My youngest niece Rose is a cutie for sure. To say that she is willful would be unimaginative. To say that she is the miniature CEO of the family might come closer to the truth. Today Marie will drive with her four children to Schenectady where she will visit with my parents. Our family will follow later this week and my brother Mark will join us there on the weekend. My sister Mayela and her husband Stephen will fly up from North Carolina and my sister Alissa and her family live in Albany so we are looking forward to a grand reunion of the Calabria clan.

Kyle’s soccer team won the Massachusetts State High School Championship this evening defeating Palmer 1-0 at Worcester State College. The score does not reflect the dominance of the CCHS team which controlled the game from the first whistle but credit is due to the Palmer goalie for his brilliant defense.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Jeanine hosted a small army of Girl Scouts who she taught how to make old fashioned apple pies. From the looks of the operation it seemed that everyone enjoyed themselves and I suspect that many a Thanksgiving table will have a place of honor reserved for these first time works of culinary art.

Mario and Nicolai take turns practicing one-arm handstands. I did not think about the symbolism of this image (boy on one leg supporting boy on one arm) at the time I took the photo.

Nicolai, Kyle, and cousins Rory and Mario have all grown to about the same height and are like peas in a pod. They spent the weekend playing all manner of games and sports. I even managed to squeeze an hour of yard work out of this manly crew.

The Harvard Business School campus, as one might expect, features rather conservative architecture. This structure is the notable exception.

The first keynote speaker at the Cyberposium was the CEO of Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry phone). It was interesting to get a glimpse into the future of mobile smart phones and to understand why these devices are starting to bump up against the limits of physics. The second keynote speaker was the founder of YouTube but I opted to get back to the family rather than hang around all afternoon once my panel was done.

Today, I attended the Harvard Business School Cyberposium where I was a panelist discussing Converged Devices (the next generation of television). The one-hour session was over in the blink of an eye, and I enjoyed the interaction with the four other panelists and the audience.

Today my brother’s family (minus my brother) flew from Minnesota to Boston where they will spend the weekend with us before driving to Schenectady to visit with my parents and sister next week. This is my niece Sophia who is as delightful as she is beautiful.

I flew back to Boston today and went directly from the airport to Lynn where Kyle’s soccer team was competing in the semi-finals of the state high school tournament against the team from Sandwich. CCHS scored a single goal late in the second period to advance to the finals which will be contested on Sunday.

It never ceases to amaze me what I come across while in Santa Barbara. This bicycle rig seems to include an air damn, windshield, dashboard, storage compartments and who knows what else. If I was not on my way into the office I would have hung around to see what the rider looked like which would have surely been entertaiing as well.

After work, I did a little nighttime photography and shopping in downtown Santa Barbara. Evenings here at this time of year are really quite delightful. I am hoping that all the walking is also helping my pinky toe to recover. It still smarts with every step.

Today I traveled to Santa Barbara where I will be working for most of the week. My routing was through Phoenix for the first time exposing me to some new aerial landscapes.,

I have attributed my recent surge in scoring to being injury-free for the first time this season. Another possible explanation is that our team manager recently started awarding a jar of salsa for each goal scored. I must confess, I really like the salsa.