The only soccer match my team has failed to win this season was against Wayland. We played them to a tie in our first contest. This morning we sent them home with a 6-0 defeat to make up for our initial lackluster showing. After the match I took a team photo which I will need to retake because a few guys couldn’t manage to stand still and smile for 10 seconds. I also made this image of the team surrounding our hard core fans. Pictured to the right of our goalie (in red) are his parents who come out to every match, rain or shine, to cheer us on. Also joining us today was the wife and daughter of one of our field players, sitting to the right of them.

Kyle, Maya and I joined my sister Alissa and her husband John to witness the graduation of my niece, Rachel, from Babson College. She graduated cum laude and already has a job at Vision Government Solutions in Hudson, MA. Founder and CEO of AOL, Steve Case, gave the commencement address which was essentially an appeal to reinvent capitalism. He compared America to a startup and talked about the importance of continuing to lead the world in innovation. All speakers spoke about the importance of being an inclusive society and how we are moving further away from that ideal.

Nicolai left early for NYC where he has organized an amputee soccer practice for an East coast team he is trying to put together.

Jeanine left for a much needed 10-day vacation in France today. She is joining my cousin Heather and her husband Burton for a guided cycling tour. She flew into Bordeaux and will be be biking in and around the towns of Les Eyzies, Cadouin, and St. Cybanet. Regrettably, work obligations prevented me from joining her. My team is putting the final touches on our recently announced next generation 3D printer and there is much work remaining to ensure a smooth launch. I hope to receive and post many photos from Jeanine’s adventure over the coming days.

This group of kids are either very inept paddlers or practicing how to right a capsized canoe. Although spring has arrived, I do not doubt that the water in the Sudbury River is still way too chilly for this type of activity.

This seemed like a rather creative approach for a basketball goal backboard. Probably best not to over run the baseline, however.

I tried a new route for my morning commute only to discover a missing bridge that was a rather important element of the plan. I swear it was there on Google Maps when I checked this morning. I will have to remember to check progress on construction. I would love to get a picture of a crane suspended steel beam being lowered into place while a train is passing below.

It is hard for me to believe that I have been posting daily to this blog for the last fourteen years, a total of 7236 “journal” entires (higher than 365×14=5110 because my early hosting software required separate entries for every photo). It started with the image below of Maya holding something in her hand. I thought it fitting to include another image of Maya holding something for today’s entry. Jeanine and I visited her this morning for Olin Expo where students displayed their recent engineering projects. After having breakfast on campus with her, Maya showed us three of her projects, a phase shift keyed optical transmission channel, a discrete transistor operational amplifier circuit, and a user centered design project for the roller derby.

Assuming an average of 100 words per post and an average of 250 words per page of a book (per google search) this blog is the equivalent of a 2900 page book. I estimate the blog now contains roughly 10,000 photos. If these were placed four to a page that would require an addition 2500 pages. There was a time when I was considering turning this blog into a printed family history book for each of the kids. Doing so at this point would require a 400 page book for each of the fourteen years. I think a big PDF file might make more sense at this stage.

My mom was and still is a beauty. While I am thankful for all of the characteristics my father passed along to me, there is no doubt that I am more genetically similar to my mother. She has the mind of an engineer, the eye of an artist, and a head for business. At 90 years old she goes ballroom dancing regularly (the Tango being her favorite) and can out preform women half her age. It is said that you can pick your friends but not your parents. I feel like I won the lottery when I was born and am thankful for all the gifts I received from my mother.

I invited Jeanine on a mystery date this afternoon. Last week I learned about the opening of the American Heritage Museum in Stow, MA while listening to NPR. Billed as one of the most extraordinary museums of military history in the world it was created after the massive collection of tanks, armored vehicles and military artifacts from the family of Jacques M. Littlefield were donated to the Collings Foundation. The non-profit foundation was created to organize and support “living history” events and the presentation of historical artifacts and content that enable Americans to learn more about their heritage through direct participation. When we arrived at the museum, Jeanine was less than enthusiastic about spending a beautiful spring afternoon looking at tanks and such. Instead we opted for lunch in nearby Hudson and then a short hike in the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge. Pictured above is the wood fired oven at the restaurant.

