PEACE IN THE NEW YEAR
|
E-mail: |
2582 Crestview Road |
|
|
Manasquan, NJ 08736 USA |
|
|
December 24, 2000 |
To see last year's message and pictures, go to http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/robock/1999
Top of the news:
Sherri: What Y2K didn't bring, the 2000 elections did. I'm not real happy about our "President-select," but, as I get older and time goes more quickly, 2004 is just around the corner-a "chadless" one, I hope. As Al has already mentioned, I actually won my first race, for local Democratic district committeewoman-Gore's name was at the top of the ticket and mine was at the bottom, but you gotta start somewhere. Did I mention that I ran unopposed? But, you gotta start somewhere. We were also successful in electing the first Democrat to the city council in some time. I'm thinking of running next year, but will probably not-I'm not eager to do the hard work of campaigning but I do love politics and was glued to the television during the recent brouhaha. I've weaned myself off of CNN and MSNBC for now, and, with Bush in office, plan to watch much less news over the next four years. Maybe I'll switch to Comedy Central. Any hints in this letter that I'm having trouble accepting the election results?
From the travails of politics to travel, we did a bit this year. I began the year in Hampton, Virginia, my hometown, where we saw my Dad and celebrated the second marriage of my sister Gina. During our winter break I traveled with Al to Long Beach, CA, where he worked and I saw several high school and college friends who are lucky enough to live in the area, along with Al's sister, Lisa. The summer was a global beachfest! After the spring term Al and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary with a spectacular trip to Hawaii-to Kona Village on the big island, then to Maui, where we stayed at Napili Bay. What a magical place. The other summer travel included trips to Martha's Vineyard with some close friends, and then to Asia, which Al has described below. I finished the summer with a short trip to Montreal to have my vision "enhanced" through a laser treatment. I still need glasses for distance but I can read anything without them! Al's father treated the entire family to a fantastic trip for his 85th birthday to a Club Med on San Salvador, Bahamas, the island where Columbus first landed in 1492, and where we got to know each other much better. Here's a picture of Alan's brother, Jerry, and his wife Stephie there. I don't know why people say he looks like Alan. Thanks, Pa! During the 2000 year-end holidays we're making a quick trip to see Al's and my family in Maryland and Virginia, then a trip to Montreal, where Al will visit McGill and I'll try to stay warm (i.e., shopping!)
Work continues to be enjoyable, and I'm planning to teach the honors section of the World History course that I taught last spring. I've become a little more active on various committees, writing academic regulations and attempting to get a program in international studies off the ground. I flirted with the idea of finishing my Ph.D., but have decided to do politics instead. In the fall I was very busy helping to organize a regional World History conference at our college, which was very successful but a lot of work.
Dan turns 21 in January and is continuing to take courses at my college, with the possibility of pursuing a career in fashion merchandising. He still lives at home but would like to move into an apartment of his own, which may be part of a birthday present! Brian came very close to joining the Navy Seals but came to his senses in time (he is just not suited for that kind of life) and instead has just finished an intensive film production course at New York University. He hopes to land an internship with MTV along with a teaching assistantship at NYU, then move to Los Angeles to give Spielberg and Lucas some competition. Fortunately, all of us remain healthy, well-fed (but we exercise!) and eager to see any of you that come this way. Please keep in touch, have a productive 2001, and, to echo Jesse Jackson, "keep out da Bushes!"
Alan: I have been at Rutgers for three years now. Everything is going quite well, and I feel like I am a part of a thriving and friendly community. Gera Stenchikov is still working with me as a Research Professor and I have 2 students, Lifeng Luo and Juan Carlos Antuña, and 2 postdocs, Mingquan Mu, who just arrived from Beijing, and Gonzalo Miguez-Macho, who will start in January. I continue my work on the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate, on soil moisture, and on detection of the human impacts on climate. I am involved with several joint research projects at Princeton and am starting a couple new projects at Rutgers, in addition to continuing my work with Kostya Vinnikov, who has remained at Maryland. This year I published 13 papers (10 already published, 3 in press), including a review paper on Volcanic Eruptions and Climate that has received more requests for reprints than any paper I have ever written. I taught a graduate course in climate modeling in the spring with Gera and a course in atmospheric thermodynamics to undergraduate meteorology majors in the fall.
I was appointed this year as Editor of Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, one of the two most influential journals in my field. I share the job with three other new editors, and have to process about 400 papers per year myself. It is a lot of work, but very interesting.
I have been able to take some nice trips again. I went to the AMS Symposium on Global Change in Long Beach, California in January with Sherri, and then we visited Lisa and Bryan in San Diego. The climate in California is certainly a good argument for living there. I went to the GRIPS Workshop at the University of Toronto in March with Gera. The climate there is an argument against living there, but we visited Niagara Falls and I went up in the CN Tower, the tallest building in the world. I went to several workshops in the Washington, DC area during the year, but those really don't count. I got to visit Norman, Oklahoma in May to attend a soil moisture workshop, and visited an old friend from grad school, Howie Bluestein, who is a leader in the field of tornado chasing. I also visited the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.
