Christmas, 1999
This may turn out to be the biggest year yet for us. Our once-quiet home has been invaded
by a baby. Lucinda was born on March 3rd. This was the culmination of a long and arduous
process, and marked a major turning point for us. Still, it's been an interesting process, and
as of this writing, she is 9 months old, and quite the interactive
baby. We're having great fun playing with her and watching her
grow. Here is a picture of her at Halloween, in her first costume.
This is Lucindazilla, the monster who has taken over our lives. By
comparison, destroying Tokyo is nothing.
Aside from this, we tried as best we could to have a normal year,
doing the usual things we do.
We went to see The Skeptic's Magic Show at Caltech, which was
great fun. The other Skeptics Society talk we went to dealt with the
topic of fear-mongering in the media. That one was a real eye-opener. A trip to Santa Monica took us to an art gallery, where we
saw a fine-art photographic study of the Unabomber's cabin. We
also rode the new Red Line subway on its opening day. Lucinda also went with us to Gay
Pride in West Hollywood in June. We figured that it's never too early to expose our child to
culture. In this vein, we also took her to her first tattoo convention in Hollywood.
Our vacation for this year was a one-week trip to Lake Tahoe in August, which was a nice
change of scenery, even if we didn't do much there this time. Mostly just sat around the
house and watched the cable TV. Still, Stan managed to spend some time at the blackjack
tables at Harrah's, and came away $2.50 richer.
On the home front, we finished remodeling Cathy's bathroom, installing a new tub and tile,
new counter top, and a new floor. We also had the house painted this year. The other big
house projects involved rearranging in order to make room for Lucinda.
Stan's work is still going well, although he is often much too busy with it, especially with the
M7.1 Hector Mine Earthquake in October. Still, it's interesting and entertaining work. Cathy
has adapted well to being a stay-at-home mom, so we're both really quite content.
As if all of this wasn't enough, Stan turned 40 this year.
In geek news, we got a DSL line for our house, so our home is now available on the Internet.
We have a web page at http://www.cosmo.pasadena.ca.us, and here you can find Lucinda's
photo album, as well as various other assorted entertainments.
Hope your year has been as entertaining as ours.
Stan and Cathy