Winter
'95
Dear Friends,
Time again for the annual letter from the Corys. It seems only a short
time ago that we were writing last year's. Well since it went out in
April, I guess it was. We are trying to get this one out before the price
of stamps go up. As usual, this has a been an interesting year for us.
Vibeké is back in college and working, Chris and Earl bought a kayak, we
sold our house in Woodland Hills!! (it only took 21/2 years), and we are
buying another.
One of the big events of the year is that Chris changed jobs. I know
you have been waiting to hear that, after all it has been six years, a new
record. She left Ingres in April when it started falling apart and started
at Progress Software. Progress is a Massachusetts based software company.
She has the same type of job as she had before, managing pre-sales
technical support people, but now, instead of just having Northern
California, she has the Western United States and Canada. Needless to say,
she is "on the road again". Her turn to earn those frequent flier miles.
We had planned to go to Europe last summer, but with Chris' new job and
Earl getting contracts at strange times and in strange places, we stayed
at home. But next summer we will do something, we don't know what yet, but
something. Currently, we are considering renting a houseboat and inviting
Josef and Feltina to tour the Sacramento Delta with us.
That is not to say that we have not been doing anything. On Memorial
Day, we bought a two person Kayak and have been traveling around to
various waterways, camping and paddling.
During the summer, Chris' mother came up to visit for a couple of
weeks. We took her all around the area and keep her very busy feeding the
birds on Lake Merritt, touring the redwoods, and riding the Big Dipper on
the Boardwalk at Santa Cruz.
One of the highlights of the year was going to San Jose with our
friends Steve, Nadene, Anne, and Lois to see the Barbara Streisand
concert. Chris got up early in the morning and waited in line in Pacific
Grove to get the maximum of six tickets. Earl was responsible for getting
her coffee and breakfast burritos while she waited in the cold.
Vibeké moved out on us again, this time to San Francisco. She lives in
the "Delores Heights" district, where she has been able to get at least
one parking ticket a week and her car towed six times. She has a small
apartment, just room for her and her cat Cosmic, but she keeps picking up
stray people, "friends", who need a place for a couple of days and stay
for months.
This summer she felt that she had been out of school long enough and
took a creative writing class at San Franciso State and got an "A". In the
fall, she started at Alameda College and is getting straight "A"s in
Psychology. (We don't understand how she does it.)
After school started, she got a part-time job at Baker's Square as a
hostess, cashier, and bakery clerk. Since she is only working about 10
hours a week, she is looking for another job to supplement her income.
(She gets a great deal on pies.) Her current searches are for jobs as a
cocktail waitress, you know where the real money is.
Chris has continued to play tennis (her foot does not bother her
anymore) every chance she has. She has standing games on Saturday and
during the week when she is not traveling. She even talked Earl into going
out on the court and hitting at the ball. He has gotten so that he does
not hit it over the fence, but does have trouble keeping it in the court.
Earl's consulting job at Intel in Rio Rancho, New Mexico ended in April
and he was able to finally come home. He then worked in Santa Clara and
Walnut Creek for a few weeks. In September, he started a Chiron in nearby
Emeryville for an eight week contract. During November and December he
took it easy at home, doing the cleaning, baking, and shopping, NOT.
Actually, he bought a new Pentium computer (you know the one with the
warning label, Intel Inside) and has been playing with it, but
says that he is learning Windows and networking.
Because of low airfares, Earl joined Chris on a business trip to
Denver, Colorado in October, where they did some shopping for ski
equipment and clothes and toured the back roads between Boulder, Vail, and
Leadville.
Chris had the pleasure of attending the tennis tournament, Bank of The
West, where she watched professional tennis and the gran dame, Martina
Navratilova. Wow!!
In November, Chris' mother, Gracie, flew up for 10 days. We all went to
Earl's parents in Pacific Grove for Thanksgiving, where Earl spent most of
the time "working" on his sister, Iva's, computer. While Gracie was
staying with them, she learned how to use a mouse and Windows to play
solitaire. Now she is "bugging" her son, Louie, to play it on his
computer.
Also in November, we started looking for a house. We searched from the
North Bay to the South Bay, looking at both old and new houses. We found a
new development in a little town in the North Bay area, Hercules, and
bought the model. It has four bedrooms, three baths, fully landscaped, and
overlooks the bay. The escrow will close by the end of December, but we
will be renting it back to the developer to continue to use as a model
until March.
The first week of December, Earl and Chris spent 11 days skiing at Club
Med at Copper Mountain, Colorado. We had nine days of lessons in all kinds
of snow, ice to powder. We came back knowing how to go "down-up-down".
This winter, we joined a co-op which rented a three bedroom house in North
Lake Tahoe. We will be skiing over New Years and hope to be able to ski
all free weekends this season (if our legs hold up.)
Earl, even though he has been busy this year looking for jobs, working,
and leaning about PCs, has found time to get back to genealogy. He bought
a new program for our PC and started entering data into it. His book
The Giles and Thomas Cor(e)y Family now has over 1000 Corys in his
branch of the family, going back to 1640. As he has promised each year, he
is almost ready to print it, but its not quite ready. In the mean time, he
will be sending out some information to people in the family to show them
what he has found out and asking that they "fill in the blanks". If you
are related, look for yours soon.
Well that's our life in 1994. We are always happy to hear from you and
what you and your family have been doing. We accept, letters, phone calls,
visits, etc. at our apartment. If you are ever out our way, let us know
and maybe we can get together and relive old times. Our phones are: (510)
444-0732, 0827 and Vibeké (415) 255-0755. There are recorders on all
lines.
Both Earl and Chris still have their AT&T 700 numbers. You can call
either of us no matter where we are.
