News from NY, 01/15/2008

Greets,

Happy x&n years to all. We had a relaxed and quiet xmas here. Except for when Aya visitied us and came back from her Salsa dances all excited, at midnight, and would start demonstrating the new moves she learned in our kitchen, including loud floor stomping and entertaining body contortions, as picture here:

As is my habit, I bought myself a Dyson vacuum for xmas. This time a space age shooter hand vac:



We drove to NH for New Years. And found lots of snow! This is Helen just before she dives into the snow to make angels:

And this is A&I making the doorman snowman:

Here it may look like we are juggling snowballs, but in truth, we are pleading the invisible tree monkeys that nobody else sees not to poop on us:

Noah received a 3 inch Bach for New Years. That little Bach guy, famous for fathering 19 children, apparently also likes to drink the champaign bubbly:

Next we have random couple we found. They look happy. Don't worry, he does not rip her ear off, as it looks like he is about to here:

And I put on skates, I think for the first time since failing badly to skate with some oversized skates in the 'Bowl' skating ring when I must have been 3 or so:

We made it back to Syracuse after a knuckle whitening 10 your snowstorm drive. Last weekend we went to Helen's delayed department xmas party at a fancy English mansion that does parties. After MUCH cajoling, her co-workers got here to shoot a few rounds of pool in the billards room. This picture is just before she misses the white ball with the stick and gives up in a cuestick waving fury, I fear never to shoot again:

Nick spent xmas with roomy George and New Years with Chloe and is now in China for a few weeks, in Shang-Hi, I think, visiting relatives with Chloe. Zach has started running, with plans to run a Marathon later this year.

Helen passed the Neurology boards she took a few months ago. Also forgot to post this radio show she did last fall .

I got a couple of awards from IBM, one in Dec and one last week. The one last week was for the work I did on the 2nd generation chip we put into the BlueGene supercomputer last year, making it 3x faster at 1/2 the power of the previous chip, which already had 1/10 the mips/watt of other supercomputers. I'm gonna use the awards monies on a vacation with Nick, Zach, and their girls down in Saint Thomas during Nick's spring break end of March.

I'm out of news. I'll post again when I get good photos of the invisible tree monkeys.

Bruce

News from NY, 12/16/2007

Hey Hi,

Been a while. The only excuse I can come up with is to tell the truth. I was abducted by aliens a few months ago and they had 4 month a no-publish clause in my release papers.

So Fall came an went. I explored all parts of Syracuse within a 3 mile radius of our apartment. That is the limit of my daily running range. I do a daily run now as otherwise I would turn into one of those blob guys who never leave their apartment. Here I am decked out in full bright-and-not-run-overable running gear:

Helen and I are the same size in almost everything (my breasts are a bit smaller), so I borrow pretty much everything of hers, including the above clothing, which includes running shoes, pants, jacket, and hat. For our formal outings, I borrow her her dress shoes (I forgot mine in Minnesota), dress shirt and sweater. The underwear is mine.

Last month Helen presented a poster at the annual Epilepsy meeting, this year in Philadelphia. This shows the ONLY time I have gotten her to sit down in front of my most-amazingly-big 30" monitor. She needed to see the 6 foot poster she was creating:

While she attended lectures, I played, exploring most of downtown Philly. I found this boatload of Irish immigrants disembarking by the Ben Franklin Bridge:

I also walked in the footsteps of our founding fathers. This is a national park guy explain to about 40 Japaneses tourists that this is the room where they signed the Declaration of Independence. They had a translator, but somehow the translator didn't translate the park guys jokes very well, as I heard no appropriate chuckles from them, only the click of a billion simulated camera shutters.

