December 6, 1997

At last report, we were heading off to Australia for a 3 week Christmas "summer" adventure.  We flew out on Christmas day and after 22 hours of flying, we arrived in Sydney to 75° sunny weather.  Seattle in the meantime was slammed with their worst winter storm in 20 years … several feet of snow followed by freezing rain and then deluged with a monsoon-like rainstorm.  The airport closed for several days, there were thousands of downed trees, power outages and severe mudslides that crippled the Seattle area for a week.  We were blissfully unaware of any of this until we called Nora’s parents from Sydney a week later. We just missed it!

Australia was awesome.  Sydney is a beautiful city with rolling hills terraced with houses leading to their 50 miles or so of bayside waterfront and a cool skyline punctuated with the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge.  Nora and I spent the first week wandering around Sydney’s Darling Harbor, visiting a woolshed (sheep ranch), checking out the expansive white sand beaches, and shopping in the downtown area.  We spent New Years Eve attending a "Mostly Strauss" symphony at the Sydney Opera House.  At intermission we walked out on the balcony and got a bird’s eye view of a spectacular fireworks display over Sydney Harbor.  Looking down, we noticed that there wasn’t a bare area of pavement or grass for miles and found out the following day that 400,000 people had jammed into the area to witness the fireworks.  After the fireworks, we went back in for the rest of the concert that ended with the audience throwing paper streamers at the conductor and musicians, champagne began flowing, confetti rained down from the ceiling, followed by a shower of multi-colored sparks from wall mounted fireworks displays aimed inward towards the stage.   An unforgettable night!

Our second week down under, we drove north from Sydney up the east coast to Brisbane, diverting along the way to see the more interesting sites and watch the surfers riding the wild waves.  Driving on the opposite side of the road is a real adventure, reminding each other constantly of that fact … "Hey, that car is coming right at us!".  Nora and I stayed in an area along the Gold Coast for a few days named "Surfer’s Paradise", where it was so windy that laying out on the beach involved pinning your towel down with rocks and being incessantly pelted by sand.  We took several side trips to the mountains there and when arriving at our destination, spent 2 days in Brisbane (1988 World’s Fair location).  From there we flew to Cairnes for a week on the beach. Cairnes is the "Great Barrier Reef" destination with hundreds of charter boats stationed there.  The reefs are about 5-10 miles off the coast, so the only way there is by booking a spot on a charter boat.   The snorkling was unequalled, with crystal clear water and literally a hundred feet deep of different varieties of colorful coral reefs stacked on top of each other and the underwater valleys between them swarming with the largest variety of tropical fish in the world.  We spent two full days exploring the reef.  While on shore leave, we took a gondola across the top of a tropical rainforest over to Kuranda, a tour bus into the Tablelands, a train ride along the outer mountain ridges, and spent the evenings chugging Foster’s with the locals on holiday.

We joined the ranks of "Eastsiders" early this year, with the move across Lake Washington to our new house.  We bought a one year old, 3400 sq ft, 4 bedroom house with a huge bonus room on a half acre wooded lot in a wonderful neighborhood.  The back yard was finished with about 30 or so hundred foot tall pines and alder trees, but the lawn was trashed due to poor soil and lack of care.  Nora and I spent May and June aerating, raking in 15 yards of top soil and fertilizer, overseeding, weeding and putting down 20 yards of bark in all the beds.  I also added lawn edging to front yard and we planted a few dozen small shrubs and trees.  The neighbors have been very friendly and the area is surrounded by woods with walking trails, a park and soccer field maintained by the neighborhood association.  Quite a change from our old eighth acre lot in the middle of Seattle and the extremely busy street we used to live on.  The only noise we hear now is the sound of lawn mowers during the summer on Saturday mornings.  It took us a few months to settle in and many a weekend was spent furniture shopping.  We managed to shave our commute down about 30 minutes a day, avoiding the traffic across the bridges on our way to work.

