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SPRING 2006
 
After a two year hiatus, finally an update!

Where does the time go?

In looking at our sadly neglected site, I can only conclude that the demise of updates on the website coincided with our complete assimilation by soccer.
Some call it a sport, but others call it an existance. As the tee shirt reads. "There is life, and there is soccer."

Having said all that, I will begin by telling the news and later I will go backwards in time and fill in some significant bits and pieces by placing more pages between today and March 2004.

Logan is now in college! He started in the fall of 2005 at Michigan State University. He currently lives on campus in a dorm, but plans to move home this summer and commute next year, as the University is only about 35 miles away. His fall semester was tough, MSU is substantially more difficult than high school, but he has rallied gloriously in the spring semester and I believe is feeling good about college in general and not just about college life. ;)

Linden is now a Junior in high school, has a job, and a car. Yay for a job!! She is taking a heavy schedule this semester in school but is holding her own. Her best subjects currently are Geometry, Accounting, German II, and Shakesphere which are (as of this weeks progress report) all A's. Way to go Linden! She was planning her fall schedule last night and it is very heavy in science. Linden actually only needs two more classes to graduate but will take a full load next year in preparation for college. She is currently leaning towards Medicine or Physical Therapy as a career.

Lori has survived three rounds of cutbacks at work over the past two years and probably had her workload doubled as a result of them. Politics aside, Michigan suffers greatly when the national economy slows down and people get worried about the future. Another round of plant closings have swept the state over the past two years and the states unemployment rate is up as a result. Michigan hasn't gotten the tax revenues it needs to support the size of it's state government and that means cutbacks in spending. Lori has valiently shouldered the additional burden at work (along with her coworkers) and is learning a lot about writing grants and higher management functions. The last round of cutbacks claimed the director's position when her old boss retired and wasn't replaced, so those duties were divided up and "devolved" to the coordinator's level. Don't you just love the word devolved? Lori works out nearly every day and will play soccer again this spring, as well as coach soccer for our NW Phoenix girls U14 club team. This may be her last season of coaching unless the community parents are successful in convincing her to coach "just one more season." Lori is still teaching sunday school at the temple and this may also be her last year for that. Her dedication to helping others has always been impressive.

I have made some changes in my career over the past year. After two straight years of raising my sales in engineering labor billed and teaching billed, plus getting some good projects going in our area, I decided to leave EESCO after 7 years. I was offered a deal to work on a contract basis for a local manufacturer as a controls engineer and to also pursue some other projects at three other companies. From August 2005 to February 2006 I worked for myself doing control system programming and data collection projects. I had some successes on projects at places like the plant that makes the convertable tops for the Ford Mustang, a plant that makes pressure relief valves for various engine types used by the big three and others, and a plant that makes hinge assemblies for cars. The work has been great.... challanging and rewarding. Strangely, working for myself was planned from the beginning as a temporary thing because another company had expressed interest in hiring me in June of 2005 and I finally started there at the end of February 2006. I returned to LeMatic this spring, the machine builder I worked for from 1984 to 1998. The needed an engineer who had skills in data communication between different types of control systems, in data collection work, and someone able to take on vision systems and robots. I have been going to ABB Robotics school in Detroit and it's very interesting material. I will be heading to France in about a month to study a vision system from VisionF (a company near Toulouse) and have some installations on my calender where I can begin getting my hands dirty in the field. It's good to be working with my old friends again, and we have some big projects to design and impliment before next fall when we go to Munich, Germany to display our new stuff at a tradeshow. This show is during Oktoberfest, and I will endeavor to have a beer whist I am there with my coworkers. The sacrifices we make for the job ;)

Noteworthy events upcoming:

- Logan turns 19 this June 2nd, 2006! Logan we love the man you are growing up to be.

- This June 8th, 2006 is our 20th Wedding Anniversary!! We are currently making tenative plans for a getaway to Hawaii.

- Our exchange student son, Frank, will return for a visit again this summer. Frank is doing great in Germany, I am very proud of his accomplishments this past year and we all love Frankie with all of our hearts. Frank will finally get his own page here, I'm sorry it has taken me so long to get this rolling Frank!

- We have agreed to host another exchange student starting in August. Her name is Feng Fan, and she lives in Beijing, PRC (China). Fan Fan deserves her own write up and after I get permission from her and her parents I will post a page just about her.


Peace and health to all!

Greg

 

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Copyright 2006

Last Updated 03/22/06

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