2000: A Year of Change
How do you measure a year? In moonlights? In sunsets?... Seasons
of Love was one of the songs performed by the Rainbow Chorale in their
Spring Concert. This year we can measure by the changes in our lives and
by the great sites we got to see. In the year 2000, I got to see for the
first time in my life: the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Niagara Falls,
the Old Faithful, the Northern Lights, Mount Fiji, and a wonder of light
reflection in thousands of directions from freshly fallen snow flakes on
a cold evening in Edmonton. Read on to learn how all this came to pass.
2000 has been
a year of changes and traveling for us. We sure feel like globe trotters
now. Because of all the Y2K hysteria, for the first time in many years,
we passed the new year from 1999 to 2000 at home 
with
a few friends. It was nice, quiet and different. We spent 1999 Christmas
in 
Oklahoma
with Scott's family. After the traditional Christmas gathering at Scott's
aunt Diane place we went back to Ardmore where Scott's parents live. We
enjoyed the time with the family, took Braden, Scott's nephew, for a visit
to the state park where Scott taught him to skip rocks and scatter around
cat-tails. We helped Juana, Scott's Mom, with her Christmas party in Ardmore
and flew back to Delaware to spend the New Year's eve at our place with
Sandy and Wendy, two friends of ours in Delaware.
Our plans
for vacation in a nice resort town on the coast of Sao Paulo in Brazil
could not materialize because of my step-father health problems. Instead
we went to Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul (the city where we lived while
in Brazil), and visit around there. We stayed for a while in my family's
old cottage at the beach. Everyone jokes that it is still standing because
the termites hug each other to keep the house up. Our trip included visits
around the capital, going to old time restaurants, seeing friends that
we hadn't seen for three years, spending time at the beach with my entire
family. Doing our favorite family activities, such as sitting at the cottage's
porch to drink chimarrao, cook strips of beef and chicken in a small barbecue
grill that we call "Genghis-Khan" (apparently it has origins in Japan).
And we planted a tree, a ficus that
used to be in a pot in our house in Porto Alegre, in front of the new house
at the Beach. Or maybe I should say that we looked on as my brother planted
the tree. Perhaps the high point of that trip were the four days at a "hotel
fazenda" (scaled down version of a "dude ranch") in the mountain region
of the state of Rio Grande do Sul with my niece, my nephew, and my sister.
We were able to fish in a pond, milk a cow, horse-back ride, go to good
restaurants, visit the small mountain town, have a swim at a local creek
close to a water fall, and basically enjoy each others company.
Towards the end of January, soon after coming back from Brazil I went
to yet-another-project-meeting in Half Moon Bay in the San Francisco area.
From early February to mid-April, was my heavy interviewing time, in the
process I visited Boston (MA), Knoxville (TN), Golden (CO), Boulder (CO),
Rochester (NY), South Bend (IN), Edmonton (AB, Canada), Louisville (KY),
and Santa Clara (CA). Working my teaching twice a week with so many interviews
was quite a challenge. Scott also went to Palo Alto (CA) for an interview,
and in April he went to Tokyo for his annual Navy duty of two weeks. Needless
to say, our home life was a mess during that time. We had to let the vegetable
garden go. Although we still enjoyed early season vegetables such as greens,
peas, and a few strawberries. We also had a good herb garden that was useful
to enhance the flavor of dishes prepared with store bought vegetables.
Although I had many of the schools were I interviewed approaching me about
preparing an academic job offer, by the end of April our choices had narrowed
to University of Rochester and University of Alberta. Scott went himself
to an interview in Rochester (he had an outstanding offer from Alberta
since November 1999), he came back with a non-tenure track position offer
that could be converted into a tenure track one after two years. It was
nice that they created a position for him because they wanted me to go
there.
In early May I went to Cancun for a week for a conference. A great surprise
was to meet Steve Cuccione, a friend from Austin at the conference. While
in Cancun we were reviewing our options through e-mail and telephone. Everyday
the picture would change with offers from new places, and negotiations
going on with Alberta, Rochester, and Delaware. The decision was settle
towards the end of my trip there when Alberta informed me that they had
decided to offer me a tenured associate professor level position (all other
schools were talking about tenure track assistant professor positions).
This factor combined with the position they had offered to Scott and their
long standing effort to bring him there made the decision easy: we both
had our best offers at the same university!!! Of course we were very happy
with this situation and realized how fortunate we were. Thus on May 11th
we made the decision, I signed the contract and mailed back to Alberta
the next day, and we set our moving date for the end of June.
