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River Of Data.com |
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December 2003 Happy holidays to all our friends and family in all parts of the world. Every year about this time I start reflecting on the past twelve months and every year I say that nothing can possibly top THIS one. Well, guess what. The year 2003 topped them all and I find it hard to believe there will ever be a year to top this one. The year started off with a wonderful three-weeks in Hawaii. We had never been to the islands during whaling season so we had planned this trip for January. We also had not been to Kuaii before. We traded a week for the Embassy in Poipu and since that property had two full bedrooms and since Dan’s brother-in-law Eric had coincidentally won a free trip to Hawaii in a sales contest, we invited Sue and Eric to join us for the week in Kuaii. What a wonderful time we all had. We went snorkeling, went to a luau, and went sightseeing all over the island, from one end to the other. Kuaii is a very beautiful place and we tried to take in all we could in the week we were there. Dan and I then flew to Maui to spend another two weeks at our usual place at the Embassy. We went on three whaling excursions and saw many whales, including babies. We watched two males fighting about 100 yards from shore from the balcony of our bedroom. We didn’t do much else except hang out during our Maui time. We swam and read a lot. We were also there during the Super Bowl and were so disgusted with our Raiders by the third quarter that we went down to the pool and swan instead watching the rest of the game. During our stay in Maui we also decided to invest in an additional two weeks a year in a new Westin resort that was being built. It is right on the Kaanapali Beach, just about ¼ mile south of our Embassy. This means that for the rest of our lives, at least as soon as we retire, we will be able to spend a month a year in Maui. We absolutely love it there. The new place actually just opened this September and because of the way things worked out this summer (more about that in a minute) we will not be able to get back to Maui until Christmas of ’04. The next adventure of the year began in April. Dan had been fretting about his weight for quite a while and after doing MUCH research and talking to many folks all over the world (via discussion groups on the Internet) decided to go to Mexico to have lap-band surgery. So, on April 28th, in Tijuana, Dan underwent what was to be a very simple procedure to install a band around his stomach. I did not go as I was saving every possible vacation day for a trip we had coming up in August. The surgery itself went very well, but Dan unfortunately developed pneumonia and I could tell on the phone after a couple of days that he was not doing well. I quickly got on an airplane and got myself down to TJ to see what was going on. We made it back to Boise a few days later, with Dan still pretty sick, but not from the surgery. His local doctor treated the pneumonia and he recovered slowly, missing a couple of weeks work. His local doctor had known about and approved the surgery in Mexico. Once he recovered from the pneumonia, he began losing weight very rapidly. He has to date lost 90 + pounds and feels great. He was probably only the fifth person in the history of the world to lose weight on a cruise. He had the surgery done in Mexico for several reasons. First, our insurance wouldn’t cover it and it was twice as expensive (at least) everywhere in the US. It has only been FDA approved in the US for about 3 years, but they have been doing it for about 13 years in Mexico and in several countries in Europe. It has been a wonderful thing for him and he is delighted with the results and does not for an instant regret having it done. I, on the other hand, have had a challenging year, weight wise and now outweigh Dan by a good amount. Oh well, as the Cubs fans like to say ‘wait until next year’! Sometime around mid February Dan and a colleague were invited to speak at an international library conference held this August in Berlin, Germany. It was very flattering for them to be asked, but they figured there was no way in you know where that they would be able to go. Dan’s boss, however, was so impressed that they were invited that he got permission from the university powers that be for Dan and Peggy (the colleague) to go and they paid a good part of the expenses. Well, we were off and running! We had never had a desire to go to Europe and Berlin, of all places, would not have been someplace we would have even thought about. We began making our plans. We decided that it might be a one and only shot at a trip to Europe and we were going to take full advantage of it. We began thinking about what we could do and where we could go. We had always talked about taking a cruise and we found a twelve-day Princess cruise of the Mediterranean that fit into our schedule perfectly. So, we booked a passage and began planning for real. But first, we had other travels coming up. I went to California to spend Good Friday and Easter weekend with Karen and her kids and grandkids in the Bay area. It was the first time I had seen her since her bypass surgery last summer. She is doing great. She also came to Boise for the first time in six years in September and spent my birthday weekend with me. It is really hard, the older we get, to be so far away from each other and only get to visit a couple times a year. In early July we took off for Virginia for a quick five- day trip to my family reunion. My cousin Dennis lives just off the Blue-Ridge Parkway in beautiful rural Virginia. We flew into Raleigh-Durham and drove up to their place. It was a wonderful, though quick, trip. Eight cousins and Aunt May were all there. We had the most fantastic evening on Saturday. The stars were all aligned or something. Norman and Nathan played