Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 18:53:06 -0500
Subject: Weekend Update: February 8-11, 2002

One might think that all Mark and family do is party when you find
out that we attended a Hawaiian party at our church on Friday night.
But this isn't one that we organized.  We're just as happy being
attenders as we are preparers.  Joy and wore matching colorful
shirts.  Several of us even wore shorts. Joy decided that she wouldn't
wear short saying that it was a bad idea at this time of year when
many women put their razors up for hibernation.  I was a bit
disappointed when I found out that our own native Hawaaian,
Coleen Lane wasn't coming to perform a dance for us; only seen
at her daughter's wedding some years ago now.  I did catch a
snapshot of Joy making aloha with a hula hoop.

Saturday was chore day, and we had some catching up to do with
maintenance on the home front.  The weather in New England was
mild enough for me to finally wash the car and find that it was
still green underneath the thick coat of gray.  I also checked
the transmission fluid on the van; doesn't a brown color mean
something bad?  (We plan to put it in the shop in the next couple
of weeks and will tempt fate until then.)

My brother John and his wife Vroni just got back from
a cruise on Sunday, and I'm awaiting some sort of travel
report.  It is the first time that they had left their kids
(home with Grandma and Grandpa), but they were able to email
them daily, so I believe they survived unless John and Vroni
extended their cruise!  Joy and I have been looking to book
our second cruise for a while and we finally settled on one
for this April 6-17; an 11-day cruise that will take us to
Mexico and Belize and two other Caribbean Islands.  We liked
our first cruise very much but felt that two things would make
it better: a longer cruise, and friends to share it with.
We got one of the two so it is a good thing that Joy and I
can stand to be alone with each other for that long.  Kid
coverage is being handled by Miranda for most of the time
with Jeff Lane agreeing to house sit when Mandy is unavailable.
It will be a tough challenge but Jeff is man enough. We want
to save Grandma and Grandpa time for when they can visit
while we're at home.

I am in Southern Californiafor the first part of this week, and
getting here was quite a trip.  We missed our connection in
Washington Dulles by about 15 minutes so my traveling companion
and I scrambled to find another flight.  None were available to
San Diego so we took the next flight to Los Angelas (Hi Jeanette
and Rosita!).  I got to bed last night at midnight local time=
(that's 3AM for an east coast translation) - and woke up at 4:00,
5:00, 5:30, and 6:00 to catch a 7:30 "puddle jumper" to San Diego.
I then drove back north about halfway between LA and San Diego (to
Irvine, CA) for my office days.  (Since my return trip is out of
San Diego, it was better to rent the car from there rather than just
drive down from LA.)  My traveling companion is a member of the
Red Carpet Club, which meant that my delay was much more tolerable
and flight rearrangements were more efficiently remade.  The weather
here for you back-home bodies is in the upper 70s and sunny; like
an early June day.  I'd extend my trip just for the weather, but I
have a Valentine waiting for me back in Pepperell.  I could bring her
here, I suppose, but she'll be working with sunscreen soon enough.
I only hope that delays only happen on going to work and not coming
home from a couple of sunny days at the office.

Mark
+---_-----------+ Mark Metcalfe, metcalfe@cadence.com
| c a d e n c e | Cadence Design Systems, Inc.    Phone: (978) 446-6451
+---------------+ Manager, PCB Enterprise Publications