Well, its hard to know where to begin about this year-- it has been the best of years, but it has been the worst of years as well. Alan's post-doc called him away to the great land in the west-- Palo Alto, CA-- where he slammed some electrons into his neutrons (well, not HIS neutrons, but some that he was interested in) and collected a whole lot of data. Sounds simple, but in fact, he was gone for many, many moons, which made us both very, very sad. Especially sad was when we found out that Alan's Uncle Michael had died, and Sarah had to tell him from 2500 miles away. Also sad was when we found out that Alan's mother's cancer has reared its ugly head again this fall.
But that's enough of the icky stuff-- we have some very exciting news, which we were actually waiting on before writing this letter. Alan has accepted a job as a post-doc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg Maryland. The job lasts for 2 years, after which, if Alan has "made himself invaluable", there is an excellent chance for permanent employment. Gaithersburg is a suburb of Washington DC located near Bethesda. Sarah has high hopes of finding a job in the area doing "health related research or teaching" (a payback for the money she has been receiving from the National Institute of Health for the last 2 1/2 years.) So look out Maryland, here we come!
Although we have been apart for a great part of the year, we have been doing some fun things to keep entertained. Alan went through his commencement in a damp, but indoor, ceremony. Both sets of parental units came to Boston for the festivities, as did one of Alan's brothers, Kelvin. Later in the summer, Sarah's mother came to Boston a few days early for a conference, and Sarah's father came out for a week of backpacking in upstate New York (the Long Lake region of the Adirondacks). In a continuing theme of dampness, Sarah and her father discovered that 3" of rain in one night was more than a 15 year old tent could take. They retreated to the Emperial (I swear, that's how they spelled it!) Hotel, and spent the rest of the vacation driving and hiking around, and looking for lovely photographs.
Alan retaliated by travelling to Gilroy and Sonoma for a wine and garlic fest, the likes of which Sarah could only dream about! (We did have a very lovely weekend in Sonoma when Sarah came out to visit in December-- we stayed in an astonishingly pink room in a lovely Bed & Breakfast called the Grape Leaf Inn (highly recommended if you are in Healdsburg), and we got to sample lots of different kinds of wines, and Alan drove because small sips of 4-6 wines at 10 different wineries was more than Sarah could handle while staying sober (hic).) Alan also got to know Oscar the cat, who lives in radioactivity land where electrons smash into radiation fences, and cause mutant cats with sweet dispositions and long ear hair. (Actually, radiation at the facility is very well contained, and Alan was exposed to stronger doses of radiation while flying back and forth in an airplane to Austin and Boston than while working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator).
We are also looking forward to February when Sarah's sister gets married to Matt Dailey, aka Strainerhead. (I swear that's his name!! It was on their answering machine for months!!) Well, there's other news, like that Sarah cut her hair (while Alan stayed home and picked out "I Love You Just The Way You Are" on the piano) and got glasses (one friend told me I was looking old now!)-- the haircut really looks about the same, but the glasses are kind of weird-- I keep trying to rub my eyes, and I keep ending up with smudges in my field of vision! Alan looks the same, except he is now a man with thighs of steel from riding his bicycle everywhere in Palo Alto (he didn't rent a car).
We'll send out change of address cards as soon as we have them, but for the next 4 or 5 months, we are still at 25 Mt. Hood Rd. #9, Brookline, MA 02146-1315. Call us at (617) 277-0318, and we'll talk (about coffee, but not dogs!)