetery and will no doubt be revisiting this site many times throughout the year. Their policy on amateur photography is both enlightened and respectful. The grounds and monuments are simply exquisite.

Earlier in the morning I went in for my annual physical. I try to get one every three years or so. Triglycerides were way too high and my body mass index is too high (need to lose some weight. ) John has offered to put me on a regime which I am calling the caveman diet. You can only eat what nature provides with no processing after that.

At the request of a bridge enthusiast and long time follower of this blog, I am posting a photo of the newly completed bridge renovation project near the South Bridge Boat House. The project involved raising the height of the bridge over the roadway to prevent the frequent decapitation of box trucks, which occurred with surprising regularity. During construction, one track was kept operational at all times except for one weekend when a crane placed the new steel structures in place.

Sadly, I was unable to make it to Maya’s Nordic ski racing event today.  Thankfully, Jeanine was there and captured a great image of Maya after the race. In her mother’s words, “she left everything on the course.” She races again next week and I plan to be there come hell or high water.

Jeanine and Maya made a day trip to Pittsburgh today to visit Carnegie Mellon University, one of the schools she is considering for a degree in engineering.  It was extremely fortunate that the blizzard which paralyzed much of the Eastern seaboard over the weekend did not reach this far inland.

My nephew, John Quinn, celebrated his 23rd birthday today. He has taken a job in the Boston area with a small marketing startup and is living here with us. He is a wonderful guest and we enjoy having a “replacement” for our boys who are far away in Colorado and Bangkok. John contributes to the household in many ways including preparing dinner each Sunday night. He has been studying under Jeanine’s culinary tutelage and produced another incredible feast this evening. My sister will be pleased to know that her son is turning into a remarkable cook. Earlier in the day we touched base with Kyle who just completed his first full week on the job in Thailand. He is working 14 hour days and reports he is losing weight because he cannot find the time to eat. You could hear the excitement in his voice as he explained his job to us. He settles multi-million dollar Asian stock transactions with local banks and brokers. The slightest mistake can cause delays during which equity values may change, exposing his company to financial risk since they must honor the original execution price. Further complicating his job, every transaction may involve different institutions each with a slightly different set of settlement requirements. He is already taking about extending his stay in the region beyond the initial three month commitment. We are looking forward to visiting him when we travel there next month.

More nervous than I would have expected for someone who has learned to drive so expertly, Maya took and passed her driving test this morning. Starting on Monday (when we convert her insurance status from student driver to licensed driver) she will be free to drive by herself. Of our three children, she has been the most anxious to reach this milestone, perhaps because her siblings are out of the house and she has no one to hang out with except her parents. As was the routine with her brothers before her, she learned to drive from a ridiculously young age, seated on my lap with me operating the pedals. I will forever enjoy wonderful memories of teaching my kids to drive and hope they will remember those lessons with equal fondness.

For weeks now I have been struggling with the seating configuration choice I made when ordering my new Tesla Model X.  The SUV can be had in either a 5, 6, or 7 seat configuration.  Given we are a 5 member family, my initial choice was a 5 seat configuration (3rd row seats not present) leaving a ton of cargo space in the back.  At the time, the amount of information about any of these configurations was EXTREMELY limited.  Over the past month, as the first cars have begun to ship, owners have been posting videos and photos that have provided great insights and caused me to revisit my thinking. There are many things to admire about the Model X; zero-emissions, 250 mile range, extremely safe design, insanely high performance, and the latest technology. Had Tesla stopped there, they would have had an affordable (less than 6 figures) SUV that would have sold in huge numbers. Instead they went on to add falcon wing doors and second row seating that tilts forward, all in the name of improving ingress and egress from the third row seats.  Unfortunately, the design tradeoffs they made for this approach included fixed headrests, 2nd row seats that do not fold flat and the inability to mount a roof rack. The first severely limits rear view visibility and the second and third make it impossible to carry anything longer than 5 feet.  I have opted to change my order to the six seat configuration (middle, second row seat absent).  Rear visibility is unrestricted and it will be possible to carry items up to 10 feet in length (think lumber).

I never expected that my photographic skills would contribute so significantly to my work at Markforged.  One of my highest priorities at the company is to see that we consistently enhance the reliability and quality of our 3D printer.  To that end, I personally inspect every machine returned from the field with the goal of understanding the exact root cause of each failure.  For every new failure mechanism identified, we take steps to ensure that it will be eliminated.  Macro photographs play an essential role both in the discovery process and for documentation purposes.

This evening’s meal featured an all-Lebanese menu. How lucky am I that Jeanine is fluent in all the foods of the world?  Seriously, there is nothing she can not make!