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Matt recently returned from another trip to India. While there, he helped to sort out some dicey power connections, ate a lot of food with his bare hands, learned not to get too casual about the local water, discovered that three guys on a motorbike beats walking ten miles in the dark, saw the Promethean Power Systems cooling milk when the power was out and marveled at the change this system could bring to a bunch of local farmers. It is always good to get to see the hardware you had a hand in designing out in the real world making a difference in people’s lives.

We recently decided that fax machines have gone off to that same big technology graveyard in the sky as cassette tapes. You might still have one lying around, but you no longer pay enough attention to it to worry about what is on it. If you need to send us any form of written communication, feel free to support the US Postal Service. We do still check email as well.

Cheers, Matt

Mystic River recently shipped the first copy of our cell test machine. This handy gadget has a 200X200 mm thermal vacuum chuck designed for operation between +5 and +50 Celsius. It uses pc board top probes to minimize the shading of the cell under test. We’ll have a few more details and a spec sheet up soon, but for now a picture will have to do.

Last Saturday was clear and sunny and cool. Perfect spring canoeing weather. The wee lads and I walked our trusty, red, Old Town Camper down Sawin street to a rather muddy put in on the recently raging torrent known as the Alewife Brook. We got aboard with only a bit of the bank as extra cargo and headed downstream. Shortly after passing under the bridge at Broadway in Arlington (Broad Way for those of you on the other side of the line.) we watched a great blue heron take wing and glide smoothly down the valley ahead of us. There were plenty of turtles propping themselves up on reeds and sticks who were surely loath to slide back into the cold water avoid the chance that our able crew of small boys might need to poke at them. A river otter was spotted bobbing along the bank headed for the clear waters of the Mystic River. We turned left at the confluence of the Mystic and headed upstream into the lower Mystic Lake. After we rounded the point and got settled into the short chop of the wider lake, we watched a large hawk circle, fold and dive to bring up a fish from the lake. Better luck than we have had in the same waters. At the head of the lake we got a good look at the construction of the new fish ladder and dam spillway that involved enough cranes and earth movers and assorted implements to keep the under ten crown pleased for a long while. Then it was a quick snack and back in the boat for the easy trip home with the wind at our backs the whole way down the river. It’s pretty nice when you can find this much adventure by walking down your own driveway.

Matt thinks about a lot of stuff. The bike in the picture is something he knocked together to move kids and groceries around without burning through dead dinosaurs in the process. These days he is thinking about building a tree house as his satellite office. In his spare time he is trying to get a new batch sterilization system off to a client and start a company.