The picture above represents a major technical milestone for my new company and a significant point of pride for me personally. While I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Formlabs, I never became deeply involved with the technology. My responsibilities were more focused on team management. At Digital Alloys, I am neck-deep in technology and frequently find myself unable to sleep because my head is bursting with new ideas. To celebrate the achievement or perhaps just because it was Friday evening, members of my team broke out an RC car and racing drone for what appeared to be a game of high-speed cat and mouse.
This week Open Table sent out their annual appeal which is appended below. If you have enjoyed good fortune this year, please consider supporting a cause that makes a dramatic difference in the lives of people in our community. Follow the link to the actual fundraising page. I enjoyed photographing Svetlana and her family for this project and being able to lend my time to something that is so important to Jeanine.
Nicolai shared the news that he will be teaching History at Concord Carlisle High School come January. This is a big increase in responsibility and a major milestone for him. We are all extremely proud of him. He is pictured above practicing classroom discipline or perhaps this is the only photo of him that I could work into this blog posting.
When I decided to leave Formlabs, I gave two months’ notice to facilitate a smooth transition. During that time, my boss allowed me to work at Digital Alloys for two days in exchange for two make up days to be “paid back” after my start date. Today I spent the first of these IOU days back in Somerville on a day featuring relentless snow and sleet. Pictured above is a picture I took back in August when we had just started shipping the Form3 printer. Since then the company has shipped many thousands of printers that have been well received in the market. My day was consumed in back to back meetings and I very much enjoyed spending time with my former teammates. Over the lunch hour, I met with the COO at Superpedstrian and learned of his plans to take a new position in NYC in January. I will truly miss our sporadic lunch dates.
I established a new record time for my morning commute. I managed to shave 2 minutes off my previous personal best for a door to door time of 20 minutes. The early hour helped my cause but one really long stoplight worked against me. I believe I will drop into the high teens as I fine-tune my route.
My sister, Alissa, is putting together a book of my mother’s sculptures and paintings. This evening my mom asked if I would update one of the photos of a sculpture that currently resides with us. She requested that it be photographed where it is displayed on our sunporch. To do so would require actual sunlight to look natural. Realizing that I have been leaving and returning from work every day in the dark, I thought it best to bring it into the studio. This sculpture was carved from laminated sheets of plywood and stands about 4 feet tall. My father was an avid classical and flamenco guitar player.
Yesterday morning, Jeanine and I both received a text from our cleaning lady who reported that the faucet in our master bathroom would not shut off. Jeanine was the first to return at 6 pm and was quite proud of her resourcefulness in using a big crescent wrench to turn off the stubborn supply valve. I am not looking forward to our next water bill after a full day of watering the septic tank. Today, I set about to replace the faucet with a more modern looking one which also necessitated changing out the drain flange (because it was of a different finish). By the end of the day and after two trips to Lowe’s, I replaced the faucets and drains in two other locations. The effort left me with sore muscles everywhere from contorting my body into the various small workspaces I had to navigate.
On her last day as an intern for Blue Origin, Maya was required to give a major presentation covering the work she completed. Despite her anxiety leading up to it, she reports it went very well. She received much positive feedback and an offer to return as a full-time employee after she graduates. She is pictured above with her cohort of interns. We are really looking forward to her return.
I am not at liberty to share details about this photograph other than to say that it represents a major breakthrough for my new company, Digital Alloys. At Formlabs, I really enjoyed the non-technical challenges of my job. There were far smarter people than I already working the technical issues. At my new company, I have hit the ground running and already feel I am making significant technical contributions to the team.
I am now pictured as part of the management team on the Digital Alloys website. I took great pains to match my self-portrait with the ones already in use by the company. I decided to stop short of scaling horizontally to create the head in a vice appearance of my colleagues. Either that or I have a really big head. Last week the company issued a press release announcing my addition to the team and it was picked up by a number of internet publications.
Jeanine hosted her book group at our home this evening and I was the beneficiary, helping myself to shrimp cocktail, a lovely cheese plate and a delightful stew. I had another very productive day at work, meeting for the first time with a customer. It was nice to get a first-hand acknowledgment of the need in the industry for what our technology can deliver. I am not at liberty to disclose the customer but their revenue last year was close to $4B.
This is a tensile test coupon printed in titanium on a Digital Alloys 3D printer. It will be machined into a standard shape for destructive testing (we pull it apart with a machined designed to measure tensile strength). The bottom plate and first 20mm or so of the tower will be cut off in preparation for machining. It is not a particularly creative photograph but I was only willing to invest five minutes for setup after a 14 hour day in the office. The print is also rather old and shows some discoloration so I will wait for a more beautiful part before pulling out all the stops.
