November 2000 Family News and Gossip

November 2000 Family News and Gossip.....

Well, we seemed to have survived the onslaught of the late-summer early-fall season. The planets all mis-aligned for us, or maybe someone accidentally leaned on the hectic-o-meter, because it seemed like we've been going non-stop since July.......

In July we had the most fun of our recent months, as we hosted my niece and her two sons during a visit back east from Colorado. The boys were both born in North Carolina, but have spent most of their lives so far in Colorado, so this was an exciting visit for them, seeing New England and visiting with tons of relatives on both their grandmother's (my sister) and grandfather's side of the family. We set up bunkbeds in the guest room and they thought that was pretty cool.

Towards the end of July we made the second of eventually dozens of drives (450 miles, each way) down to Chambersburg PA for orientation weekend at Audrey's new school. Audrey was accepted to Wilson College for Women (her first choice school) back in May. We had initially visited the campus (our very first drive down) in October 1999 as part of our college visitation ritual, but this trip was the first where she was officially part of the school. We re-learned a lot on the ride down (don't go through NYC and over the GW bridge unless you absolutely have to), and while Audrey was getting oriented and meeting her new roommate and other classmates over the weekend, Lynn and I scooted over to Gettysburg (20+ miles east of Chambersburg) to visit the historical sites and basically be sombered and awed by it all.

In August we finally got to visit Nova Scotia for a Family Vacation. We've been wanting to get up to that island for years, what with Lynn's and my Celtic ties, and it finally happened this summer. Megan did all the leg-work (phone-work actually) for the trip, arranging the sequence and booking us into B&Bs and hotels all around the island. We worked with the Nova Scotia Department of Tourism and Travel (they have a great web site) who only made one screw-up with our reservations (we wanted to stay up on the northwest - actually on PEI - on the third night, but they booked us into a B&B in the southeast of the island in a town with a very similar name, and by the time we discovered the mistake it was too late to do anything about it), and they reimbursed us for that mistake because it was clearly their fault.

We drove to Portland Maine on the afternoon of the 17th and boarded the Scotia Prince ferry with our car that night. The overnight boat-ride included cabins to sleep in and a breakfast buffet the next morning. The boat is fitted out mostly as a floating casino with a restaurant and a lounge/club/bar too. I managed to extend my slot-machine winning-streak by escaping with about $160 in quarters. In Nova Scotia we drove clockwise around the island for the next 8 days, racking up 1650 Nova Scotia miles on the van. It was a great time, with spectacular scenery and lots of interesting things to do and see. I've parked about 21 MegaBytes of Nova Scotia photos on the PhotoPoint picture-sharing website, if you're interested. On the 27th we re-boarded the Scotia Prince for the return voyage to Portland. The return is not overnight, so the cabin we rented was extra, but it was worth it to have someplace to park and snooze for the all-day trip. I managed to win another $180 in quarters on the return trip, so it was fun and profitable!

Once we got back home from Nova Scotia, we had three days to get Audrey packed up for the official move into college. She needed to be in the dorm on the 1st of September, so we hit the road on the 30th with a shiny new trailer hitch on the van and a beat-up old U-Haul trailer dragging behind. Words of wisdom when renting a trailer - don't forget to check the TOP of the trailer for holes, as well as the sides..... That was an interesting trip. The trailer wasn't even half-full with stuff, but with four people, two ferrets and a dog in the van, there was no way we had room for things like refrigerators and computers and bicycles inside the van as well.

We got Audrey moved in and mostly settled, dumped the trailer off at the local Chambersburg PA U-Haul rental place, then turned around and headed right home so we could do the same thing with Megan. Since Megan is close by at U-Mass Lowell, the drive was nowhere near as long, but the amount of stuff needing moving was about the same, so we did it all again on Labor Day (how appropriate), the 4th of September.

We had 4 days to catch our breath, then we were off to Colorado for a week (9-16 Sep). I had business meetings in Colorado Springs, so Lynn came with me and we visited with our friends Lori & Jim whom we met in Germany for the weekend prior to my meetings, then I headed off to my meetings and Lynn visited with my sister outside Denver for the week. Pictures of our oxygen-deprived visit to Pikes Peak and our time at my sister's house are also on PhotoPoint.

In late September Lynn had a scheduled breast biopsy, which came back negative (thank goodness!). The doctor had found some atypical calcification and wanted to make sure of its type. Lynn had had a biopsy before so she was fairly familiar with the routine, but anything like that can be a bit nerve-wracking. She had the biopsy as day-surgery, but it still takes a lot out of you, so she was a bit under the weather for a few days afterward. All is well now, though.

As soon as October rolled around, we were back in rush mode. We made a very long weekend of it (Friday and Monday off, and left Thursday night) and for October 5-8 we drove back down to Chambersburg PA for Wilson College's Homecoming and Parents Weekend. Audrey had been at school a month, but she had all the routines and schedules set and part of her life now. It was good to see her, and she seemed to be enjoying college life a lot. There had been continuing problem with the college catering service - some of the students seemed to have most of the symptoms of a low-grade food poisoning, but nothing concrete had been found or identified. It was frustrating for the students and for their parents. Other than that, college life seemed to be great for Audrey.

She also has been blossoming as a writer at Wilson College. Her freshman essay was chosen over all others in the class to be read at the school convocation, and the faculty liked her writing style and skills so much that they asked her to write and present a speech at the Scholarship Donors' Appreciation Banquet, which she did with aplomb - we got to attend too!

The next weekend (14 Oct) was a combined U-Mass Lowell Family Day & 25th Reunion Weekend for me (BS-Ph Lowell Tech class of 1975 -the last graduating class before the merger forming Lowell University). We spent the day up on the south campus, visiting booths and listening to Liv Taylor in concert. I even presented him with a photo of him and Walter Robinson performing at Lowell Tech in 1972 - 28 years previously. He seemed to enjoy it immensely.

On 22 October I flew to Brussels one last time, this time to conduct training sessions for the data system I co-developed for NATO. Not many pictures from this trip (not like the June trip) - it was rainy and drizzly the entire time I was there. I flew in Monday morning, spent Monday and Tuesday preparing for the training classes, then conducted the classes at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday evening I took the train up to Den Haag (The Hague) to spend Friday at the one-man site my company has there, then I flew home Saturday. Brussels is a great place to go if you like great food, and it lived up to its reputation this trip as well. We returned to the "Seafood Alley" of restaurants (see photos from the January 2000 trip) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves once again.

My final scheduled trip of this string was in support of the semi-annual conference my company helps to host for the government, in relation to a project I work on. This time around it was hosted at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Bethesda MD, 31 October - 2 November. Unfortunately, I had to be away over Halloween, so Lynn was left with the daunting task of setting up all the paraphernalia for trick-or-treat night, and I didn't get to help or enjoy it! Bummer!

We have survived our hectic few months. That's not to say the next few months are not going to be hectic, what with Thanksgiving right around the corner (Audrey's flying home and is bringing a friend from school), and Christmas and New Years right after that, but as of now I actually have no scheduled trips on my calendar. I'm sure one or two will pop up, but as of now - I can lay low and act crazy!