I was very happy to make it back from Mexico for the Spring concert
of the Rainbow Chorale of Delaware (I went straight from the airport to
the church). This gay and lesbian chorale was Scott's idea and he worked
very hard to get it started in 1999. He was the first president of the
group (for six months), and soon after the group was formed turned over
the leadership to local people. This group is one of the greatest success
in the gay scene in Delaware and we are very proud of its great work. The
concert was really good and I could sense how happy Scott was.
In that same
week I got a message from Brazil inviting me to come for a visit to the
Federal University in Rio Grande do Sul and to give some talks. The last 
thing
that I needed at that time was more traveling, but the visit was to Porto
Alegre where my Mom lives and I felt that I could not pass the opportunity.
Thus I spent the last week of May in Porto Alegre. It was great to visit
with friends, see my Mom, talk with many people in academia there that
I hadn't seem for a while. It was also a good chance to see Porto Alegre
again, visit with my family and friends. We went back to the Bambino restaurant
in the Public Market with my Mom, step dad, my sister, and a friend to
eat the best fish in the region.
June was the house/office dismantling/packing time, saying good bye
to friends, it went on a flash. We enjoyed seem lots of 
people
before leaving. A great party was organized by Scott for our friends and
colleagues.
We
started by going to a "u-pick" farm to pick up fresh strawberries, fresh
peas, and fresh asparagus. Then we went back home and everyone helped
shell the peas and hull the strawberries, we grilled the asparagus, and
home-made hamburgers, I freshly baked the hamburger buns. While we were
cooking there was enough time for a game of volleyball in our front lawn,
just behind my herb garden. Then we all sat in the grass and driveway
in front of the house until late in the evening. It was a great time.
Before leaving Delaware we were surprised with the news that Scott got
promoted to the position of Commander in the Navy Reserve. These news were
greeted with mixed feelings because in one hand it was a great recognition
of his peers, considering that he had not put a request for a promotion
and did not think that he was up to it. On the other hand, as military
things go, it is possible that he would have to go without a paid position
(in the reserve promotions do not come with positions). But as he is not
suppose to start as a commander until 2001 he got a transfer of his current
position to Seattle and should keep doing his work there.
On June 28 we
air-shiped Berry, our loved house cat, to Edmonton. Bruce and Judy, new
friends
in
Edmonton, were kind enough to pick him up at the airport and take care
of him while we were on the road. On June 29 we start driving across the
continent on our way to Alberta. We stopped in Urbana-Champaign to see
John and Missa, good friends from our Texas times. When we were in Sioux
Fall in South Dakota, I checked my email and found a message from Scott's
Mom that his aunt Marylin had sudden passed away. We spent some time
trying 
to
figure out a way for Scott to fly for the funeral, but decided against
it. We were in the middle of our move, I did not have my papers to enter
Canada, and a last minute ticket was very expensive. We kept on our trip
through South Dakota and Wyoming, visited the Badlands, Mount Rushmore,
the Devil's Tower, and finally made to the Yellowstone National Park in
the NorthWest Corner of Wyoming.
Scott's parents and his nephew joined us for five days at the 
Yellowstone,
we had a great time. We went to pick them up in Jackson Hole, a great sky
resort in Wyoming and a quaint town. While we were visiting Scott and Braden
went for a ride in the red 
Wagon.
On the way back to the Yellowstone we went through the Grand Tetons National
Park, which is named after the mountains that you see in the pictures.
While in Yellowstone we saw lots of wildlife, including elk, deer,
bison, bears, moose, bighorn sheep, ground squirrels, prairie dogs, and
coyotes. We went for white water rafting in Gardiner, Montana, just north
of the Yellowstone National Park. Scott went hiking with Braden along the
Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. We also visited plenty of thermal features,
and I got to see the Old Faithful for the first time in my life. We also
went to Cody, Wyoming for 
one
day to visit the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which is an excellent
museum about the life and time of Buffalo Bill. It has a very good collection
of western art, and an extensive gun collection that Scott's father enjoyed.
We had a great meal at Franca's, an excellent Italian Restaurant in Cody
(a single seating per evening, and it is by reservations only).
