News from MN, 12/28/2006

Merryies and happy new thingies to one and all,

40 and dry here. We DID have some snow for a week or 2. Gave us a
chance to try out Helen's x-country skies, as is evidenced by the over
excited skier in the 1st photo.

Helen's son Noah (a Junior at CMU music school in Pittsburgh) and
daughter Aya (a sophomore Road Island School of Design) and her
boyfriend Julian (a Junior in film studies at Emerson in Boston) came to
visit over xmas. 2nd photo shows Noah on the right testing Julian with
a card trick. The 2 eyed terrorist in the newly crocheted ski mask
eyeing the cameraman with suspicion is Aya.

We somehow managed only 1 dress up xmas party (ok by us, as I don't have
many dresses), a Mayo neurology department party. Pic 3 is we 2
lounging around in the Kahler Hotel lobby.

And then there was xmas! Presents were opened and a turkey was cooked
(and eaten!). Zach decided to upgrade Jessy's 13" bedroom TV to a 36"
LCD (4th pic). Helen gave me a a Lego Mindstorm robot and a fine
Burton jacket. Aya gave Julian a Nerf gun (5th pic), but I think,
judging from her expression, she wishes she had gotten something safer
like DVD (Julian had much fun with that gun).

Mom and Dad the wireless indoor helicopter you gave us boys (6th pic) is
amazing. Small, relatively save, well made, and runs for 4+ minutes
between recharges. And has 2 glowing red eyes, looks like a dragonfly.
At least it would if dragonflies had glowing red eyes. The 20
something question machine is fun also. The snowboard video game is a
bit too tricky for us bigger folk to balance on, but might work well
with smaller elf like people with amazing agility.

The almost last pic is an upside down Zach installing a security system
in his Miata. His car was broke for a week, and causing much
frustration, but on one miraculous looong day, he fixed it, along with
the big red car that has been in our driveway all summer. AND he
cleaned the garage!

Today was the day we were going to deposit Nick on a airplane heading to
China, but turns out his visa/passport got sent to his college address,
rather than here. So he re-scheduled for next Friday and sweet talked a
Oberlin postmaster into re-directing his priority mail to here, so he
should be good to go in a week.

The last photo is this months mystery photo. Seems last months duck
butt photo was too easy, so no hints this time.

B

ps. every try pan flipping 4 pancakes at once? It CAN be done ... kind of.

[Fwd: Spiral bookshelf]

One more photo (Zach admiring Jessy's new dew that she got on her
birthday a few days ago) and a letter from Nick!

------------

Hi yo,

So I'm going to China this January. That is going to be totally unreal
right up until the moment I eat some dumplings, I think. Having never
significantly traveled alone before, or been to a truly foreign country,
or done volunteer work, or taught English, I think that this will
probably be the hardest thing I've yet tried to do. Especially since my
Chinese is still so weak, the dialect there is very different, and there
will probably only be a few English-speakers Chinese in the village. I
am very nervous.

George and I shot what will become a panda-lickin' good short movie on
the ping pong table in the dorm basement. It will be called Chin Pong,
and in a couple months when George is done editing it, watch for it to
crawl eagerly into your electromailbox and into your unsuspecting mind,
where it will wreak all sorts of dreams and permanently twist up the
cosmic microwave background radiation in there. We also played some ping
pong upon it. No chess, though.

George and I also have begun another commando art project. Not so major
as the Mario Boxes this time: we're making stencils and chalking them
all over campus. We haven't done very many yet; yesterday was the test
run (we made some dogs and some babies with bombs on their backs).
Instead of using spraypaint, we spray some weak adhesive and then use a
paintroller to spread powdered chalk on it (which makes it really
bright), so it's non-permanent and legal. Not as exciting as spraypaint,
but more responsible. We're going to make some really big ones and it's
going to be awesome.

I spent Thanksgiving break at George's house, which is about four hours'
drive to the south in a small Ohio town. It was pretty cool, got to see
some stomping grounds and got to run around some old cemeteries. Went on
some hikes, ate some food, talked philosophy with George's parents. They
also had a huge LAN party at their house while I was there, with about
fourteen people in the basement playing games and yelling at each other
and repeating absurd catchphrases ("How does it feel to be noobed?!")
all night. It was great. Afterwards, though, I didn't want to make any
noise for about two weeks.

Emily played a show at one of the school venues this week that was
pretty cool; she rounded up a pianist, a cellist, a bassist, a drummer,
a mandolinist, another singer and another guitarist and played a bunch
of indie rock and folk favorites that she rearranged for her crazy band.
A lot of people came, it sounded great, and the peasants rejoiced in the
village. Next semester, she's going to study abroad in Scotland at the
University of Aberdeen, which is going to be both awesome and tragic,
for we will miss each other so. I can hardly bear to think of not seeing
her for perhaps up to eight months. She's got an internship at a music
agency in New York that picks songs for ads, and neither of us knows
what we'll be doing in the summer yet. Messy cake.

George turned 21 this month, so a bunch of us took him out to dinner at
the Mandarin. The night before, he and a few friends bought some wine
and he had a few drinks to try it out, so naturally we all said how
drunk he was and how he only thought he was "a little tipsy" because he
couldn't remember anything. This very much amused his parents during
Thanksgiving and embarrassed George, who has of course never been drunk
and is very straight-laced.

My cheap sandals finally finished breaking yesterday, the ones that I
leave on a bike lock on a bench in front of the dining hall all the time
so that I can walk around barefoot and not have to go back to my room to
get shoes to go in and eat. It was a wonderful friendship while they
lasted, though. My Chinese professor thinks I'm terribly strange, but
barefoot is just more comfortable, pure and simple. You'd have to be
crazy to wear shoes when you don't have to. 'Sides, feeling the vastly
various feelings to be felt when stepping on different kinds of ground
is one of life's great pleasures.

I'ma go throw this superball down the hallway until I lose it.
Love 'n ink,
--Nick

News from MN, 11/10/2006

Greets from the land of Geeks,

Heard from Nick today. He is finalizing his winter break China trip
plans in January. After a week here at xmas, he will travel to Beijing,
then to Chengdu in the Sichuan province. Chengdu is China's 5th biggest
city, with only 10 million people. Still a bit too many for Nick, so he
will travel from there to a remote mountainish village and give some
sort of aid for 2.5 weeks. Probably teach English aid, although kool
aid would be cool if he could talk that chubby singing red koolaid guy
to come with him. But his plans are the moment to go solo in china land.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there have been a hunter spotted. Those
who don't like guns had best shut your eyes for a bit. Jessy tried
some deer hunting this season with her Dad and brothers. That would be
she in the 1st photo, sporting here new shotgun. I hadn't realized that
shotguns slugs are the only gun they allow deer hunting with here.
Those big slugs get the job done quick, and they don't travel too far.

So Zach got in the gun mood and bought himself a 22 something. I would
make up a number, but he would scold me, like he did in that last letter
when I said his friend Travis was snorting a V6 engine, when in fact it
was a Honda something. So Zach has a 22 something rife in that 2nd
photo, with a massive scope. On his first run out, he was shooting a 6
inch pattern at 200 yards. After shooting a box of shells, you quickly
figure out you would rather shoot reloaded shells, so the 3rd photo
shows him reloading shells with newly bought and borrowed equipment.

The next photo shows us doing rigorous tests with 3 types of eggs. 2
flavors of organic and one in-organic (must have come from one of those
plastic chickens). Lab results are not complete yet (that was this
morning's breakfast, so we are still testing for 2 day morbidity rates),
but no strong differentiators, other than the fact that the organic
chickens are probably more happy then plastic chickens.

I have a dept thanksgiving lunch tomorrow, and I was in charge of a pie.
So Helen and I cooked up 2 this weekend. Picture shows her having her
first spin on the amazing apple coring, peeling, and slicing machine.
The other pie we made was a pineapple upsidedown cake. That way I can
drop it upsidedown on my way to work and still have it work. Maybe kind of.

That is me in the next photo, sporting my newly knitted hat. Helen is a
master knitter, although she humbly only claims rudimentary skills. I
have scored 2 aweome hats and 1.5 scarfs (the .5 scarf is will likely be
a 1.0 scarf in a week).

Last photo is Jessy's Mia acting camera shy. She does not freak out
nearly as much as Helen's Toosie, who will run to the nearest bomb
shelter at the site of a camera. I will get a good photo of him
someday and show him I am not stealing is sole.

Looking forward to our Thanksgiving visit to Bozeman this week!

Bruce

[Fwd: Temporary Art Installation Permit]

Forwarding a letter from Nickmaster.

As a post-halloween treat, am attaching a picture of a brain that Helen
and I made. A milk gelatin desert, with a bit too much gelitan, so was
a pretty solid brain. But it sure looked the part, as might be expected
when a neurologist builds a brain treat. It scared off food radiers
from my fridge for a week!

B

-----

From Nick:

Hi guys!

Three weeks ago saw the wonderful world of Asheville united at last with
its feverish appreciators, Emily and me. What a rock'em sock'em place!
Mom showed us around and we counted every beautiful thing we saw, and
ate well. And as we rushed back to Oberlin on the wind, the trees
quiesced around us like conquered peoples. It is much harder to muster
homeworking grit when you're feeling treelordish; that first week back
was floaty indeed. I've been wrangling much more of late, though.

I'm excited! My math class is so great: my final project is going to be
using linear programming to create crazy pictures. That's way better
than calculus! Stupid calculus. I'm in talks with a Chinese professor
who's got the hookup on non-governmental organizations in China and so
maaaaybe will be able to go and do volunteer work this winter term with
Emily, if everything jumps into place. Computer science is going well;
I'm on the programming competition team this year, so we're practicing
for next weekend's algorithm showdown, at which we will be creamed. The
Oberlin team has in past years tended to solve 0 of 8 problems, but this
year I think we will at least get 1 or 2, based on preliminary
practices. Oh yeah.

