Hi Everyone! Here's my annual Holiday Greeting!

(I like to consider it my cheap way to not have to send out cards! Even though I tried to send them to everyone I had a current address for, this should catch the rest of you, and it makes me feel like I've done something during this long Christmas break.)

I realize that this is late for Christmas, or Kwansa or whatever you might be celebrating, but it is still the holiday and I am just glad to get it out at all. At least it is annual, unlike the newsletter these days!

How do I review this past year? Well, it was a growth year. I got fatter and Jarrett and Tanner got taller. Ellie stayed pretty much the same. (You can see that Tanner is quite tall when he stands up, on the porch below with Ellie.) Of course, now that it's the New Year (the New Millennium no less) I am trying to slim down.

The year 2000 started off slow and then I got the Chicken pox back, after 30 years since I originally got them. Perhaps having a teenage son was stressing me out. Nevertheless, that chewed up March... that and a conference and computer security training in Orlando for ten days. I must say that Orlando is a nice place to visit if you stay in the hotel, but I wouldn't want to live there. (Of course, all the hoo-hah in November made me swear off Florida anyhow.)

Jarrett was bugging me, like he has since he was 13, for a car. We happened across a Porsche, if you can believe it, for a great price. Well, the engine blew up in a month and we knew why we paid such a good price. I had the car fixed at the end of the summer, not quite in time for Jarrett when he returned from his Mom's where he spent the summer in New Mexico. But it was quite a learning experience. I bought a new engine and got to see everything involved in having someone install it, when they had never worked on a Porsche before. The first half of the year or more was very car-oriented, I must say. Then, sadly, someone ran into the car as Jarrett was making a turn and the insurance agency totalled the car. No more Porsche. Yes, Jarrett is OK. He is just going to have to wait until he saves up some money, perhaps this summer (2001) before he gets another car.

The summer was nice and quiet. I started exercising and enjoyed the me-time, while Jarrett was off in New Mexico for two months. I visited a friend in Chicago and went out with some friends. This exercising thing was not very effective though. I ended up blowing my knees out and spent October and November walking around like somebody's great-grandfather with arthritis. (Don't get me started on how much I "don't" want to be a "grandfather" in the near future. Jarrett proved to be quite the ladies man this year, but thankfully for me he is taking it slow. Another reason you get white hair when you have a kid who just turned 17 in December!)

What else this year? Well, Los Alamos caught on fire. I helped out by providing some free web space on my and Raman's server out in Virginia at his place. I was glad to be in Iowa while NM was burning, but I was sad to hear they lost so much. Then, about that time we had the "I Love You" virus hit John Deere. It was a good week or so of not sleeping and scrambling to put all the procedures for viruses in place that we were never given the time to do before. Of course the PPSA server runs on a good ol' Mac and was not affected.

At the end of the summer I had some serious inquiries from some companies that wanted to hire me. I didn't take them, but it was stressful getting excited about something like that and then deciding it was not the right thing at the right time. I am actually quite happy with things at Deere. Sure another ten grand a year wouldn't hurt, but it is going pretty good. We even did well enough to get a bonus this year. In retrospect, I think I have learned a lot about the whole job market and I want to wait until Jarrett is finished with school before seriously considering a move again. He was pretty confused about it all, and it affected his grades since he thought we would be moving and it wouldn't count. Guess he learned something too.

I passed my CISSP certification exam in November for computer security. I have enjoyed moving into this field. It is technical, gets involved with all aspects of computers and networks, classification, data protection, viruses, etc. It is a fast growing field and I think that it will offer me a lot more growth potential than I would have had working in a lab somewhere. I also got interviewed in a major trade magazine this year, not that it was such a big deal, but it shows how new the field is if they would consider me an expert. Hehe...

We drove up to see my folks for Thanksgiving and that was a great time. The weather was definitely wintery, but despite the crummy driving conditions, it was fun to see the family and the new house my sister is building. (She and her husband, Chad and my nephew Mitchell are in the picture below. Also Jarrett and my Dad.)

So the holidays have come and gone already! I hope you all had wonderful times. I sent Jarrett off to his Mom's for the week, since all his brothers and sisters will be there, and I took the time to rest, reflect, play some games, read some books, and basically recharge after a long year. I think that 2001 will be a great year. They all seem to be getting better. Even Miami won their first playoff game!

Well here's my lame little montage.

Merry Christmas, yada yada yada....

John