I have started to scan old photos I recently retrieved from my mother’s home before I forward them to her in Minneapolis. Expect to see a number of them in the coming days. Pictured above is my mother (on the right) and her father and sister-in-law, Juanita. This is one of the few pictures I have of my grandfather (abuelito). From the stories I have heard, I have him to thank for much of my ingenuity and problem-solving instincts.
The finishing touches for our guest bathroom included the mirror frame I built last week and a new light fixture. I can now mark this room as done. In total, I replaced the showerhead, shower control valve, bathtub spout, vanity faucet, toilet paper holder, two towel holders, the shower sliding doors, all the cabinet knobs and the already mentioned items from this morning. Pictured below is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in.
Just down the street from our home resides a former soccer teammate and brother of Christopher Reeves of Superman fame. When I saw the top of a huge crane from our kitchen bay window, I immediately grabbed my drone for a closer look. It appears that they are removing a large tree that is threatening the structures. At first glance, it appears like the crane might be poised to pick up the house.
I am slowly replacing all the brass finished hardware in our master bathroom with brushed nickel. So far that includes the vanity faucet, Jacuzzi faucet, and tub spout, two towel racks, two robe hooks, all the cabinet knobs, and a toilet paper holder. Today I refinished items for which no replacements are available. This included the Jacuzzi tub hardware (two hand grabs, two aerator controls, the drain and drain control knob) and the shower door. Both required full disassembly so I could sand, prime and refinish each item without getting paint on everything else. It was an all-day project which produced a very satisfying outcome.
In addition to his teaching job at CCHS, Nicolai is also the assistant wrestling coach at Concord Academy. He invited Jeanine and I to attend a home match this evening where we got to see his team in action for the first time. They did well against one of the strongest teams in the league and it was fun to observe Nicolai in his coaching capacity.
Digital Alloys held its annual holiday party in the event room at Cafe Escadrille this evening. Jeanine and I had a wonderful evening getting to know my colleagues better and meeting two new ones who will start next week. I am not at all happy with the group photo I took. There was not much to be done about the extremely dim lighting, but there is no excuse for cropping one of our employees out of the photo. My camera was on a tripod on top of a table so I composed on the rear screen rather than through the viewfinder as is my preference. I need to brush up on my photoshop skills so I can attempt to rectify my mistake.
I attended my first Board of Directors meeting at Digital Alloys today. I was well prepared and in a position to share positive news on the development front which made for a very warm welcome. Although I worked directly for the CEO at my last three jobs, I was never invited to attend board meetings, something I enjoyed doing earlier in my career.
Having almost fully recovered from her wisdom teeth extraction, Maya is off to Boca Raton, FL to enjoy a week with her boyfriend and college classmates. Jeanine dropped her off at the Alewife station where she is seen above modeling the purse I gave her for Christmas. I also gave her a digital multi-meter, but I doubt that is among the things she is bringing with her. She arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare only to find her flight delayed and eventually canceled. Kyle offered to put her up for the night at his place in the Seaport District while she waited for the first flight out the next morning.
Digital Alloys is distinguished among other startups I have worked for by the fact that it invests in quality tools needed to support the work being done at the company. Today, we accepted delivery of a very nice Okuma CNC Lathe which was moved into our machine shop by the very beefy forklift pictured on the right. On the left, you can see one of our prototype printers. It is contained inside a glovebox which allows us to print in an inert atmosphere, needed to prevent oxidation during printing. Once the lathe is fully installed, I will share a photo of it as well.
I worked on a number of projects around the house today. Pictured above is a large frame that will be installed around the mirror in our guest bathroom. I made a similar frame for the mirror in our master bathroom several years ago which improved its appearance significantly.
The boys both came home today to help care for Maya as she recovers from the surgery to extract her wisdom teeth. They are seen here providing lateral support to ensure that she does not tip over while sitting on the couch.
I was Jeanine’s plus one at the Open Table Holiday Staff Party this evening. The event was held in the event room at the Azucar Tapas Bar, just a few steps from Open Table’s Maynard site. Jeanine presented each member of her staff with a small candy gift, picked to highlight a particular strength of that individual (licorice for flexibility, dots for structured an orderly, etc.) It was an extremely nice way to talk about the superpowers of the team and was much appreciated by everyone. Between tapas courses, we played several games including a Yankee Gift Swap. At the end of the evening, a member of the team spoke on behalf of the group, showering Jeanine with admiration for her work as the leader of the organization.
It has taken more than a year to find a buyer for this desk/cabinet but I finally sold it this evening. Even though my new job has taken the pressure off moving, we are still committed to downsizing in the next few years. Patience is the best strategy for selling items on Craig’s List. Eventually, you will find someone looking for exactly what you are selling. What I did not bargain on was how heavy this piece was. I was not present when it was initially delivered and have not had occasion to move it since. Fortunately, the buyer was a strong young guy and I had an appliance dolly with a strap long enough to go all the way around. Even so, I found myself bearing the entire weight of this monstrosity when the buyer slipped on some ice while we were descending the stairs from our front door. Thankfully, neither of us were injured. Much as when I finally sold our grand piano, I was happy to see this desk out of the house.
Maya had all four of her wisdom teeth extracted today. I left work early (7 PM) to check in on her. In the self-made video below she has some choice things to say about her dentist.
As predicted in an earlier post, I was able to break the 20-minute mark with a new record for my morning commute of 16 minutes. I do not believe I will be able to better this mark without running a significant risk of arrest. I am still working 14 to 16 hours a day but feel I can start getting back to normal now that I am largely up to speed with my new job.
