Duard G

Duard and Linda Slattery, Los Altos, CA

Christmas 2005

Latest Annual “Christmas” Letter:

February 24, 2007

Hi all- How are you? We are fine. Let’s start with the youngest this year:

Becky: Today is her 12^th birthday! She is finishing up 6^th grade, and next year off to junior high. Becky is doing well in school (especially after we tied a cell phone to grades!), but her real excitement this year is in sports. She continues with her competitive (CYSA Class 3) soccer team, both as a goalie (she is big, aggressive, and has strong and quick hands), and as left forward (best left foot shot on the team!), and has scored several goals. She is also playing YMCA basketball. But most exciting of all, we have finally got her in a volleyball league. It’s like a tall girls’ club, and she fits in perfectly! The V-ball coach has already indicated she is a very good prospect for next year’s junior high school team. She has a strong overhand serve (from years of tetherball), and is probably the strongest blocker also (from cross-training as a goalie). So, we are really excited about her prospects in volleyball!

Charlie: He is a freshman in high school, doing really well academically (all As and Bs, Chemistry, Geometry, etc.), also in soccer club (CYSA 3, like Becky), also in badminton club, and a snowboarder. The good news is he just came back from a ski trip to Squaw Valley! The bad news is he broke his arm! The good news is it is a “minor” break, i.e he didn’t even know it was broken. He thought it was sprained, and continued to snowboard that day. X-rays the next day proved otherwise (undisplaced fracture of the radius), so he is in a cast now, which means soccer, badminton, and snowboarding are all on hold for 6 weeks, which he hates!

Linda: Taking a year off from her 27-year career as an IT professional, and 16-year career with Sun Microsystems. Getting Becky and Charlie to all their practices (and that’s a lot!), doing PTA milk and lunch and newsletter duties at both schools, being Charlie’s CYSA team manager (and that paperwork is taking up her whole Saturdays!). Basically, she is getting the awesome opportunity to be a stay-home parent for only the second time in her life!

Duard: Boring! Back to work. Somebody has to pay the bills. Back to FMC/United Defense/BAE, maker of the Bradley army vehicles. Working mostly on CMMI, which is a “model” of processes the government is starting to require of defense contractors. With Duard’s help, BAE is doing well at this, now at CMMI “Level 5”, same as Boeing and NASA. This is a very good niche for Duard, since he is an excellent writer of plans and procedures, and most engineers hate that! Ok, one bit of excitement. We all went to Squaw Valley, and Duard went skiing for the first time in 40 years! After one beginner lesson, he did pretty good, carving up the powder on “Bailey’s Beach”!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Slatterys- and Gus!