Happy Birthday Jessica and Travis!

Today Jessica and Travis reach another of those annual milestones that we call birthdays. Kathie had these photographs of the twins taken at about six year intervals. You have to love those smiles and the obvious connections they have to each other, connections that have continued through the years.

One year, when both of them were in Colorado, we took them for a hot air balloon ride on their birthday. I recall this was their 21st.

Turns out that they both enjoy cooking and are quite accomplished at it. Jessica has a degree in the culinary arts, and Travis manages a restaurant and kitchen in Colorado. We frequently take advantage of and benefit from these skills when we are together.

Travis enjoys fishing when he gets the chance. He and his mom have ventured up into Rocky Mountain National Park for some fly fishing.

When we visited his grandparents in Florida one year, they took us out for some deep sea fishing. Travis hooked this approximately 50 pound caravelle jack, and it took nearly half an hour to land it.

He loves his dog, Oliver.

Jessica likes to keep in touch with her mom. Nowadays this often involves FaceTime. Having Nana remotely entertain Maia can help make the days a little more manageable.

I am very impressed with the way Jessica has taken to being a mother herself. She is a natural--very loving and nurturing, and along with Mike, she provides strength and grounding for her family.

We once thought Travis had found the perfect mate in the sweet young girl you see below. After all, anyone who looks like that and who would bring you beers would seem like a real catch. Traveling with her was also easy. However, she proved to be pretty shallow, so it didn't work out. Nevertheless, we know there is someone out there for him. It is only a matter of time before someone meets him and learns what a great guy he is.

In the meantime, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Travis and Jessica! We all love you!

Weekend Away

We spent this past weekend with Betsy and her family, and Pete's parents, Mary and Peter, kindly made a bed available to us at their house for the two nights we were there.

When we arrived, Henry had just finished making a Lego model of Franklin, their Dachshund. I thought it was both clever and accurate.

Pete and I installed a water filter system under their kitchen sink, and this required trips to the hardware store. On the first trip, we all walked downtown together and stopped at the playground, where Frederick and his mom peeked through a porthole in one of the climbing areas.

The weather was iffy in the morning but got nicer throughout the day. We played in the back yard a bit, and Betsy did some chalk drawing.

Then, we walked to the local school ground to fly kits. Henry got his Angry Birds kite up pretty quickly.

Clara got her Panda kite up too. She let all the string out so that it was quite high, and she was very skillful in controlling it. This was the most fun I've had flying kites in quite a long time.

Meanwhile, Frederick and his dad roughhoused in the lawn nearby.

I had not realized that Henry and Clara had already achieved good levels of ability on the piano. Each of them played some songs for us, and Clara even sang along as she accompanied herself. (I think it was a song from Frozen, not surprisingly.)

On Sunday, Betsy fixed a nice brunch for all of us.

Henry set up a figure eight with his electric train, and of course, I enjoyed that. Frederick really liked it too.

I couldn't resist this photo of Clara and her grandmothers.

Here we all are about to partake. A fun weekend all around.

The drive home was rainy the whole way, and now this morning (Monday) the temperatures are in the 30s! Thankfully, it is only supposed to be this way for the one day, and then spring will make another attempt at an appearance. At least things are starting to look a lot greener. Funny what a little rain and a little warm weather will do!

Happy Birthday, Will!

Seems like only yesterday that Will and I were riding across the USA as a part of the bicycle ride known as the 1989 TransAmerica Bicycle Trek. Will is now officially older than I was when he and I did that ride together. That gives me pause! Nevertheless, Happy Birthday Will!

A sad note about his birthday is that it occurred on the very day that Martin Luther King was lost to us. This fact and a couple of others make the day especially memorable for me. I was near the end of my MS degree program at the time, and Will's arrival meant that my draft status during this time of the Vietnam War changed from 1A to 4A and probably kept me at home. Holding my son was such an awesome experience. I'm happy to say he still accepts my hugs and now hugs me back to boot.

Will was a very happy child. He loved visiting Grandma and Grandpa on the farm.

On one of our trips to California, he met Donald Duck at Disneyland. Love the sunglasses!

He always enjoyed building things, something we encouraged with toys like this giant-sized erector set.