This is me whooping it up with Helen's co-workers, pretending to be a pool shark:

And of course, I found the famous art museum steps where Rocky Balboa ran up during his training. I ran up, but for-went (past tense of for-go?) the Rocky Balboa dance (for those of you who didn't watch the Rocky movie, he dances like a little a little ballerina with thick arms and droopy eyes at the top of the steps). I can only imagine how many times that dance gets done there. Here is the metal facsimile of the dancing guy:

Today we are in our first 'nor-easter' storm. In theory 30 inches for the year so far, but we only have about 10 inches on the ground to show for it. We sent looking for the Yeti monster today, but only found hot chocolate. This is Aya, visiting for the xmas break, dancing in the snow with Helen:

We are here for xmas, and in NH for the New Years weekend. Will report back next year sometime, hopefully before Spring!


B

Montana vacation

We much enjoyed our week in Montana. It was great to see many of you!

Lots of photos to share. Helen upload some to here:

http://bloomiesphotoalbum.blogspot.com/

I picasa-ed some to here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brucewinter/2007MontanaVacation

And a few more posted here. Lets start with one of me boys, Zach admiring Nick's daemon red eyes:




Nick talking to some not-so-random girl (Hi Chloe) whilst Dad's monster new plasma lurks:




Swister Sue tests out the cave hammock:







Shianna and Dad school me in Chess:




Johny admires Nicks monster caterpillar:



Helen is awed by Majestic Montana Mountains:




Zach works his way out of a rut in the rental car, millions of miles from nowhere:




One last thing to share, a 2 minute video of clips I've taken in the last 2 months. So this is a bit of Syracuse and a bit of Montana. 2 fit that into 2 minutes, Movie Maker Automovie made them into real little bits:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oMQQGRhN0k0

Next weekend we are off to Helen's place in NH to celebrate her birthday with kids and friends.

Bruce

First post from NY!

Hi you Western people you,

I'm an Eastern people now. We said goodbye to Zach 1 week ago ..

We traveled through 7 states (was supposed to be 6, but I missed the I90 turn in Chicago, so we took I94 to Detroit) and arrived just in time for me to plug in my laptop and travel back to Rochester for a week of telecommuting. We wired in 10 mbs cable internets and so far work is going well. Helen is also getting aqainted with her new job (e.g. found out where the bathroom is) and is already seeing patients.

One week later, we are pretty much moved in. This includes the hanging of kitchen tile thingys who's purpose still eludes me:


And the setting up of kitchen table (complements of Zach and Jessy) and TV couch (complements of Laurie):



We have downsized a bit on the TV, leaving my 62 incher in Rochester, opting instead for Helen's 10 incher. Just as well, as we didn't sign up for cable TV, instead seeing if Bruce can feed on netflix and internet TVs (Helen feeds on the Sunday New York Times).

At the other end of 'the big room' we have my work area:



Complete with an awesome new desk that Helen got me for my birthday. She fretted that it was not a very romantic present, but I pointed out to her that I was an uber-geek, and for an uber-geek, you can not get much more romantic than an massive hi-tech computer desk.



In between unpacking, we did a little exploreing. Here we find we have a secret attic, with Helen pondering how many bats find their way through the broken glass:


A few blocks from our apartment have a 70's styled neighborhood, with lots of little shops. No hippies found yet, but this flag indicates they are hiding out somewhere nearby:


Helen found an herb garden:


And I a rose garden:


Today, Helen made me a wonderful birthday dinner. She found 49 candles and secretly tried standing them up using crazy glue. After an hour of serious candle standing effort, she calls me in and I see a magnificent bon fire of candles next to a woman with fingers crazy glued together.



Now it is time for raspberry birthday cake ... gotta go!

Bruce

Jessy's Marathon

Hi to the alls.

This was the Jessy marathon weekend, Grandma's marathon up in Duluth. She finished, along with her brother, in 4 hours, 10 minutes. Zach bought a new video camera and took a few photos. This one is Jessy, a bit sweaty, after the race:

This one shows her testing out the marathon metal she got to see if it was made of pure gold (alas, was not, but tasted good):

Now, those more astute of you (i.e. the woman folk) may have noticed something different in the previous 2 photos. Those of you who didn't, try clicking on them for a bigger version, then come back here ... I'll wait.