In early July, we had a combo birthday and housewarming party.   Alan hit "The Big 4-0" … you know, age really is relative … now 80 seems old to me!  Some of the other summer activities included canoeing on Lake Washington, river rafting down the Tiaton by Mount Rainier, watching Randy Johnson ("The Big Unit") pitch several Mariners games, going on day hikes and car camping in the Cascades, attending Bumbershoot and the Puyallup Fair pig races, seeing a few concerts (Dick Dale, Big Head Todd, Verve Pipe and Third Eye Blind) and attending the usual array of summer and fall parties.

My older brother, Dave, visited with us over a weekend in August.   "Hey remember the time you got arrested at the drive-in?"   "Yeah, remember the time you got so drunk after school on a weekday in high school that the parents had to pick you up at your friend’s house and you spent the night passed out on the kitchen floor?"  I think I beat you with that one, Dave.   The parental units planned to visit in August, but a week before their trip, my father fell off a ladder while painting their duplex in Wisconsin and wacked his cranium on the driveway.  It’s a fact that the skull and hard objects should not meet … that took Chuck out for a while and their trip was delayed until mid-September.   Still a little woosy, our big backyard storage shed building project we had planned was reduced to digging and setting up the foundation for it.  Nora and I really enjoy their visits and had a great time celebrating their 48th anniversary (a little late) with them.

We took a few other short trips this year.  In June, we spent our anniversary at the Inn at Langley on Whidbey Island.  The Fourth of July was spent in Portland visiting some friends and wandering through the botanical gardens making grandiose plans for our backyard lanscaping.  In October, we flew to Denver to participate in our friends Mark and Christy’s wedding.  We’re currently planning to attend my nephew Jeremy’s wedding in Florida in mid January followed by a seven day Southern Caribbean cruise starting out in San Juan … our big vacation for next year.

The year also included it’s share of adversity.  Nora’s mother, Pat, fought a battle with Multiple Sclerosis that began around age 40, progressing to the point after a few years where she was bound to a wheelchair.  For some people, life on this planet is not terribly fair … Pat accepted her situation with her inherent good nature and a sense of humor.  MS is a very unpredictable disease that has a way of progressing to a certain point and then arresting itself, sometimes for a very long period of time.  After 27 years in a wheelchair, Pat’s battle with the disease began again late last year, and ended when she passed away this October.   Losing a parent (or spouse) is a very traumatic experience for all involved and is very hard to describe unless you’ve experienced it.  Pat had a wonderful ceremony surrounded by her family and friends … we all miss her very much and we thank you for all your support and thoughtfulness during that time.

After six arduous months of 65 hour weeks (45 at Rockwell and 20+ doing client work, proposals and free initial consultations for Digital Vision), a partner who was doing nothing but collecting half of the profits and expense write-offs, and a number of clients who seemed to ignore their final bill, I decided to take a long break from consulting work.  It took me 6 months to unload my partner and another 6 to get my motivation back, but Digital Vision still lives!  Lessons learned tells me to avoid targeting small businesses, partners, relying on subcontractor commitments, and that I need to further focus my knowledge base and consulting services.  I’m gearing up for an intense 6 month training program to get my MCSE (Microsoft Certified System Engineer), something that most larger firms are looking for in a consultant.  Then we’ll see what new direction Digital Vision takes.

Nora’s life at Universal Avionics again this year has been a hectic schedule of long workdays and weekends keeping up with the tremendous growth.   Universal grew from 130 to 230 people last year, moved into a new building and it looks as if they are soon to outgrow that. Nora now has 8 people in her department and managing the growth and keeping up with changes in computer and network technology continues to be a challenge for her.  Tomorrow, I’m off to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, "The city that always sleeps", for a week of fun and excitement for Rockwell.

Well, I’m running out of room, so I’ll attempt to wrap this up.  We hope the holidays find you healthy, happy and headed in the right direction on the information superhighway.  I threw that last one in for the computer geeks in the audience … you know who you are!  As always, the invitation to be a part of the Seattle scene and stay with us is still open … we have several empty rooms now.   Santa says it all below … see you next year!

Cheers …