Sunday, March 26, 2006

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!

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