Ashley, in addition to recently entering her third decade (How did this happen! She was such a cute little baby, it seems like, just six months ago!), went from creating hangovers, to preventing them, to joining the benevolent big brother (Google). Well she is actually a Google contractor, but it is a foot in the door. Type in “Ashley Randall Austin” to Google Images and the first two images, at least when John tried it) were of his little girl. Ashley says that she can’t tell us what she is doing, except that it is fun and she likes the people she works with. Ashley continues to work out in various martial arts and seems to be on a one woman crusade to make sure that all of the bouncers in downtown Austin bars know how to effectively choke out unruly patrons. She and her herd of animals are coming to (were here in) Dallas for Christmas.

Ian continues to work for Equinox where he is collecting clients and certifications. He is now certified to write nutritional plans for clients. It took John 3 months to talk him into writing one for his dad. The menu seemed to consist mainly of raw plants, protein and peanut butter. Ian is also pursuing a variety of interest including handguns, mountain (well hilly woods really) biking, and Cuban Salsa dance lessons. Ian competed in a “Physique” Contest that had him starve himself for a week, get painted an interesting shade of brown, oil up, and get really pumped up. See photo. He did not win the competition but Patrice said that he looked marvelous. Ian is still living in a Gen Y Commune (house rented by Ian and 3 other young professionals). This year Ian also got into woodworking. He designed and, with the help of his dad, built a custom corner desk for his bedroom in the Gen Y Commune.

When the human whirlwind (Patrice’s part time boss ShaChelle Manning) took a leave of absence from Pioneer Natural Resources, Patrice decided to also take an extended break from that part time work. Instead she has been focusing her efforts on redecorating some areas in the Randall Household (No not John), and spending more time on painting. She has continued to learn new painting techniques and created in 2014 several works, including John’s favorite two shown here in photos.

2014 has turned out to be a pretty good year for Zyvex Labs and our associated company NanoRetina. The attempt to heal the blind was given a significant boost when NanoRetina took a significant investment that should take us through to human clinical trials in early 2016. Rahul Saini the marvelous engineer at Zyvex Labs that is making this all possible along with our excellent partners in Israel has been working so hard on this that he has had to stop working on flying cars.

On the atomically precise manufacturing front, our program with the Army Research Office has gone so well (thanks to Josh, James, Udi, Sergiy, Cyndi, Justin, and Bill) that some equipment that we developed under that program appears to be leading to the first significant product for Zyvex Labs, a control system that converts a scanning tunneling microscope into a hydrogen depassivation lithography tool. It allows individual dopant atoms to be placed with atomic precision in a silicon crystal. Really, I am not making this up! Also John is cautiously optimistic that Zyvex Labs can win a large DARPA program called “Atoms to Products”. John continues to take saxophone lessons from the fabulous Pete Branham. John has kept up with his running (with Wolfy’s help), lifts weights (sometimes) and is trying to eat what is on the plan that Ian gave him.

The Stepchinski Side: Patrice’s little brother Nigel, his wife Rhonda, and daughter Caitlin are living in their spacious new abode in the western reaches of the Houston Metroplex. Their Son Kyle is two years into the craziness of Aggie Land. Caitlin is studying to be a forensic nurse which has the significant advantage of many of your patients will be dead or traumatized so that they don’t give you too much trouble. Nigel and Rhonda are still Cops, keeping the city safe and drunks at concerts from injuring themselves. Big brother Patrick and wife Erica are empty nesters on the far south east side of the Houston Metroplex (it’s a two day ride on horseback to brother Nigel’s house). Their daughter Leanne is in college at Trinity in San Antonio. We have it on good authority that for Christmas, Leanne will be wondering around China looking for rocks. Alan is studying at the University of Texas but we hope to see him in Houston before the 2014 is over. Patrick is still a consulting engineer.

The Randall Round up: John’s Mom, Vee, 92 years young, is living with John’s Sister Cindy in Houston and stays amazingly busy preserving Texas History. Brother Mike took Vee to Burkburnett where she grew up. Vee spoke to a local historical society and donated some of her scrap books to a local museum. Sister Cindy’s house is full and busy. She and husband Skip run a business from there and host Vee and Cindy’s Daughter Kelsie and her daughter Rilynn. Kelsie finished training to become a certified Phlebotomist (Blood sucker) and now has a job. Cindy’s other daughter Shelly, Husband Matt, and son David, are also in Houston and all are doing well. Shelly has a new job with Cisco and Matt teaches anthropology at the University of Houston. Matt's Thesis was picked up to be published as a book, possibly to be a textbook! Speaking of the University of Houston, the Marvelous Margret, Brother Mike’s wife no longer teaches at the University of Houston, but instead is now teaching at St. Thomas where Mike and Patrice once attended. Mike is continuing to have hip operations and Margret not to be outdone had one of her own. In spite of bad hips Mike and Margret stay active in the biking scene in Houston (all over the state really). Mike’s son Cody and his wife Kelsie (not to be confused with Cindy’s daughter) are living in El Paso where Private Cody Randall is stationed. They are expecting a baby soon. Kalli, Mike’s Daughte,r has retired from a very successful beauty pageant career and is a hair Stylist at a JC Penney. She also has been studying to be a technician in Veterinary Medicine in Minnesota.