Christmas Dinner (04) in Garmisch.

Annie, Bob & Lena on Christmas Day (04) Hike. (Banner above taken same hike.)

Luis, Lena, Josa, Sinead and Sophie with Bob in Orleans.

December 4, 2005

Hey All:

Seasons Greetings!

Where to start? Still getting older. It's delightful. The older I get the more certain I know what I want: I must have tissues, the sleeve or sniffling won't do. I demand moisturizer. No itchy skin. I need my glasses (which I can't find half the time) and in winter: hats, gloves and wool socks. I don't like a cold head or feet. Lots and lots of sleep is imperative. Activities on weeknights must end early. Packaging should be easy to open. Why isn't there more public outcry on this? Have you ever bought something in that titanium plastic shrinkwrap stuff that you need a chainsaw to get into? Who thought that was a good idea?

Life is rolling forward about as good as you could ask for. We have no complaints.

My year could be defined by three major events: (1) my job changed, (2) I quit writing and (3) we got air conditioning.

I'll start with the most major first: we got air conditioning. Yeah. It's awesome.

Sure, this is the Pac NW and we can only use it for about 10 weeks a year and for a long time I thought it was an egregious luxury. But Summer 03 and Summer 04 had endless blistering hot patches were I spent nights laying on top of the covers, wide awake and broiling unhappily. According to the awfulists who run the media: the whole planet is going Mercury because of holes in the ozone layer or greenhouse gasses or something like that, so I figured we should be prepared. I told Bob, if it's less than a million dollars, we're getting air. We got it installed in the off season and in July and August I came home to a wonderful, cool house. Worth every penny.

Office Space

After 13 years the work situation changed. I wasn't exactly 100% behind this idea but I didn't have the deciding vote and in February we merged with a law firm in a tall building downtown. No one is happier than me to tell you that this has turned out great. I'm still doing the same work with the same people, but we work with lots of new people that I like and I get to do a lot more of the fun stuff (like research projects) and less of the not-fun stuff (like fix broken stuff or other problem solving).

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