If by some impossibility, you didn't see it yet, here is one more photo. Note the position of the hand:

That rock on the finger was brought to her by this man:

although at the time he gave it to her, shortly after she crossed the marathon finish line, he had cleaned up some (above photo is pretty much what Zach looks like after an evening of wrestling with any of a number of cars that frequent our driveway).

Zach had picked out this ring several weeks ago. He typically is bad at keeping secrets, so amazed himself by not singing out loudly his intentions. This is a picture of him NOT singing out loudly his intentions (I think he was telling one of many bunny rabbit stories, try not to ask him about the most recent bunny story, as it ends badly):

So, somehow Jessy managed to not die in the marathon, and then not die again with the surprise proposal at the finish line. She was indeed surprised and they are both very happy. No plans formulated yet, figuring Jessy should probably catch her breath first. Helen and I bought them some pie and plan on a celebratory pie fest later tonight.

Speaking of Helen and I, we just got back from a week in Chicago and New Hampshire. Just 1.5 day's in New Hampshire, to celebrate her Dad's 70th birthday. But a good 4 days in Chicago. I switched between IBM work via the hotel internet and wondering around lost, bumping into tall buildings (it is what I do in big cities), whilst Helen attended and presented at a Brain Mapping conference.

Chicago is a very pretty city. Vibrant, with lots of activity and new buildings. This park has an open air orchestra pit with an amazing billion speaker system covering the park next to it:

And of course there are fountains:

Including this o-so-amazing one that has a meg-pixel color LED display built into it, with videos of various Chicago-ians smiling and blinking:

and periodically, it spits water out on suspecting little (and big) children:

The weekend we arrived, we lucked out and happened upon the world famous Chicago Blues festival, 2 blocks from our hotel! Largest free blues festival in the world.

This is the most amazing kidney bean I have ever seen. Mirrored stainless steel reflects people, buildings, and lots of cameras (click for the big picture and see if you can spot me).

We snuck Helen away from the conference for an afternoon and had a lovely bike ride along the lake. Chicago was voted the number one most bike able city in the country:

This last photo shows Helen trying out the kennel we bought to ship Toozik in. We thought it was plenty big, Helen claiming she could live in there, but Zach had to plead with the airport people when he dropped Toozik off, as it was 1 inch short of regulation size. Toozik survived his 2 hour plane ride just fine and is now cavorting with sheep on a small farm in New Hampshire.

T-minus 2 weeks before we hitch up the covered wagon and head East. Expect the next news missive to be from NY!

Bruce

News from MN, 5/27/2007

HiYo,

Happy springs. Jessy has been training for her first marathon for the
last 6 months. Today she ran her first 20 mile run in the local
Rochester marathon. She sprinted the last bit, so looks like she will
be good for her first full marathon in Duluth in a few weeks.

Nick made it to Virgina Tech ok last week. He will be working on a 3d
sound research project for 2 months. There is a bit of travel in our
future also. In 2 weeks, Helen and I will spend a few days at a
conference in Chicago, then fly for a few days to New Hampshire for her
fathers 75th Birthday. Then we drive out to Syracuse in a month.
Finally, in 2 months, Helen, Zach, and I (grammatic note to you
grammatically incorrect youngsters, it is foo and I, not me and foo!)
booked flights for a week in Montana, 7/29 -> 8/5.

Helen's Mom found a place we can park Helen's dog Toosik for a while, at
a rural home in NH. We will either fly him out to meet with us in NH
in 2 weeks, or drive him out with us in July.

Speaking of driving, I decided to give my RX/8 back when it's lease
expires in a month. I was going to buy it, but decided to lease when
dollars added up to be about the same (they had a good lease incentive),
then buy it when the lease was up. But since Helen will be usually
walking or biking to work, and I'll be working from the apartment, we
barely need one car, much less 2. And Helen's Subaru Outback gets much
better gas mileage. Zach blames my decision on Gore's 'An inconvenient
truth', and he is partly right.

And Zach just sold HIS mazda (the red miata). He decided he wanted to
get out of various debts and have some moneys he could use to get his
Del Sol running. So he is currently car-less, but will likely buy a
beater soon. We might become a 0-car household for a while. That will
freak the insurance guys out.

