Ashley Activities: Ashley and her Boyfriend Ian (LA Ian to disambiguate him from Ashley s Brother Ian) Roettger continue their conquest of Southern California. Ian is concentrating on the oceans while Ashley is working primarily on dry land. Ian, you see, is a significant wheel in the family business which sells electrical components to ocean going vessels. Ashley on the other hand is serving the denizens of southern California in a three pronged attack: nourishment, physical health, and interpersonal relationships. Ian, when he is not selling nautical wares and taking care of Ashley, has a second career as a fight choreographer for local theater groups. His latest project She Kills Monsters was a perfect vehicle for his masterful mayhem. Ashley, as you might imagine holding down three jobs, is fairly busy but manages to spend time with her favorite furry companions, Mambo, Gwen, and Senor Bo. Amazingly LA Ian is not jealous. Happily, Ashley, Ian, and the aforementioned quadrupeds survived the California wildfires with only some smoke to put up with. Sadly Ashley has seemed to carry the Randall plumbing curse with her from her time last year in our house. Ian and Ashley s house developed a clog in their drain. Ashley steadfastly refused to provide details of the symptoms of this clog saying it was "too gross to describe". The clog proved to be so stubborn that it ate the plumbers snake and wouldn t give it back. They had to jackhammer their driveway to defeat the clog and retrieve the snake.

It turned out that there was a small leak, but not in his faucet, but in the aforementioned toilet which the incompetent plumbers had failed to properly seal. Sometime in the intervening 12 years the poorly seated toilet started a slow leak that soaked and rotted the subfloor until it got to under the vanity and started to rot the boards under the vanity.

This meant major work needed to be done. At this point Patrice thinks: Now would be a good time to remodel the kitchen! An interior designer is hired, walls need to be moved, stone floors need to be redone, a hot water heater needs to be relocated, and we simply must have a bigger island, a double oven, a new refrigerator, AND a new cook top. So Patrice starts getting permits and tries to line up a general contractor to oversee all of this. But, the Dallas economy is booming, housing and apartment complex construction is proceeding at an astounding rate. The few general contractors that bothered to return our phone calls told us that maybe they could get to us in 6 months. SO, Patrice becomes the general contractor. She is certainly technically competent to do this, but the same reasons that make general contractors hard to find make finding plumbers, framers, stoneworkers, electricians, drywall crews, cabinet makers, and engineers hard to interest in a small job when so much big construction is going on. To make matters worse, most of the crews that handle residential repair work have headed south to Houston to fix up the aftermath of hurricane Harvey.
But through diligent efforts on Patrice s part, trades are found wrestled to the ground, and put to work. Therein began a series of events that required the entire bathroom floor to be ripped up, and since it was right over the kitchen the kitchen ceiling was opened up and several weeks of additional permits, inspections, required engineering reports etc. Also just to make sure the incompetent plumbers did not similarly screw up the installation in Ashley's bathroom Patrice had the toilet pulled up there as well. The toilet was seated fine, but the brother-in-law of a contractor she had used before, cut into a joist in the bathroom floor that needed to be replaced which meant that the ceiling in the utility room below the bathroom had to be opened up. The slab in the kitchen needed to be jack hammered to get bigger wires for the new cook top. Patrice has been pulling her hair out for months. And don't ask her about the cost of appliances. Patrice hopes this is all finished in the first quarter of 2019.

During the entirety of 2018 we have had a kitchen of sorts that some cooking is being done in. We have a toaster oven in the utility room and a microwave in the workout room.

Thanks to the determined efforts of David Forrest, a Program Manager in the Advanced Manufacturing Office at the DOE, Zyvex Labs has three new Government funded programs to develop Atomically Precise Manufacturing. We also have another new DARPA program to develop Quantum Material fabrication technology. The rest of the technological world is beginning to understand the value of what we are doing which is a good thing.

John's Predictions of the following year have been woefully inadequate. He will take a different appraoch to predicting 2019.

Randall Ramblings: John s brother Mike is being, by far, the most adventurous, looking for sunken treasure with Mel Fisher who found the 1715 Atocha shipwreck. (Really! I am NOT making this up!) His wife Margaret is finally retiring after many years of teaching at the University of Houston and more recently St. Thomas. Mike s son Cody is now a Sargent in the Army living in Alaska with his wife Kelsie (Kelsie Randall Not Kelsie Finch) and their daughter Parker. Mike s Daughter Kalli and Dave Badeaux had a happy baby boy Rowan this year. Kalli is the Office Manager and Veterinary Technician for a Vet in Minnesota. Sister Cindy and husband Skip, are still selling tights, tees, and glittery leotards to aspiring gymnasts in Houston. You can often see Cindy s daughter Kelsie (Kelsie Finch not Kelsie Randall, try to keep up!) and her precocious Rilynn at Skip and Cindy s house. Shelly (Cindy s other daughter) Avery and her (Shelly s not Cindy s) husband Matt have having survived Huricane Harvey are doing well in Houston with their two children David and Sarah (not to be confused with Ian s (Randall not LA Ian) betrothed Sarah Spellman).
On a sad note, one of the Mid-Western relations Richard Thorman, a cousin of John, passed away much too soon.

The Stepchinski Report: Denizens of Houston, you are not as well protected as you were last year. Both Patrice s Brother Nigel and his wife Rhonda are still retired from the Houston Police Department. This gives Rhonda more time to spend with grandbaby Annabelle (Rhonda and Nigel s daughter Caitlin s daughter). Nigel is running security at the Toyota Center but we think he spends mos to his time playing with his ridiculously large collection of motorcycles. Caitlin has finished her nursing degree and will start work in early 2019. Her husband Tyler stays busy as a fireman and an EMT. Rhonda and Nigel s other offspring Kyle (not to be confused with Ian s (Randall not LA Ian) fianc e Sarah s (not Sarah Avery) brother in-law Kyle) has graduated from Texas A&M and is looking for a job.
Patrice s Brother Patrick is still working as a mechanical engineer. Patrick and wife Erica are still living in Baytown. Their daughter Leanne (Bat Girl!) has moved to Florida to gain a Masters in Geology (we think) at the University of South Florida. Their son Alan has graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and has moved to Madison Wisconsin to work for Epic, a software company supporting healthcare companies.