Last night, I drove back from Schenectady, NY, after my high school reunion, arriving home just after midnight and racking up a total of 7 hours of driving for the day. Completion of the journey required a significant infusion of caffeine in the form of Coca-Cola. While this allowed me to stay awake for the drive, it also caused me to wake up at 3 am, not the best way to start the morning on a match day. I reported to the field at 7:30 am and managed to keep my sleep deprivation from affecting my play. We managed to secure a 3-0 win over Raynham who we defeated in last season’s championship match. I had planned to take a team photo after the game, but rain thwarted that plan. Instead, I am posting the team photo I took after last year’s final.

When it became obvious that taking a class photo inside the venue for our Mont Pleasant High School Class of 1976 50th reunion would be impossible, everyone moved outside. Even then, a photo taken from ground level would have left anyone not in the front row mostly obscured. It occurred to me that an aerial photo might offer the best option. I grabbed my drone from the car, only to discover that it is impossible to get 50+ people to look into the sky at the same time when they would rather be catching up with friends they have not seen in 50 years. I took several photos and a video, hoping that at least one would flatter everyone.

There was a time when this trio of former high school wrestlers struck fear in the hearts of opposing teams. To my left is John Conway, AKA “Chopper,” whom I have not seen in 50 years, and to his left, my good friend Tom Metzold. I drove to Schenectady, NY, this morning ahead of my 50-year high school reunion, and Tom drove down from Lake George to meet with John and his sister, Cathy, who arranged the gathering. We spent hours strolling down memory lane. Between the three of us, we were able to pool our recollections to reconstruct events that would otherwise be lost to time. John, now retired, spent much of his career as a distinguished wrestling coach and referee.

After our visit, I had about an hour to kill before the reunion, so I made a quick tour of the Empire State Aerosciences Museum which was in the vicinity.

I will leave it as an exercise in imagination as to how I captured the Concorde Airliner pictured above in mid-flight.

Last night, I attended soccer practice with my team for the first time since last season. Despite the fact that I have been working out at the gym regularly, I still found myself very sore this morning and decided to take it easy today. Discovering that my turf shoes have begun to delaminate, I set out to buy a new pair but found inventory at all the local shops depleted, so I had to order online and hope for a good fit. They will not arrive in time for my match this Sunday, so I plan to bring some duct tape with me just in case a makeshift repair is needed.

I have not taken a photo of the new house since the patio gardens have filled in, and ideal weather conditions prompted me to do so this afternoon.

Kyle treated Jeanine to a food tour of Boston’s North End today, his Christmas gift to her from last year. The pair ate their way through the famous and infamous neighborhood on the 3-hour-long Politically Incorrect North End Food Tour. Guided by a native local who grew up there, they visited Hanover Street for the best pasticcerias, sampling the sfogliatella; the Salumeria (Italian Deli) for the best Italian subs; and L’Osteria for their ravioli. They also visited the old “Headquarters of the Boston mob,” where James “Whitey” Bulger was a notorious crime boss who led the Irish-American Winter Hill Gang while secretly operating as a top-level FBI informant. For decades, he used this corrupt relationship with law enforcement to protect his empire of extortion, gambling, and drug trafficking while systematically eliminating his rivals. After being tipped off about an impending indictment in 1994, Bulger spent 16 years as a high-profile fugitive until his capture in Santa Monica, California, in 2011. He was ultimately convicted in 2013 for numerous crimes—including participation in 11 murders—and was beaten to death by fellow inmates in a West Virginia federal prison in 2018.

After days of vacillation, I have settled to within 95% on a final set of tools for my travel kit. Not yet included are a folding handsaw and tin snips that should be arriving later today. With this set of tools, I believe I can tackle the vast majority of maintenance tasks I am likely to encounter as I help the kids maintain their respective properties. I am hoping that the entire collection will fit neatly in the tool bag I have on order. No doubt, there will be another photo at some point to document the configuration. Jeanine is thankful that this process is reaching completion, or rather, that the dining table will shortly be returned to its proper use.

Last night, Jeanine and I made a brief tour of available homes for sale in Concord. We are thinking about purchasing another house to serve as a rental income property. It is not yet clear if the numbers will make sense in our very expensive town, but the idea is more appealing if the property is located nearby. We will be consulting Kyle on the economics, as he is our family’s expert on rental properties.

The perfect fall day brought out over a dozen painted turtles that like to sunbathe on various logs in the river beside our house. So many turtles, plus the single-lane nature of turtle traffic on the logs, lead to some interesting passing maneuvers as captured below. While mostly peaceful, they may mildly jostle or stack on top of each other for the best warm spots, which might provide an alternative explanation for the photo.

