Christmas Letter 2002

Alan Hodgkinson Reckenbühlstrasse 12 CH-6005 Luzern, Switzerland alan.hodgkinson@alum.mit.edu http://www.softxs.ch/alan

The holiday season is upon us again, and with it my yearly Christmas letter. This year has really rushed by, but strangely, I don't feel there is much to report. There are of course a few important items, but before write about them, I'd like to wish you all a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

This year's big news is that I have moved. Remember to note my new address in your address book. After over 15 years at the same address and almost a year of searching, I finally found a new place. I still live in Luzern, not too far from my previous place, in a building that sits on the flank of a hill. This means that I now have a view of the Alps and part of downtown Luzern. While the apartment is new to me, it's by no means a new apartment. The building was constructed in the 1870's and is best described as villa. It's a much bigger and much nicer place; and most important of all, I share it with Sandra. Yes, you understood that correctly: Sandra and I have moved in together. In fact, she found the apartment. It's as much hers as it is mine.

As a result of the move and the subsequent effort required to set up our new place, we traveled embarrassingly little this year. Most of our free time seemed to be spent packing and unpacking. But the months of preparation resulted in a relatively hassle free move. A big gang of close friends did most of actual moving work. Twelve people showed up to help with my move and within four hours the entire consignment of boxes and furniture was in the new place. For those of you who helped, many thanks and a reminder that I haven't forgotten that I still owe you all a nice dinner.

As mentioned above, we traveled very little this year. Apart from our yearly pilgrimage to Pontresina for the ski marathon (more below), we had long ski weekend in Cervinia, the Italian side of the Matterhorn, with Sandra's sister and associated family. Sandra and I also went to Paris in September, where we enjoyed a weekend of warm and sunny weather. Probably the last days of the year in which you could feel comfortable outside without a sweater.

Our only big trip this year was to visit family in California, and I am pleased to report that all are doing well and enjoying life. We were there for the first two weeks of October and had good weather the entire time. Mostly sun and not too hot. Being in familiar territory, and unlike many of our trips, we had no need for guides or complicated arrangements for local transportation. We just showed up and took each day more or less as it came. We spent a couple of days in San Francisco and made a three day trip to Monterrey and Carmel. The highlight of the trip was definitely the Pacific coast, particularly the marine life at Point Lobos National Monument and the Monterey Aquarium. There we saw jellyfish, tide-pools, seals, and our favorites, the otters.

This year's Engadin cross-country ski marathon was a new challenge for me. Last year I was promoted up into a new group, which means I completed this year in the second to the last group. The race itself went quite well. I had fun, but also managed to achieve my goal, which was to not be demoted. After the race we stayed on a few days in Pontresina enjoying the sun and going out on short cross-country ski trips. Sandra joined me on a tour over the middle part of the marathon course, which included going over the big hill. She managed quite well, but afterwards wanted to take a proper lesson with a real instructor. We took a lesson together and Sandra was given tips that improved her technique considerably. I also learned something, namely that my polling technique is completely wrong and that I am wasting most of my energy! Ever the optimist, I figure this means I can do better next year. For those that want to read more, I've published a humorous write-up of my first race in 1999 and some photos from this year's race on my home page.

Professionally, I've had better years. One highlight was a project based in London. This resulted in my living there for a month, implementing a software system for a bank. London is one of my favorite cities and I enjoyed my time there and, of course, the opportunity to see friends and relatives.

My web site continues to grow as I slowly add more pictures and web pages. I've largely automated my picture publishing, but in spite of the automation I still have a large backlog. Unfortunately, I seem to be taking more and more pictures, causing the backlog to grow even further. I'm hoping to catch up a little over the coming holidays. In conjunction with the web publishing, I've somehow managed to move up in the rankings of the Google search engine. such that I am now the first link listed when you search for my full name. This may explain recent contacts I've had from some long lost friends. Perhaps also related is that complete strangers are apparently viewing my web pages, which has resulted in unsolicited contacts from people asking for travel and other advice. The most interesting of which was from someone writing a book on Beaches of the World, who wrote asking for pictures of the beaches in Oman.

Otherwise: I did almost no motorcycling this year, other than to start the bike to ensure that it still runs and to take it to the new garage. This is a sad state of affairs and I hope to do better next year. In compensation, I started doing Wing Chung Kung Fu again, after a break of over seven years. I've managed to surpass my, admittedly low, previous standard and am now learning lots of new moves. I won't say I am very good at it, but it is a lot of fun and does keep me fit.

I'll close by sending you my best wishes for the holiday season and the coming year. Thanks for last year's cards, letters and photographs. As always, I look forward to hearing from you in the coming year.

Best wishes,

Alan.