It has now been just over nine years since I joined the Board of Directors of the American Amputee Soccer Association. In that time, the organization has grown from one that could barely field a full squad to represent the United States in international competition and then only if the players could pay for their own travel to one that is now starting to build out regional teams and has modest funding. One of the most important missions of the organization is to help amputees reach their full potential and to create an opportunity to enjoy competitive soccer. Hayes, pictured above, recently lost his leg. He was thrilled when a member of the US National Amputee Soccer Team reached out and sent him a team jersey and backpack along with an offer to join the sport when he is old enough. I hope to still be with the organization when that day comes.

Although I have been to Italy three times, I have yet to see Rome or the region of Calabria. My most recent visit was with Jeanine when we had just started dating some 36 years ago. Last October, we celebrated our 30 year wedding anniversary. We had been planning a trip to Europe to include Italy and Greece but those plans never even got off the ground when the pandemic hit. With any luck, we will have been vaccinated in time to make the same trip next October. I hope those who follow this blog will forgive my week -long indulgence in imaginary travel. I needed something to inspire continued social isolation during these challenging times.

Of all the places I have ever trekked, Nepal is near the top of my favorites list. Seven years ago, I hiked the Annapurna circuit. The 150-mile trail covers some of the most magnificent scenery you can imagine. I feel lucky to have done it when I did as new roads are diminishing the trail every year. I would very much like to return to Nepal and climb to the Mount Everest base camp, which at 17,598 feet is not quite as high as the Thorung La Pass on the Annapurna circuit at 17,769 feet.

Although I am 50% Ecuadorian, I was nearly 60 years old before I visited for the first time. Maya and I spent 3 weeks there, equally split between the Galapagos, the Andes, and the Amazon. I would love to return again with Jeanine and combine it with a visit to Peru.

Had it not been for the Covid pandemic, I would have made my third visit to Africa last March. I took this photo 16 years ago in South Africa while lying on the roof of a mini-van, which was rapidly backing up when this herd of elephants entered the road we were parked on and asserted their right of way. It was a thrilling encounter and I cannot wait to make a return trip to the African continent for more of the same.

While visiting Kyle, who was working in Thailand at the time, we made a 3-day weekend excursion to Vietnam. It was little more than an appetizer which left me hungry for more. When Jeanine and I have both retired (only a couple of years away), I can see us spending several weeks, if not months, exploring this beautiful country.

As the new year begins, I am hoping it will offer an opportunity for adventure travel, something I have missed terribly since the start of the Covid pandemic. My 2021 motto is; “have vaccine, will travel.” In the blog this week, I will feature a new location each day where I hope to visit or revisit as soon as it is safe to do so again. Today’s entry is Greenland. I took the above photo from a commercial airliner while flying back to the US from Iceland.

At Digital Alloys, where I work as the CTO, we are focused on building a 3D metal printer with industrial capacity and commensurate proportions (think small car-sized). Today, I had the occasion to document one of the company’s early prototypes, a desktop version. As we seek new investors, interest in such a unit has been increasing and it would take very little effort to reactivate a program to bring such a model to market.

Light snow left the rhododendrons surrounding our house covered with a very pretty frosting. The rhodie leaves also offer a very predictable measure of temperature which can be ascertained at a glance. The colder it gets, the more the leaves droop. These bushes are very plentiful on our lot and I am looking forward to watching them bloom in the spring.

My youngest sister, Mayela, and her husband Stephen decided not to have children, but they have always had a loving family. Pictured above is her favorite “child, ” Peachy, who passed away peacefully today at the age of ten. I am fond of dogs and have lived with four over the course of my life. Peachy had the best qualities of all of them combined and was truly a special dog. She will be missed by all of us.

For the last two weeks, I have been on vacation. I have used that time to work on our new house and have been so busy that I have not been able to keep up with my daily blog entries. I have decided to forgive myself for this lapse and to consider it part of my vacation from normal daily routines. To start the new year, I thought I would take a look back at the kids when they were small. Few things make my heart happier than these tiny windows into the past and I can think of no better way to kick off a new year. I am happy to report that all three are gainfully employed and living independently, each less the 30 minutes away from us and minutes away from each other.