Jeanine and I drove into Boston to visit with Kyle and see his new Back Bay apartment this afternoon. It is located on Marlborough Street, just two blocks from the Charles River Esplanade and aligned perfectly with the Fairfield Street Footbridge over Storrow Drive. Just 5 blocks from both the Boston Public Garden and Fenway Park, it is hard to imagine a more perfect location nestled among the Boston brownstones. We went for a short walk on the Esplanade, stopping briefly at the Pi Bench, which features a bronze plaque inscribed with the first 118 digits of the mathematical constant pi (π). Most benches on the Esplanade are memorialized with names, personal notes, or inspirational quotes from donors. The Pi bench benefactor remains a mystery to this day. Many assume it was an MIT professor, student, or alumnus, given that the campus is located directly across the river and folks there might have a higher-than-average interest in the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

Morning rain gave way to clear skies and fall-like temperatures, prompting Jeanine to take one of the kayaks out for a leisurely afternoon paddle. I spent much of the day reimagining what a portable tool collection should look like now that most of my offsite projects involve maintenance on one of the kids’ properties. It is telling that I obsess over such things. My last travel toolbox was optimized for size and versatility. Now my priorities lean towards having everything I need to avoid a 1-hour round trip to retrieve a tool that I failed to bring with me.

I am switching from a small toolbox to the tool bag shown below. It will provide substantially more space for tools and test equipment while providing good organization and rapid access. It should arrive mid-week. In the meantime, I have been contemplating what tools I will need to add to my collection. My last travel toolkit was primarily geared towards electrical and mechanical work. The new setup will need to anticipate plumbing and minor woodworking as well.

Expect future posts as new tools arrive and the bag gets fitted.

Nicolai and Teddy shared this photo taken of them while attending the wedding of one of Nico’s high school buddies. I wish I knew who the photographer was so I could compliment them on their work. I think this is one of the nicest photos of this happy couple.

I had my 2-month post-prostate surgery checkup today. Happily, I can report that my recovery is on track. The image above is an ultrasound scan to determine how much urine remained in my bladder after voiding. The result was excellent, at just under half a tablespoon. I have been given the green light to return to soccer, and just in time. I missed my team’s first game of the season while in Guatemala, and our next game is a week from Sunday.

Jeanine will remind me that no one is interested in hearing about my medical issues, but the blog has become an essential resource for me. It contains +20 years of SEARCHABLE data, allowing me to quickly retrieve germane information I have long since forgotten.

The fact is, I constantly search this blog for one reason or another. Including medical information just makes it that much more useful to me. Who knows, perhaps it is also useful to someone considering HoLEP surgery who is looking for all the information they can find on the subject. I apologize to any visitors for whom this type of entry is unappealing.

We are very fortunate to have settled in a community where we really love our neighbors. Jeanine prepared a mezze plate for an intimate late afternoon gathering of eight next door. In addition to very entertaining conversation, we were also treated to a tour of the museum-like home. I fear that much of the weight I lost while traveling in Central America may have been regained due to the abundance of so many foods I enjoy.

I volunteer as the aerial photographer for the Concord Bridge, our hometown newspaper, and found a multi-part assignment waiting for me today. One was to show traffic. This image pretty much tells the story of the evening rush hour in Concord. Bumper-to-bumper heading out of Boston and almost none heading in.

I do not even know how to describe my lodging last night. Located on a jungle mountainside, its main redeeming quality was that it was less than 200 feet from a private, unobstructed view of Volcán de Fuego. This allowed me to leave my camera on a tripod unattended, taking photos of the volcano all night using an intervalometer programmed to capture a 6-second exposure every 7 seconds.

I slept in my clothes with my boots on, waking up every two hours to go out and change memory cards and batteries. By morning, I had over 4000 images, a small number of which captured the two eruptions that occurred during the evening. I assembled one sequence into the video below.

I returned to Antigua this morning because it is, without a doubt, the most enjoyable city/town I have visited within Guatemala. I parked my car and covered a lot of ground on foot, taking time to soak up the culture and go inside some of the ruins I had photographed from the outside yesterday.

Driving here has been quite stressful. The ratio of motorcycles to cars is insanely high, and they drive wherever they want to, mostly in between lanes of slow-moving traffic. I was quite relieved when I returned my rental car this afternoon, undamaged and with no civilian casualties to answer for. My flight leaves very early tomorrow morning, and I am looking forward to returning home.