This morning Jeanine’s sister, Susan, joined us for a visit to the Burlington Farmer’s Market where we met up with my sister, Mayela, and her husband Stephen.

Stephen is currently doing a stint as a traveling cardiovascular access nurse. Mayela has joined him from North Carolina for the summer. They have rented a quaint water front cottage on Lake Champlain in the town of North Hero. There we spent the night after a day full of exploring, fine food, and a wonderful fire on the beach.

After work, Jeanine and I drove to Burlington, VT to visit with her sister Susan and our friend Jean. We arrived shortly after 10pm and promptly retired. It has been a very long week for both of us and we were happy to be getting away for the extended weekend holiday.

I am attending an in-house Six Sigma Green Belt training class which meets every other Thursday for the entire day. Today we covered process capability and learned about Cp and Cpk indexes. We were asked to create a data set to work from. The instructions were to build a paper plane and to launch it towards a target six feet away. The target was calibrated in distance from the floor in inches. The objective was to hit the 60 inch mark as consistently as our plane would allow, recording 30 attempts to use for our analysis. We were told there were no rules so I opted to make a pneumatically launched space capsule (a blow dart gun by another name). For the Six Sigma folks out there our “aircraft” and launcher produced a Cpk of 1.75 which is an extremely good result. Of course the purpose of the exercise was to gather and crunch the numbers, but it was fun applying a creative solution to the underlying design challenge as well.

Most Formlabs employees (~500+) generally attend our regular Town Hall meetings, either in person at our Twin City facility or by videoconference form around the world. Today’s presentation was more entertaining than usual when my colleague’s dog joined him on stage in an attempt to coax him into a game of fetch.

I am selling one of my camera lenses and a prospective buyer asked to see sample photos from it at each end of the zoom range. It was rather fun selecting my favorite shots to make good on the request. Above is the telephoto example, taken in Cuba. Below is the wide angle example taken on a winter hike to “the Wave” in Arizona.

It is bad enough that I have to avoid no less than three construction zones that are on the most direct path from home to work. Now, I need to take a detour just to pull into the parking lot at work as well. Combined with the back-to-school traffic increase that happens every fall, my commute times are reaching new records. The new Audi has made things a little more tolerable . It is a joy to drive and I look forward each day to the massage function built into the front seats.

I was up with the sun and decided to get an aerial photo of Camp Taconic. Pictured here is the lower portion of the camp which extends two fold to the right where the athletic fields, dining hall, tent city, and remaining camp buildings are located. Jeanine and I opted to sleep in our tent rather than in the cabins. We both had a great night’s sleep after a full day of activities. Our only regret was that we did not bring the kids who would have seriously enjoyed the weekend. On the way back to Concord we stopped to look at a number of properties for sale. At a minimum we need to find a parcel of land for Maya’s tiny house. In the limit, we might consider building a retirement home in the Berkshires.

A Formlabs tradition since inception is Summer Camp. Held this year at Camp Taconic in the Berkshires, it is a weekend family retreat that is filled with activities for everyone. Included here are a few sample photographs with a complete collection to be found here.

I was invited to the home of a colleague last night to enjoy a lamb kabob barbecue and dine with fellow Formlings (official name for Formlabs employees) visiting from our office in Budapest. I met his delightful family including their pet hedgehog. As should be clear from the photo, dad was really the main proponent for adding this little fellow to the family.

This is Nicolai’s first day on the job as Concord Carlisle High School’s Junior Varsity soccer coach. He will be running tryouts for the fall season today. Nine years ago he was on the other side of the whistle hoping to make the JV squad. Below is my post from that day.

Nicolai spent the weekend in tryouts for his high school junior varsity soccer team. There are many kids vying for a small number of remaining openings. For the first time, Nico’s skill and determination may not be enough to compensate for his inability to run as fast as others. Of two things I am sure, however. First, Nico is putting every ounce of his strength into these tryouts. Second, that the decision of his coach will look past his disability and only consider his effectiveness on the field. For many years we struggled to work past small minded officials who could not imagine that Nicolai would be able to play or contribute to the beautiful game. He has since proven to the entire local soccer community that he has game and the question now is no longer one of discrimination or exclusion. Our fingers will remain crossed for him.

Nico did make the squad and went on to demonstrate that he could hold his own and be a real asset to the team.

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 pony tail 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.