November 19, 1996

It’s the middle of November, so the Christmas music hasn’t made it to the radio or stores yet.  The snow has come with a vengeance though.   It’s a Tuesday, the roads have 6 inches of fluff on them and in Seattle that pretty much closes down the town.  This gives me the Bing Crosby "White Christmas" literary inspiration needed to finish up our annual Christmas letter.

Do you believe in Santa Claus?  Remember there are about 2 billion children (under 18) in the world.  Since Santa doesn’t handle Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish children, this reduces his workload 85% to about 378 million or so.   At an average rate of 3.5 children per household, that’s 91.8 million homes, presuming that there’s at least one good child in each.  Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels from east to west.  This works out to be 822.6 visits per second.   That gives Santa about 1/1000th of a second to park, hop out of the sleigh, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining gifts under the tree, eat the snacks, get back up the chimney, in the sleigh and off to the next house.  No wonder none of us have ever really seen him!

Unlike Santa’s, our life has been rather boring this year with my time devoted almost entirely to work.  Between 40-45 hours a week at Rockwell-Collins and another 10-25 hours a week at my consulting company Digital Vision.  My life has become an endless path of training classes, client meetings, proposal writing, consulting work, attending seminars and users groups, forging subcontractor and customer relationships, contracts and lawyers, expenses accounts and accountants (no offense Dave), implementing marketing strategies and developing the corporate infrastructure.  I was primed for this in college, working full time and taking a full course schedule at the same time … but at least the summers were a reprieve and, oh yeah, I was young then!  Digital Vision has managed to make a reasonable amount of money this year opening our doors for business in May.  All you web surfers out there can check out the Internet web site I developed at http://www.digital-vision.com.

Nora’s job as IS manager (managing the computer department) of Universal Avionics has expanded with the tremendous growth and success of the company.   Universal Avionics changed their name from Microcomputer Electronics last year and has established a reputation as one of the leaders in business jet commercial avionics.   Universal has grown from about 80 to 130 employees in the past four years, the majority of the growth being in systems, software and hardware engineers.   Nora’s department has expanded from 2 to 5, to keep up with the demand for additional and specialized computer support, e-mail, Internet capability and the ever expanding advances in computer technology.  I’m very proud of her accomplishments and ability to manage all of this and lead a balanced life.

No ski instructing last winter or this winter due to my work schedule.   I only made it to the slopes twice last year!  Prior to Digital Vision, the number of ski outings was more like 15-20 times in a season.  Nora and I miss it and we plan to get out more this winter.  I did manage to get in a half dozen rounds of golf and play in my open volleyball league from time to time.  Nora began ice-skating lessons in January and has continued taking them once a week since.  She loves it and can skate backwards gracefully, do one-footed spins and single jumps now.   I went with her a few weeks ago and tried a few of these only to become intimate with the floor of the skating rink.  Kurt Browning I’m not!  Nora gets together with several of her friends each year and attends the International Professional Skating Tours when they pass through Seattle.

Nora and I did some volunteer work this year for the Starlight Foundation (granting wishes to terminally ill children).  We both worked a "gala" celebrity auction.  I was a security guard whose main job was to look "menacing" and watch over the auction items.  Nora also caddied in their celebrity golf tournament with Slick Watts, a late-70’s Seattle Sonics basketball legend, in her group.  I’ve spent some time working with a project to "network" the Seattle Public Schools system but, as in any government run organization, after well over a year they’re just beginning to actually do something besides talk.

We went to Emerald Downs (the new Seattle horse racing track) with some of Nora’s friends from Universal in late July and had a great time pretty much breaking even for the day.  On the social agenda was a Chris Issak concert, several plays and sporting events this year, seeing a few Mariner’s games, a Sonic’s game, U of WA Husky games and a few weeks ago a Seahawks game where they blocked a 25 yard Oiler’s field goal attempt, picked the ball up and ran the length of the field for a touchdown winning the game in the last 20 seconds.  Spectating doesn’t get any better than that!  Maybe there is hope for the Seahawks.

Our friends Lauren and Nicole have a very talented daughter, who after several long years of struggling to get a decent record contract with creative freedom, just cut a CD with Virgin Records.  We attended her CD release party a few months ago and really enjoy her music.  She’s been touring internationally since (Asia at last report) with her band and the response has been excellent. If you’re into soft (and hard) grunge sound, we highly recommend her music. Scan your local music stores for Kristen Barry’s release "the beginning, the middle, the end".

The parental units visited this year from Wisconsin, helping Nora and I fix the place up so we could put it on the market.  Yes, we’re actually going to sell the place!  We expanded the walls on the bathroom in the basement adding a corner tiled shower and moving the vanity and toilet in the process.  We rearranged the laundry room moving the washer/dryer and added cabinets and a sink in there.   Then we hired someone to patch all the holes in the walls and ceiling and finish the wallboard mudding.  We finished adding and staining trim and baseboard molding, textured the ceiling, painted the whole place and added carpet down there.  We next finished off the entrance to the attic, patching holes and adding trim to it and Nora painted the steps, trim and floor up there.  That did in most of June and July for us.  These activities helped me get a sense of closure with the place after almost 12 years of constant large-scale home improvement projects.

The house has been on the market for the last two months and earlier this week we received a reasonable offer, haggled a bit on the price and finally signed the papers.  Still waiting for the inspection results before finalizing everything. It’s a real drag keeping the house spotless all the time (i.e. no dirty underwear on the bedroom floor, dishes in the sink, unmade beds, etc.) with agents and potential buyers viewing it everyday while you’re at work and on weekends.   We’ve been looking for a new house for several months but haven’t found the right place yet … we’re looking for a great interior layout with more room, a half-acre of land and no commute around the lake to work.  Now that we may have sold the place, we’ll be getting really serious about house hunting.  Housing costs in Seattle are astronomical!

Since we skipped vacation last year and no children are on the books yet, we decided to go all out this year.  Nora just booked our tickets to Australia.   Over Christmas and the first half of January, we’ll be spending a week in Sydney, a week touring the Gold Coast (Brisbaine area) and a week in Cairnes working our way from the lower east edge of the continent all the way up the east coast to the Great Barrier Reef.  I’ve been practicing wielding cans of "Fosters" and repeating the phrase "Good’ay Mate" to our cat (New Wave) who’s main occupation revolves around curling up by the heater duct.

Have a great Christmas and a safe and happy 1997!  Another year older and a touch wiser?  Keep those cards and letters coming to us … it keeps us current.  E-mail is very cool (got a few last year), plus it gets you on our "jokes" forwarding list.  The Seattle welcome mat is always out, next year at a new home … so, if you’re in the area … come experience our wonderful traffic situation and see the sights!

Until next year ...