Jeanine and I dined with former colleagues and friends from my iRobot days this evening. Oscar, on the left, heads up manufacturing and supply chain while Christian, on the right, is the COO. We have good friend Rob Shurtleff to thank for the wonderful evening. He sent me a nice note about a positive interaction he had with iRobot Customer Service. I forwarded his note to the CEO who passed it on to Christian which caused him to reach back and suggest the gathering. It took a couple of months to coordinate busy schedules but was well worth the wait.

I managed a brief tour of our gardens this evening. Brilliant colors can be found everywhere and would have been even more potent had the sun not been obscured by clouds.

With the sun setting later and later each day, I had time after work to travel to Stow, a nearby town, for some fresh landscapes. Pictured above is the Assabet Reservoir. Below is Elizabeth Brook located next to the Butternut Farm golf course.

For the last several years, Formlabs has presented Digital Factory, a conference for business leaders interested in the future of manufacturing. It was held in the Seaport District at the Raymond L. Flynn Black Falcon Cruise Terminal. Jeff Immelt (on the right below), former CEO and Chairman of General Electric, current Executive Chairman of AthenaHealth, and a member of Formlabs Board of Directors led the conference which included presentations by a veritable Who’s Who of executives in the field of advanced manufacturing. I attended for the entire day listening to various presentations and it was a nice departure from my daily routine at the office.

I arrived home just a few minutes late to get a picture of our house in golden light. Over the coming days I hope to get a nice “spring in bloom” photo of the house to use in our marketing materials when we list the house for sale later this year or early next.

About 80% of the area covered by water in the picture above is normally dry land. Extensive rains over the past several weeks have swollen all of our local rivers. The river is normally about three times the width of the small archway of the bridge.

In soccer action this morning my team beat Hopkinton by a margin of 6:1. My injured hamstring had sufficiently recovered to allow me to play at 90% intensity. Unfortunately I missed a shot I should have made which in the tradition of our team will cost me beer duty for a future game. The win moved us into first place in our leagues standings with roughly half the season completed. We have scored 21 goals in the last five games and given up only one.

For the first time ever, Nicolai competed in a rock climbing competition today placing first in the Adaptive Adult Male classification. He got a perfect score on each of his three climbs. He is pictured above on his second climb which looked to be the most challenging for him. Kyle and I were there to support him and we had a chance to talk a little more about the McGraw-Hill / Cengage merger of equals which was announced earlier this week. It certainly sounds like this integration, which will be led by Cengage’s current CEO, will bode well for Kyle. It makes me very proud that he would spend part of his weekend after an exhausting work week to show up for his brother.

Yesterday members of my team and I presented at the annual Formlabs Partners Forum. Resellers of our products from around the world came to downtown Boston to learn more about our new products and to meet with us. Our guys did a fantastic job and I was proud to share the stage with them. Later we gave tours to the normally off-limit areas of our engineering labs.

Spring has definitely arrived in New England. Our briefest and perhaps most intense season, everywhere you look flowers and trees are blooming. Frequent rain has made for an unusually lush landscape this year.

This evening I invited one of the program teams at Formlabs to an indoor electric go cart racing event to celebrate the one year anniversary since shipping our first industrial 3D printing system, the Form Cell. This team has consistently installed systems on schedule and provided exceptional customer service. I have done carting events in the past but never in an electric cart. Mirroring my experience with my own car, once you go electric you can never go back. Everyone enjoyed the celebration event immensely and I sat out the final race to capture my teammates in action.

Several weeks ago I ordered a newly announced 135mm f/1.8 lens for my Sony camera system. I had to wait around this morning for the signature required delivery. UPS now allows you to track the GPS location of your package and I met the driver at my door as he was getting ready to ring the doorbell. Conditions were not great for outdoor photography and the 135mm focal length is really something I like most for portraits but I was happy to photograph this swan to break in my new optic.

This bridge over the Sudbury River is constructed entirely of wood. As beautiful as it is to look at, especially when water levels are high, it is even more interesting to listen to. When cars cross it the entire structure shakes and the sound of tires rolling over the deck timbers elicits a rhythmically mesmerizing salute to times gone by. The tune changes constantly with the number, size, speed and direction of vehicles crossing this conduit between Lincoln and Sudbury.