Out of an abundance of caution, we celebrated Christmas Eve outdoors this year. The kids joined us at our new home where we set up a temporary firepit just outside the house. There we enjoyed take-out Chinese food by the warmth of the fire. It was no less enjoyable than years past and perhaps even more so on a certain level. We certainly have a lot to be thankful for and our camping-like setting only minimized the distractions of modern life allowing us to focus more on each other.

Hoping to see the alignment of Jupiter and Saturn in the early night sky, Jeanine and I drove to a nearby field with an expansive view of the horizon. Already parked there were a dozen cars of similarly intentioned individuals. I immediately set up my tripod and mounted my camera and 600mm telephoto lens. I looked to the southwest by west direction and spotted a bright light in the sky. When I looked in the viewfinder, I could not believe how beautiful the image was. It kept changing colors as the clouds moved by. I was very excited that the predicted cloud cover was not obscuring the view. As I continued to take photos, I noticed that the object seemed to be moving. What’s more, the view through my lens did not match what I was seeing with my eyes. Long story short; I had aimed my camera at an approaching plane and my lens was not focused at the correct distance leading to exaggerated size and color effects. Below is a similarly defocused picture of our Christmas “tree” featured in a recent post.

Jeanine enjoys cooking over fire. The fact that our last home was one of only two in the entire neighborhood that was connected to natural gas was a big selling feature. Our new house is not and cooking over fire and will require the addition of a propane tank on the outside of the house. I have been encouraging her to consider an induction cooktop which offers many advantages if not familiarity. Today, she agreed to give one a test drive in our current kitchen which launched me on a research and shopping project. Although I found a couple of very nice units, lead times are running 6-8 weeks.

Between the Covid-19 pandemic and having just moved into our new house, we have decided to keep our Christmas celebration as simple as possible. Behold our Christmas tree. It proudly stands 24″ tall and is adorned with simple white lights.

While working on the house today, I managed to cut my wrist on a sharp piece of metal. Unable to locate a bandaid, I had to make do with a wadded-up paper towel and zip tie. Crude as it was, this improvised bandage did the trick and served its purpose until Jeanine could properly patch me up.

Note to my mother: This was not a serious injury. My tetanus shots are current. I will be more careful in the future.

Ever since moving into our new neighborhood, we have been amazed by the warmth and friendliness of the community. Today, our neighbors to the north stopped by to introduce themselves and deliver a lovely welcome basket to us. In the evening, we participated in an organized Covid-safe neighborhood stroll. We enjoyed a sampling of holiday lights, live music, singing, a barrel fire, and holiday treats.

I am making steady progress on plans for the renovation of our new home. Pictured above is the layout of the first floor only. It will occupy the as-built footprint of the house. We would like to trade our existing detached garage and dual carport for a 2 1/2 car attached garage if approved by the Concord Natural Resource Commission. The NRC must sanction any such projects that are undertaken within 200 feet of a river. While the approval process is very expensive and time-consuming, the work of the commission is why our rivers are so pristine. Our final plans will likely change once we involve an architect which we are hoping to hire next week after several months of vetting candidates.

In normal years, I spend quite a bit of time creating a trifold holiday card featuring my favorite family photos from the year. Last year, the entire lot of cards went into the trash when the kids voiced their dissatisfaction with the images I chose. This year, our card is a combination holiday card and moving announcement. Jeanine and I took the main photo this morning, taking advantage of a fresh snowfall. We got a good 7-8 inches and for the first time in my life, someone else took care of snow removal. Our new driveway is way too long for me to clear with a snowblower in any reasonable amount of time so we hired a local guy with a plow to handle the job.

I generally purchase the best tools in their class and expect them to perform flawlessly and last for quite some time. The stainless steel DeWALT joint knife pictured above has reached the end of its life after only a few weeks of use and I could not be happier with how it held up. This tool is normally used to spread joint compound over drywall seams. I used it as a low profile, wide chisel by striking it on the end of the handle with a hammer. I estimate that it survived more than 20,000 hammer blows before failing. Fortunately, my back, arm, and wrist have held up a little better.