We made to Edmonton on July 10, and immediately started looking for
houses. After a week we put an offer on a house in Windsor Park, a nice
neighborhood next to the University and managed to close the deal before
my trip to Mountain View in the third week of July. During that trip I
worked with Gao and the people in the SGI compiler group on preparing a
tutorial to present in a conference in October. It was nice to visit our
friends Kagan, Irem, Guillaume, and Kurt. Kagan and Irem were kind enough
to let me cook at their kitchen. Something that I really welcomed after
being unsettle and eating in restaurants for about a month. During this
period I did not have my papers to enter Canada as a temporary worker.
Thus I was going between USA and Canada as a tourist while I waited for
the papers to show up any day.
When I got back to Edmonton Scott had moved to a small apartment on
campus and had Berry with him. August was the time of the Summer festivals
in Edmonton and we enjoyed briefly visiting some of them. On August 15
we finally moved into our
house. We spent the next few weeks buying temporary furniture (Ikea
style), because we planed to remodel the place and did not want to buy
permanent furniture before that. The second half of August was also the
time for the new faculty orientations at the University. We spent about
a week in various functions and met a number of new friends that are also
new faculties at the University. Some gay acquaintances also made efforts
such as organizing lunches and dinners to enable us to meet more people.
Soon we were very well acquainted with the local scene in Edmonton, and
had many new friends with whom we are enjoying having dinners, happy hours,
and other activities. After the new year we will go to Lake Louis for skiing.
This will be my very first time in the slopes.
As luck would have it, the day after I made back from California I got
a notice in the mail that my immigration papers were ready and that I had
to go to Buffalo in New York to pick up my visa. Thus the next week I flew
to Toronto and drove across the border to Buffalo to pick up my visa. I
took the opportunity to visit Niagara Falls and to have dinner with a cousin
of mine that now lives in Toronto with his family and that I hadn't seem
in more then ten years.
Scott started his flights to Seattle in the end of August for his weekend
Navy duty, which added to the hectic schedule that we were keeping already.
On labor day Scott made a trip back to Oklahoma to see his grandmother
and the rest of his family. When he came back we were worried with a new
cancer diagnosis for his grandfather. Fortunately after extensive exams
they came up with a treatment protocol that we hope will be successful.
In September the classes started and we got busy with classes preparations,
preparing for conferences, writing research proposals. I went to Maryland
to give an invited talk at the University of Maryland and spent a few days
in Newark (Delaware) working with Gao and some of the graduate students
and post-docs, had a nice dinner with our friends and former neighbors,
Jayne and Carolyn.
We decided to hire a team of architects to help us with the concept
on the remodeling of our house. What was suppose to be a kitchen renovation
ended up in plans to gut half of the main floor, replace all the windows
and demolish many walls. You can have a glimpse at the pictures of the
house and at the plans
for the remodeling. You can take a peek at the current plans.
In October I had to go to Philadelphia to deliver the tutorial at PACT00.
I went a few days earlier to spend sometime with the graduate students
in Delaware again. While I was there Scott went to a conference in Montreal,
and I stopped home in Edmonton overnight on my way to a conference in Tokyo.
I managed to have a few days to sight see in Tokyo, and even got a glimpse
of Mount Fuji, and visited the Tokyo Tsukuji fish market, the largest fish
market in Asia.
In December we both went back to Delaware. I worked on Friday at the
Univ. of Delaware with Prof. Gao's group and during the weekend we visited
with Jayne and Carolyn, our former neighbors there, with Phil and Bob,
and many other friends from the Rainbow Chorale. We had a wonderful time
at their beautiful Christmas concert on Saturday night.
The first snow fall happened in early November in Edmonton and we have
a white scenery since then. The first real cold snap was in mid December,
the thermometer fell to - 35 C (= -31 F). It takes some adjustment
to live in this weather (car plug ins, battery chargers, necking, thermal
underwear, etc), but we are enduring the cold quite well. In early September
we saw the Northern Lights for the first time, and recently we have had
beautiful display of light reflection in fresh fallen snow.
Now we are getting ready to fly to Dallas and spend Christmas with Scott's
family in Ardmore and Tulsa (Oklahoma). We will not go to Brazil this year,
but we are hoping that my entire family will be coming to visit during
the Summer. Recently I got notices of acceptances of papers in some conferences,
therefore I am planing to go to the Canary Islands, Genoa (Italy), and
San Francisco before the end of April (it will be good to go away during
house remodeling activities ;-)).
We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Years. Send news.
Cheers,
Nelson & Scott
