Hello to all,

I have been meaning, and trying, to get this letter out for the last couple of months now. I am hoping to get it done before Christmas rolls around. Well, lets get to it........

Lots has happened since I last wrote, so let me get to it all in the right order. My old roommate from college, Robert Quinton, visited me for a few days. Not too long after that my friend from high school, John Dunham, visited me in my new house for a few days. The next event was that I flew home (Southern California) for Christmas and had a great time. My parents came up from Mexico and we got to visit for quite a while. I saw lots of friends and relatives that I had not seen in quite some time. I even saw my cousin McCann for the first time, and he is five years old. I was very busy and did not get to do everything I wanted to, which is usual for me. On my way back I stopped in Denver for a couple of days to visit with friends. That was very fast and furious. Oliver North was on my flight from Denver back to Virginia. While we were waiting for the plane I almost went up and said "hello" to him, since we are fellow alumni of the Naval Academy, but ended up not doing it. Speaking of the Academy, we won our football bowl game (Aloha Bowl in Hawaii) against California. It was a real close game, but we pulled it out in the closing moments. I have season tickets for the home games again this year. Also, our basketball team made it into the NCAA tournament. We lost in the first round, but it was the first time we had been there in almost ten years.

There have been a number of people from my old job in Denver out this way. There was a big meeting at the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the research vessel operations. So, a bunch of people who I worked with were out here for that. We all went into Alexandria one night and had a crab feast. One of those persons (Dave) came out here on an interview with America Online (AOL) not too much later. He ended up not taking the job, though. His girlfriend also flew out and made a small vacation of the trip. The mayor of Denver (Wellington Webb) was on her flight out. I now have a house-mate. It is one of my friends (Matt) from my job in Denver who moved out here to work for AOL. I roomed with him in Antarctica my first season down there, so I have known him for over five years.

The winter here was pretty mild. We had the third mildest February in recorded history. It snowed only a few times, and not too much each time. I think the biggest storm left just four inches. After one of the snows I drove down this old road that has a canopy of trees. It was in the evening and it was still snowing slightly. It was an incredibly beautiful scene. Speaking of old roads, they are all over the place here. The layout of the roads was not designed for the amount of traffic that they now handle. It makes driving here a nightmare. There are not that many cars, though, it is just that there are so many bottlenecks to stop the flow of traffic.

I did not go the Presidential Inauguration in January because it was bitterly cold, and I was just not excited enough to go. I did go skiing once this winter. I went to a little place called Ski Liberty in Pennsylvania, real close to Gettysburg. I went to the same place about twelve years ago while I was at the Naval Academy. It was not like skiing in Utah or Colorado, but it was fun. This year was the first time ever that I was anxious for spring to come. I actually got excited about winter being over and having springtime in the air. I went to see the Japanese Cherry Tree blossoms at the tidal basin in Washington, D.C. on two successive weekends and they were awesome. I took lots of photographs, but they never do the scene total justice. One thing I did not know was that there are also Japanese Magnolia Trees that have blossoms about the same time as the cherry trees do. They are a darker pink and were really nice, too, if not better. The Japanese varieties of these two trees have blossoms before they get any leaves, so the blossoms do not get hidden by the leaves and therefore are much more dramatic. This was the coldest spring in 100 years in D.C. Here is a picture of me in front of a Japanese Magnolia tree, and a picture of the Jefferson Memorial through the trees.

I now have three cats. A friend of mine and my house-mates' from Antarctica (named Dawn) got married, and her husband is allergic to cats. So, she had to give her cats up, which was very hard for her to do. She now lives in northern New Jersey. Matt, my house-mate, and I drove up there and visited with her and brought the cats back with us. My house is big enough to hold the three of them, so it is working out just fine. My only problem with them is that there is hair all over the house now. While we were visiting Dawn, we took a trip over to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. We did not go into New York City, so I will have to make a trip back to do that sometime.

