summertime fun

Gene,

I just reread your last travelogue and thought about the nanomorts a little bit. Figured that it was time to send another note to update you on the latest happenings.

Josh got me an interesting Father's Day gift this year. An acrobatic flying lesson. We all went out to our local general aviation airport, I strapped on a parachute (an FAA requirement) and climbed in the front of an acrobatic plane (with an instructor behind me) and off we went for a little over an hour in the wild blue yonder. We were warned that most people (90%) that get these acrobatic presents from loved ones need to head back early (for various emotional reasons), but this turned out to be a great gift. I found out that I loved the loops, rolls and spins and the more we did, the more I wanted to try. At the end, I also decided that I was finally going to get my private pilot's license (a 25-year ambition). Must be a mid-life crisis thing, but I was never fond of Corvettes anyway. We already had a number of vacation trips booked for the summer, so I'm planning to start in the next few weeks. At least I know that I'm not leaving young orphans behind!

A couple of months ago, Avaya decided to disallow vacation carryover starting next year, so there are a number of us that are scrambling to take backlogged vacation while we still can. Rachel was working in central London this summer as an intern in a media relations firm. She was also turning 21 at the beginning of August, which gave Robin and I a good excuse to spend some time at the end of July visiting the UK and also to help her celebrate.

The phone rang at about 2AM on July 7th and Rachel was on the line. She wanted to speak to us to let us know that she was okay before we woke up the next morning and saw the news about the London bombings. Rachel takes the tube to work and was on the Piccadilly line almost at the Kings Cross station when the train was jolted (people standing were thrown around, but luckily she had a seat). Then the power went out and there was an announcement stating that the training was experiencing electrical problems; probably a transformer. About a half hour later, the train limped into Kings Cross and another announcement asked everyone to exit the train in an orderly manner and immediately leave the station. Rachel was in the first car and as she exited saw billows of noxious smelling smoke pouring out of the tunnel at the back of the train. She held her breath and made it to the stairs and started looking for a bus to get to work (a bad move given what was about to happen a short distance away). She finally made it to work late and was shaken to find out on the news what had really happened. That's when we got our call. In any case, everyone was sent home (in cabs) to decompress. All in all, I think she took the whole situation better than we did. With all of the confusion and the investigations underway, it took Rachel about a week to figure out that she was not on the train with the bomb, but had just passed it going the other direction when the bomb went off. A close call anyway. Some of the interns booked flights back to the "safety" of the good ol USA, but Rachel had no intention of cutting things short and we agreed.

Our trip to the UK a few weeks later was great. Lots of security all over the place, but everyone was taking things in stride. Robin had never been to the UK before, so we spent most of our time in the vicinity of London with 2 days in Scotland. A week after we got back (in mid-August), we helped Josh move into the dorms at CSU Chico, where he is a incoming freshman. We're now officially empty nesters, which has been an interesting experience. The quiet is eerie at times, but the house definitely stays a lot cleaner!

Last week, we met Rachel in Las Vegas for a long weekend. Robin's parents did this as an initiation ritual when their kids turned 21, so we thought it was a good tradition to carry on. Some casino hopping, a few really good meals and an evening with the Blue Man group.

Now that the summer is winding down, Robin is taking golf lessons and I'm planning for the wild blue yonder.

Hope all is well for you and yours. When you get a chance, a new picture of Elizabeth would be great.

Best,

Aaron