Seasons Greetings
So this year I actually wrote a Christmas card
(With no offense meant to those who don't celebrate, or who, in fact, despise, Christmas, I myself celebrate Christmas, and so it is, to me, a Christmas card; if Christmas isn't your thing, then the card should in no way be construed as anything other than a friendly "hello", and an expression of warm thoughts and well wishes in this winter season and for the new year.)
and sent a copy to various folks. And, being the lazy fellow that I am, I just decided that posting it here would serve roughly the same purpose as sending it out to lots of the folks on my friends list (which I would have otherwise done within the next week or so... honest.) The card is mostly a "What I've been up to this year", so if you're interested, then read on.
I thought this year I'd try to write a Christmas card. Usually Cj writes our Christmas cards (and this year is no exception... on the 13th, when I started composing this, she'd already out mailed 15!). Well, I'm not that ambitious. I'm writing one, and I'm sending it to everyone. Not great, I know, but it's better than last year (i.e. nothing at all), so there you go. So I thought I'd just do the whole year-in-review type thing, and talk about all the fun stuff Cj and I did this year.
But first, the boring stuff, especially for those who haven't heard from us in awhile. My 4 year teaching stint at Mudd ended in June '02 when summer math ended. I took a month off, then tried to find a job. I had a couple of promising leads, but I've never actually found myself a job in my whole life (they've all found me), and this was no exception. I was looking in the private sector*, but by November I'd given up finding a "real" job and just went back to Compulink (where I'd programmed for a year before starting at Mudd). I've been back there for just over a year now, and it's really not been bad. While I was gone, they'd moved the company to within three miles of our house in Long Beach, so the commute is much better than the 45 minutes each way I'd done to Mudd for the last few years. They bring in lunch for everyone every day for free, and we play Quake for the remainder of our lunch breaks. It's a very easy, flexible, low stress job. And there are 10 former students of mine working there, which is cool, and just kinda odd. And one of them, even after a year, still calls me "Professor Levin". The work is actually kinda fun... the client (user interface) portion of their software was written in 1992 for Windows 3.1, and we're just now getting around to writing a new one. So getting to create something from scratch has been very satisfying, and I'm rather happy with how it's turning out. On the whole, I'm a lot happier there than I thought I'd be. I'm probably going to start looking into grad schools this next spring or fall, but am liable to be at Compulink for another year and a half, at least.
*(My current plan, such as it is, is to work for a few years, save some money, and then to go to grad school in computer science. With PhDs in Math and CS, I should have an easier time finding a choice teaching position where I can settle down. At least, that's the theory.)
I did get a nice break from programming back in June, when I went back to Mudd for three weeks to teach summer math again. Most of the regular faculty would rather have their summers off, and don't want three more weeks of intensive teaching, so the job is available for the foreseeable future (I'm pretty sure I'll be back again in the summer of 2004). It was three hours a day, 5 days a week... we crammed a semester of core math into those 3 weeks! Since I couldn't do that 90 minute commute every day, I just stayed in the dorms with avani and some other former students of mine. I held office hours in my suite lounge, and played games (board and computer) with folks in the evenings. It was hard work, but it still seemed like a vacation.
Not much else has really changed in my life. Cj and I and all our families are much the same as we were last year (and the year before, etc). So I guess I'll talk about some of the fun stuff we've done this year. Mostly, we did a lot of traveling. I think we went on 6 separate vacations this year, not counting a couple of trips up to my folks' cabin in Big Bear.
Trip 1: Monterey. In January, as a sort of Christmas present, my folks took Cj and I and my brother Keith and his girlfriend Nancy to Monterey for two nights. Cj and I left a day early, and spent the night in Solvang (a touristy but fun town done all in Danish style). That night, the town was holding a public burning... they'd collected hundreds of Christmas trees from the town, piled them all up, and had a huge bonfire. It was quite a site! In Monterey, we went to the aquarium and did some site seeing and shopping on cannery row.