I used to follow the Kansas City Chiefs, especially when Ed Podolak played there, and so Will had a Chiefs jacket. Nowadays, his brother is more the Chiefs fan.

Teaching his siblings the finer arts of popsicle consumption.

I got Will his first serious bicycle when he was ten years old, and he did RAGBRAI with me that same year. (Later, Rob and Betsy also did their first RAGBRAIs as they reached the age of ten.)

I also helped introduce him to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness. He was a double-packer right from the get-go. He loved the BWCA so much that he eventually found a way to work there for the outfitter with whom we always did our trips. He eventually met Sandy there, and they were actually married in a clearing in the forest just outside the BWCA. Today, they own property in that area as well.

For a little while, he played trumpet and participated in the City High band. I like how spiffy he looked in his concert tuxedo/uniform.

Remember that early bicycle riding he did and my mention of the 1989 Trek? Here he is showing off on a road in Montana as we rode together one day during that wonderful shared experience.

Will and Rob became good friends over the years, advancing beyond the simpler sibling affection they shared earlier. I really like this picture of them together, taken as I recall at a softball game.

Here he is with Sandy, that sweet girl he met when working summers in the BWCA.

Now Will is a dad too and a good one, as I've observed and as Sandy as remarked. He and Anders like to play. I bet they will have some of their own adventures as Anders gets older, if not a Trek, then surely canoe trips and other things.

And here he is with Donald Duck once again--this time with his whole family. Will may have grown up a bit, but Donald seems not to have changed much!

Your family loves you, Will! Again, Happy Birthday!

The Wall

Until I retired, I had little opportunity to fully enjoy woodworking, although it is something I always wanted to be able to do more. Once my days became my own, I started carving out parts of our basement to create a shop and to outfit it with better tools. To contain the dust and mess, I hung sheets of plastic to separate the shop area from other parts of our basement. I thought many times about building a nice wall to better partition the basement and to create a nicer look, but I just never seemed to get around to it. Until now, that is!

This ends up being one of those projects that I wish I had done long ago. My shop is now a little larger, and I'll be able to organize it much better, since positioning things by or hanging things on that "plastic wall" just didn't work very well. Below you can see the results. I put a window in the wall to provide for better light distribution (and so that folks could spy on me), and I used a French door so that I could have a good wide space for moving things in and out. Both areas of the basement, the shop and the utility/laundry room, look much nicer. Now I can get back to work on all those other projects I've wanted to do.

Lingerie Chest

Kathie asked me awhile ago to build a lingerie chest for her. I finally got this done. I used quarter-sawn white oak and a mission finish, both of which I especially like. Kathie hasn't filled those seven drawers yet, and it isn't as though she has that much lingerie, but she thinks it will be nice to better organize her sweaters, socks, and other things.

Next up is a project I've put off for quite a long time. I'm going to build a nicer, more permanent wall in the basement to separate my shop from the rest of the utility and laundry areas. After that, I have a number of small projects I'd like to do, although soon we will enter those months where we spend most of our time in Wisconsin. I have projects there too!

Happy Birthday Dad

Dad would have been 96 years old this year. His birthday (March 15) used to be the day taxes were due, but that was prior to 1954. Having passed away in 2001, he never got to meet any of his wonderful great-grandchildren, but he would have loved all eight of them. Come to think of it, he never got to see any of his grandchildren get married, either, and I know he would have loved all of their spouses just as much as I do. He did know a couple of them at least. I see now where my current lack of hair comes from. He would have found the current Hawkeye basketball collapse just as frustrating as I do, but he would have enjoyed last season's somewhat unexpected football successes. I miss you, Dad. Too bad we can't meet for breakfast with all your friends at Ditto's like we used to do! If we could, I'd bring a cake with six candles, one for each set of 16 years, and you could easily blow them out for us.

New Director for Smithsonian

We learned yesterday that David Skorton has been selected to become the next director of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. You can read more by clicking here. This is especially interesting and exciting news to me, because I had the great privilege to work directly for David in three different capacities at The University of Iowa. From 1993 to 2000, I reported to him as the university's chief information officer; from 2000 to 2003, I reported to him as Associate Vice President for Research; and from 2003 to 2005, I served as his interim Vice President for Research when he became President of the university.