In May, Sherri and I went to Hawaii for our 10th wedding anniversary. It's been 10 great years and it was fun to return to Kona Village, where we had our honeymoon. We had our own thatched roof hut, in front of which I smoked a Cuban cigar, gift from my student, Juan Carlos Antuña. We went snorkeling, where, in addition to pretty fish, we saw a sea turtle. We kayaked and hiked to the green sand beach at the southern end of the big island. We took a helicopter ride, where we saw red lava and the smoke from the lava pouring into the sea, making the island bigger. After 5 days of spoiling ourselves, we went to Maui and stayed at a condo at Napili Beach. It was not as fancy, but had a great view, except for the snorkelers. We saw windsurfers and drove to the summit of Haleakala. The view into the crater, no matter which way you look, is spectacular. They have an amazing silversword plant that grows only there. We were also able to attend the Maui Jazz Festival and the Maui Film Festival, where we saw the world premiere of Chicken Run, still the best movie I have seen this year. I think we'll have to not wait another 10 years before returning.
The most interesting trip of the year was a one-month journey with Sherri, including 4 days in Hong Kong, a week in Bali, a one-week bus trip across Java, ending in Jakarta, and a week in Tokyo. We had high tea at the Peninsula hotel with Paul Rodell, a friend form the Peace Corps. We took a Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island, went up to Victoria Peak, and saw the last junk sailing in Hong Kong harbour. Alan had a suit made. Sherri had a suit made. We went to Bali, where I attended a conference on volcanoes. We could see the Mt. Agung volcano through the haze from the beach. On our field trip we saw Mt. Batur in the center of the island, Mt. Agung from the Batur crater, and beautiful rice terraces. We stayed at the Sheraton Nusa Indah hotel, and watched the sunset from Kuta Beach. Then we started our bus trip, by taking a ferry like this one from Bali to Java. The next morning we got up at 3 a.m. to drive to the rim of Mt. Bromo to watch sunrise over Bromo, Batok, and Semuru. It was quite beautiful, and then we climbed Bromo, shown in the center here. Here are the horse, for the first half and then the stairs, Sherri at the top, and me at the top, and the view looking down, showing the volcanic haze trapped in the crater by the subsidence inversion. We went to Yogjakarta, where we visited the Prambanan Hindu temple and Borobudor Buddhist Temple. We passed beautiful rice terraces in Java, too. We saw rubber, tea, teak, rice, coffee plantations. We even saw a man carrying an entire dining set on his shoulders. After 8 days in Java, which were fascinating, we were relieved to go to Japan for a week, to visit our friend Madoka and his family. He took us to a hotel in Hakone, inside a volcanic crater much like Batur. We saw Mt. Fuji at sunrise over the crater rim, took a ride on strange "pirate ships" on the lake, visited an outdoor sculpture museum, and sulfur steaming vents there, too. We went shoe shopping, where Sherri tried some on, but wisely decided not to risk breaking her ankles. We also saw some future sumo stars.
I went to a Hydrology Workshop, Santa Barbara, California in September, visiting San Francisco for the weekend. In November I went to a stratosphere conference in Mar del Plata, Argentina, and was able to visit my relatives in Buenos Aires. I have six second cousins there, all of whom are extremely nice and who took turns showing me around the city. Here is the family. Ricardo and Analia took me to La Boca, where we also saw tango dancing. They even had a Kosher MacDonald's in Buenos Aires. In Mar del Plata, Gera and I ate at the Palacio de Bife, and Hans, Gera, and I took a tour of an Argentinian oceanographic vessel. They cooked asado (ribs) outside for our banquet, which also included a show of guacho horsemanship and folkdancing. The conference was right by a beach, and a couple days it was warm enough to have lunch outside.
In October, I was invited to England where I gave talks at the Royal Meteorological Society in London, the Hadley Centre, and Bristol University. I was able to visit the new Tate Modern Art Gallery, and went to three plays (Art, Stones in their Pockets, and Witches of Eastwick) in two days in London's West End. In December I returned to San Francisco for the AGU Fall Meeting. It was intense and very interesting. One day we walked across the city, from the Moscone Center to Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge (and back).
I took too many trips during the Fall last year, and at the end of the year Sherri told me she wanted my 4-year old Volvo that she had been "borrowing" in my absence. Fortunately, she told me that now was the time to buy the yellow car I had always wanted. So I special ordered an Audi A4 that I got in June and have driven 11,000 miles already. We finally got rid of Sher's 1985 Corolla, but it was still running well after 185,000 miles.
We celebrated my Russian cousin Eva's birthday in New York. Here is the Russian (now New York) branch of the family. We also made a cake in the shape of Alaska for a friend's going-away party to see Alaska. Notice the Brooks Range with Snow Caps, the Alaska Pipeline, the sea ice (melting) to the North, and the [gummy] bears.
Wisconsin won't be going to the Rose Bowl this time, and it is amazing that I can say that it is the first time in 3 years that they are NOT going.
May your 2001 be a healthy and fulfilling one. Happy New Year!
Love,
Alan, Sherri, Danny, and Brian