Pictures. First one is a much less fuzzier version of the one I tookat Silver Lake a year ago when Helen and I first met. Same spot, but my camera got a little smarter. Or maybe it was the rock wall that took the picture that got a little smarter.

The second one shows Zach's super human strength, lifting the gutted
blue car with one finger. Actually, the superhuman part was when Zach
removed the engine and trany (third picture) by himself earlier that day.

The last picture is Helen's over-loaded arm. Why 2 watches? Good
question, one repeated by many a curious Mayo-ian. She left the fancy
atomic watch on the right on Eastern time, since fancy atomic watches
require an atomic engineering degree to set their time zone.

One last thing ... I think I keep forgetting to post a pointer to

Helen's web page: http://toughshiitake.org (shiitake is a mushroom and
she is a big shroomer). The photo blog (1st link) is a lot of fun.

Bruce

News from MN, 5/07/2007

Hellos to the people I know,

Apartment is rented and the hole is filled. Actually, I said that in
reverse order. As soon as the ground thawed, my shovel pushed the dirt
hill back into the hole. Turns out some of the dirt evaporated somehow,
so we now have about a 6 inch by 20 foot dent in the yard. This is
where I will claim a meteor hit.

That 2nd photo is from a driveway cookout. The blue cars in the
background are undergoing the equivalent of a heart/lung transplant.
The party eventually died out, but Zach continued working by flashlight
till midnight, and the refurbished car was happily rolling the streets
the next day.

Helen and I got back from our 2 week trip to NY, NH, and Boston last
night. Missions accomplished, but finding an apartment was harder than
we expected. Apartments withing biking/walking distance of a large
university is tricky, apparently typically done a year in advance. I
had lots of leads from the internets, but most of them fell through (web
pictures somehow always look better than in real life). So by day 3, we
resorted to randomly driving streets and dialing any phone numbers we
could find. Which lead us to the top floor of the 3rd pictures. Helen
walked up to it and said 'This smells right'. I didn't think that was a
good sign, but then a multi-colored cat walked up and said hi. Russians
view this as a good sign. They landlord had a stack of applicants for
this newly available apartment, but liked us best, so we sealed the deal.

After Syracuse, we visited Aya at here school in (RISDI) in Road Island.
The photo shows her explaining how the 16 mm film machine she uses
in her animation major works.

Then we went to Helen's house on 'the lake' where she finally had a
chance to prepare her presentation at the big annual Neurology meeting
in Boston. Whilst at the lake, we reveled in the last quickly melting
snowbank (5th photo).

The last 3 photos are from Boston. While Helen gave her talk to a big
crowd, I touristed the streets, only getting lost a few times.

2 urls to share. A few weeks ago I did a Internet radio/podcast
interview on MisterHouse. About 20 minutes, really of interest only to
home automation types. podcast link here: http://sitescollide.com

The other is Laurie's blog, which she started about a month ago.
Creative, inspiring, and fun words found here:

http://laurelwinter.blogspot.com

News from MN, 4/15/2007

Hi-es,

This months news in 5 seconds: Z&J Cruise, L visit, M&D visit, Z in
Nashville, N research.

This months news in pictures. Pictures are in jumbled order (new Vista
trick, using 'send to mail' allows for easy resizing, but tricky
ordering). Somewhere in the pile you will find 2 pictures of Zach and
Jessy from the cruise they went on with Jessy's family last month. The
Zach buried in sand photo is slightly R-rated, so keep it away from the
kiddies.

Laurie was in town for a few weeks, doing a convention and visiting
lots-of-folk. Helen offered up her apartment as a place for her to
stay. And Toozie (Helen's dog) lucked out and got lots of extra walks
with Laurie. The first photo shows Helen trying out a session of
Laurie's alternative healing therapy. It involves focusing energy
through hands. She has lots-of-folk who can feel something when she
does this, including Helen, but not me. Laurie is loving Asheville and
will likely buy a condo there.