Trip 2: Seattle/Victoria. This was for our friends Alicia and Brian's wedding. They decided, with friends and family all over the country, lots of people were going to have to travel no matter where they got married, so they just picked somewhere they liked a lot instead of making any attempt at convenience. Good for them! I took a week off work, and Cj and I went to Seattle. We stayed with Kerim (Cj's old boyfriend, who's still a good friend of ours); unfortunately, his wife was out of town at the time. We stayed 2 nights, and had a great time seeing museums and the Pike's Place market, and playing games with Kerim and other friends from Mudd. I got to visit with an old friend from high school (Joel), and we bumped into two different Mudders just wandering around Seattle (Jeff V. from my class, and mbrubeck). On the third day, Cj and I took the ferry from Seattle to Victoria. The bride and groom had arranged a tea at Butchart Gardens for all guests. The next day, we took a four hour walk around Victoria (a beautiful, magnificent city), through downtown, and parks, and along the beach. The wedding was that afternoon, and we spent the rest of the evening at the reception. The next day, we walked around some more with friends of Alicia's we'd met at the wedding, then took the ferry back to Seattle. We stayed up till 3am playing games with Kerim, then got 3 hours of sleep before we needed to go to the airport.
Trip 3: Baja. My cousin Ruth's wedding was in Baja, Mexico in June. Cj and I rode down there with my folks. The wedding was being held near Puerto Nuevo, which is about half an hour's drive south of Tijuana on the coast. Ruth's parents (aunt Demi & uncle Steve) had rented a suite in a local resort, and we all stayed there. The "rehearsal dinner" was a huge lobster feast at a local restaurant. Cj and Steve and the groom (Jed) and his friends got up early the next morning to go surfing (one of the main reasons for the choice of location). The wedding the next day was outside on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It was what we affectionately referred to as the "hippy wedding". We all held hands and sang, and dinner afterwards was a BBQ that everyone helped put together. Honestly, it was probably my favorite of all the weddings I've been to.
Trip 4: Santa Cruz. This was my birthday present, and was a surprise from Cj. She told me that we were going with her dad to help him move something for someone. I had my nose in my summer math grading, so I didn't know anything was going on until I looked up and we were at the Long Beach airport, and Cj was getting our bags out of the trunk. So she put me on a plane, and we ended up in Oakland. She already had a car rented, so we spent the day in San Francisco, exploring Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's wharf. Lunch that day was a greasy plate of fried seafood and a giant sundae. We headed south to Santa Cruz, where KAM (a good friend of ours from Mudd) was throwing a 4th of July party at this beautiful place she was house-sitting. It was back in the hills behind Santa Cruz, among the redwoods and next to a stream. So we partied until 1am, and spent the next two days kicking around Santa Cruz, seeing other old friends from Mudd, and generally having lots of fun. And I tried to get a little grading done.
Trip 5: San Diego. In August, we went down to San Diego for the big annual comic book convention. We drove down the afternoon before, and did some shopping and dining on our way down the coast. The morning before the Con, we ate at our favorite local dive down there, and wandered around Balboa Park. For the Con, 4 former students of mine (Greg M, avani, Peter, Ian) drove down, and we all met up and went to the Con together (Cj opted to spend the day exploring San Diego instead). It was more crowded there than I'd ever seen it, and we narrowly averted having to wait in a 3 hour line to get in, but ended up having a good time, and buying many comics. We all (including Cj and (rfujiyama), who lives in the area) had dinner afterwards at China Camp. The next morning, Cj and I went exploring around Old Towne and Coronado Island before heading back home.
Trip 6: Arroyo Grande. This was for my Uncle Steve's (see Trip 3) 50th birthday party. They live in this little town on the coast about 3 hours north of LA. Cj and I decided to make an overnight trip of this. So we got up early the day before, and spent most of the day exploring Santa Barbara, including the beaches, the botanical gardens, and a historic walking tour of downtown. We spent the night in Lompoc (about 30 minutes north of there), and by dumb luck found the best Italian restaurant either of us had ever experienced. The next morning, we had breakfast in Solvang before heading up to Steve's party. It was a BBQ in the town park, and he must have had over 50 people there. Many were people that he'd met surfing over the years... some who he had taught to surf! It was great seeing how many people turned out for it. We headed home that evening after the party.
Not a trip, but soooo cool! About a month ago, Cj and I went to see Simon & Garfunkel live! Cj and I have similar musical tastes, but S&G are the only group that we'd both put in our top 4 favorites, and I'd already seen my other 3 play live. I certainly never expected to see a S&G concert in this lifetime! And it was great! It was truly a S&G concert... they covered all but one of their greatest hits, plus four other songs from the "Bridge over Troubled Waters" album, and lots of other good stuff. Only 2 solo Paul Simon songs. They sounded great... it was definitely worth $150 a ticket!