This weekend was parent's weekend, and Emily's parents both came this
year, which meant lots of being driven around to unfamiliar restaurants.
Tonight's was Buffalo Wild Wings, which apparently exists in Rochester
as well. I'm middlingly-slowly accustomizing to spicy foods! Still, I'd
rather eat a pear and some tomatoes than nachos. Emily's mom tripped
coming out of an acapella concert, injuring her ankle (it was swelling
thiiis big), but Emily's dad has hotshot podiatry skills and he wrapped
it with some medical stuff like pow! So handy. George also sprained his
ankle on Thursday, and he still doesn't want to play Ping Pong yet. Man,
sprained ankles must suck. Good thing I can never get hurt!

So George and I were going to do this awesome balloon arch over Wilder
Bowl, but the helium shipment kept getting delayed, so we finally
blargh'd it and are going to wait until spring. Maybe we'll think of
something else to do this winter, or maybe the Chin Pong movie that
we're making will have to do.

I gotta go because I made a list of missions to accomplish for this
weekend and one of them is to wake up really, really early. Loved the
yummy birthday treats from Grandparents! Thanks!

Love and full moons,
--Nick

News from MN, 10/27/2006

To all yee spooks and goblins, I say bye. To everyone else I say hi!

I played Mr Mover this week. Laurie is loving Asheville (North
Carolina), so much so that she has decided to stay down there after her
6 month house siting job is done this spring, so she no longer needed
here apartment here. I offered to help pack her stuff up for the
movers, so I took a few afternoons off last week and randomly
distributed all her stuff into 30 boxes, taped with 200 feet of packing
tape. It is now in storage at the storage place a few blocks from here,
awaiting her next residence. She had fun telling the movers that her
ex-husband and his new girlfriend had happily volunteered to pack her
stuff for her ... apparently this is not how ex-husbands usually work.

Zach finally got a chance to auto cross his Miata, last race of the
season. He went up to the cities, to a big event with 50+ cars,
including 20 other Miatas! But they were no match for the amazing
Zachman, as he had the lowest time of all the cars in his class! In the
first picture you can see Dinoman, rather Dinoguy, ... no thats not
right either ... Dino-thing? ... no ... lets just say the Dino (you car
guys can appreciate that reference) ... you can see the Dino admiring
Zach's 1st place trophy.

The 2nd picture shows Zach explaining the wonders of his super-sticky
racing tires to Helen. I don't think she is quite ready to auto cross
here Subaru outback, but she does know how tires work now.

The 3rd pictures is of the last breakfast that Helen and I made for the
2 actresses that had been staying downstairs on weekends for the last
few months. They had come been traveling down from the cities for a
local Shakespeare production. In the background, you can see 'the
Dino' at his new post as the guardian of the deck. I had to put him
outside as he was eating too many invisible cavemen.

We finally got our experimental dried corn ears re-hydrated! Soaked it
for 3 weeks, then boiled if for a day. The 4th pic shows Helen debating
the health benefits of rehydrate, slightly burned, corn. I voted to
have the squirrels test it. They buried it, so maybe that tells us
something.

There is a growing community of people who work/play in an online
virtual reality program called Second Life. I created a character
there, but wasn't something I got into much. The silly grins you see on
those 3 boys in the next photo is what you get when you let them undress
your Second Life character and parade him around the various venues buck
naked. For free characters, like mine, you don't get the detailed body
features that you can get if you pay some money. So my guy was more
like un-buck naked, but that didn't stop them from trying to get my guy
to flirt with girls at a dance club.

The last photo shows a daemon eyed Zach instruct his friend Travis how
to snort a V6 engine. Note, snorting V6 engines is not a recommended
activity for small children. But for a big guy like Travis, it seems to
have worked, as the car disappeared from my driveway shortly after that.
Hmmm, come to think of it, so did Travis!

Bruce

News from MN, 10/08/2006

YoAll,

N&Z turned 21 last week. Yikes! Me boys are grown ups. Much alcohol
was not consumed. Zack's buddies tried their best to get him to go out
on his birthday and get his free 21st birthday drinks, but he is not
much of a bar man. But he is very much a 'large birthday cookie from
his girl' man, as is demonstrated in the 1st photo.

Those same 2 (Zach and Jessy) also had another celebration last weekend
... their 4th year boyfriend/girlfriend anniversary. They invited
friends and relatives to join them in a morning of paintball battles.
Thats Jessy in front of her sister and brothers in the 2nd photo.

I introduced Helen to South Eastern Minnesota corn in the 3rd photo.
That inquisitive look on her face was caused by corn being a bit dryer
than the corn she is used to. This is corn only a cow could love. We
tried hydrating it in a bowl of water for a week, but it somehow
magically comes out just as dry as it started. I'm thinking instead of
making corn palaces in South Dakota, they should be making cruise ships
or air craft carriers out of the stuff.

Zach is still crazy busy with cars. A couple of the summer residences
of my driveway are in photo 4. They are about to take the orange one
out on a tow rope drive in an effort to coax it back to life, but alas,
it was not to be. Hopefully by the time the snow flies.

Got a letter from Nick (attached). He is doing well, slurpily and
stresslessly exploring caterpillars with slowquiet steps. He may visit
Laurie in Ashvile North Carlina for his fall break in a few weeks.

The last photo shows a wasp who misplaced his head, will little adverse
effect. Actually, Zach and his wicked sharp pocket knife helped with
that, but don't tell that to the wasp humane society.

Bruce

===============

Letter from Nick Man.

Subject: stately raven, saintly days

Yore,

He whose crown towers over mine--does not his mind so tower over my
mind? And do I mind? No. I will think in the shade.

Classes this semester are good. Not amazing, but solid. And at least so
far, fairly easy. I'm reading slurpily, exploring the town, practicing
handstands, and still barely touching the computer but for to do
programming work. Stress doesn't tend towards me, but this semester it
is as if stress and I are walking through different worlds: its is the
world of the mundane and mine the magical, with little interference
between the two. Ah, but stress often tackles most of my friends.
Perhaps it is attracted by the marching sounds of their shoes, and
cannot hear my slowquiet steps, or catch up with my leaps.

At the edge, there is Truth, and looking far beyond it: Beauty. Yet I am
not on the mountain, but cozy at home with Commitment.

Kittens, picnics, silkworms, sketches, caterpillars, booksales, trees,
sailbikes, dogshows, pingpong, acorns, mooncakes, bats, frisbee, moles,
rocktroves, frogs, barefeet (actually happened)
Sunrise, balloon arch, treecouch, soap graffiti, leafpile, computer
sage, bumpkeys, window escape, Asheville, art museum, chinpong, winter
China, snowgiant, super keyboard (dreams)
Mirrored chameleon, blind fog run, computer poet, moon dog, art, slow
gravity imaginator, batsleep, skill, runspeed, vineswing,
microknowledge, mountain (dreams deferred)

Thanks for all the well wishes on my day of aging. Whole thing's a
little silly and nice. May our missiles soon intersect.
Love and minnows,
--Nick

News from MN, 9/25/2006

Hello to the people of whom I know,

Fall is falling here. The leaves are starting to dress in their most
festive outfits and heading out to their various leaf parties.

I have a new house guest, a gift from Helen. His original purpose was
to live in what is left of the hole in the back yard, policing it so
squatters don't move in and start living in it. But he took a look at
my big screen TV and comfy chair and decided he would rather police my
living room (1st picture). This is unfortunate for the rabbit that I
scared out of some bushes when I was doing yard work last weekend. He
was so busy running from me that he didn't see the pit and he fell in.
After it's second treatment with 1000 cubic feet of water, the pit is
now only 4 feet deep, so the rabbit wasn't hurt. He bounced around the
bottom a few times before he got up enough momentum that he bounced out
and zoomed away.

I also have 2 part time house guests for the next 6 weeks. Some friends
are producing an all woman's version of 'As you Like It' and have hired
professional actors from around the state for weekend plays. So 2 of
them are staying in Nick and Zack's room on Fri/Sat nights. Helen and
I went to the opening night (4th photo), was well done, a modernized
version so none of those silly outfits.

The 2nd photo shows Zach with the motor he has been working on. This
motor and it's various parts have been sent to/from various parts of the
universe (latest trip was to California) to become the ultimate motor.
Currently it is the ultimate living room work of art ... least Zach
thinks so. It is pretty shinny.

The 3rd photo shows a handsome Z in a rented output, on his way to a
Discount Tire company weekend celebration up in Minneapolis. He didn't
go for the blue part, so I got to wear that.

The last photo caught Helen sampling some of my backyard apples. In
past years, I usually ignore all my fruit, but Helen would allow no such
crime. We have made some amazing pear, plumb, and apple preserves.
And many apple crisps, which have a shelf life of about 1.5 days before
it all disappears, with help from Zach and Jessy. But we couldn't talk
Zach into the sausage stuffed apples last night. He says sausage,
Yes!, Apples, Yes!! But sausage and apples??? His loss ... was nummy.

Mom and Dad, still debating Thanksgiving drive to Miles City or fly to
Bozeman. Will give you a call in a day or 2 to decide.

Bruce

Re: look out for the petals!

Lets try this again ... Nick's letter didn't make it on my last try.

Including pic of a recent dinner guest.