Me Moms and Dads also visited for a week. The 2 beagles did well,
although young Flash was convinced Toozie was a attractive woman dog.
Various dog photos in the pile, including Zach testing Flashes leaping
limits. Helen picked up some flower arranging tips from the master
flower arranger Mom.

Zach did another crazy car thing. He and one of his friends, Brad, flew
down to Nashville on Tuesday and drove a blue Subaru back, 12 hours
through rain and snow, in time for Zach to get back to work on Wednesday
morning. Another car of the same color and type found some ice this
winter and got totaled, so they are in the process of a parts transfer
(see blue cars photo).

Heard a bit from Nick this week. His trip to visit Emily in Scotland
went well. He has been "Busy to death, as we say in Chinese!", but
enjoying the piles of school work he has to do. He accepted a research
job this summer in Virginia Tech, about 2 hours NE of Laurie in
Asheville. Will be creating and programing a 2D 24 speaker array to
create a 'Aural Matrix Haptic Display Interface'.

Helen and I are taking off next weekend for 2 weeks in NH, NY, and
Boston. Doing various things, including looking for a place to stay in
Syracuse. Tune back in in 3 weeks, same bat time, same bat station
(batman lingo), and will report on said adventure.

Bruce

News from MN, 3/24/2007

Hellos,

Our 2 feet of snow got warm enough to be snowmanable, so I snowmaned a
few weekends ago, cause Nick told me to. I created what I believe is
the tallest-one-man-without-a-ladder-snowman ever created. It would
have been the tallest-one-man-one-woman-snowman ever created, but Helen
had to work that day. It is not as tall as the one Nick, Zack, and I
created 10 years ago. That one captured that was a
one-man-with-2-boys-snowman record. This one lasted about 20 seconds
before it tipped over. But I got a photo at about second 18! 1st
photo is just before I set the head upright, which was a trick since the
head is 8+ feet up, and I am not even a 6 footer. 2nd photo is just
before he crashed. Surprisingly, the head remained intact, with the
caret and 2 fresh farm egg eyes unbroken, so I rebuilt him, a bit
shorter and more stable, in the 3rd photo. The baby deck snowman in the
4th photo was happy to have a friend, although they have both moved on
by now (65 degrees today).

Work is picking up, after a bit of a break end of last year. A number
of interesting chips, but stuff I can not talk about for a few years.
Here is one that we did last year that I CAN talk about:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3667476

It is the worlds biggest chip of its kind (ASIC). Raytheon designed it,
and our group implemented it.

Zach is keeping busy as usual. He comes home every day with pretty
brown hands like those in photo 5. I counted 9 cars, 1/2 of which were
broken, in our garage/drive/street the other day. Zach has come to the
realization that he can not fix everyone's car problems, so has learned
now to say no. This is a hard thing for him to say, but it is harder to
fix a billion broken cars.

His back is giving him problems, so he has started seeing a
chiropractor, with some improvement. That is a local doctor we found in
the house, helping out in photo 5. She will claim she is of no use on
backs, but Zach's back did feel a bit better the next day.

Our local doctor also gave Jessy a tour of her work last weekend (next 2
photos), as Jessy was interested in potentially working as a EEG tech.
In that 2nd photo, she is demonstrating how to jam a EMG needle
into a leg. Zach is about to run for the elevator. He hates needles.

The next photo shows Toozie, Helen's 9 year old border collie, sporting
one of my old muscle shirts. Not because he has muscles or a beer belly
to show of, but because Helen was feeling mischievous when we were doing
laundry. If Toozie did drink beer, he would probably have a beer belly,
as he does not get enough exercise. We are not sure yet what sort of
apartment we can get near downtown Syracuse that would tolerate a dog.
If anyone in the listening audience would consider a job dog sitting a
well behaved dog for a year or 2 whilst we figure out Syracuse, we would
love to hear from you. If you had a back yard full of cell phones,
Toosie would be in heaven (he likes phones).

Zachs friend Derek turned 21 yesterday. That is a pile of friends
getting into a limo to take him out on the town last night. They had a
good time, except they forgot Derek at a bar. He found a cab, and all
are un-hung-over by this afternoon.

