It’s been a “interesting” year For everybody… Covid, loss of several good freinds. political unrest, climate… Lots on our minds… But it’s also been a good year for us in many ways.  We got to see Our kids and extended family again…, I retired from work, And we still have our sanity… More or less.… I hope everyone out there is winding up their year with family and friends…. We need those connections now more than ever.

We spent New Year’s Eve in Endicott with our good friends ‘Linda and David. We also went over to see Diane’s brother Joe and his wife Pat (who’s birthday it was) and their son and daughter-in-law Victor and Tina. We originally were going to spend time with them but Joe Tested positive for Covid… So we could only go and see them breifly from across the driveways with masks on…

We then spent the middle part of the day driving up to Corning to see the wonderful glass museum… I’ve been wanting to see it for months because the hall of innovations is very close to what we need to do at data for our visitors. It was really well done museum…

I particularly enjoyed the hall of innovation where they talked about the manufacture of glass and all the innovations along the way… It was full of interactive displays. A real model of an interactive science experience!

 One of the high points was a live hot glass demonstration… We fell in love with watching hot glass on the show “blown away”… This was really fun to watch

We rhen went through some of the historical collections which were nice… But don’t appeal to me as much as the modern stuff

Bck to the contemporary stuff for me !

on the way out we got to see how high the water had come up in 1972 and the place was flooded

From there we drove back to Endicott… I had a very nice and quiet New Year’s Eve… Linda had made a really wonderful crawdad boil which took me right back to New Orleans… And we sit around the campfire that david had made… And eventually wonder back in and try to find a movie to watch. We tried several classics but ended up on “Austin Powers… The The spy who shagged me” to round out the year.

One thing David and I did was to melt some lead weights and poured into a glass to predict what year was like… It’s an old custom I learned when I lived in Austria. Well here’s our year… What do you think?

A few minutes before midnight we found a TV station from Nashville that was broadcasting the time… He managed to get to midnight toasted everyone kissed everyone and then fell asleep… A nice end to a complicated year.

Happy new year everyone!

Nite all, note sam

-me

Dang and I left early to drive down to Endicott. We took a different way so that we could go through Syracuse to see our friend luke.… Diane drove the whole way while I slept. I felt pretty lucky it was like being in a time machine.. It was great seeing luke… We had a quick Middle Eastern lunch and it was good to see how he was doing. He was Doing well… Which was good to see

We headed from there down to Endicott. Our original plan was to hang out with Diane’s brother Joe and our nephews Victor and his wife Pina and our nephew Vincent his wife Trish and their two-year-old Gabriel… Who we’ve never met. As it happened Joetested positive for Covid. So we never got to hang out with them except across the driveway.

He did have a great time staying with Linda David and their wonderful dog Willow.

It was really great hanging out with them… More on her visit tomorrow

Nite alll, nite sam

-me

Today was Quick full day at home before heading down to Endicott… We basically spent the day unpacking from our wonderful Christmas trip… We did managed to squeeze in a hike with Kyle after Duxbury window. Beautiful nice snow

Night all night sam,

– me

Today was 100% travel day. We woke up… And finished a little packing we had left for today.… We realized we still had too much stuff to carry so one of our first stopped after we had dropped some extra stuff over at Max and Becky’s was to go and buy a new duffel bag. We’re a four duffel bag family now I guess.… We drove the hour then to Albuquerque and got there in time to wait patiently for our plane. It turns out that weather in Chicago… Midway point… Had gotten bad and all flights were on ground hold until that clear. Miraculously they loaded us anyway and we got a lucky break and were able to takeoff only about a half an hour late…. This sounded bad but it was far better cried and eight hours and hours and hours of delay is that we were anticipating.

Not much to report from the flight back. I worked both lights… Several recommendation letters, a bunch of work follow up both from IBM and from Beto… And then I got to settle in and do some mathematical programming that I’m helping my brother with.… That part was fun!

Kyle picked us up around 1030… Again about half an hour late… And we came back to our home. Feels so great to be back. The house was warm… The only thing that still strikes us when we come back after these long trips is that there are no dogs to greet us. I can feel that in my heart to I miss those girls

It was a wonderful vacation we just had… Lots of great family time lots of great Friend time… Outdoor time… Eating time… Just time.

Ready to jump back in to the rest of the year.

Welcome home us!

NITE ALL, NITE SAM

-me