Nick Winter wrote:
> 'Lo from Oberlin!
>
> First week of classes ends and I have much time this semester (so far)
> for the doing of awesome deeds. Yesterday we were Frisbeeing all over
> the place and in the basement next to the computers, and then George
> started riding Emily's bike and catching the Frisbee. It was like polo,
> except it was awesome. Then we all saw Snakes on a Plane during the
> Apollo's opening night in a packed theatre. A magnificent triumph of
> modern cinema, that. And there was much delight, and yelling.
>
> Optimization (math), Operating Systems, Chinese Civilization, and
> Intermediate Chinese.
> So there you go.
>
> George and I have taken to rousing Michael Abbott by yelling in his
> window as we return from the dining hall, and he brings his ping pong
> stuff and trounces us (he uses spin! truly a great master). We're
> getting better, though. Soon we will be making absurd ping pong movies
> with that video camera.
>
> There's a ladder with a trap door leading up to the attic right outside
> our room in the stairwell. We're going to get some bump keys that we saw
> in an Internet video and then we're going to open the trap door and get
> into the attic and there will probably be magic chests and dead bodies
> and ancient tomes up there. Then we'll put Christmas lights up there or
> somesuch.
>
> I haven't yet plugged my desktop into the 'net, yet. Who wants to be
> surfing the net or checking e-mails all the time when one could be
> running around or reading about dead Chinese guys? Not me! It has been
> quite nice not being electric this past week. My laptop usually sits on
> my bookshelf and gets pulled out about as often as my poem book. May I
> continue to live as well.
>
> Here is a poem from the program I wrote to try out Ruby (a hip new
> programming language). Soon I will rewrite it to be smarter, or to write
> in Chinese:
> The kitten smashes frog.
> The baleful man truly smashes some operatic pure frog.
> The pretty cell phone molds pure mulch.
> The sad man has nothing to do with polite plump ogre.
> Snow stupidly burns frog.
> The blackened insane Emily slowly powers up snow.
> Lightning argues with funereal mulch.
> Insane baleful shrub creates god.
> Our 9 bears that eat some mulch argues with frog.
> A wizened acidic guitars which a 2 heavenly thunders smash eats a
> heavenly kitten -- yet god gazes at worm -- so plate chops our whale.
> A funereal knightly baby chops swarms that slowly copy baleful Emily.
> Your girl eats my thunder.
> Polite worm slowly has nothing to do with your mulch.
> Tiny guitar and piano cautiously argues with knightly kitten.
> Mulches behind my mulch eats plump tiny frog.
> Some bear writes some bear.
>
>
> Q.E.D.,
> --Nick
>

News from MN, 9/04/2006

Hi ya-all,

Lots of happenings from the last 3 weeks. Lets start with the new Zach
car of the month. Actually, it has been a good 2 months since his last
new old car. He traded in the '72 MG midget for a '94 Miata. Still 2
seats, but this time slightly larger than a loaf of bread. 1st picture
shows the boys about to launch into convertible mode.

Picture 2 shows a table for of dead dirt balls. We were trying to build
balls of mud into cool shiny spheres. The Japanese call them
durodangos. We had a good time playing with mud from the center of the
earth (actually, from the hole, but pretty close), and got a couple of
balls pretty round and shiny. I'm still polishing a few, so will
picture-ize them when they reach perfection.

Speaking of the hole, I have good news for all you worried about death
from colaplisification (that would be all but about 1 of you). We
reached a depth where we had to jump to reach the bottom of the 20 foot
ladder, so we decided to see what happens when you fill it with 1000
cubic feet of water. 3rd pic shows the hose doing its thing all over
the wet slimy ladder I got to climb up. Pic 4 shows Nick sampling some
of the fine brown slim that came up after 5 hours of watering (tastes a
bit like dirt).

After we filled it up, Nick, Helen, Aya, and I went up to the Guthrey
theater in Minneapolis to see The Great Gatsby. Zach came home, saw the
pit full of water and no sign of us. And my car was still in the garage
(we took Helen's car). Slightly worried about is swimming in the
bottom of the pit, he tries calling me, but I'm busy navigating around
city traffic (I was circling the metrodome while billions of baseball
fans were flocking for playoff determining game), so can not answer.
So he circles the pit with increasing concern, trying to figure out if
and why I would ever leave home without my car (a rare event). After
about his 4th call I manage to pry the phone out of my front pocket and
throw it to the back seat where Nick answers it. Nick says hi, listens
to some screaming, then hands it back to me, saying 'its for you'.

So a few days later, we determine through thourough scientific
experimentation that the 25x3x3 foot pit was transformed into a 9x5x5
foot pit, with a bottom that seems not like quick sand. So Nick jumps
in, then decides he wants get out with no ladder or other sensible
device. After watching Nick scramble unsuccessfully for 15 minutes,
Zach decides it looked like fun, so he jumped in too (5th pic). They
found a couple of sticks and after another 30 minutes, kind of got one
to stick enough to scramble out. And then they headed for the shower.

Last week I joined Helen and Aya on a trip back to Hanover, NH. 6th pic
is Helen sporting some fun/goofy/movie star sunglasses on our bus ride
out of Boston. That next pic is me pretending to be an Ivy league
student on the Dartmouth campus in Hanover (thats where Helen went to
medical and engineering school). We had a great week, doing lots of
fun stuff like mushrooming, kyacking, sail boating, biking, and
badmitting.

That last picture is a a picture of Helen's son Noah. Actually, just
his nose and eyelid, with a couple of happy people smiling in the
background. I have better pictures of Noah, but we all got a chuckle
of the nose shot, and I've overflowed my picture quota for this week, so
for now, this is all of Noah that you get.

Bruce

News from MN, 8/14/2006

Greets,

Summer is almost fully cooked here. Proud to say I survived another set
of record temps without an air conditioner. Nick and Zack are not proud
to say this, and they almost did not survive.

IBM Rochester celebrated a 50 year anniversary. We all sat in chairs in
a parking lot in 100 degree sunlight. Nick and I discovered by pointing
your head down in a meditation like fashion, you can keep your face
fully shaded. While I was meditating and listened to our IBM CEO and
Minnesota governor tell us we are good people, I realized I have been at
the Rochester lab for 1/2 of its life. I'll be avoiding the standard
IBM 25 year party next year.

Mom and Dad, that hand ball gyroscope exerciser you guys got me for my
birthday is a lot of fun. Surprisingly good exercise. With enough
rpm, can do 30 lbs of force. We pass it around, trying to top each
other's top rpm ... I am the current 1 handed champion at 11,000 rpm,
faster even than the 10,000 rpm my car can do!

Laurie took off last week for a 6 month house and pet sitting job down
in Ashvile, North Carolina. Before she left, Nick used her car to
practice driving, since her automatic is a bit easier than my stick. So
the morning before she left, he sat down at the driving place for 3
hours waiting for a driving examiner, then finally found one and ran him
over enough times till they passed him. Now that he has a drivers
license, he proudly proclaims he will never have to drive another car again.

Nick flew Emily up from her summer job in Florida for a 3 day weekend
visit last week. Many happy smiles were had, a few captured in the 2nd
photo.

Other random photos:

- Nick with the IBM lunch spider. He grows daily. The spider.
Nick's hair grows daily.

- Nick pondering a superman flying maneuver from the ledge of a
downtown skyscraper. Not saying which ledge, as that would spoil the
illusion.

- Helen admiring daughter Aya's skills on William Mayo's personal home
organ at the Mayo foundation house.

- Aya as an usher at a local production of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

- Aya yet again, this time, creating a sand man down at a beach we
went swimming at. Technically, I guess we swam in the water part.

- Helen, Bruce, and Toosie swimming at another local lake. Helen is a
swimmer. Toosie is not.

Next week I'm going to get to sample a bit of New Hampshire as we fly
back with Aya to Boston. Aya is heading back to her 2nd year at Rhode
Island school of design (I'm told it is on Rhode Island). Nick flys
back to Oberlin the week after we get back (that one I know is Ohio).
Then we are sadly almost childless. Happily I'll still have Zach,
Jessy, and all the other young-uns that wonder about with them. Oh
yeah, and I'll also have Nick's hole, as he decided not to take that
back to school. We hit a rock last week, so I think we have reached
maximium depth, about 22 feet.

B

News from MN, 7/23/2006

iH,

bw reporting in. All is well on the Eastern front. Got nasty hot last
weekend, but we finally got some rain this week.

Helen and I have been having fun on various adventures. In the first
photo, you can find her dog Toosi taunting her as she is stuck knee deep
in mud and her not-so-valiant boyfriend takes a picture rather than
rescues her. This is because he was also just stuck in mud and did not
want to get stuck again.

We had to go back up to Ikea last weekend to exchange a futon mattress.
This time we stopped in their food section and bought exotic Swedish
food stuffs (I think it used to be a fish), which we enjoyed in our own
private dining area (parking lot, 2nd/3rd pics). The encrypted numbers
on her hand are the secret locations to a cool chair that we bought for
my living room. They have papers available for writing down such
numbers, but Helen's hand seemed less losable.

Mom & Dad, very much enjoyed my birthday cloths and video rocket! The
4th pic shows Zach setting it up at the bottom of the hole. We had a
perfect launch and it managed to avoid both sides of the hole and every
tree and rooftop in the neighborhood, landing in the church parking lot.
The rocket recorded a great video, which I promptly mis-deleted. But
I did get a video from the ground of the rocket. Posted it to
http://brucewinter.net , in the videos link.

Zach is sad because he is Jessy-less for 10 days. She left yesterday
for a backpacking trip in Colorado with some friends. She bought a new
1 person tent, tested in the 5th pic.

I was lured back down into the hole last weekend. They then pulled the
ladder up and made me dig 75 buckets of dirt (a new record) before they
lowered it back down. I got a little bit dirty.

I can not say much about the 7th photo, as it involves a secret, not to
be published science experiment. But fear not, the experiment went off
without a hitch (boy did it go off!), and that is not hot magma from the
center of the earth bubbling up about to engulf Zach, but rather a light
bulb that we discovered after some digging.