Mystery photo is from St Thomas. Yes, it is a creature, but what kind
of creature?

Bruce

Re: News from MN, 2/04/2007

Hi Bruce,

Glad to see that your brother in laws "down under" influence is finely
catching on. We''ll make an aussie of you yet :))

Love
Your Budgie Smuggler wearing Brother In Law :))

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bruce Winter" <brucewinter@gmail.com>
To: "Malcolm & Beth Winter" <mwinter@midrivers.com>; "Laurie"
<l.winter@earthlink.com>; <brucewinter@gmail.com>; <nick@misterhouse.net>;
<zachwinter@gmail.com>; <suewinter@hotkey.net.au>; "Brad & Sue Page"
<bsp@hotkey.net.au>; "Scott & Darcy Winter" <sdmwinter@imt.net>; "Mal & Kim
Winter" <malcolmwinter@hotmail.com>; "Paul & Mika Kitamura"
<paul_mika_kitamura@msn.com>; "Craig Kitamura" <bluegardenia5@msn.com>;
"Bryan Tate" <btate@spanish-peaks.com>; "Annie Tate" <annietate@rcn.com>;
"Ben" <bentateone@comcast.net>; "Jim Birkholz" <jbirchwood@comcast.net>;
<Nicholas.Winter@oberlin.edu>; "Mike & Tracy" <mtgates@rangeweb.net>;
<bruce@misterhouse.net>; "Jessica" <peteygirl84@msn.com>; "Cassie"
<caligurliwish@hotmail.com>; "Luke" <tensneone99@hotmail.com>;
<fact10dud@photos.flickr.com>; <samsingitagain@yahoo.com>;
<helenbarkan@gmail.com>; <bruce_winter.bruceletters@blogger.com>;
<brucewinter.postit@spaces.msn.com>; "Crystal" <icecrystal_09@yahoo.com>;
<julian_higgins@emerson.edu>
Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 11:08 AM
Subject: News from MN, 2/04/2007

> Greets all,
>
> In the last 2 weeks, we (Helen and I) have traveled to warm waters and
> back (from 10 degrees F, to 80, and now back to -10!) and we found and
> communed with the world traveling Nick for a few days. And I have
> several hundred new photos I could share, but I've showed some restraint
> and pruned it down to the following 10.
>
> The 1st 3 are from Nick's trip. He is writing up a long missive
> describing his adventures, which I'll forward when I get it. The
> executive summary is that he had a great time and loves China. He made
> some good friends, didn't have any bad things happen, and will probably
> go back at some point. The photos show:
>
> 1: Some sort of small brick wall he stumbled on.
> 2: Nick getting schooled in fishing by a girl (she caught more)
> 3: Lost in wild forest in an oh-so-stylish pink jumper.
>
> I took him back the MSP airport on Friday. We may or may not see him
> this summer, depending on what he finds for a summer job.
>
> Helen and I had a wonderful time in St Thomas. I managed to spend
> almost all of our 8 days there either on the beach or in the water and
> not burn my pale white desk jockey body. The water was warm and the
> fish were amazing. We saw a billion multi-colored pretty fish, along
> with a turtle, sting ray, octopus, barracuda, and a shark. Those last 2
> were kind of big (4-5 feet), so we didn't dwell on them them too much :)
>
> The first 2 photos come from the a $20 underwater digital camera, which
> lasted for 3 days before it leaked and self destructed. I learned that
> if you bring a slice of bread to the fishes, you become very popular.
>
> The next photo is the beech that was 100 feet from the condo we stayed
> at, where we spent most of our time. It is called Secret Harbor for
> good reason, as it is relatively private. The harbor is shielded from
> rough ocean water, yet has beautiful coral reef for the fishes to play
> in. The 4th photo is from another beach on a neighboring island, St
> Johns, that we visited via a ferry (the kind that floats, not the kind
> that flys).
>
> That black spikey thing is a sea urchin. Beautiful, but nasty. My hand
> met up with a small one one day, so we had to fish a few of those pokies
> from my fingers. I was lucky and avoided the poison, so had little
> pain. Helen's parents joined us the last 2 days (it was their condo we
> stayed at) and it was her Dad was crazy/experienced enough to pick one
> of those bad boys up.
>
> That next photo, with that guy in the speedo tossing his shirt about,
> was not picked by me, but rather by Helen who mumbled something about
> 'gotta have the playgirl shot'. That is my first speedo, but unlike
> Sons Nick and Zach, who's faces contort at the suggestion of speedos, I
> like them. Not only are they quite comfy and slide through the water
> like a mouse through easy cheese, but they look different than the
> ubiquitous baggy swim suites that everyone else wears.
>
> The 2nd to last photo shows Helen wearing a winter coat in 80 degree
> weather, anticipating colder temperatures to come. Not me, I left mine
> in the car (Zack picked us up in Helen's pre-warmed car ... with butt
> warmers!).
>
> The last photo is today's mystery photo. Hint: It is alive and you
> don't want to use it as a pillow.
>
> May all your bowls be super happy!
>
> Bruce
>
>