And that's about it. I figure that's probably more info than is really needed in any Christmas card, but since I'm only writing this one, rambling on a bit doesn't seem too bad. Anyway, I hope this year has gone well for you, and that the coming one is twice as nice.
Take care,
Greg
I thought this year I'd try to write a Christmas card. Usually Cj writes our Christmas cards (and this year is no exception... on the 13th, when I started composing this, she'd already out mailed 15!). Well, I'm not that ambitious. I'm writing one, and I'm sending it to everyone. Not great, I know, but it's better than last year (i.e. nothing at all), so there you go. So I thought I'd just do the whole year-in-review type thing, and talk about all the fun stuff Cj and I did this year.
But first, the boring stuff, especially for those who haven't heard from us in awhile. My 4 year teaching stint at Mudd ended in June '02 when summer math ended. I took a month off, then tried to find a job. I had a couple of promising leads, but I've never actually found myself a job in my whole life (they've all found me), and this was no exception. I was looking in the private sector*, but by November I'd given up finding a "real" job and just went back to Compulink (where I'd programmed for a year before starting at Mudd). I've been back there for just over a year now, and it's really not been bad. While I was gone, they'd moved the company to within three miles of our house in Long Beach, so the commute is much better than the 45 minutes each way I'd done to Mudd for the last few years. They bring in lunch for everyone every day for free, and we play Quake for the remainder of our lunch breaks. It's a very easy, flexible, low stress job. And there are 10 former students of mine working there, which is cool, and just kinda odd. And one of them, even after a year, still calls me "Professor Levin". The work is actually kinda fun... the client (user interface) portion of their software was written in 1992 for Windows 3.1, and we're just now getting around to writing a new one. So getting to create something from scratch has been very satisfying, and I'm rather happy with how it's turning out. On the whole, I'm a lot happier there than I thought I'd be. I'm probably going to start looking into grad schools this next spring or fall, but am liable to be at Compulink for another year and a half, at least.
*(My current plan, such as it is, is to work for a few years, save some money, and then to go to grad school in computer science. With PhDs in Math and CS, I should have an easier time finding a choice teaching position where I can settle down. At least, that's the theory.)
I did get a nice break from programming back in June, when I went back to Mudd for three weeks to teach summer math again. Most of the regular faculty would rather have their summers off, and don't want three more weeks of intensive teaching, so the job is available for the foreseeable future (I'm pretty sure I'll be back again in the summer of 2004). It was three hours a day, 5 days a week... we crammed a semester of core math into those 3 weeks! Since I couldn't do that 90 minute commute every day, I just stayed in the dorms with avani and some other former students of mine. I held office hours in my suite lounge, and played games (board and computer) with folks in the evenings. It was hard work, but it still seemed like a vacation.
Not much else has really changed in my life. Cj and I and all our families are much the same as we were last year (and the year before, etc). So I guess I'll talk about some of the fun stuff we've done this year. Mostly, we did a lot of traveling. I think we went on 6 separate vacations this year, not counting a couple of trips up to my folks' cabin in Big Bear.
Trip 1: Monterey. In January, as a sort of Christmas present, my folks took Cj and I and my brother Keith and his girlfriend Nancy to Monterey for two nights. Cj and I left a day early, and spent the night in Solvang (a touristy but fun town done all in Danish style). That night, the town was holding a public burning... they'd collected hundreds of Christmas trees from the town, piled them all up, and had a huge bonfire. It was quite a site! In Monterey, we went to the aquarium and did some site seeing and shopping on cannery row.
Trip 2: Seattle/Victoria. This was for our friends Alicia and Brian's wedding. They decided, with friends and family all over the country, lots of people were going to have to travel no matter where they got married, so they just picked somewhere they liked a lot instead of making any attempt at convenience. Good for them! I took a week off work, and Cj and I went to Seattle. We stayed with Kerim (Cj's old boyfriend, who's still a good friend of ours); unfortunately, his wife was out of town at the time. We stayed 2 nights, and had a great time seeing museums and the Pike's Place market, and playing games with Kerim and other friends from Mudd. I got to visit with an old friend from high school (Joel), and we bumped into two different Mudders just wandering around Seattle (Jeff V. from my class, and mbrubeck). On the third day, Cj and I took the ferry from Seattle to Victoria. The bride and groom had arranged a tea at Butchart Gardens for all guests. The next day, we took a four hour walk around Victoria (a beautiful, magnificent city), through downtown, and parks, and along the beach. The wedding was that afternoon, and we spent the rest of the evening at the reception. The next day, we walked around some more with friends of Alicia's we'd met at the wedding, then took the ferry back to Seattle. We stayed up till 3am playing games with Kerim, then got 3 hours of sleep before we needed to go to the airport.
