Greetings from New York!
Yes, I'm still living here in the Big Apple--I haven't gotten sick of
it yet. I DID finally move out of my old apartment, though; after
5 years of living on 106th Street in a fourth-floor walk-up, I found a
place on 111th Street with my friend Sarah. We went to Bard
together, and as she was looking to move up in this neighborhood to go
to grad school, and so we
found a place in our friend David's building. At the time we
moved in, there were four of us who went to Bard in the same building!
I am also still teaching--and yes, even at the same school. My
classes this year include Algebra I and Calculus--my Calc class is
actually the largest I've had since starting at the Beekman
School! Since I only teach part time, I don't have the luxury of
being able to take the summer off. But I did get to have some fun
time at the end of the summer.
As you have read in the other portions of the letter, this is the
summer we finally got to fly to Germany and attend both of Christiane's
weddings. Yes, there were two--the civil ceremony and the church
ceremony. Kirsten and I sang with Christiane's siblings during
the church ceremony, and Mom accompanied us. Dad, as usual,
provided the expert opinion on sound balance (with a little help from
Christiane's nephew, Victor.) I also managed to get stuck with the
bouquet, although I made sure that everyone knew that it would be a
LONG time before I'd be planning a wedding of my own!
The rest of the trip, I had the opportunity to go traveling with
Kirsten and Manuel. We saw three countries in five days (Austria,
Italy, and Slovenia). Then it was time to get on a train in
Munich, travel overnight to a town north of Hamburg, take a bus to the
Hamburg airport, fly back to Newark, take a train to Penn Station in
New York City, take a cab to my apartment, unpack, repack, take the
subway back to Penn Station, take a train to New London, CT, and then
take a ferry to Fishers Island, NY, where I was spending Labor Day
Weekend with the Parsons, whose three sons I still care for from time
to time. I think it was somewhere close to 36 straight hours of
traveling by the time I got to the Parsons' house that Friday night!
Acting still looms as a possibility for me, although I'm no closer to
being on television than I was last year. :) With my roommate I've
adopted a cute little black kitten named Lola who likes to come and
cuddle on my neck in the morning. She also likes to play fetch
with a string and is able to climb the ladder to my loft bed.
I hope that this coming year finds you and yours happy and healthy (I know that I need to work some more on becoming wise.)
Maren
Greetings from the Colorado contingent!
Another year come and gone! We definitely managed to stay busy again this year while having a good time.
We started off the year testing for our black belts. The test
took a little over 4 hours and is definitely one of the more grueling
activities we have undertaken. We had been training for several
months, so we were ready. Mom and Dad were there for the actual
test so they were able to share in the experience/misery.
Our first trip occurred at the end of March when we went on a long
weekend trip to Las Vegas. It had been years since either Manuel
or I had been there. We managed to fit some shows in while we
were there and then traipsed up and down the strip. Whew!
It was fun, but we can definitely wait a while until our next trip.
In April, I interviewed for a new job. My former manager had
chosen to leave Ball to join a start up company and, mostly on a whim,
I decided to interview to see what had attracted him to the
position. I now work for Pelco, a security camera company.
They are the leader in security cameras. In the new position, I
still test and characterize image sensors, but am exposed to a lot more
of the existing technologies.
One of the projects I was working on last year arrived at its destination and has acquired some very cool pictures (http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu).
Manuel is still at Ball, where he has been VERY busy! Some of the
projects he has been working on are: the Space Based Space Surveillance
(SBSS) System, the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental
Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP), WorldView, and the
Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Microwave Imager (GMI). As
you can see, now we use acronyms within acronyms.
The SBSS Objective System will consist of a constellation of satellites
that will detect and track orbiting space objects, including potential
threats to our space assets and orbital debris. (This was also a
project Kirsten was working on prior to leaving Ball.) The
instruments in NPP will study global change, including atmospheric
temperature and humidity sounding, sea-surface temperature, land and
ocean biological productivity, and cloud and aerosol properties (http://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/).
WorldView is a commercial remote sensing satellite. The GPM is
the next generation of satellite-based Earth science missions that will
study global precipitation.
Ever since Natalia (our niece) was 3, we have promised her that we
would take her to DisneyWorld for her 5th birthday. This was the
year, so the beginning of May we found ourselves at DisneyWorld.
Our next big adventure was our trip to Germany for Christiane’s
wedding. Afterwards, we headed south to Austria to do a bit
of sightseeing. We stayed in Austria (roughly 1.5 hours from
Salzburg) and from there traveled to Trieste (Italy), Slovenia, and
Cortina d’Empezzo. We had a great time seeing the sights
and taking pictures. Then it was off to Venice for a couple of
days followed by the Castle Neuschwanstein. All in all a VERY fun
trip, but we were ready to head home by the end. We put over 5,
000 km on the car! We also managed to acquire 35GB of
pictures. If you have a week to kill, please come for a visit.
For Thanksgiving, we hosted the 6th annual Cabanas-Holmen Turkey
feed. For Christmas this year we are heading to Mexico to
celebrate with Manuel’s family. Then back up to Montana for
New Year's.
Should your travels bring you to Colorado, be sure to look us up!
Kirsten and Manolo
