A long time since the last update. We've been keeping busy, as usual, with a wide assortment of stuff going on.
Over the summer we did a good deal of biking, including several longer treks here and there. One very nice one was visiting some of friend Jim Mac's old haunts on the south shore. And there was our usual Hub on Wheels charity ride in Boston. Always a great time, and the weather favored us this year.
We went to a few concerts, including Renaissance, Asia, and Rush.
We took a variety of shorter trips, spending Labor Day at the river with Kathy's family, up to the Trumansburg house for most of a week, up to the Irving's cottage in Maine for Columbus Day. In addition we drove down to DC for Jon Stewart's Rally for Sanity, which was a hoot. And for Thanksgiving we first met Kathy's parents in NYC for a couple of great meals and the Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. Then down to Ross's place in Philly for turkey and fixings on Thanksgiving day. Good times!
We also bought a condo out in North Hollywood, which we're renting to Ariana. Rents there have been stable or rising even though most real estate values have dropped as much as 50%. Seemed like a good time to buy as an investment, and Ariana gets a better deal. This entailed a couple of trips out to LA for Ben, and Kathy came for the second as well. We also saw old Cornell friend Al Seckel at his party in Martin Gardner's memory.
More high points were visits from Ross (October and Christmas) and Ariana (mid-December). Always nice to see them back here.
Kathy continues to work (too hard!) at Fortress Technologies, doing mesh routing. She's also playing the piano, practicing a fiercely difficult piece by Khachaturian.
Ben is very active in the angel investing world, still, talking to many companies and investing in several. Doing occasional speaking gigs as well. Still playing hockey (winter champions of the novice league, yay).
Finally, in January all four of us went off to the Galapagos Islands for a week on a motor catamaran. Super trip, documented here.
Ariana is continuing her screenwriting, and also spent a good deal of time being our feet on the ground for the condo stuff, as well as taking some time moving in and taking care of the usual issues in a new place.
Ross is at Bryn Mawr doing very well in his post-bac, pre-med program. He's applied to med school for September, and things are looking positive there. Won't mention names in order to avoid jinxing anything.