Helen had a Mayo Neurology social event at the Foundation house last
week, so she invited her daughter Aya and myself. Dress was 'informal',
which meant suit jacket. I was the only tie-less guy there. Afterward,
we had fun touring the house. It was William Mayo's house, very fancy,
with a pipe organ that Aya played. The last 2 pics show us conducting
ourselves in proper conservative Mayo fashion.

Bruce

News from MN, 7/08/2006

Happy 4th + 4,

I celebrated the 4th by watching the Miles City 4th of July parade live,
from my living room. One of my MisterHouse friends who moved to Miles
City a few years ago sent me a link to a live Internet feed he had set
up. He zoomed in on Mom and Dad and the 2 beagles as they watched the
parade and as Mom gave Mom hugs to 2/3 of Miles City who walked by to
say hi.

Nick as been doing well at work, finishing all the tasks thrown at him
faster than expected. The 1st picture is of where we have been having
lunch, outside in an IBM courtyard. In the 2nd picture he is doing
pull ups in an IBM dungeon basement where they send all new recruits for
basic training.

The 3rd picture is of Z friend Mike baking up one $800 custom built
manifold. It baked well and Mike's car is now a functioning member of
the car clan, making my driveway happy. I'm down to 1 nonfunctional
driveway car and 2 garage cars.

The hole now has a fat bottom. Still about 17 feed deep, but wide enough
at the bottom to sit the entire convention of smart scientologists, with
room left over for South Park's Cartman (a chubby 10 year old). I was
lured to the bottom so do some digging last weekend, so I added some
cave art (5th pic.). I'm convinced that if real cavemen had had car
keys, they too would have carved such elegant structures.

After a digging session, Nick has a jumping ritual where he proves he
can fly over the dirt pile, no matter how high it has gotten. If I would
have taken that 6th picture 7/100ths of a second later, you would have
witnessed the mountain top being clipped. Not by his feet, but by
another part of the body that is not normally recommended for use in
clipping mountain tops.

The last 3 pictures are from adventures with Helen. She, her daughter,
and her border collie Tusie, drove out last weekend from New Hampshire.
On Thursday we drove up to Minneapolis and picked up a U-hall full of
beds and chairs from Ikea, a huge Swedish furniture store. The 7th
picture of us testing out the biggest item, a 9 foot round bed for her
10 foot square bedroom.

When backing the U-hall out of her driveway that night, I managed to
drive over her entire collection of not so fresh pile of bags of
garbage. So we crawled under her Suburo Outback and bit by bit
re-assembled the collection (last pic). It was quite romantic.

Bruce

News from MN, 6/25/2006

Happy Summer Solstice+3!

A fun weekend was has here, blowing bubbles and writing chess programs.
We were going to play tennis with Nick on Sat. and go autocross racing
with Zack on Sun., but it rained, so we stayed home and enjoyed the
raindrops.

Rainy days are good for bubbles, as the high humidity lets them last
longer. We took 300+ photos trying to capture bubbles with cool
reflections (gotta love digital cameras). A few of them were in focus
(first 3 pics).

Nick took over the lead in the summer chess tournament, 19 wins to 13
losses. Yesterday he got this crazy idea that we both write programs to
play chess, then have our programs battle each other. So we each pick
our sharpest swords (programing languages, his is Lisp, mine is Perl)
and we went into battle. Happily I report my program is the current
victor, mainly because mine is finished and his is not. I cheated by
leveraging a building block I found on the net, whereas he is diligently
building his from the ground, up I think. My code is silly, fat, and
slow and will surely be sliced to bits once his learns to stand up. But
for now, I cluck about proudly with temporary victory.

Zach continues working on any car that moves. Actually, more often on
those cars that don't move. This week it was our neighbor's classic
Pontiac GTO. He tore the inside out of it, replaced a rusted floorboard
and refurbished the seats. Friday night he got a call at 11 pm from a
guy who was stuck 2 hours south of here. His car had broke down at a
race track in Iowa, so, parts and tools in hand, Zach went on a late
night rescue mission. He got back in time for his day job at 7:30 am
Saturday. He also bought himself a monster tool chest last week, on
which he resides in kingly fashion in the 4th pic.

Mom/Dad, I got my birthday package, thanks! I hid it from myself so I
won't be tempted to open it till my birthday. Zack, Jessy, and Nick
treated me to a Father's day breakfast. Some of the best food ever
invented: Baker's square Pie and Oatmeal (5th pic).

The 6th picture is of an art structure I made last weekend. Yep, Bruce
can do art, but mainly because it was more engineering than art.
Something called a tensegrity tower, which was coined by Buckminster
Fuller to describe how you can use TENSion to build a structure with
intEGRITY. You can build towers with sticks that don't touch each
other! Strong enough to withstand an attack by fridge robots and
Australian koala bears.

The hole is now at 17 feet deep, which is about the limit of my camera's
flash, as you can see by the barely viable shovel. It would likely have
been at infinite depth, but fortunately digging was slowed by rain an a
sore foot attached to Nick's right shovel leg. That last picture is of
Nick building a rope ladder. Kindof. I helped. Now anyone can climb
down the hole on the ladder, but N & Z usually stick to chiminy climbing
on the dirt walls, I think so they can keep their cloths the proper
brown color.

Bruce

News from MN, 6/11/2006

Hello with Jello,

Speaking of jello, did you know that egg yolks, when left on the counter
for 2 days, turn into yellow jello. And into something a bit less
appealing after 4+ days.

We had nice visits from both brother Mal and N/Z cousins Crystal and
Hedi Gates. Malcolm dropped by for an overnight stay on his way to a
conference and we drove and walked around some of his old haunts. C&H
hitched a ride back with Laurie the end of last week, then drove back
with her on her way to Texas early this week. On their way out, they
hit a raccoon at 1 am in the morning about 3 hours north of here. Then,
after patching up the car, they hit a deer 6 minutes later. That they
could not patch. So she is driving an insurance sponsored rental while
her Vibe gets fixed. We (mostly Zach) introduced C&H to not only Roch,
but also the mighty Mississippi, Wisconsin, paint balls, giant bubble
blowing, 1/4 mile racing, and lots of other sports car stuff.

Nick and I started jogging a couple weeks ago. Usually around the
neighborhood in the evening. Nothing monster serious, just 1/2 hour
tours of the neighborhood. I thought I'd have to wait up for him, but
seems that boy has been sprinting around campus, as it is he who waits
for me.

But for once (since junior high) the tables have turned in our chess
tournament! I am the current leader at 7 wins, 6 losses, and 2 ties.

Lots of pics this week.

Pic 1: Nick proving that you can indeed flip 2 pancakes at once. I'll
spare you the picture of me proving you can not flip 3 pancakes at once.

Pic 2: The Gates girls proving you can fit 2 (trim) girls in one RX8
back seat. 5 of us went to the race track in my 4 seater.

Pic 3: Zack about to set the days best time in the Rex. He got 15.5
seconds, beating my 15.6.

Pic 4: Zack trying to man handle 2 Montana cowgirls. Not possible.

Pic 5: Zack and cousins built that box to ship his DeSol engine off to
California for uber engine work.

Pic 6: This is what you get when you ignite a bunch of bubbles filled
with propane gas.

Pic 7: Chefs Z&J, making a nummy pasta dinner.

Pic 8: Nick starting to dig a hole. He digs a bit each morning before
we head to IBM.

Pic 9: Nick and I got back from jogging Friday and found the voice of
Zack coming from the hole. That boy can dig. After 1-2 hours, he was
down past 8 feet!

Don't ask me what the hole is for. I'm simply the cameraman.

Bruce

News from MN, 5/27/2006

Yo-yo to all yo-yo fiends,

And hello as well to those who don't yo to the yo.

Nick as survived his first week at the IBM. His mentor predicts it will
take a month of learning before he will be of much use. This week the
challenge was to read as many technical documents as possible without
falling asleep. Today he and the Munger brothers are rabble rousing.
The first photo shows them enjoying a computer program game that Nick
wrote last semester.

btw, I tried that experiment Nick wrote about last week, about not being
able to crush a properly held egg in your fist. Results were messy.
Definitely a deck experiment. Nick blames the failure on my egg being
brown and organic. I call him a white supremacist and then attribute
the egg failure on my superior unstoppable white muscles.

Zach has a week of vacation, starting today. He needed it. He has been
like zombie man the last few weeks, waking up early for work, staying up
late working on a zillion (for you non-math majors, that is more than a
billion) projects, usually for friends. This week he moves out of the
shop he rented for the winter. Today he and Jessy went on a bike ride.
After riding her bike one block, he concluded she needed a new one, so
they biked to a bike shop and he bought her a nice one.

Last weekend I had my long awaited visit with my 6 month pen pal Helen.
I took a couple days off of work and we drove the city in search of a
place for her to stay when she moves here the 1st of July. The 2nd
photo shows her talking to the landlord of the small 1 room house in the
background (near St Mary's Hospital), trying to bribe him into
by-passing the no-pet clause for her dog, a 10 year old border collie.
After meeting with her, the landlord and his wife were thoroughly
charmed, much like I was, and could not help but say yes.

We spent the rest of 4 days she was here having a wonderful time. Mom
and Dad, you will be proud. That 3rd photo is composed of real flowers
Helen bought for me. Neither of us are flower experts, but since both
of our parents were, we figured it was the right thing to do.

The 4th photo is Helen teaching me how to tame the wild fennel, imported
by her from New Hampshire. Turns out we found plenty of it here, right
where it should have been when I was fennel hunting. I simply didn't
have the right fennel whistle to attract it to my fennel blind. Just as
well, as I didn't have a fennel gun either, so probably would have been
tickled to death by agitated fennel fronds.

