What?!! Is it December again?.  There goes another year. Once again we apologize for subjecting you to more Randall trivia, and remind you that if you are offended by this generic form of information transfer you don't have to read it! The end of 2002 finds the Randalls in pretty much the same place they were last year (see section below on alleged new house woes). Though 2003 is guaranteed to bring some real changes. If you are a real masochist you can check previous additions of the Randall Christmas Newsletter.
 
 

Patrice stares at empty lot.

Alleged New House Woes Those of you paying attention may remember that the Randalls have been babbling about building a new house for a long time. In fact we had the elevation drawings of the proposed house plans on LAST YEARS newsletter! And the BIG news is: We still have not broken ground! A search for excuses has come up with the following possibilities: A) In this robust economy we can't find anyone to work on the house. B) Aliens abducted our builder. C) Our dog ate the house plans. Or D) John can't make up his mind about the roof, house color, or tile for the upstairs, thus failing to carry out his role in the process of elimination. In spite of all of these setbacks, the Randalls expect to break ground in 03. Really! Trust us!

 

Ashley Plans for College Life:  Ashley is now a Senior at Plano East Senior High (PESH). She is applying to UT Austin, UT San Antonio, University of North Texas (already accepted), Trinity (in San Antonio), and South West Texas State University (The number one party school in the state!). Her most recent pronouncements when asked what her major would be was: "Psychology or Physics". At PESH She is involved with student council activities, oral interp, and the lives of her closest 30 friends. She made finals in Humorous Interp at a recent speech tournament. Over the summer Ashley worked at Hot Topic a clothing/music/accessory store that caters mainly to wanna-be vampires and their victims. Ashley entered and won 2nd place in a speech writing contest sponsored by Barnes and Noble and the Anti-Defamation League. For her 18th birthday her parents bought her a car but won't let her drive it yet.

Extreme Ian 2002 has been quite a year for Ian. He has continued his study of the Alto Saxophone making first chair in the 6th grade band, winning the outstanding camper award in Plano's summer band camp, and made the 8th Grade Symphonic band (as a 7th grader). He has kept up with his aggressive inline skating and took 2nd place in the advanced division of the Eisenbergs summer camp competition. Ian (in spite of Patrice's insistence that her little boy should not do it) played tailback and fullback on Bowman's 7th grade football team. Somewhere in there he was inducted into the National Junior Honor Society. Most recently he became a paintball fanatic. But the most extreme thing that Ian has done this year was that he entered the magic kingdom of teenagerdom.

 

Patrice Persists :  In spite of numerous setbacks, Patrice is still grinding away at getting our house built. We have a lot; she has a floor plan; she has a builder; she has the foundation engineered; but she can't get anyone to return her phone calls until she has called a dozen times. While she is not tracking down our architect, sub-contractors, and suppliers, Patrice is taking care of John, counseling Ashley on social matters, chasing our dog Max, or drilling Ian on his school work.

 

John Stuff:  John is still working at Zyvex. At least that is what he claims. In order to keep him out of the way, he has been sent to Washington DC for a conference, Carnagie Mellon University for a workshop, Northwestern University for a Center opening, and Notre Dame University to give a lecture. And that was just in October. In 2002 John also went to Korea, Switzerland, and a lot of other places. With John out of the office, Zyvex was able to make some real progress and recently received its first product revenue. John continues to collaborate with the artist Christian Seidler who has now produced more than 24 paintings with the Robotic Paint Brush that John and Christian invented.

Pet Report Max, our faithful fur producer, is now approaching his 8th year on the planet. He still thinks he is a puppy. He spends most of his time in our back yard protecting us from squirrels, birds, golfers, and the occasional human that wanders into his sight. When he is inside, Max is now confined to the washroom which seems to be OK with him until John and Patrice have fallen asleep. Max then finds something to be frightened about and starts making a racket indicating that he would be happier in his crate in the garage. After about two months of this John figured out that he could put Max in his crate before he went to bed.

 

Relativity Report: The Stepchinskis: Do you remember the Great Flood of 2001 in Houston? Nigel (Patrice's Brother) and Rhonda (Nigel's love slave) do. Their house was flooded (and we mean stinky smamp muck flooded) causing them to move their brood including kids: Caitlin(11) and Kyle(8), and dogs: Casey and Hampton (can you say ugly bulldog?) to Anita and Eddie's (Patrice and Nigel's parents) house. And there they stayed and stayed while numerous contractors pretended to repair their house and raised Nigel's blood pressure. We are happy to report that Nigel and his crew have now (after 10 months) finally moved back to their own house making everyone much happier. How Patrick (Patrice's other brother), Erica, Leanne(9), and Alan(6) living in ClearLake escaped this same flood is an unsolved mystery.   The Randalls:  The Stepchinski clan is not alone in having grown kids move back in. Things have been a little cramped at Bill and Vee's (John's parents) house in Houston ever since John's brother Mike moved back in with them. Bill was so busy keeping the house together (have you ever tried to keep up with the mess created by two people both having defective clutter-reduction genes?), that he fell off a ladder and tried to break his ribs. The hospital said he was too ornery to break anything and sent him back home after a day. To make more room for everyone concerned, Bill and Vee are buying a new house and I think they have decided to tell Mike where it is. They are not moving too far and will still be near John's sister Cindy and her daughter Kelsie(13) who are still running their Gymnastics/Day Care Center. Cindy's other daughter Shelly(19) is a freshman and Cheerleader at John and Patrice's Alma Matter the Univ. of Houston.