Trip 3: Baja. My cousin Ruth's wedding was in Baja, Mexico in June. Cj and I rode down there with my folks. The wedding was being held near Puerto Nuevo, which is about half an hour's drive south of Tijuana on the coast. Ruth's parents (aunt Demi & uncle Steve) had rented a suite in a local resort, and we all stayed there. The "rehearsal dinner" was a huge lobster feast at a local restaurant. Cj and Steve and the groom (Jed) and his friends got up early the next morning to go surfing (one of the main reasons for the choice of location). The wedding the next day was outside on a bluff overlooking the ocean. It was what we affectionately referred to as the "hippy wedding". We all held hands and sang, and dinner afterwards was a BBQ that everyone helped put together. Honestly, it was probably my favorite of all the weddings I've been to.
Trip 4: Santa Cruz. This was my birthday present, and was a surprise from Cj. She told me that we were going with her dad to help him move something for someone. I had my nose in my summer math grading, so I didn't know anything was going on until I looked up and we were at the Long Beach airport, and Cj was getting our bags out of the trunk. So she put me on a plane, and we ended up in Oakland. She already had a car rented, so we spent the day in San Francisco, exploring Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's wharf. Lunch that day was a greasy plate of fried seafood and a giant sundae. We headed south to Santa Cruz, where KAM (a good friend of ours from Mudd) was throwing a 4th of July party at this beautiful place she was house-sitting. It was back in the hills behind Santa Cruz, among the redwoods and next to a stream. So we partied until 1am, and spent the next two days kicking around Santa Cruz, seeing other old friends from Mudd, and generally having lots of fun. And I tried to get a little grading done.
Trip 5: San Diego. In August, we went down to San Diego for the big annual comic book convention. We drove down the afternoon before, and did some shopping and dining on our way down the coast. The morning before the Con, we ate at our favorite local dive down there, and wandered around Balboa Park. For the Con, 4 former students of mine (Greg M, avani, Peter, Ian) drove down, and we all met up and went to the Con together (Cj opted to spend the day exploring San Diego instead). It was more crowded there than I'd ever seen it, and we narrowly averted having to wait in a 3 hour line to get in, but ended up having a good time, and buying many comics. We all (including Cj and (rfujiyama), who lives in the area) had dinner afterwards at China Camp. The next morning, Cj and I went exploring around Old Towne and Coronado Island before heading back home.
Trip 6: Arroyo Grande. This was for my Uncle Steve's (see Trip 3) 50th birthday party. They live in this little town on the coast about 3 hours north of LA. Cj and I decided to make an overnight trip of this. So we got up early the day before, and spent most of the day exploring Santa Barbara, including the beaches, the botanical gardens, and a historic walking tour of downtown. We spent the night in Lompoc (about 30 minutes north of there), and by dumb luck found the best Italian restaurant either of us had ever experienced. The next morning, we had breakfast in Solvang before heading up to Steve's party. It was a BBQ in the town park, and he must have had over 50 people there. Many were people that he'd met surfing over the years... some who he had taught to surf! It was great seeing how many people turned out for it. We headed home that evening after the party.
Not a trip, but soooo cool! About a month ago, Cj and I went to see Simon & Garfunkel live! Cj and I have similar musical tastes, but S&G are the only group that we'd both put in our top 4 favorites, and I'd already seen my other 3 play live. I certainly never expected to see a S&G concert in this lifetime! And it was great! It was truly a S&G concert... they covered all but one of their greatest hits, plus four other songs from the "Bridge over Troubled Waters" album, and lots of other good stuff. Only 2 solo Paul Simon songs. They sounded great... it was definitely worth $150 a ticket!
And that's about it. I figure that's probably more info than is really needed in any Christmas card, but since I'm only writing this one, rambling on a bit doesn't seem too bad. Anyway, I hope this year has gone well for you, and that the coming one is twice as nice.
Take care,
Greg