News from MN, 2/04/2007

Greets all,

In the last 2 weeks, we (Helen and I) have traveled to warm waters and
back (from 10 degrees F, to 80, and now back to -10!) and we found and
communed with the world traveling Nick for a few days. And I have
several hundred new photos I could share, but I've showed some restraint
and pruned it down to the following 10.

The 1st 3 are from Nick's trip. He is writing up a long missive
describing his adventures, which I'll forward when I get it. The
executive summary is that he had a great time and loves China. He made
some good friends, didn't have any bad things happen, and will probably
go back at some point. The photos show:

1: Some sort of small brick wall he stumbled on.
2: Nick getting schooled in fishing by a girl (she caught more)
3: Lost in wild forest in an oh-so-stylish pink jumper.

I took him back the MSP airport on Friday. We may or may not see him
this summer, depending on what he finds for a summer job.

Helen and I had a wonderful time in St Thomas. I managed to spend
almost all of our 8 days there either on the beach or in the water and
not burn my pale white desk jockey body. The water was warm and the
fish were amazing. We saw a billion multi-colored pretty fish, along
with a turtle, sting ray, octopus, barracuda, and a shark. Those last 2
were kind of big (4-5 feet), so we didn't dwell on them them too much :)

The first 2 photos come from the a $20 underwater digital camera, which
lasted for 3 days before it leaked and self destructed. I learned that
if you bring a slice of bread to the fishes, you become very popular.

The next photo is the beech that was 100 feet from the condo we stayed
at, where we spent most of our time. It is called Secret Harbor for
good reason, as it is relatively private. The harbor is shielded from
rough ocean water, yet has beautiful coral reef for the fishes to play
in. The 4th photo is from another beach on a neighboring island, St
Johns, that we visited via a ferry (the kind that floats, not the kind
that flys).

That black spikey thing is a sea urchin. Beautiful, but nasty. My hand
met up with a small one one day, so we had to fish a few of those pokies
from my fingers. I was lucky and avoided the poison, so had little
pain. Helen's parents joined us the last 2 days (it was their condo we
stayed at) and it was her Dad was crazy/experienced enough to pick one
of those bad boys up.

That next photo, with that guy in the speedo tossing his shirt about,
was not picked by me, but rather by Helen who mumbled something about
'gotta have the playgirl shot'. That is my first speedo, but unlike
Sons Nick and Zach, who's faces contort at the suggestion of speedos, I
like them. Not only are they quite comfy and slide through the water
like a mouse through easy cheese, but they look different than the
ubiquitous baggy swim suites that everyone else wears.

The 2nd to last photo shows Helen wearing a winter coat in 80 degree
weather, anticipating colder temperatures to come. Not me, I left mine
in the car (Zack picked us up in Helen's pre-warmed car ... with butt
warmers!).

The last photo is today's mystery photo. Hint: It is alive and you
don't want to use it as a pillow.

May all your bowls be super happy!

Bruce