Greetings from the Eastern Sierra! We hope this Holiday Season finds you happy, healthy and prosperous! For us, life is an ongoing adventure. We feel so blessed to seek personal growth and new challenges as we face our "Golden Years"! We continue to feel blessed with good health and jobs we enjoy and a passion to learn new things!
I still work a day-a-week at the Southern Inyo Hospital Medical Clinic. As well, I remain the one and only autopsy surgeon for both Inyo and Mono counties. I find the coroner's cases (even after 45 years) very interesting and challenging. The types of cases I get are varied: traffic accidents, unattended deaths, suicides, environmental, aviation crashes, etc. They finally found the remains of Steve Fossett just out of my territory by three miles into Madera County just west of Mammoth Lakes.
As mentioned last year, we have reduced our competitive running. I still have a "string" of all of the previous 30 local Wild Wild West Marathons. Last Spring was the 30th year for this wonderful and unique running event. I feel privileged to be the only person to have completed all 30 of them so far. That totals 137 marathons as well as 60+ ultra marathons for me. Denise continues to exercise by running shorter distances and walking the dogs. She has completed 107 marathons and countless ultra marathons (she didn't keep track of the ultras). We continue to enjoy the outdoors and hope to do some back country adventures next summer if our schedules will allow for more time off.
I still love to do digital photography at races and other events. It is fun to share those with our many running friends. It seems wherever I go I have my Nikon camera and try to catch shots of the beauty of our world. A few months ago I upgraded my Nikon camera to a D700 with a new 70-200mm VR (vibration reduction) zoom lens. Webshots is where I upload images of which there are now about 90 albums with almost one million album reviews and several thousand downloads. Our website is now improved (see below for the link) and I have a webmaster helping me update it.
During the year we love to get the chance to see our children. Due to the vast distance between my adult children it is hard to see them all at the same time. My three children - Randy, Sara, and Shelly and the seven grandchildren are spread out from Long Beach to Carlsbad (southern California) to as far away as Sonoma (northern California). As well, they have their own busy lives. It is hard for them to travel to our remote area (east- central California) with no access to any nearby airport. It often means days and many hours of driving for all of us. California is a huge state when it comes to trying to get together. Denise's kids live only 90 miles away.
Last December we flew to Seattle to celebrate my 75th birthday (12-26-1932) with twins (Charlie and John Neff). We grew up in Claremont, California together and we were born almost to the minute that many years ago. It was great get-together with a bunch of friends from many different walks of life: nuclear scientists, ranchers, entrepreneurs, athletes, etc.
Denise continues to enjoy her cosmetology work two-to-three and sometimes four-days-a-week. Part of her passion in life is staying updated and on top of her profession by getting advanced education. Over a year ago she took a course in "hair extensions" and now her work load has expanded to those who desire long hair instantly. Since this is a very time-consuming art, she has had to incorporate more days and hours at times to accommodate the clients who have enjoyed this new service. She continues to do the corporate bookkeeping for my medical jobs too. Between those two jobs and her fitness training, she keeps more than busy. Of course, she always loves to have her grandchildren either at our house or theirs. Last Spring we celebrated several birthdays by visiting the San Diego Zoo. Besides Grace and Shay there is now a new baby boy named Ashton Craig (nickname "Nash").
Our Jack Russell Terrier, "Bammer", died suddenly on 01-12-2008 of a stroke after being ill last winter. It is still hard to "talk" about so I will "attach" my story for those of you on my email distribution list. The surviving dog is a Parson Russell Terrier named "Nike", which we got from a breeder, is 2½-years old. In February we got a "home relocation" broken-coat Jack Russell Terrier whom we call "Turbo" for obvious reasons. We feel it is good to have two dogs at a time for their own and for our enjoyment. We certainly enjoy our dogs!
We are still involved with the Badwater Ultramarathon in assisting runners achieve their goals in getting from Badwater, Death Valley to Whitney each year in July. I do most of the "ambassador" duties as well as taking digital images during the event. Denise does her "Blister Queen" stuff with a "Fixing Your Feet" guy named John Vonhof by helping runners either prevent blisters or treat them after they form. There is a new DVD out now called "The Distance of Truth" produced by a Canadian Film Team, Page Turner Productions, Inc (http://www.thedistanceoftruth.com). It leads off with one of my autopsy cases of a trekker in Death Valley who was unsuccessful in traversing the salt pan in Death Valley and then morphs into a featured runner, Ferg Hawke, almost winning the race two years in a row.
Along the same lines, Denise's and Theresa Daus-Weber's book, "Death Valley Ultras: The Complete Crewing Guide" is still quite popular and has undergone several revisions. Admittedly, this publication has only a small audience, but it gives great advice to those hoping to get their runner from Badwater to Whitney successfully.
I continue to spend quite a bit of time doing community service: Lions Club International, Volunteer Hospice of Southern Inyo, Wild Iris (for victims of violence and abuse), Adopt-A-Highway (litter pickup), AARP/Senior Lunch Program, IMAAA Governing Board (Inyo Mono Area Agency on Aging) and the Lone Pine Chamber of Commerce.
God bless you all during this Season and throughout the coming New Year!
Please forward any new address information you have so we can update our files.