Maya made this drawing of our family when she was in elementary school. Kyle and Nicolai appear to be larger than life, looking quite handsome and muscular. Maya is as cute as ever. Jeanine is rather small, although very fetching with her cocked head and big hair. Then we have the father who appears to have no arms of consequence, is smaller than Nico’s leg, lacks ears, and is the only member of the family, including the guinea pigs, that is not labeled with his proper name. My father, who was a psychologist and psychotherapist, would have had a field day analyzing this drawing. It is one of the dozens of drawing made by the children that I am systematically digitizing for posterity.
Jeanine and I decided to check out the Somerville Winter Farmers Market this afternoon. It is open on Saturdays from December to mid-April. There, we enjoyed live jazz while eating a very healthy lunch before setting about to check out all the vendors. The music alone was worth the trip.
On the drive home, we spotted a large group of young people all dressed up as Santas. I had to stop for a photo and to inquire about the motivation. I learned that they were on their way to attend SantaCon, a free pub crawl and mass gathering where people dress in Santa Claus costumes or as other Christmas / holiday characters and parade throughout Boston and several cities around the world. Last year, over 3,000 Santa’s participated in the Boston event which this year includes one route through Boston and one through Cambridge, both culminating in Fenway.
After another set of very productive meetings with the folks from Lincoln Electric’s Welding Automation team, we enjoyed lunch together. On the left is their representative to our Board of Directors and on the right their CTO. I was a little groggy today having spent several hours in the middle of last night documenting ideas I had from our meetings yesterday. We spent the remainder of the afternoon getting a tour of the Lincoln Electric Welding School, the first of its kind, set up in 1917 and of the factory floor. It is amazing how much I learned during the course of our visit. I am also now looking for the slightest excuse to buy a welder.
Headquartered in Euclid, Ohio, Lincoln Electric has 44 manufacturing locations, including operations and joint ventures in 19 countries and a worldwide network of distributors and sales offices covering more than 160 countries. The company was founded in 1895 by John C. Lincoln with a capital investment of $200 to make electric motors he had designed. Today, revenues are in the billions and the company business model was listed as one of the most studied by the Harvard Business School. The company, recognized as the leader in the industry, manufactures welding products, consumables, and robotic welding systems. Our meetings with their CTO and his team proved to be unbelievably productive. It is clear to me that the project we are working on with them is going to lead to a very positive outcome.
This evening I flew to Cleveland, Ohio with several colleagues for meetings over the next two days with folks from Lincoln Electric, known primarily for their welding products. They are an early strategic investor in Digital Alloys and have offered to share their knowledge of high current power supplies with us. Pictured above is the interior of the Cleveland Airport where we spent much longer than necessary waiting to obtain a rental car. By the time we arrived at our hotel, I decided to skip dinner with my team and went directly to bed.
As if yesterday’s snow was insufficient, we were treated to an additional 8 inches today. Another work out with the snowblower and quick run into work. The weather was of little consequence to me today as I spent close to 14 hours in the office absorbing as much new knowledge as I could. I will apologize in advance for the reduced quality of the blog as I come up to speed in my new job. Only so many hours in the day.
I was hoping to get a very early start on my first official day of work at Digital Alloys. Mother nature had other plans. I woke up to the first snowfall of the season, a respectable 6-8 inches. If not for two broken shear pins and extremely wet snow, I would have been done snow blowing in an hour. Instead, the task took closer to two hours. On the positive side, very few cars were out when I did set out for the office making the commute extra short despite very slick roads.
We have really enjoyed having Maya back for the Thanksgiving holiday. Tomorrow she returns to Seattle for two weeks to complete her internship with Blue Origin and is scheduled on an early morning flight. In anticipation of a major snowstorm that started this evening we decided it would be best to have her spend the night with Kyle in his Seaport District apartment. There she will be within a stone’s throw of the airport which should greatly help with travel logistics and safety.
Yesterday, I spent a good bit of time online taking advantage of Black Friday sales on all manner of tools and photo gear. Whenever I purchase a new tool as an upgrade to one I already own, it immediately goes to Craig’s List for sale. This morning, I did a bunch of product photography needed for the the various listings. Depending on their condition, I can generally recoup from 60% to 80% of my original investment. This evening Jeanine and I dined with old friends and made some new ones, a great way to spend part of our Thanksgiving weekend.
