The Randalls' House is DONE!!! MMV (2005) was a momentous year for the Randalls. Our new house is actually finished. We wouldn't want to suggest that the house building has taken a long time, but when we started Ian was the shortest human in the family and now he is the tallest. Four years after we purchased the lot and after nearly two years of construction, we finally moved into our new house. More ignominious details than anyone could possibly want about the trials and tribulations of our house building years are available by pressing here. If you want to skip the construction process and simply marvel at the (almost) finished edifice can do so by following this link. Other significant events in the Randall Household: Ashley turns 21 and joins a sorority! John goes Down Under Patrice declares that this is the best house she ever built. Ian grows a foot! Max bites off more than he can chew!

Ashley turns 21! Ashley is still attending UT Austin. That much is constant but not much else. She is now legal (having turned 21), is switching majors from psychology to advertising, is working at Kerby Lane (24 Hour Student-Hangout/Restaurant), and (I am not making this up) has joined a sorority! The picture is Ashley at her turning 21 birthday party. If you are in Austin some weekend and want a midnight snack drop by Kerbey Lane on Guadalupe right across from Campus. Ashley will be sure to get you a nice table. Although Ashley declines to make an official comment about her switch in major, her father believes that this was a result of Ashley's recognition that, as a psychologist that she only got to manipulate one person at a time, while in advertising . . . To say that Ashley entered college with an anti-establishment bent is not a stretch. That is why Ashley asked her parents to sit down when she announced that she was joining the Alpha Xi Delta Sorority. We could be wrong, but we think that Ashley is now 'working within the system' in order to fulfill her quest for world domination.

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An Ian Randall Original:

Ian is now a sophomore in high school and the tallest member (by 1/2 inch over John) of the Randall Household. We don't know how anyone who eats so little and spends huge amounts of time symbiotically attached to a computer playing internet video games manages to stay alive much less grow a foot in a year. In spite of all of this growing and goofing off Ian has managed to stay pretty busy. He is engaged in a grueling scholastic schedule with lots of AP and Honors courses, completed a driving course and is now driving (learners permit), has had some of his art chosen for exhibition, and is continuing to take saxophone lessons with John. In spite of the fact John practices quite a bit more, Ian can still play rings around him.

Patrice has finished building a House. Now she has to fix it up.
The new house has been Patrice's baby for a long time. For those of you not familiar with this saga, Patrice designed, selected a European construction technique (low density concrete walls with reinforced concrete columns), selected the trim, the paint (John got to pick for two rooms), the fixtures, the doors and windows, the roof, the stucco color (after 75 samples were made), and the stone floors (that are used throughout the house). In spite of years of planning and preparation for building a home by taking courses, countless hours on the internet and watching the Home and Garden Channel's 'Dream Home', 'How to Build a House Without Killing your Husband', and other informative shows, Patrice was still amazed at how many different ways that home construction workers can foul things up. However, after many delays and setbacks, with the help of our builder Dake Vannorsdel Patrice finally got the job done.

John
In addition to his contributions of cheap manual labor in home building, dog washing, and household torture saxophone practicing, John has managed to stay pretty busy at Zyvex. In September, he traveled literally around the world spending a week in Vienna at the best Micro Nano Engineering Conference ever, and a week in Australia visiting some marvelous scientists and learning the language ''G'day! I'll have a flat white with my brekki please!''. Zyvex finally has a product that anyone can understand. I am not referring to our hugely popular nanomanipulator that probes individual in-die CMOS devices, nor our micro miniaturized scanning electron microscopes and mass spectrometers. I am talking about our functionalized carbon nanotubes for polymer composites. Well maybe not. What I am talking about is bicycles, baseball bats, hockey sticks, and golf clubs that are made with Zyvex nanotubes.

Pet Report:
At the ripe old age of 10 (70 dog years) Max still thinks he is a puppy. He really likes the new house where he has the run of the back yard and the dining room/kitchen/den areas. Max is doing his level best to keep the new lawn in the backyard well fertilized. It is possible to discern clearly where he has added nitrogen to the soil and the grass is much greener. As far as we can tell Max is afraid of only two things: Patrice when she has a rolled up newspaper in her hands and thunderstorms. We had hoped that the ultra secure storm shelter that is part of our new house would keep Max relaxed during noisy weather. Unfortunately, this turned out not to be the case. During one particularly rambunctious thunder-boomer, Max when having exhausted all other forms of escape, attempted to eat his way out of the steel cage door on his crate resulting in bent metal and a broken jaw. We had to have a canine (tooth) extracted; so now Max is a happy snaggle-toothed 10 year old puppy.

The Relativity Report:

Houston Branch of Randall Family Sighted! Those gentle readers who thought that John was fabricating all of those stories about a fantom family will have to admit that A) they were wrong or B) John hired extras from an upcoming reality show 'Alien Survivor Bootcamp'. Actually one can see that Brother Mike, Pop, Madre, Sister Cindy, and Ian's cutie cousin Kelsey came to visit us in our new house. Not seen are Mike's kiddos (in Minnesota) and Cindy's beau Skip (stuck rnning his new MotorBike Business) and daughter Shelley (married and going to Baylor).

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The Stepchinskis: Although they are still rumored to have survived both Katrina and Rita, all of the Houston Stepchinskis: Eddie and Anita (Patrice's parents); Policepersons Brother Nigel, wife Rhonda, kids Caitlin(14) and Kyle(11); Brother Patrick, wife Erica, and munchkins Leanne(12), and Alan(9) have NOT come to visit. Until they do, we aren't going to going to deny the rumors.