My boss requested some photos of our engineers at work building a set of new prototypes for an upcoming product. I was more than happy to oblige.

I purchased a camera lens on Craig’s List today and met the seller at MIT over the lunch hour to consummate our transaction. We met in the Electrical Engineering building where the SCR-615B Radar Antenna pictured above is displayed. The MIT Radiation Lab played an instrumental role in the development of radar during WWII.

I do not believe I have ever seen someone cross their legs quite like the woman pictured above. I was having breakfast at the Clover Food Lab when she walked in and took a stool at the counter. I don’t make a habit of photographing body parts of strangers but I found the angles and seeming impossibility of this pose worth a shot. Should I encounter her again, I will inquire if she studies ballet which is the only explanation for this kind of flexibility that I can imagine.

It took some time to coordinate schedules but we finally managed to coral all three kids and their Aunt Susan for a dinner out to celebrate Kyle and Nico’s birthdays (August 5th and July 8th respectively). Unfortunately I had to settle for a cell phone photograph having forgotten my camera in the car. After dinner, we sat around for quite a while reminiscing about all three kids when they were babies. Somehow we got onto the subject of our wedding and all three were 100% convinced that I was making up a story about having a small ponytail at that time. None were willing to make a small wager on the question, a choice that saved them some money.

Jeanine and I waiting in the cell phone lot at Logan Airport for Maya’s return from Europe. Her flight from Amsterdam was slightly delayed so we got out to stretch our legs a little. My sister-in-law, Susan, was the photographer. She drove down from Burlington, VT to celebrate the boy’s combined birthday which we are celebrating tomorrow. After collecting Maya who was ripe with stories of her travel adventures, we connected with Kyle for a late lunch and then were treated of a tour of his new office. Cengage recently moved into a new building on the waterfront with commanding views of the Boston Harbor. It takes poor Kyle about 90 seconds to walk from his apartment to his new digs which includes first rate amenities from top to bottom. Pictured below is the vertical garden on the 14th floor roof deck and view of the harbor.

The beauty of solid wood floors is that they can be restored to like new condition in a matter of hours. We have lived in Concord for 15 years and it was time to refinish the hardwood floors in our dining room and music room. We will not move the furniture back in until the second coat of polyurethane varnish is fully cured.

Today we had the wood floors in our living room and music room refinished. The polyurethane that was used to finish the newly sanded wood produces some powerful fumes as it dries. I believe that this dragonfly was overcome by these fumes and came to rest on the floor in the foyer where it expired. I was sad for the dragonfly and paused for a moment to capture its beauty before returning it to the outdoors.

I finally got around to downloading some photos I took on the Bridge of Flowers last Sunday. The beauty of flowers never ceases to amaze me.

Although the Audi e-tron has an EPA rated range of 204 miles, I was please to see a new record range prediction of 244 miles. This no doubt the result of a very leisurely drive to and from Schenectady, NY over the weekend. I was able to average 3.0 miles/kWh on the return trip, a far cry from the 1.8 miles/kWh I started off with this morning. Most of my commutes average out to 2.6.

This morning I finalized a lighting formula for photographing factory test prints from the new Formlabs Form 3 printer. The goal was to reveal surface finish in a consistent and repeatable way so that we can image parts in China and study them in the US. The next step will be to specify/design a standard camera/jig which we can use at the factory.

As we returned to Concord from Schenectady, Jeanine and I stopped for a brief visit to Shelburne Falls. There we visited the Bridge of Flowers which was as pretty as we have ever seen it with virtually everything in full bloom. It made for a very nice stopover and opportunity to stretch our legs.

I took advantage of the drone for aerial photographs of the bridge and the falls for which the village is named.

I am the executor of the estate which owns the home I grew up in. In light of her recent health issues, my mother has asked me to sell it. This weekend, Jeanine and I drove to Schenectady to ready the house for sale and to take photos for the real estate listing. Both my sisters are helping with the project while my brother continues to care for my mother in Minnesota. The house is located in the historic GE plot and while it needs some modernization, it was built in an era where craftsmanship ruled the day. The back yard features a Japanese style garden created by my mother and despite her absence remains in very good shape.