We made lots of fun food while she was here, filling the fridge with
exotic wonders. Cooked buckwheat, Greek triangles with feta cheese,
stuffed mushrooms, fried Papad, mango salad, Poha (flat rice) with
Indian sauce. After she left, Zack friends emerged and were having fun
temping each other into taste testing various things. The Pomegranate
juice nearly killed a few of them, but the Russian cookies disappeared
quickly. I forgot the name of the cookies, but I remember the recipe,
so I'm doing another batch of those tomorrow.

The last photo is what you get when you ask a rock wall to take your
picture. We were walking around Silver Lake about midnight and found
this rock that was willing to take our picture, but I think that it had
been up partying hard with the lake's wild geese and ducks, as the fuzzy
result would indicate the rock's vision was blurred. Probably drank too
much lake water.

Bruce

News from MN, 5/14/2006

Happy Day to all the Moms!

Especially to my red hat-ed Mom Mom. Sue, I talked to Mom yesterday and
told her about the red hat picture you found last week. She figures it
was an Easter Sunday outing that inspired it. Mom, Moma bear (brother
Mal) predicts that hat will come back into style. There is a popular
Linux software company called RedHat that would be delighted with such a
hat.

I finished flushing the spring cleaning bug out of my system this week.
I rented and filled up a big roll off dumpster. After the delivery
charge ($120), they charge $100 per ton, a bargain at 1/10th the prices
of flour <grin>. So I filled up the dumpster last weekend, and then it
rained, soaking all my not-so-precious junk with 5 cent per pound rain.
I haven't got the bill yet, but I watched the driveway web cam
recording of they guy picking up the dumpster on Friday, and could see a
mini-ocean of water wash out of it when he tilted it when loading it up
onto his truck. At least I can pride myself with delivering clean, not
dirty, junk to the landfill.

I didn't think to take a picture of my back deck before I cleaned it
out, but I took one when I was 1/2 way done cleaning it. The 2nd
picture is of the amazing Rex (Rx-8) toting 20 years of old paint,
circuit board acid, model airplane fuel, fiberglass resin, and whatever
other toxic substance I found when cleaning out the shop. AND 30+ 4
foot florescent bulbs, which have mercury in them, so also needed to
make a trip to the hazardous waste disposal facility. AND the back and
passenger seats had old broken amplifiers, chart recorders, and
oscilloscopes. As I was unloading all of this at the waste facility, a
big pickup pulled up behind me and watched me keep pulling stuff out of
this small little sports car. He got out and asked me what kind of car
this was. He concluded he should trade in his pickup. I got the same
sort of looks and comments with my many trips to GoodWill.

The 3rd picture is the last picture of Zach's ski ramp launching
platform, just before I hired one of my robots to dis-assembled it for
dumpster food. Many an unbroken bone were sled/ski/snowboard launched
from that platform. Mal/Kim, I don't know if you remember, but when you
moved from Roch, you gave us a long 2 x 8 foot solid Mal-constructed
wood structure that you had used to house that pack of baby wolves you
guys had in your garage for a while. That is what we used for years to
ramp up to that platform, after having used it for use as a garage table.

That 4th picture is crazy Zach man with his latest project/toy. That
car, which is small enough to drive up the nostril of a small giant, is
called a midget. Really, that is it's name. Built when I was a high
school freshman, it is now considered a collectible (side thought: why
is it that 40 year old cars, but not 40 year old people, are considered
collectible?). So Zach collected it last week. He parks it sideways
in our freshly cleaned garage, so we can fit 3 cars in it.

That last picture of Z, J, M(ia), and I playing catch with a tennis
ball, which is Mia's most favorite object in my house. On the next
toss, I inadvertently bonked Jessy on the head. In response, Zach
defended her honor by attacking me, to which I responded by standing
tall, puffing out my chest, and saying in most manly voice "Try not to
hurt yourself, Boy". After a .1 second standoff, I used my camera as a
defense, and scurried off and hid in a dark corner. I should probably
come out now, so I can go to the mailbox and send this letter.

Bruce

News from MN, 4/30/2006

Yo hi ho,

I've got another round of baby fish! 10+ black ones this time. I
doubt all 10 will decide to hang around (only 1 from my previous batch
did), but if they do, I'm gonna have to break out my fishing pole and
have a fish fry.

Speaking of cooking things, did you know you can bake an artichoke? My
friend Helen taught me that one. We will finally get a chance to met
each other in 3 weeks, after having corresponded via email for 6 months.
She will be flying here from NH for a 4 day weekend to find an
apartment. She moves here in July for a 13 month fellowship at the
clinic.

Speaking of fellowships, one of my IBM groups finished one of our
challenging chips a few weeks ago, so to celebrate, 20 of us drove up to
the cities this week and went to a Nascar simulator. I'm not a Nascar
fan, but it was fun to jump into pretty realistic full sized cars and
bump each other around on the track.

Speaking of cars, Zach got promoted to assistant manager yesterday!
More hours, more money, more happiness.

Speaking of happiness, my study is now happy. Last weekend it ran out
of shelf space, and the study is nothing but shelf space. So it
triggered a spring cleaning event. Worked all weekend on it and it is
now ready to house the library of congress. This weekend I did the same
to the shop, so it is now ready to take on Menards. Next weekend I'm
targeting the garage.

Speaking of garage, that first picture is of a pack of vulgar roof
dwellers on the roof attached to my garage, known as my house roof.
Zach is about to launch my 35 lb barbell past my deck, 30+ feet down to
my poor back yard lawn. The 2nd photo is Mike and Lee trying to extract
the weight from my lawn. This took a while, as it was fully embedded.
The dull thud of a 35 lb weight in bunker busting mode is fun, but not
loud. And roof dwellers like loud, so they found a dead Subaru hood in
the garage surplus yard (the one going bye bye next weekend) and placed
it strategically in the weight landing zone (3rd pic). It was loud.

Speaking of loud, that was my reaction when a rainstorm once again
eroded out a big hole at the end of my deck. Every year for the last 20
years, the spring rain from my big roof comes down and rather than going
down the hill like it should, those scheming rain drops manage to unite
and redirect their efforts into washing out a hole behind my retaining
wall (4th pic). So every year, my trusty wheelbarrow and I gather up
all that washed out dirt and push it back up the hill and back into the
hole. Packing it down harder every year with the confidence that this
year it will be un-erodible. But this year, as I was talking to the
same dirt that I have moved every year for 20 years (we have a bond,
that dirt and I), I got this crazy idea that maybe I should try
redirecting the roof runoff better. So I redirected the gutter. Took
all of about an hour. So next year, there will be NO MORE HOLES!

Speaking of holes, our neighborhood is infested with 1 billion hole
making rabbits. Nobody is too fond of them, as exemplified by the
native blow dart bush hunter in that last photo. Now these rabbits are
extremely fast (faster than even Jessy's lightning fast Rat terrier Mia)
and they are very wary of us human types, so normally all we see is
fuzzy blurs. So I was not too concerned about Zach trying out his blow
dart on one. But Zach is really good with that thing! He is now short
a couple of darts, and some bunny is now sporting a couple of bright red
plastic feathers. Probably will become something of a style fad in
bunny circles and I'll wake up some morning with a long line of bunnies
outside my door willing to buy some darts with their little bunny monies.

Speaking of long line of bunnies, this letter has gone on long enough.

Bruce

News from MN, 4/15/2006

Hellos,

Spring is springing here. 70s and greening up nicely. I washed and
waxed the white one (obligatory photo attached) to the beautiful
tweeting of red robins. Real robins this time <grin>.

From what I have heard, it sounds like most (all?) of you bought my
April 1st red robin story. To be fair, I should have added a few more
bird antics to give you guys a more of a chance to see through it.
Something like 'then the robin hopped over to the fridge and made
himself PB&W sandwich'. I suspect robins like worms better then jelly,
but since they are a close relative to the squirrel (both belonging to
the those-that-live-outsidess genus), I'm sure they like peanut butter.

I've re-discovered my wok recently. I've been cooking just about
anything that fits in it, and it is a big wok. My email friend Helen
(you Maui-ans might remember her as the one who's email you caught me
reading) has turned me on to a bunch of new food groups:

Olive Oil. More specifically, Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO), which
can be use in just about anything, including I suspect, Zach's high end
racing engines. My wok especially likes EVOO.

Irish Oatmeal. Grandpa Tate would be proud. McCanns cooks in minutes.

Forbidden rice. A black rice that used to be reserved for Chinese
Emperors. The Greeks banned because it they thought it was powerful
and feared it would aid their enemies in battle.

Yellow squash. Not at all like Orange squash which I suspect is
still yucky, although Helen is trying to convince me otherwise, even
though I have explained that my Mom has already tried, unsuccessfully,
to disguise Orange squash in various recipes. Yellow squash, though,
is not at all nasty. Pleasant even.

Kohlrabi. This veggy comes with 2-3" root bulbs, attached to massive
green leafs. When handed to a grocery cashier, be prepared for a
puzzled, maybe even scared, look. And it helps to remember the name
Kohlrabi, so they can look up the price, or otherwise, they will
continue looking at it, at a full arms length distance, hoping and
fearing it will spring to life and announce its name. Like most
veggies, the root can be boiled, baked, or sliced and wok-ed.

Still on the hunt for Helen recommended Fennel. I've printed out
addresses of all the grocery stores and town and am visiting them a few
at a time to see whats for cooking. I found a food coop the other day
with a back room labeled 'bulk' which was full of all kinds of unknown,
but likely edible, food things.