I am not at liberty to say much about this photo I took at work today other than the fact that it represents a major milestone for the company. My time at Formlabs was largely devoted to the people side of the engineering organization which I enjoyed immensely. It must be said, however, that I have been really having fun being in the technical trenches again. This is the kind of work that has me up at 4 AM with new ideas in my head and ready to race to the office.
For the last several weeks I have been slowly replacing all of the polished brass faucets, drains, towel bars, toilet paper holders, and knobs with updated brushed nickel replacements in all four of our bathrooms. Today I removed the sliding glass doors from one of the showers and replaced it with a set of shower curtains on a brushed nickel curved rod. I posted the shower doors on Craig’s List and they were out of the house by late afternoon.
While out doing errands this afternoon, I decided to photograph Warners Pond from the air. I have done this in the past but never from the backside. Had I arrived a few minutes earlier the sun would have been illuminating the foreground as well as the island; a project for a future date. I used the earlier part of the day to replace all the towel racks, robe hooks, and toilet paper holders in the house with ones matching the new faucets I installed a few weeks ago. This transition from brass to brushed nickel finishes certainly makes the house feel more up to date.
With the kids all living on their own now, I had surprisingly few photos of them to select among for my favorites of the year.
Today I am looking back at my favorite landscape photos of 2019. May 2020 be as bountiful.
Two days ago a three million dollar home in our community burned to the ground. Located on 13 acres overlooking the Sudbury River, the 120-year-old home was built by descendants of presidents John and John Quincy Adams. Located in an old part of Concord with no fire hydrants, firefighters quickly exhausted the 30,000-gallon cistern supply and had to truck water in from over a mile away allowing the fire to engulf the entire structure. Ironically the Sudbury River is less than 1000 feet away but down a very steep hill. The swimming pool could have provided another 30,000 gallons but was not used for some reason. This afternoon, I flew my drone over to survey the damage. An excavator was already on the scene to begin the cleanup.
I said goodbye to my childhood home for a second time today. The first time was when I left 40 years ago to begin my career at Bell Laboratories in Indianapolis. I was filled with mixed emotions on that day; happy to have graduated to adulthood, sad to be leaving my parents and siblings and the place I grew up. Today I drove to Schenectady, NY to retrieve all remaining items of artistic and/or sentimental value and to leave it ready for the new owners who will take possession next week assuming the closing goes off without a hitch. The house was built in 1908 by Percival Lewin in what is now designated the General Electric Realty Plot Historic Neighborhood (locally known as the “GE Plot”).
The GE Plot is an area of approximately 90 acres just east of Union College. Originally an undeveloped tract owned by the college, it was sold to General Electric at the end of the 19th century to help the college pay off a debt. The company’s executives subdivided it, laid out streets according to a plan (see an updated drawing of the plan made by my mother below) inspired by New York’s Central Park and built houses on the land, with covenants requiring a minimum lot size and house value. This was done to create a neighborhood that would help attract executives and scientists to Schenectady when the company was still in its infancy.
By 1927 approximately a hundred houses had been built for some very notable residents:
This evening we hosted a two-generation party for high school friends of our children and their parents. It started at 7pm with dinner and continued until 11pm with various games. It did not take long for the kids to migrate down to the basement where the activities included some form of beer pong and darts.
At work, we use a high-speed camera to photograph our metal printing process. At 60,000 frames per second, it is an excellent resource for understanding what is going on. Due to the extremely bright deposition zone (white-hot molten metal), the rest of the image is underexposed so much that it is not visible. To overcome this limitation, I thought I would try using one of my camera strobes to illuminate the entire scene. The idea worked perfectly allowing us to see the contact tip and deposition line for the first time albeit for just a couple of frames.
Christmas morning is the one day each year we get to enjoy Jeanine’s famous popovers. They are a very special treat and once again she made them to perfection. I was in charge of grapefruit preparation and frying of the bacon, two tasks that take more dexterity than knowledge of food. The rest of the morning we continued with our tradition of sequentially taking one item at a time from our respective Christmas stockings. This took well over two hours and netted me a pair of reindeer antlers and a red nose among many other lovely gifts. The opening of Secret Santa gifts was pushed into the afternoon. I drew Maya this year and she received a small shoulder purse, Yeti thermos bottle, and a DMM (digital multimeter) from her father.
It would not be Christmas Eve without Zeppole Balls, a tradition that dates back to my childhood and to my father’s before me. Maya prepared the dough and I was tasked with the frying. The boys, normally night owls, went to bed before we even started and will be lucky if any remain by tomorrow morning. Maya recommended setting up a time-lapse video of the process which can be viewed here. Jeanine’s sister Susan is spending the holiday with us and we will be joined later in the week by her friend, Jean.
Before taking delivery of my Audi e-tron, I moved the EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment; white box in background) to the front left of my parking bay. It had been located at the right rear position for my BMW i3 which had its charging port in that location. Today, I extended the charging cable to a support column in the garage to make it even easier to plug and unplug the car. It is a micro-optimization but will make the daily connection and disconnection process just a little bit faster. I estimate this will shave 40 seconds off my daily commute.
The entire family was home today and made short work of obtaining and decorating our Christmas tree. There were only 4 or 5 trees left at our local farm stand and we were surprised to find such a beautiful tree. Earlier in the day, Maya assisted me with the last task needed to complete a faucet replacement project on our Jacuzzi tub that I started last week. I needed someone small enough to enter the access hole and squirm under the tub to install the small hole cover in the foreground of the photo below. This is the same opening that I stuffed myself into for the faucet replacement work but could not maneuver my way far enough under the tub to finish the job. It is nice to have children in three sizes; small, medium, and large for various different tasks. Kyle was the perfect height to throw the Christmas tree over his shoulder as he carried it into the house while Nico was our go-to guy for high ornament placement.
