2018

Happy New Year 2018!!!

[For our New Year card, we reminisce on the highlights of the previous year, in this case 2017...]

Highights of 2017 (in 12 photos):

On a visit to the UC Berkeley Art Museum, we saw a photo of John and Yoko. Now, we don’t think we really resemble them, but some people have implicated that they think a resemblance exists, so we asked a passing art browser to take this photo.

The big event of 2017 was the Great American Eclipse (August 21) that we experienced along with Alan’s brother Dan and his wife Susan at Terrebonne OR. Diane took this photo, getting ready for viewing the eclipse—binoculars with solar filters, welder's glass on cardboard frame, and what-not. (left to right: Dan, Susan, Alan).

Here is Diane's hand-held iPhone photo of totality.

Didn't quite capture the the true awesomeness.

The day after the eclipse, we relaxed at the Redmond airport waiting for our flight, sipping Bloody Marys.

(Left to right: Diane, Alan, Dan, Susan)

Here is Alan amidst other alumni of the George Washington High School class of '67 at our 50-year reunion. He was on the planning committee.

Before returning to Berkeley from Alan's 50-year high school reunion, we had a beer with my brother Richard's wife (widow), Susan Kaplan and his best friend from childhood, Bob Tichy.

In September, Diane, her college friend Tina, and Alan went to a wine harvest “boot camp” at Trefethen vineyards where we learned all about picking grapes and other aspects of grape harvest for wine-making. This photo shows Diane very happily doing her part with a grapevine cutting knife.

Perhaps the biggest achievement of the year was the publication of Alan’s brother Richard’s book Refusal to Submit, that is about Richard’s refusal to serve in the army during the Vietnam War and subsequent imprisonment. Alan, his older brother Dan, Richard’s widow Susan Kaplan, and daughter Sarah all worked together to get the book finished after Richard’s untimely death in 2013, with 99.9% of his book complete. Here is Al;an holding his first copy! (Find out more about this book at http://www.refusaltosubmit.org)

On October 29 we were treated to a VIP tour at Lick Observatory on Mt Hamilton (near San Jose). Here's Alan standing by one of the smaller telescopes. UC Professor Alex Filippenko was giving us the tour.

This photo taken August 10 is of Alan's Venus Flytrap that he won at a the annual banquet of the Eastbay Astronomical Society earlier in the year. Did it bite off more than it could chew?

Finally, here is a photo, not from this year obviously since my brother Dick passed away in 2013. But it's a nice picture taken by Diane at an art event where Susan Sternleib (Dan's wife) was showcasing ceramics that she had made. (Left to right: Alan Dan, Susan, Dick)