I registered http://brucewinter.net last week. The price for domain
names is now down to $8 per year, so figured why not. Usually more if
you want to actually do anything with them, like host web pages, but I
signed up for a free beta service from google.

Zack hosted a driveway barbeque last night. A few pics attached. He
and Jessy took a borrowed motorcycle for a spin. That pickup is one
Derek picked up for $25. They cranked up the music, filled the back
with bodies, and swayed it back and forth to the beat of the music. A 3
meg video here:

http://brucewinter.net/06_04_derek_truck_dance.avi

Also posted a video from the jelly jet jars I wrote about last month:

http://brucewinter.net/06_03_jelly_jet_jar.avi

Later gaters.

Bruce

News from MN, 4/01/2006

Yo Peeps,

Today was a beautiful, warm, spring day, so I opened up a bedroom window
to flush out some of that stale 'Winter' air. About an hour later,
after I hang up no an IBM conference call in the living room, I hear
this scuffling sound coming from the bedroom. Peering in, I see this
larger than average robin hopping around on my bed! He looked at me
with this look that said 'What, you never seen a robin before? You need
more worms in this bed!'

Then he ignored me and went on hopping around in his worm hunt, with no
indication that he was going to go back out the window. So I had a
dilemma. How to get him back out the window without making him go bird
crazy. I had visions of those crazy squirrels of my childhood that we
would occasionally lure into the house with trails of peanuts, who would
then go ballistic and bounce of all the walls in the house till they
randomly bounced out a open door.

So I backed out of my bedroom, pondering what it would take to make a
trail of worms to guide this bird back outside. But before I could grab
my worm digging shovel, this fearless bird hops right on into the living
room! For fear of getting in his way and getting bird hopped, I got
out of his way and sat down. With his keen bird vision, he spies some
worm like things swimming around in my fish tank and flaps his wings 3
times and lands on the desk next to the fish tank, sliding to a stop
with his bird beak banging into the aquarium glass.

He then regains his bird composure, then longingly peers into the tank.
The fish, who were startled at first (I really think at that point
they had never seen a Robin before), quickly regained their fish normal
fish composure and inquisitiveness, swam over to within microns of the
Robin's beak. They then peered back into that Robin's eyes and said in
unison, in their cute little bubbly fish voices, 'Do you know what day
it is today?'

At which point the impossibly brave Robin poofed out of existence, and I
sat down to write this letter.

First picture is of Zack and his glorious $4k pile of delicious car
parts. Yes, that is 9 different gages, not counting the ones he
already had. And no, that is not a bottle for Nitrous gas. At least
that is what we would tell the insurance company if they asked. I think
the plan is to say it is a bottle Milk (the N is close to M, and at
least it is colored white).

I sent my hard drive that died last month off to a hard drive recovery
service, but it came back as a unrecoverable. The head that crashed
scoured the disk. Between various computers here, and the replay tv
box that I had some photos copied to, I recovered most photos up to
2004. But lost all the music and '04 and '05 photos.

So to protect against this happening again, I bought a new external
storage box, with built in redundancy, so any drive can fail and I do
not loose data any. It is the little box on the left in the 2nd
picture, can hold 4 drives for 2 TBytes of data! And to lift my
spirits, I took the money I was prepared to spend to recover that dead
drive and bought a new computer. A dual AMD Athlon X2 2 ghz with 2 gig
of memory! Amazing what $800 can buy these days.

I also spent $800 on a new tooth. When I was a silly little boy, I
impressed my friend Bill Abel by turning off his basement light hands
free. I jumped up and grabbed the sting to the light with my teeth.
The light went off, and I almost yanked it out of the ceiling. It hurt
for a while, but the tooth (front top incisor) didn't die till college.
Recently it got brittle, as dead things sometimes do, so needed to be
capped. I'm currently sporting a fine looking temporary plastic tooth
while the porcelain one gets hand crafted by the porcelain elves.

The last picture is a animetronic head I got recently. I hope to hack
it to give it a Robby McDowell like British voice, then use him as a
house greeter. Figure if guests don't get scared away by this guy,
then they will probably survive the rest of the house.

Birdman Bruce

FW: The one and only leprosy kitten monger

A new 2 page from Nick to pass along!

I'm off to Montana for Thanksgiving. Mom and Dad, I'll likely leave on
Tuesday, if not then on Wednesday, assuming no blizzards. Will let you
know for sure when I leave.

Zack had fun with his engine-less car this weekend. He rented a car trailer
Friday morning, so he and I managed to get his car pushed up onto it. It
was raining, and we ran out of momentum 1/2 way up, but we somehow went into
extra he-man mode and got it up. Then he drove the trailor and car to
work, then that night dropped the car off at Jessy's Dad's farm. But there
was a mis-communication and it got dropped off at the wrong spot, so today
he gave up on that plan and picked the car back up and brought it back here
and now has it parked beside our garage. Hopefully the neighbors won't mind
too much. So, after spending about $100 of his hard earned monnies in
rental fees, he got the car moved about 10 feet from where it was!

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Winter [mailto:Nicholas.Winter@oberlin.edu]
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2004 9:44 PM
To: bruce@misterhouse.net
Subject: The one and only leprosy kitten monger

Have you ever seen a zombie movie where the good guys are trapped inside a
building with zombies attacking them and coming through the windows and
everything, and then a few of the good guys get eaten by the zombies but the
others escape, and the zombies chase them but zombies don't go very fast so
they get away and the good guys are like, "Oh man! That was close, dude!"
but then they turn around a corner or run into a street or something and
there's just eighty-three zombies standing around, which all whip around
(well, except they're zombies and they don't really whip so much as stagger
slowly so as to be facing the other direction) when one of the characters
sneezes or steps on a twig or accidentally blows something up, and then it's
all a huge shamblefest?

Except with so many zombies, the movie people have had to get somewhat
less-than-dedicated extras, and there's always that one zombie who, instead
of shambling, rotting, and moaning, is wandering in the wrong direction,
zombiewhistling and admiring the clouds and feeding a kitten during the
shot--you know that zombie?

...

Wow, I completely forgot where I was going with this. It was going to be
such a good intro, too! I think. That, or I was trying to foreshadow my own
impending undeath/reanimation as a happy-go-lucky walking corpse. Probably
the first one, though. Fiddlesticks! I've spent ten minutes pondering,
perpending, puzzling, and puddle-praying, and I can't remember what I was
going for with the zombie metaphor! Woe.

My classes are going well, I think I'm still getting an A- in Chemistry (I
had to start studying for the quizzes though since I dreamt through some of
the lectures--but I've yet to open my $120 Chemistry textbook, which is
utterly useless except for bashing demons and enraged marmots). Computer
Science is very tantalizing, but we can't write programs that solve the
universe or have graphical interfaces or taste very good without herbs and
spices such as garlic, cinnamon, and peanut butter. I'm floating happily
through the class though. And I'm floating happily through Words that Matter
too, although I had to write a six-page paper explicating a poem, which made
me sad until I wrote in the phrase, "...and he is hoping she is really bad
at math and doesn't realize that he wants to enjoy her spleen." Bill made me
delete that part though. Poetry is going decently, except for one class when
we were workshopping someone's sesquipedalian poem and I fell asleep and
woke up right when he was reciting the thoughtful conclusion--but when I
woke up, I let out this crazy zombie moan, and it was oooooops. I don't know
how loud the moan was because I was just waking up and not hearing my own
moan except for the last part of the moan, but I'm a little worried about
how the professor is going to grade me on effective in-class discussion.

I've gone to a dozen concerts this month and some of them were okay, but
most of them were sweet. And I went to go see The Arcade Fire in Cleveland,
whom I'd never heard of before, and it was so awesome that I almost exploded
and imploded at the same time! It was like wow. Yesterday, there was this
totally awesome sarod (which is like a lute, from India) player, Rajeev
Taranath, and he was very mindblowing, too. What with the Conservatory of
Music and all, I can't believe how much music there is at Oberlin! It almost
feels like I'm the only person here who doesn't play an instrument or sing.
Ahh, how lucky for I, serenaded always. Yesterday, there was a
student-written musical that was very good; it had hipsters in it and one of
them played a very emotional cowbell and screamed.

I've been introduced to new culinary delights, too! I've discovered that I
like: at least six kinds of Chinese food; more types of shrimp than just
popcorn shrimp; orange guava juice; some supposedly ubiquitous type of Asian
peanut buttery sauce; and salads. Granted, my conception of a salad is a
plate full of little tomatoes with lots of cheese on them, but tomatoes are
kind and wise. I've also tasted tea for the first time ever, and I liked it
(chilled chai, warmer chai, and some green tea thing; I didn't like the
really spicy chai though). Mom, why didn't you tell me?!

Last night, I slept outside as part of an awareness thing about
homelessness. It was very cold and wet, and most people were unable to sleep
at all because they were freezing, but I am from Minnesota and my last name
is Winter and I am invincible! We woke up at six a.m. and the other
"sleepers" were saying, "Finally! I was looking at my watch all night and I
would so totally die right now if I was really homeless and didn't have a
dorm to go back to! Let's get out of here and go to sleep!" I was like,
"mmmmm... few more minutes... zzzzzz."

I also watched Singin' in the Rain, Magnolia, About a Boy, Eternal Sunshine
of the Spotless Mind, and The Incredibles, all of which are now among my
favorite movies, especially Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: sooo
good! I watched Aladdin again too; any time I want to watch basically any
movie that might seize my fancy, I can go around and someone is bound to
have the DVD for me to borrow! It's frabjous.