Earlier this week, Jeanine and I visited the Old North Bridge at sunset for a very tranquil stroll. It is also possible that we ended our outing with a visit to Kimball Farm for ice cream.

Maya seems to be enjoying her European travel holiday, pictured here in Lisbon for a second day. Four years ago, Jeanine and I spent a lovely vacation in the Azores, an archipelago located in the Atlantic Ocean some 1,000 miles to the west, thus far our only visit to Portugal.

My soccer teams is currently planning our next international friendly against Portugal and I am increasingly looking forward to making that trip.

Maya is traveling with friends in Europe and sent this photo from Lisbon. Her parents look forward to every message and photo we receive. Meanwhile, her brother Nico has extended his visit to Colorado and has sent zero photos thus far (yes, this is a hint).

A month ago my mother elected to forego all further medical intervention after a botched surgical procedure left her with a dismal prognosis. She was prepared to die on her own terms and said her goodbyes to family and friends. Today she celebrated her 91st birthday and is showing every indication that she is on a road to recovery. She still needs to gain some weight and rehabilitate her atrophied muscles but I predict I will be posting a photo of her dancing at her 92nd birthday party a year from now.

Kyle, our first born child, turned 27 years old today. It seems like only yesterday that Jeanine and I were starting our journey as new parents. We could not be more proud of the person he has become.

Kyle lives in the Seaport District of Boston where he works as a Data Analyst for Cengage, a digital textbook company which just merged with McGraw Hill. I have always admired him for his brains and athleticism but more recently have come to appreciate how genuinely empathetic and kind he is (no doubt gifts from his mother). Happy Birthday Son!

I finally had some free time today to work on our lawn irrigation system. The first order of business was removing the yellow jackets nest that had been constructed around the underground valves for the sprinkler heads. A few week ago, I sprayed the nest and it appears that all of the residents departed for greener pastures or are now part of the pasture helping to make it greener. Nests of this type are engineering marvels; structured to maximize enclosed volume with a minimum of supporting wall material. Even more amazing is the fact that construction is done by multiple members of the colony in parallel. Imagine if 100 humans were each tasked with building one room of a 100 room hotel. What do you think the chances are that it would all just fit together perfectly? Regrettably, once I was able to access the valves, I could only isolate one of two that is stuck in the open position. Without a map to the location of other underground control valve boxes, my chances of finding the right one are pretty slim. I rarely outsource home maintenance work of this type but lacking the equipment needed to trace the control wires and locate the other boxes it is time to call in the pros.

Meet Noah. He is the 6 week old son of a Formlabs colleague and I was very happy to snatch him up for some baby time. It has been far too long since my last baby fix. He was being heavily guarded but I managed to grab him when attentions were diverted. If not for his ever vigilant grandmother, I might have successfully kidnapped him for the afternoon.

Maya joined us on our journey into Cambridge for the baby party so we could drop her off at the airport afterwards. She is headed to Portugal where she will connect with her best friends, Sarinnagh and Fiona for further travel to Spain and Amsterdam. Although she is a veteran traveller we still worry about our kids when they head out on adventures.

After saying goodbye to Maya we drove into the Seaport District to drop off Kyle’s golf clubs and then on to Lexington for a mystery date. I chose a nice Italian restaurant where we dined before Jeanine revealed our mystery date. She had tickets to see Lori McKenna in concert. McKenna was raised in a Boston family of six children. She met her husband Gene in third grade. They have five kids. And over the last three decades, as she became a wife and mother, she has also emerged as one of the most respected, prolific singer-songwriters in popular music. Her 2016 release The Bird and the Rifle netted three Grammy nominations. Then, she made history: In 2016, she became the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year two years in a row thanks to co-writing Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush” and penning Tim McGraw’s no. 1 “Humble and Kind” solo. Both songs also clinched back-to-back Grammy wins for Best Country Song. In 2017, she became the Academy of Country Music’s first female Songwriter of the Year.

There are upwards of 350,000 species of beetles worldwide, the largest order of the animal kingdom. My best efforts to identify this one, found in our garden, have proven fruitless. If there are any entomologists among this blog’s followers who can identify this little fellow, please drop me a line.