I went to a baseball game, only the second professional game I have ever attended. Matt and I went to see the Baltimore Orioles play. It was quite an adventure. Matt got two free tickets from work. The game was on a Thursday evening, so we took off from work a few minutes early and headed out. We thought that we would be smart and take the metro there, since it goes most of the way. At the far end we had to take the train into Baltimore. We just barely caught the last train, and arrived during the third inning of the game. It took much longer and was much more expensive than if we had driven. The ball park (Camden Yards) is very nice, quite beautiful. Coors Field in Denver is patterned after it. We got a ride home from another person from work who was sitting next to us at the game. The Orioles won the game.

Much to my surprise there are many wineries in Virginia. Most of them are fewer than twenty years old. A few of us from work went to a few down by Charlottesville, which is a couple hours drive away. One of the wineries is on the land of an old estate. The ruins of the old house is still there. It was designed by Thomas Jefferson and was built in the late 1800's. It was destroyed by fire, but the brick superstructure is still there. We had a great time. A few weeks later another friend from work had a ``Wines From Around the World'' party, where each person brought a bottle of non-domestic wine and we all did taste testing. There was food and dessert also. Twenty people showed up, so we had lots of wine to taste. I took one of the bottles of wine I brought back from New Zealand on my last trip down to The Ice. A couple of weeks later some other friends, Matt and myself went to a wine and cheese festival just outside of Leesburg, VA at the Tarawa Winery. There were many wineries from all across the state. Afterwards we took a drive out to West Virginia. We went through Harper's Ferry and Charleston. In Charleston we drove past the courthouse where John Brown was tried. Charleston is named after George Washington's brother, who surveyed the land there.

I've done it again....I have gotten myself a new job. I now work for America Online (AOL) as a programmer. My title is ``Network Tools Developer''. I really like it, so I am very happy that I changed. My old job had become a nightmare. Also, I wanted to work for a commercial company, one that has nothing to do with the government. I think I have found a very good one.

Between jobs I took a trip to SoCal, which was at the end of May. For the first part I visited two friends from one of my trips on the Antarctic Research Ship, who go to U.C. Santa Barbara. One is Spanish and the other is German. We did lots of things during my short visit. We went to Solvang for an afternoon. I do not recall having ever been there before. It is pretty neat, but too touristy. On the way back we went to the Firestone Winery. It is run by the Firestone tire family, the grandchildren of Harvey. We had a barbeque on the beach, where I got lots of sun. While at the BBQ I was with a large group of Spanish speakers, so I had to play catch-up on my dwindling Spanish skills. In the mountains we visited a cave with paintings from the Chumach Indians. We also stopped at the Cool Spring Tavern, which was a stagecoach stop that operated from 1861 to 1901 and is now a restaurant and bar. I got a tour of Santa Barbara, which is a very nice city. There is a huge fig tree that was planted in 1877. At the Mission Santa Barbara there was an event called The Madonary, where they had all kinds of chalk drawings done on the asphalt by local and national artists. It was very interesting, and very well done. After that I headed south to Orange County. I got to see a number of people I had not seen in quite a while. I went to the beach with John and Paul, down in Del Mar, where I got even more sun. I was more burned than tanned. I went golfing with John and Cindy, only the third time ever for me. I enjoyed it pretty well. I missed my Great Aunt Marie's 100th birthday by a week. Bad timing. My Mom and many of my relatives from my Mom's side of the family were in SoCal for that.

My friend Al and his wife came up to the D.C. area again and we played tourist for another weekend. One thing I have noticed around here is that most things are called "The National Whatever". There is the National Zoo, Arboretum, and Aquarium (there are two of those), just because the National Capital is here. They'll take any mundane thing and say it is the National version of that thing.

One thing that is using up some of my would be spare time is that I am doing the web site for my graduating class of the Naval Academy. Since I have the equipment and expertise to do it I volunteered. Our class secretary lives just a few miles from me, so it was easy to coordinate. We elected new class officers at the ten-year reunion and the new ones seem to be more active in their roles than the previous ones. It looks like we will have a good sized crowd showing up for the home football games.

The summer here has been cooler (on average) that last year, but we have had more really hot days. We set the second hottest day ever in Washington, D.C., it was 105 F. The only other day that was hotter was in the late 1800's, so they measured the temperature somewhere downtown. Since 1941 they have measured the temperature at National Airport (there's that National thing again).