I think I've broken the cell phone. Was I supposed to leave it plugged in?
It turns on for a few seconds if I press the End button, but only displays
the Sprint logo. So I don't know how to make outgoing phone calls.
Telephones are too new-fangled for me; I am sorry. If you call me, though,
at 440-776-2394 and I'm actually in my room, I would be delighted to talk to
anyone, everyone, and cats. There is a cat that lives outside near my dorm,
and I fed it today; it liked my philosophies. I respond readily to e-mails
and instant-messages (I'm quartzsphinx on AIM), honest!

I've registered for classes for next semester: more intro Chemistry and
Computer Science, Discrete Mathematics, and some Developmental Psychology
class that I know nothing about, unless I get into (I'm on a waitlist) a
cinema studies class, Documentary Forms, which I also know nothing about
except that the professor is supposed to be great. Later, I will sign up for
ExCo's, possibly including capture the flag, knife throwing, or swing
dancing. For winter term, I'm probably going to sign up for Aikido: six
hours a day, five days a week, three January weeks of intensive martial arts
training and I have no idea whatsoever if I will like it! Fun. I'm staying
here for Thanksgiving weekend I guess, but they kick you out of the dorms
for winter break, which is from Friday, December 24 to Saturday, January 1;
Aikido starts on January 5th. So I think I'm going home, but maybe I will go
to somewhere else if there's somewhere else to be gone to.

Sorry for being so completely out of touch; I've been spending every one of
my free seconds being overwhelmingly in love with Emily, of whom I've
attached a picture and am keeping many secrets because I think it's
delightful to perhaps tantalize the family!

FW: Life within Oberlin

We got another letter from Nick today, complete with a couple of pictures
(his roommate has a camera)!

It was a pretty quiet week here this week. Zack and his buddies reassembled
up his Green DeSole last week, then drove back out to Hyshem for another
week of farming. He gets back tonight, then he and a crew are heading out
early tomorrow to drive down to Iowa to go tandem sky jumping! For $200,
you too can strap yourself to a stranger and jump out of a plane. It
started as a 2 year together anniversary celebration for Zack and Jessie
(she has always wanted to skydive), and has expanded out to a bit more then
10 people.

Even though Zack is not here, I get regular visits from his buddies. Got a
pair of them out in the garage now painting their caliper breaks to make
them look cool. They are all psyched about their skydiving adventure
tomorrow. Various parents are a bit nervous, but are resigned to the fact
that their children grown up and independent. At least when it comes to
jumping.

A group from my department at work took Wednesday morning off and scrapped
and re-painted a deck at the home of a local charity, as part of a IBM
community work program. Given our equivalent combined hourly pay rate, that
was one expensive paint job, but it was a fun, team building event.

Mom and Dad, I forgot when you called that I we have our 2nd semi-annual
'Geeks -vs- Docs' chess match (IBM -vs- Mayo) scheduled for next Friday. I
can try to dig up a substitute for that if you have already firmed up plans
with Charles for that night.

Bruce

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Winter [mailto:Nicholas.Winter@oberlin.edu]
Sent: Saturday, September 25, 2004 11:08 AM
To: Laurel Winter
Cc: bruce@misterhouse.net
Subject: Life within Oberlin

Lo.

College is like the best ever, I'm more happy now than I've been since I was
a woodpecker, and I have the luck of a creamless bagel: not only did I get a
corner room, but I pretty much got the sweetest floor in the sweetest dorm
(all first-years). Everyone is interesting and hangs out all the time and
random conversations between lounge denizens about whatever frequently last
until five and everyone has sooo much music and there's frequent
table-rolling through the halls (and down the stairs where you jump over
them like in Donkey Kong)! But like on 2nd floor, I've heard, no one leaves
their rooms and when they do, there's just mad drama all the time. Plus
there are ghosts down there.

Also, somehow I managed to score 16 credit hours' worth of classes but not
have to spend more than a few hours per week doing homework. All the other
people are always moaning, "Ohhh, I should be doing my hoooomewoooork," and
I figure they just have a lot of homework that day, but then they'll have to
do even more the next day, and the next week, and so on forever. Whereas I
seem to have none: chemistry is all review for me at this point so I don't
need to do problems, computer science is easy to grasp with no problems to
do outside of lab, poetry is just reading a few poems each week and writing
one poem (which takes a long time but that's not really work), and Go class
is further from work than chunky peanut butter from a red balloon. The only
class I have to really do anything for is Words that Matter, reading a
miniscule amount and writing two two-page essays a week (or one five page
essay), but I figured out how to do those swiftly instead of laboriously.
The secret is kung-fu. Seriously, the last paper practically wrote itself
because it had Jet Li in it (it was about the excellent film Hero (and the
use of language in it or something silly like that)).

So when everyone else is too busy working to play Soul Calibur II or throw
the spikeball around, I borrow DVDs from other halldudes. So far I've
watched: Bottle Rocket (lame), Get Shorty (okay), Monty Python's The Meaning
of Life (not as funny as the other ones), Amadeus (aurally pleasurable),
Koyaanisqatsi (visually pleasurable and sleep-inducing), Dark City (sweet),
and Waking Life (undeniably, unmitigatedly, undulatingly awesome). I'll like
raid Bill and Nick1's room for a DVD and they'll be working, and then I'll
watch it and come back for another one and they'll still be working, and so
on, and each time they'll be like, "You seriously don't have any work to do?
I hate you." And then I went and wrote the same paper they'd been working on
the whole time (they're in my Words that Matter class) and came back and
they were still doing theirs. Poor dudes tried to write their papers on
Beowulf instead of Hero.

I've also watched Amelie, 10 Things I Hate About You, When Harry Met Sally,
Labyrinth, Sweet November, Return of the Jedi, The Lord of the Rings: The
Two Towers, and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro just from wandering into
the lounge or scoring free movies shown in a lecture hall. And in the local
movie theater, I've seen The Manchurian Candidate, Without a Paddle,
Fahrenheit 9/11, and Hero (twice; it's the most beautiful movie ever!), all
for $8 total. Life is good and movies are cheap, so I have extra money to
buy stuff with. I went to the store and bought a 5 1/2" styrofoam ball, a
12-pack of rubber bands, a 100-pack of wooden skewers, a 20-pack of tacks,
and a deck of cards. I left the cards in the lounge, stabbed some cardboard
to the tackboard with the tacks, wrapped the rubber bands geometrically
around the ball, and then stabbed it with a bunch of the skewers, creating
an awesome spike ball which the RA made me take down from the ceiling
because it would set the building on fire or something.

I'm eating well, eggs, apples, bagels, and powdered-sugared, cream-filled
long johns forming the majority of my diet (guess which one I eat the most
of!). Working in the dining hall is cool because I wash dishes during
breakfast, and almost no one gets up early enough to eat breakfast, so it's
whistling time. Except for last Thursday, something smelled extremely foul
by the incoming dishes area so I had to watch from afar until someone
deposited a tray, then take a deep breath and rush in to wash it and run out
before I ran out of air. I got a paycheck for $35.86, I'm gonna be lazy and
not deposit it until forever though.

The recharging power cord thing for my razor is lost, I think it traveled
with me not. My razor is out of bloodlust and rarely works, so I'm getting
like beardified. Oh, woe.

I'm trying to convert my friends to the ways of the shoeless, but they are
mostly stuck in their ways and will not walk without wearing woeful
wrappings on their feet. My feet are free and joyful, though. The only time
I have to wear shoes is working in the cafeteria and when blowing stuff up
in the chemistry lab.

I've attached two pictures: one is my glorious ball of spike and the other
is my roommate (he is sick and just got up, plus he's undead).

-----------------------

Bruce here again. Fear no longer the beardified Nick. I mailed him his
razor power cord earlier this week, along with the last few episodes of ER
that he has not seen. Some parents send their children care packages of
home baked cookies. I send razor cords and home burned ER DVD's :)

FW: News from MN, 7/11/2004

Hi all,

Still very wet here. Have not had that hot sticky weather yet ... not
complaining! Saving it for when the Pages come visit.

Laurie's parents have pictures of their various grandchildren on their photo
wall. The pictures of Nick and Zack, who are the oldest of the bunch, are
now younger than most of their other grandchildren, so they put in a request
for updates. Laurie got the boys over to the Walmart photo studio a few
weeks ago. You can see previews here:

http://www.photoreflect.com/scripts/prsm.dll?eventframe?event=Y500161X&start
=15

Password is 6429

Nick and Laurie had a nice trip out to Montana last week. Laurie went for
her Cousin Tim's wedding, Nick went for the adventure. So I was Nick-a-less
for a week, a preview of life starting this fall.

I kept myself busy not doing plumbing projects. Instead I did a funner
project, interfacing my new toy robot to MisterHouse. I now have him wired
in so the house can speak through him. He waves his arms and body around
while he is speaking. In theory his feet don't move in this mode, since I
have him sitting on top of a bookshelf. But I had a bug in the code and he
crashed off, fortunately on the couch side, so no harm done. I've tethered
his feet now :)

Zack went camping with Jessie and her brothers this weekend. They used the
van and van tent. I love it when Zack asks to use the van, as he usually
hates to drive it (vans aren't that sexy). I made a deal with Zack ... he
cleans out the garage and I baby sit Jessie's dog for the weekend. Our
garage is squeaky clean (for at least a few days), and the dog and I weeded
our yard this weekend.

At one point, Mia (the dog) got 100 feet from our house and picked up the
trail to Jessie's apartment, about 4 blocks from here. She bolted, with me
screaming after her. After about 2 blocks I managed to catch up with here
and she paused when I yelled something about a
super-duper-extra-fancy-nummy-dog-treat. I got about 2 feet from here when
her super smart dog sense sensed that the treat was really a leaf, then the
chase was on again. She didn't slow down till she got to Jessie's house.
I carried her home ... then introduced her to a leash :)

Bruce

FW: News from MN, 6/27/2004

Yeeppi-i Hi,

Been a month since I last wrote. We had another graduation, Nick's this
time, complete with a fun visit from both Grandparents.