While at a pledge dinner for our church several weeks ago, I entered my name in a drawing for two tickets to see the Red Sox play Tampa Bay. My name was drawn from the hat and this afternoon Jeanine and I took in the game. Regrettably, the Sox did not see fit to win for the benefit of our enjoyment, dropping the game 2 to 5. Still we thoroughly enjoyed attending and were very happy with our seats in the grandstand that sheltered us from the slight drizzle that began about half way through. Below Mookie Betts thinks about stealing home until the inning came to an end with him stranded on third.

The first Audi e-tron shipments have just started to arrive in the US. I test drove one today to confirm I want to keep my reservation and am leaning in that direction. My car is currently in production and should be delivered within a couple of months barring unforeseen delays. My order is for a Galaxy Blue version with turbine style wheels (as pictured below

Next week is Olin’s final for the spring semester. Maya has requested a care package to help her through the final days of her sophomore year. The package will be delivered by “carrier brother” in lieu of a carrier pigeon. My contribution will take the form of pictures I took of otters, Maya’s favorite animal. I hope these will bring her joy and help her to relax as she powers through the rest of the term.

Weeping willows are possibly my favorite tree, at the very least, a close second to the Japanese Lace Leaf Maple.  At this time of year, in my estimation, they are at their peak of beauty.  I would like to find an isolated tree with a more photogenic background and will update this photo if I am successful.

Frequent rain over the past few days have caused the Sudbury River to expand well beyond its banks.  This is most apparent from the air.  Normally, the river is rarely wider than 30 feet.  Now it has turned massive swatches of land into marshes.

My collection of photographs numbers roughly 101,000 at the moment. For the last several years I have tried to keep the number capped at 100,000 by routinely culling weaker or less memorable images from the archive. This evening I spent some time engaged in that exercise when I came across this flamingo. At the time I took this image, I don’t think I fully appreciated how good it was so thought I would post it again as a reminder to myself to get out and do more photography.

Three years ago on a trip to California, I took the photo above through the dirty window of the airplane I was flying in.  I remember thinking how much I would enjoy going back and photographing in this area.  Today, after reverse-engineering the flight path, I was able to locate this place using Google Maps (screen capture below).  At some point in the future, you can rest assured I will be featuring some drone photos taken of this area.

I travelled to Mansfield, MA this morning for my league soccer match.   The drive took 45 minutes and I was not all too happy when our opponents decided to throw in the towel shortly after the start of the second half.  We were leading by a score of 4-0 at the time and it was clear that our scoring would go higher.  The game was stopped when half of their players took a knee, signaling they did not want to continue (no mas).  90 minutes of driving for 30 minutes of playing time did not seem like a good ratio to me.  On the bright side, I was able to return home for a shower before heading out to an Easter brunch with the family and my sister Alissa and Maya’s Olin roommate, Lauren. The original plan had me driving directly to the restaurant from the game, a much smellier proposition.  Lauren was kind enough to take this family portrait with my camera before I captured additional shots of the kids.

I spent the better part of what proved to be a very rainy day indoors working on renovations to our downstairs powder room/bathroom.  I installed a new faucet set and drain in brushed nickel to replace the now tarnished gold set I previously installed some 14 years ago.  Connecting the drain inside the sinks support column proved to be a most frustrating exercise given almost zero space to operate.  Later, I added a new triple-sconce light fixture over the future location of an oval mirror that is next on my list to install.

When they were first announced more than 4 months ago, I immediately placed orders for two new cordless DeWalt tools. A router and barrel grip jig saw.  This week after numerous delays, they finally arrived.  If ever there was a tool that wanted to be cordless it is a trim router and I am surprised it has taken this long for DeWalt to introduce one.  Immediately after ordering the barrel grip jigsaw, I sold my “D” grip jigsaw on Craig’s list.  I prefer the handling of the former by far.  Now, if only DeWalt would offer a cordless biscuit joiner, I could replace my final corded tool with an untethered version.