Working for David really was an extraordinary opportunity. As a mentor and colleague, he provided generous support and leadership, and he did these things by being the best possible model himself for what an administrator and leader of an institution should be. He was thoughtful, inspirational, and courageous. More than anyone else, he taught me the importance of listening, of shared governance and of one's critical responsibility to enable and celebrate the work that is done by all of those individuals who may report to you and who really do the work of the enterprise.

A little side story may further illustrate why I feel so much with regard to David Skorton. In 2001, during the time that he was Vice President for Research at the university and I reported as Associate Vice President, my father became quite ill and eventually passed away. I was with my family in Dad's hometown, about an hour away from Iowa City. We were hosting a visitation prior to the funeral the following day. Completely unexpected to me and in the long line of the many friends and family who came to express their condolences at my father's death, David appeared. This man, with his extraordinarily busy life at the university, took the time to travel some distance to pay his respects to my father and his family. I was more than a little humbled and honored by that, and to me, it illustrates much about the kind of man David is.

Like almost everyone else I know at the university, I was deeply disappointed to watch the politicization and failure of the Iowa Board of Regents to understand the treasure they had in having David as the university's leader and to support him in his work. Iowa lost much when David was chosen to become the President of Cornell University in 2006. That move and now the position at the Smithsonian prove how great that loss was for Iowa. Of course, for David, these opportunities to continue to be a force in higher education, the arts and humanities, and the sciences, could not be more deserved.

Near the end of our time working together, the following two photographs were taken. The first was taken by a university photographer while a number of us were beginning to assemble at the President's home for a reception to honor the achievements of certain faculty members. The photographer, unknown to us, captured a private conversation between David and me on the sunporch of the home. I do recall the content of that conversation, but that is unimportant. What I will always feel when viewing the photograph are these things: how privileged I was to be in David's presence and to work for him, how attentively he listened to the concerns of those of us who worked for him, and how good he was at helping us and supporting us in addressing those concerns and doing our jobs. In my heart of hearts, I always questioned why someone with my limited background should be so lucky as to have the opportunities and responsibilities given to me, but David always made me feel capable and productive, and for that I will always be grateful.

This second photograph was taken after the last meeting I attended while still serving as a member of David's senior staff. There are many good people in this picture, individuals for whom I also have great respect and admiration. Of course, David is at the center of the picture, and I hope you can see in the smiles of those present, the overall sense of comaraderie and the commitment to his leadership.

David, congratulations on your selection to the post at the Smithsonian, and thank you once again for the opportunities you gave me and for the happy times you made possible in my life.

Happy Birthday Rob!

Rob will be celebrating his first birthday north of 40 on March 5th. I thought I would take the occasion to post some favorite pictures of him.

From the get-go, he has always been adventurous. Note his snazzy (actual cloth) diapers with the engraved sterling silver diaper pins. (I wonder if he still has them?)

When we went out to the farm, before Mom and Dad retired, he loved watching Dad milk the cows.

I liked his initialed cap. (Will had his own WD version, and they made quite a pair.) Rob always paid attention to what his parents had to say (well for a few years that was true anyway).

He loved orange popsicles--remember when they came as twins instead of singles?

Rob has always looked good in hats. Here he tries out my Stetson. It actually fit him pretty well.

When he started working for the City of Iowa City as a construction inspector and supervisor, he first worked on the new city water plant, just north of town. He gave me a tour of the facility while it was under construction and showed me what his responsibilities were. Needless to say, a father can be very impressed and proud of the work his (previously) little boy was now doing.

But, I'll always be most proud of the kind, caring, and dedicated father he has proven to be. This photo, which I took when we were on one of our boating outings at the lake one summer, illustrates what I mean.

Of course, he'll always be a Hawkeye, and his girls won't have a chance to be anything else either. That's just fine with me!

Rob is a good uncle too. He can be kind of a ham, and with Henry as a co-conspirator, anything can happen.

Rob and all his girls make up a wonderful family. I love them all.

 Happy Birthday big guy! I love you very much, as I'm sure you know.