Zack has still only had the one probably (unwitnessed) seizure. We (mostly
Zack) have decided not to start the Tegretol drug. Fingers crossed.

Zack quit his pawn shop job a few weeks ago. He was going to start a
roofing job, but decided against it. He has instead been working on various
car projects. On Friday night, he started a project on a car stereo that
was designed to enter a contest on today. He and the owner worked on it
through the night and finished mid-afternoon on Saturday. They were a
couple of zombies by the time it was done. They stuffed 4 LARGE bass
speakers, along with 4 big amps and 6 car batteries into the back of a small
Honda. Figured it could hit 150 db. They test these systems with
microphones only. 150 dB is enough volume to liquefy a cockroach!

Last weekend I painted all our external doors. Biloxi Blue. Kind of hard
to get used to a new color, but I think it looks ok. While I was painting,
Nick decided to go for a walk. Turns out he walked to 2 different
graduation parties (such a party animal!), in different directions from our
house. The 2nd one was 5+ miles from here, and he got a bit lost, so ended
up walking all afternoon (3 hours) and ended up late to the 2nd party. The
party host felt bad Nick missed it so she took him to a movie instead.
"Dodge Ball", Nick recommended, Father approved.

For Father's day, they boys approved the purchase (I mention them, they say
good idea, then I go buy them) of 2 new Father toys: a new robot toy from
Best Buy called Robosapien and a large 30" LED sign. I'm in the process of
integrating both of them into MisterHouse. Our living room is getting
stranger every day ;)

The project this weekend was to replace our kitchen and bathroom faucets.
The old ones were 20 years old, leaking and corroded. Sounds like a simple
enough process, but it turned into quite the comedy. At least thats how I
hope I'll see it in about 10 years. Lots of leaks, mis-sized connectors,
missing or faulty parts, and 7+ trips to Menards. Every few years I do
something like this and remember why I choose not to be a plumber. The
worst problem was the big valve that controls the water coming into our
house sprung a serious leak. That's the sort of thing a weekend plumber can
not fix, but I by using a bunch of plumbers putty, 1 pair of old underwear,
10 feet of duct tape, an old plastic garbage can, and 10 feet of garden
hose, I was able to contain and divert the leak well enough to get us
through the weekend. At least so far! I'm calling a real plumber first
thing in the morning ;)

Bruce

FW: News from MN, 5/02/2004

Yo to the O,

O for, hmmmm, Others? It just rhymed so well, had to use it.

Nick made his college decision last week ... Oberlin, Ohio. He spent the
day deciding by reading their course catalogs. He said it was a close call,
but he made the decision with authority, like a true executive. I think it
involved a coin. The day after he had mailed in his decision, his second
choice, Knox College in Illinois, called and told him they would raise his
scholarship by $1500. A bit silly of them to wait till the last week, but
Laurie was glad they waited, as she feels Oberlin is the best choice. From
what I've seen, it does seem like a great school. I've gradually come to
terms with its cost. I talked to various co-workers and got a wide range
of opinions. One guy has just finished financing both of his boys through
Harvard, one onto a law degree. Harvard has similar costs, but don't offer
merit based scholarship, so he ended up with a $300k bill! That helped me
feel a bit better about a $100k bill ;)

Zack bought a 2nd motorcycle last week! This time, instead of a 500 cc
crotch rocket, he bought a 50 cc 'pocket rocket'. Its a silly $400 thing.
About 3 feet long, perfect size for a 10 year old, except 10 year olds are
not supposed to drive around at 30 mph. So grownups crouch down on these
things and look goofy and try not to crash. Zack has managed not to crash
too often, and wears his pocket rocket scabs with pride.

Nick has been going on extended walks between his classes, since he has a
few free hours off around lunch. Sometimes off into the country, sometimes
to downtown. Usually he has no idea where he is, but manages to get back in
time, sometimes with a sunburn. We also went for a bike ride recently,
although he was less enchanted with that. Biking muscles are different than
walking muscles.

A group of 8 of us IBMers played a chess match against 8 guys from the Mayo
Clinc last week. We called the match 'The Docs -vs- The Geeks'. The
Clinic has a bigger gene pool (20k employess -vs- 7k for IBM), and they have
all those clever med students, so Nick figured us IBMers were toast, but we
came up even at 4 wins and 4 losses. I was indeed toast, as I played a med
student who was a state champ in his younger years. But it was fun toast,
as I didn't loose to badly :)

Bruce

!DSPAM:409550e7182571977840816!

FW: News from MN, 4/4/2004

Hi all,

Looks like I missed my every other week email last weekend, but I had an
excuse. Nick and I spent last weekend up in the cities at the state high
school chess tournament. He won his first 3 games on Saturday, but didn't
fair so well on Sunday. They had some good players up there! His school
did well as a team, placing 5th. The chess tournament was across the street
from the Mall of America, so during one of Nick's games, I took on the
challenge of walking the mall. All 3 floors, every inch, all in 2 hours.
I even found 3 stores worth stopping in!

Nick is down to deciding between 3 colleges. Morris MN, Oberlin Ohio (south
of Cleveland) and Knox IL (Gathers berg). It is his spring break this
week, so today he and Laurie took off on a road trip to visit Oberlin on
Tuesday and Knox on Thursday. He has been accepted at both, with similar
scholarship's offered at each of $15k per year, which covers about 50% of
Knox and 40% of Oberlin's fees. Probably take another trip up to Morris
then decide sometime before the end of the month.

Zack has entered a new stage of independence. Despite our objections, he
found a way to buy a motorcycle. A 'crotch rocket', 2002 Suzuki something
or other (I try not to look at it too closely), for $6500. He tried to get
a loan from several places, but his credit was not good enough. Thought we
were safe, but then he found a crazy friend who was willing to give him an
interest free loan. His paycheck gets pretty well absorbed by his loan and
insurance payments (insurance is $200+ per month!), and he also no longer is
getting gas or lunch money from me, but he is pretty happy with it. He also
bought quality helmets and jackets (aka lid and skin) ... been a week and no
accident so far.

Laurie gave her big keynote speech last night, for the Loft grant that she
got for the past year. She said it went well.

I got myself a flu Thurs/Friday/Saturday. Apparently not the one covered
by this year's flu shot. Bonded with our toilet in a way I have not done
since when Sue and Brad vistied and all 4 of us got sick. Such fond
memories ;)

Bruce

!DSPAM:4070dc59267622023915294!

FW: News from MN, 3/14/2004

Whatsup!

Nick and I just watched 'O', and recent movie about a high school basketball
start, following the Shakespeare Othello theme. A classic and effective
tragedy. One of the extras on the DVD was a 1922 version, which we also
watched. It is a silent movie, where they display text on the screen way
too long for us modern day speed readers. So we cranked it up to 2x speed
and replaced the orchestra music with modern hip-hop. The music fit in
surprisingly well.

Zack is working on a variety of cars in the garage today. If you listen
closely, you may be able to hear the occasional thumping of his sound tests.
He keeps getting referrals from friends of friends of acquaintances of
people who happen to live in the same town as we do. The local Saturn
dealership called him in one lunch to replace a stereo system, and a few
weeks ago a guy with one of those big new monster SUV's dropped by the pawn
shop looking for the stereo kid, looking for someone to do a big install.

Nick's school had the last game in the local school tournement last week.
His team was neck and neck with one other team for first place, leading or
trailing by one game. Nick one his games, and in the end, the score was
tied with one game still in progress on board 2. A very close came, in both
time and position, but his team eventually one. He has 3 tournaments left
this season, including a couple of road trips.

I was invited by a co-worker to go to the Passion for Christ movie last
week. His church had rented out a theater and had some seats left so they
invited guests. That is one graphic movie. Not word in English either,
but they did have subtitles. My co-worker and his wife confessed they
didn't keep their eyes open for parts of it ... not a good way to watch a
movie with subtitles ;)

Bruce

!DSPAM:4054e289149121389620002!

FW: News from MN, 2/29/2004

Yo,

Happy Leap day. Made it by 5 minutes!

We just finished our taxes today. Laurie and I filed joint in '03 and she
has been working all week to get her tax data gathered. We needed to get
them done early so we could finish applying for financial aid at the schools
Nick applied to. Last week Nick got his first acceptance, to Knox
(Illinois), along with a $14k per year scholarship. Not exactly a full
ride like some of the large public state schools have been offering, but it
does knock the $33k per year fee down a bit.

Two paychecks ago, Zack finished paying off his various debts, including
what he owed me for gas money for his xmas vacation to Montana. So now he
has started saving, once again, for a motorcycle. He tried this once
before, with a big jar that was easy to put money into, but hard to get out,
but he managed to get it out with vigorous shaking. This time, it will
probably build up quicker because of the steady income he has coming from
his pawn shop job. I'm not helping him in any way on this one. No
insurance, no loans, no credit co-signing. But he is determined, so I'm
not optimistic. If he does manage to get one, I might have to help him
with a helmet.

Laurie took Nick up to the National finals of the American Inn chess
tournament in Minneapolis last week. He and 2 other guys won the city
match a few months ago, so earned the right to go. He won 4 of his 5
matches, but there were 200 players in his group. The top 3 were 5 and 0.
Between a set of matches, he fell asleep on some stairs. He woke up in time
for his next match, but his leg had fallen asleep, so when he stood up, he
fell down. He did this numerous times for about a minute. He really was
having a fun time with it, in his classic Nick 'wow this is something fun
that I've never really done before' sort of way. It would have been fun to
watch ... who said chess was not a spectator sport ;)

Bruce

!DSPAM:4042d4bb231731583273244!