This evening Jeanine and I joined Kyle for a ten year reunion party of his high school varsity soccer team, winners of the state championship in his senior year. It was amazing to me both how much everyone had changed and how much they had remained the same over the last decade. It was just as much of a reunion for the parents and a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Anticipating the desire for a team photo, I should have thought to bring a flash with me which would have made for a better image than the dim lighting permitted.
Anytime we can gather the entire family is a day to give thanks. Maya flew in this morning on a red-eye from Seattle. Jeanine and I picked her up at the airport and got a full debrief on her exploits as an intern at Blue Origin. Nicolai drove to the Seaport District to retrieve Kyle who is sporting a new hair style. I spent the earlier part of the day taking care of some lingering chores and taking a headshot of myself that matches the one already being used on the Digital Alloys website by other members of the management team.
Formlabs is a company of brilliant and often quirky people. One came up with the idea of creating trading cards for each employee. Cards include two “actions” with optional “flavor text” and other information including team affiliation (ELT=Engineering Leadership Team), start date (Nov 2018), location and other interesting symbols and information. Apparently these cards can be used to play some sort of game in which the cards change hands. Mine arrived today, coincident with my last day in the office and made for a wonderful keepsake. Next Monday, will be my first official day with Digital Alloys and I am now ready to start gearing up for the new challenge.
On my way into the office this morning I paused to take this photo. The sun had just come up and was bathing these cattails (I believe) in golden light. I parked on the shoulder of 117 and climbed on top of a guard rail to get the angle I wanted. At this time of year it is harder to find really photogenic outdoor scenes and I was thankful for this unexpected find.
Voted the best Irish pub in New Hampshire for the past 10 years, the The Holy Grail was the venue for my soccer team’s celebration party yesterday after winning the OTHSL D1 championship. Located in Epping, NH in the same basic structure as the former St. Joseph’s Church built in 1895 it has been transformed into a true Irish pub. The proprietors are David and Maureen Kennedy whose families are from County Tipperary and County Galway, Ireland respectively. We dined in the “Choir Loft” which overlooks the main bar, Irish village mural on the altar wall and offers views of the building’s original stained glass windows. Pictured above is the life-size statue of a monk which greats you as you enter the pub.
My soccer team travelled to Epping, NH this afternoon to compete for the OTHSL, Over-56. Division 1 Championship against arch rival Medfield. The conditions could not have been more miserable. Air temperature in the 30s, sustained winds of 10-15 mph gusting to 20mph, relentless and heavy driving rain, skies so dark they had to turn on the field lights for the second half. The battle on the pitch had as much to do with resistance to hypothermia as it did soccer skills. Indeed, one of our opponent’s best players had to leave the game at half time because he could not tolerate the cold and one of ours missed 30 minutes of the game so he could warm up in his car. It was bad enough when you were on the field playing but even worse when you were on the sidelines waiting for your shift to start, soaked to the bone and shivering uncontrollably. For 80 minutes the match was dead even with neither team able to find the net or any sensations in their toes. Persistence and grit paid off and we finally scored. Doing so broke Medfield’s spirit and we scored two more goals in the remaining 15 minutes. This match concluded a perfect season for my team with 10 wins in regulation and 2 more for the championship. In the last four seasons we have amassed 172 goals, given up only 14 and have not lost a single match.
On the home front, Jeanine is baking up a storm to get a head start on our family Thanksgiving. I believe we are looking at a pecan pie, pumpkin pie and two sheet cakes.
It is a busy time at Open Table as the Thanksgiving holiday approaches. Jeanine has been working evenings and weekends along side the dedicated volunteers to ensure that all is ready for the one holiday that is really focused on food. Pictured above is a picture taken by Jeanine of ready to eat meals being prepared, assembly line style.
Normally when I repair something in the house I am content with having saved the money for a service visit. Today, I tackled the dryer which has been making some very abnormal sounds while running. In this case, I actually pocketed $2.59 plus 50 cents in Euros which I found lodged in various parts of the machine as I took it apart. The actual problem was a massive accumulation of hair wrapped around the bushing shafts of the five rollers that support the drum (which I had to remove to access the rollers). All five rollers came out for a thorough cleaning and re-greasing before the jig saw puzzle went back together. While I had everything apart, I also pulled the motor and checked its bearings which were just fine.
My sister is an extraordinary ballroom dancer and shared this photo with the family after a recent performance. I would hazard a guess that she spends as much on dance outfits as I do on camera gear which is not a number either of us are likely to share with our respective spouses. Incidentally, my 91 year old mother, who recently survived a brush with death, has returned to the dance floor as we all predicted she would.
This website is dedicated to sharing, with family and friends, the day-to-day adventures of the Calabria family.
