December 2007         

Although I have done a fair amount of writing this year, the year end letter will be short. For many reasons, including the saving of trees and the ability to include far more pictures, the big stuff is online. The brochure enclosed in the hardcopy of this letter is a part of the story portrayed there.

Aside from that story, nothing too unpredictable has happened. Jennifer graduated from Swarthmore, and is now at The Ohio State University Graduate School working on a Ph.D. in Astronomy.

Irene is now in her third year at Emerson College in Boston. She spent the summer working at an outdoor theater for the parks department in Richmond, Virginia. It was that job, for which she needed a car, which precipitated the need for another vehicle in the house, which is why I bought a new car sooner than I had planned, and the rest is part of the story. Moving Irene to and back from Virginia, and Jennifer out to Ohio, and Irene back to Boston into her first apartment involved much travel, and a few adventures including losing air conditioning in the van in a several hour traffic jam and 90+° heat, and getting lost 5 times in two days in Boston.

I took a week’s vacation to visit most of my friends in the New England area, went sailing with Ben Levine in Maine,

and continued the adventure of the Zhang Heng, which is detailed in the fourth part of the story on the online log. This and various other travels have resulted in a lot more contact with Vogl-kin, which has been an unexpected pleasure.

Liz is still working on her dissertation. As of this writing, she may be done with data collecting, depending on her committee’s review of her statistics. Then the writing, which she thinks will not take long, and which I think is always Much Longer Than You Think.

Healthwise, I am OK, My back still requires special attention, exercises at least three times a week, and I am riding only bicycles with upright bars. I did manage to ride a century in 8 hours. I am now less than 1 ½ years from retirement, although I have enough in the retirement plan to retire now. If I wait there will be more, so my 65th birthday is the target. On the other hand, if my employers do anything to really p*** me off, I’m outta there. The level of stress in my job will never be anymore than it is now. Comforting thought.

For the rest of the year’s story, go online to my logs.

If you can’t remember all that just go to willieyee.info and follow the links at the bottom of the page. Also, if you do not get an email with a link to the Web version of this letter I do not have your email. Get it to me at wyee@hvc.rr.com, as next years’ letter may be entirely electronic.

So before you go online to read the rest, I wish you Happy Holidays and a Wonderful New Year.

Willie