Sadly, Nicolai did not win the $25,000 grand prize for the benefit of the American Amputee Soccer Association in the Major League Soccer MVP contest. He was on hand at the MLS All-Star game in Orlando, courtesy of the NE Revolution for the announcement of the winner. As a regional winner, he did earn $1,000 for the organization and built a number of important connections with the MLS organization with which we are hoping to partner with in the future. He will fly from Florida to Colorado for some vacation time in the mountains.

My team at Formlabs has been very busy over the last few weeks as shipments of our third generation printer, the Form 3, have commenced. Essential at this stage of the program is to closely monitor feedback from both the field and the factory, jumping on any issues which may arise. We are all very excited about the product and if initial orders are any indication, we have another hit on our hands. Our biggest challenge now is making them fast enough while holding our quality standards.

For only the second time during the year I have been with Formlabs, the senior management team went offsite for the day to work on strategic planning. The meeting was held in the Canopy Room of the Bow Market near Inman Square, a very eccentric event space that set the perfect tone for our meeting. Participants were more than happy to pose for a casual photo at the end of the day. Dinner with the team followed putting a nice finish on a productive and enjoyable day.

Last Chance to Vote for Nico

Lot’s of rain and sunshine have brought out the best in summer flowers. I found this nice grouping on a walk and used my cell phone for the capture. The large depth of field which is a characteristic of all cell phones is an advantage over my full frame camera when it comes to shots like this.

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Artists from around the world carved works of art from sand for the 16th annual Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival held this weekend. Last year Jeanine and I were among the 1 million visitors to the festival and decided to go again this year.

After our visit we decided to explore nearby Nahant where we discovered beautiful beaches, homes, and ocean views.

Egg Rock, sometimes called Elephant Rock, pictured below is located in Nahant Bay about a mile off shore. The three acre island once had a lighthouse but is now an uninhabited bird sanctuary.

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Jeanine and I took it easy today with a relatively short trip out to the French King Bridge. We paused in Millers Falls where we spent quite some time observing this butterfly which was both photogenic and seemingly happy to pose for portraits. We had lunch at the Great Falls Harvest in Turners Falls before pausing at Cabot’s Camp on the Connecticut River from where I launched the drone for a full span photograph of the French King Bridge.

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When I attempted to start up our automated sprinkler system earlier this summer, I discovered that two zones were stuck in a permanently on position rendering the entire system unusable. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the valves for these particular zones were fully encapsulated in a large yellow jacket nest. Because yellow jackets mostly eat other insects and do very little pollination (their bodies are not fuzzy) and because I could see no other option to service the valves, I sprayed the nest last night with a product designed to neutralize the colony. I investigated this morning and detected no activity. I am not looking forward to the next step which is a careful dissection and removal of the hive. I am guessing that any survivors are going to be pretty angry so will approach the task with great caution.

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Today I would like to feature another project from the Formlabs hackathon held last weekend. It is important to remember that this project was completed in three days, in this case by our team located in North Carolina. A link to the full story as posted by the projects leader can be found here. Stories like this back up my assertions that Formlabs has some of the most talented engineers in the world.

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Last Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Formlabs held a company wide hackathon. Employees were encouraged to work on any project that was of interest to them, be it work related or otherwise. Historically this event has produced much of the artwork that graces our campus and the occasional concept for a new product offering or refinement. This year my hands down favorite project was created by one of our talented mechanical engineers. It is a device which displays a red signal when a bathroom stall door is locked (occupied) and a green signal when it is available. This avoids the need to awkwardly peer under the privacy walls to look for feet. For reasons that make no sense, our men’s bathrooms are not equipped with urinals, only stalls. A mechanism attached to the door latch conveys status to the indicator located at the top of the door by way of a stiff wire. A clever and much appreciated innovation.

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From our weekend visit to the Providence WaterFire festival, I used a slow shutter speed to capture this fire performer as he whirled a pair of poi (torch at the end of a cable) around his body.

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Now that our family dog, Nala, has passed on, the deer that frequent our back yard have little disincentive to dine close to the house. This pair of youngsters were on alert when I stepped out onto the deck to photograph them. Also venturing in closer lately is a gorgeous fox which I have yet to capture in a photo.

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