My house-mate and I went with a bunch of people from my old job on a canoeing trip on the Shenandoah River. We spent about five hours on the river and had a great time. My upper body was a bit sore, though. The water level was pretty low since this has been a dry summer. We grounded the canoe a few times and had to push real hard to get going again. I got a little bit sunburned and very wet. The wetness didn't come from the canoeing, but from the water fights along the way.

I just got back from Jamaica, where I went to for the wedding of one of my old roommates (Robert) from the Academy. I missed his first wedding, as I was in Antarctica, so I thought I should go to the second one (and hopefully the last). Now, all three of my roommates from the Academy have been married and divorced, and two have remarried. I had never been to Jamaica before, so this was a new adventure for me (my 28th country). I had a wonderful time, partly because of the setting, but mostly because of the people. I went for a quick six day trip. I got a real cheap plane flight, but it meant flying at weird hours and having real long layovers in Charlotte, North Carolina. Robert rented a villa (named Wag Water) near Ocho Rios, which is on the north side of the island, about in the middle. Some relatives rented the villa next door (named Frangipani). Other relatives rented two villas down the road a little bit (Eight Rivers and Frankfort Villa). I showed up a few days before the wedding as did many others, so we got a chance to visit and share stories about the Couple. The wedding was held at a place called Firefly, which is where the house of Noël Coward is. He was an actor and playwright (and many other things) and his house, and grave, are at Firefly. Here is a picture of the wedding aisle, which is looking east along Jamaica's north coast..

Ian Fleming's house (Golden Eye) is not far away, we drove by it to get to Firefly. I am surprised how well the wedding went off considering everything that happened during the preparations leading up to it. First, Melanie (the bride) got her little toe caught under a door a couple of days before the wedding, so she was hobbling around hoping it would heal in time. Hurricane "Erika" decided to not visit Jamaica, although it did give us a worry for a while. There were endless problems getting everything for the wedding on time, such as dresses, programs, and menus. The Jazz Band for the reception did not show up, and the singers for the wedding were late, but it was no problem since everyone was on "Jamaica Time". Melanie wanted a particular recording of Pachabel's Canon for the wedding march. I was given the task and after much effort was successful in finding it. I brought it with me when I flew down. Melanie listened to it many times before the wedding to soothe her peaking nerves. Well, in the rush to make it to the wedding, the CD case was brought, but not the CD, so Melanie marched down the aisle to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons". She was told about this change only moments before making her appearance. In her excitement and the confusion she totally forgot about her toe. Robert and Melanie wrote their own vows. There are some legally required portions that have to be in the ceremony. Their vows were not checked for these portions until moments before the ceremony. Robert knew about the legal additions that had to be made, but Melanie found out about them during the ceremony. The music for the singers was on cassette tape. The tape with the music for the second song must have melted in the sun because it sounded warped. They shut the tape off and sang a capela and were great. The wedding was supposed to start at 11:00 AM, but wound up starting just before noon. Many people went to the bar (which was just down the hill a few yards) for some "refreshments" while waiting in the hot sun. Some watched the wedding from there, others brought their drinks to the ceremony. All of us guys in coats and ties got thoroughly soaked with sweat. The reception was held right next to it, but there were tents to cover the tables so it was not too hot. Lastly, the wedding was on the same day as Princess Diana's funeral. We all watched the funeral before going to the wedding. I was very well rested after the trip, prior to getting on the plane to fly home. I had a five hour layover in Charlotte and did not get home until just after midnight. I was completely wasted the next day at work.

I have finally been successful in controlling my weight. My friend John got me to read this book called "Enter The Zone" by Dr. Barry Sears, which has some radically new concepts about how our bodies react with food. It outlines a guide for eating to make our bodies function properly. A side effect of functioning properly is that my weight is falling to where it should be. I have lost twenty pounds since January and I feel great. I have started running again and have had many other side benefits from my new diet. I heartily recommend the diet to everyone.

Well, that is all for now. I really need to get this mailed, so I am closing, finished or not.

Previous Letter - Next Letter - Index of all Letters