guitar, Joanell and Tom did the tango, Dennis read poetry and we all sang nearly until midnight. It was one of those perfect evenings that we wished would go on forever. We were back to Boise and reality for about 3 weeks, to pack and celebrate Tony’s (my grandson) tenth birthday. Then, on August 1st, we flew off to Berlin. We had time in Chicago, at O’Hare, to have a quick lunch with Cinda. It was great to see her. A side note, she called us up two weeks later on the Golden Princess to let her dad know he was going to be a grandpa again, in February. We had not thought we would be getting a ‘shore to ship’ phone call. Unfortunately, we got another call later in the week from Cinda with the not so good news of Dan’s mom’s involvement in a car wreck. She was, thank God, not badly hurt. We arrived in Berlin on Saturday, August 2nd, about 24 hours after we left Boise. Berlin was a great surprise. We loved it. We stayed at a Westin property, the Westin Grand, which was in the section that had been East Berlin. We were there six days and were able to do a lot of sightseeing, taking in a lot of history in the process. On August 7th we flew to Barcelona and spent one night there. Our hotel was right on Las Ramblas. What a fascinating place. We took a cab up to La Familia Sagrida. No trip to Barcelona could possibly not take in this fabulous cathedral begun over 100 years ago by Gaudi. The next day we boarded the Princess in Barcelona. There is no way I can even begin to tell of the wonders we saw over the next twelve days. I filled up a 100-page journal during the trip and Dan took over 1800 digital pictures. We came home and edited them down to around 1200 which we burned to a CD. So if you come to visit we can bore you with our slide show shown on our 35 inch TV (right, Karen?). Over the next twelve days we visited Monaco, Monte Carlo, Livorno, Florence, Naples, Capri, Sorrento, Pompeii, Athens, Corinth, Ephesus, Istambul and ended p in Venice. We spent two extra days in Venice. Just some quick comments. It was exciting to gamble in the casino at Monte Carlo and walk to Grand Prix course. It was 102 the day we were in Florence. We knew the crowds would be bad, but the heat was record high, and we still loved every minute. I had always dreamed of going to Capri, and was not disappointed. I had never dreamed of going to Istanbul, but we found ourselves cruising on the Bosporus, on a perfect Sunday morning, our twelfth anniversary. Ephesus, Corinth and Pompeii were all fascinating glimpses of ancient history, as was, of course, the Acropolis. And Venice…what can be said about Venice. Being in a gondola with a singer and accordion player, at Sunset, in the Grand Canal was like being on a ride in Disneyland. It just didn’t seem real. Saint Mark’s Basilica is not to be believed. And the Danieli Hotel, where we spent two fabulous nights in this old 16th century palace, was everything we had been told and more. The Hotels in Berlin and Venice we were able to stay in partly as a result of the ‘point’ we got from Starwood with our purchase of the Westin Resort Property. On the trip we acquired two hand made Turkish rugs, a gorgeous Murano glass wine set in amethyst with 22 karat gold trim and a bazillion books and post cards. On the Princess we also participated in some art and memorabilia auctions and came home with three wonderful items: a Nascar helmet signed by 15 drivers, a poster of Muhammad Ali and the Beatles, signed by Ali and a signed poster of Dale Earnhardt. These items prompted us to completely rearrange our furniture this fall to best display these new treasures. Anyway, we arrived home on August 23rd, tired and happy. Dan had lost five pounds. I found those five and they brought along a few friends. But it was truly a trip of a lifetime and we are still remembering all the things we saw and did. Ten days later, Dan was on the road again. This time he went to Chicago for five days to receive the ‘best ever’ father’s day present from Cinda. She and Dan went to the Indy Car races for two days at the Chicagoland Speedway near where Cinda and Henri live. Cinda even managed to snag pit passes. Both of these race nuts thought they had died and gone to heaven! I, meanwhile, was attending BSUs opening home game by myself and getting cell phone updates on the progress of the race. Dan also got to spend about a day and a half with Andy and Amy and two year old Quinn in their new house in McHenry. Again Dan brought back tons of digital pictures. At least they don’t take up much space! Dan was not quite through traveling yet. In early October he made a quick trip back to Mexico to have his lap-band around his tummy ‘filled’. This means they tightened it up by injected some saline solution through a tube into an inner liner of the band. It helps make it tight again. As Dan has lost weight, the original band had loosened because all the fat around it had gone away. And yet one more trip awaited Dan before the end of the year. On November 1, he flew to Monterey to attend the Internet Librarian Conference and to spend a week with his mom. He had not seen her since she was in Boise last Christmas for a couple of days. And he was particularly anxious to check on her after her accident this Summer. She is doing ok and was of course happy to have Dan there. Dan’s brother, Irv, still lives with her and teaches in Salinas. We both are doing fine at our jobs. Mine was much more fulfilling this year, with a change in the ‘line up’ of brokers I support. It is a much better fit for me now. I have also been doing some moonlighting on the weekends at Boise State University Library, working the reference desk. It brings in a few bucks and keeps my skills current. We still go to all the BSU football and basketball games. We play as much bridge as we can. Dan is not teaching a Bible class this Fall, but we go the dinner most Wednesday evenings |
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