It has been several weeks now since I started down the path of having one of my broken teeth repaired. Step one: root canal and a temporary filling. Step two: Remove the filling, drill a hole in the tooth for a future metal post, make a dental impression, finish with another temporary filling. Step three: Remove the filling, glue the custom-molded post into the hole in the tooth, make a dental impression. Step four: Glue permanent crown (pictured above) onto post. Step five: Do the whole thing over again for my other broken tooth. This process has taken several weeks and I am pleased with the outcome. I will start the process again in January and hopefully, by February, I will have a full set of working teeth again, save the one that I had extracted and don’t plan to replace.

After receiving a bad report card from our mail carrier regarding the condition of our mailbox (the door kept falling off), Jeanine took it upon herself to replace it. Behold her handiwork. We agreed in advance that we will replace it with something a little more elegant in the future but I kind of like this one.

When I find footwear that fits well, I generally buy two pairs, one for going to the office and the other for working in the shop or yard. It would be fair to say that the latter have seen much greater use since we moved into our new house. I spent the entire day in the basement getting it ready for my new shop.

Apparently, not only is our home in need of renovation but also our mailbox. We found this notice from our mail carrier in our mailbox along with the door to the mailbox. Jeanine has decided she wants to tackle this project.

When it comes to the demolition of masonry and concrete, there is no substitute for a rotary hammer drill. Think of it as a small jackhammer that can also be used as a drill. Today, I added one to my collection of DeWALT cordless tools. It will come in very handy when the time comes to remove the chimneys from our new home. We are striving to achieve a near passive home, one which requires extremely little energy to heat and cool. Fireplaces and chimneys work against this objective as it is next to impossible to make them airtight when closed and they will always conduct heat to/from the inside from/to the outside. Instead, we will install a fire pit outdoors where we can still enjoy a wood fire without siphoning energy from our home the other 99.9% of the time.

I was snuggled in our bed this morning when Jeanine summoned me to witness a very lovely sunrise over the river. I am sure that this scene will become old hat at some point but while we are still in the honeymoon phase, it was something to revel in.

Sometimes we make really cool stuff at work. This is a retired early prototype for an important part of our printer. It was dubbed the “flux capacitor” by an employee who saw parallels to the fictitious technology which enabled time travel in the movie “Back to the Future.”

As I left for work this morning, I noticed a very unusual ice formation hanging from the standing seam metal roof on Maya’s tiny house. The ice actually curls back towards the siding as it hangs from the roof. I wish I had more time to take a more interesting photo.

I requested that Jeanine photograph me in my hazmat gear as I prepared to investigate the asbestos tiles that cover our basement floor. Our new house was built in 1952 when asbestos was a commonly used component of such tiles and the mastics used to secure them. As long as the tiles remain intact they pose no risk. Removing them, however, must be done very carefully. As a teenager, while working on my parent’s house, I removed asbestos pipe insulation with no protective equipment and probably inhaled 1000 times more than I will when it comes time to remove the tiles. Given my prior exposure, I am taking extreme precautions to limit any further damage to my lungs.

In a rather anticlimactic fashion, we closed on the sale of our home today. Having granted power of attorney to our real estate lawyer there was nothing in particular for us to do but wait. Technically speaking, we are now without a home since the closing on our new house has yet to happen even though we have been granted occupancy.

Spreading our move out over the last two weeks allowed us to tackle the project in manageable size chunks and to complete it as a DIY project for a total cost of $100. After hours on the phone with no less than four Comcast customer support representatives last night, I was able to suspend internet/TV service at our old address and establish service at our new one. With both heat and internet operational, we are living large. On my final visit to our now-empty house, I took a few photos as a future reminder of our time there. My shop never looked cleaner or bigger and I can’t wait to start building out my new one.

Earlier this week we made an important speed breakthrough at Digital Alloys. Today we added size to the mix. We are now in a position to demonstrate high-speed metal printing at scale. There is still much to be done before we have a commercially viable product but this is another critical milestone for the company and was a very exciting day at the office.