Ian and Sarah now live 2 minutes south of John and Patrice in a very nice house. John, helped Ian and Sarah make a dining room table for their new home.
| The last year of the 2nd Decade of the 21st Century was an Action Packed one for the Randalls. Patrice and John’s kitchen is still not done! Ian got married! Ashley and LA Ian’s house did not get burned up in California wild fires! Bill Randall Randall’s Centennial!!! Birthday passed, and lots more. For those not squeamish or easily offended, - - - read on! |
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Ian Gets Married! The big event of 2019 was Ian Randall and Sarah Spellman getting married. It was a wonderful day all the
way around. We had a great crowd of friends and family from both the Spellman and Randall Clans. One of many highlights was the ringbearer,
Sarah’s sister’s baby boy Declan (John and Patrice’s surrogate grandchild) motoring down the aisle to deliver the rings. (see photo)
The bridesmaids and groomsmen were beautiful and handsome. The Bride and Groom were stunning. There was much eating and drinking and
a great party. John had a great time dancing with the young ladies (his grandnieces - play the video). The bride and groom left in a shower of sparks.
(See Photo) Friends pitched in and helped the families clean up. It was a marvelous day.
Ian and Sarah now live 2 minutes south of John and Patrice in a very nice house. John, helped Ian and Sarah make a dining room table for their new home. |
John dances with Annabelle and Rilynn |
 Patrice gets a “puppy-fix” from Cooper and Millie |
Pet Report: John and Patrice are still dogless (unless you count the times that John is in the doghouse). Patrice proclaimed
last year that she did not want another puppy until our kitchen was completely redone (see the Immortal Kitchen Project below).
But Ian, who now lives nearby (See Ian Gets Married above), has supplied us with regular visits of Cooper the pooper and Millie the Magnificent. We did have a pet rabbit for a while. Cutie-Pie was not really a pet but hung around in our backyard under the monstrous Lady Banks Rose bush. Patrice fed him carrots daily. While Cutie-Pie did not eat out of her hand, he let Patrice get within a couple of feet on a regular basis. With occasional harassment from visiting dogs, and the removal of the Lady Banks Bush, Cutie-Pie relocated to the front yard flower beds. |
 Millie on her Perch of Warmth and Power |
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The Immortal Kitchen Project: Those of you who are astute readers of this random Randall Trivia will remember me expounding
last year on the ridiculous fact that we spent a year without a kitchen! Well, a year later, we are still not done. The good news is that we finally
have a functional kitchen, the bad news is that it the cabinets and backsplash are not yet complete. Patrice’s mistake was to assign John the job
of doing a fair amount of the cabinet work, and while he managed to do a moderately good job on the new kitchen island, he took forever!
But on the other hand, John was in the warehouse when Patrice picked out the pretty countertop stone. Don’t ask us about the bathrooms in Ian’s and Ashley’s old bedrooms. I guess we can say the toilet is no longer at the foot of Ashley’s bed. |
 Our new - almost finished - Kitchen. |
 Just for comparison, the 2018 Kitchen |
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The Randall Backyard Transformation: Not satisfied with maintaining a mess of construction inside their house,
the Randalls have decided that it was high time to fix some issues in the backyard. So our backyard has been transformed into
mud, rubble, and concrete dust. Soon, (really, we promise!) we will have a much larger back patio and better backyard drainage.
Overlord Patrice took many pictures of the backyard destruction for posterity and to make sure the crew did things right.
Patrice had to wait until the guy bending over turned around before taking the picture.
Speaking of timing, Patrice's brother Nigel Butt Dialed Patrice with iPhone “ButtTime” while he was in a Men's locker room.
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Patrice – General Contractor: Who is managing all of this mayhem and construction you ask? It is the Queen of Shiba
AKA Patrice Marie Stepchinski Randall – General Contractor. She has for the past year spent the majority of her time down-selecting,
vetting, and hiring the best plumbers, electricians, tilers, carpenters, landscape crews, irrigation experts, stone fabricators, and interior
designers she could find in a tough market. How John made the cut is probably explained by desperation and budget considerations.
All of the general contracting and wedding events this year have created a hiatus in Patrice’s artistic endeavors. John is hoping they resume in 2020.
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John Junk It is fair to say that 2019 was a busy year for John. In 2019, in addition to his role as president of Zyvex Labs
(4 DOE programs on atomically precise manufacturing, 2 proposals and preparing for 3 more in January), he has had additional duties as:
Executive VP of NanoRetina (clinical trials to heal the blind should start in Belgium and Italy in early 2020), Executive VP of Teliatry, a
spin out of Rahul Saini's head, (human trials for spinal cord injury and Post Traumatic Stress syndrome in the US in early 2020),
UT Dallas Adjunct Prof., Financial Trustee of the International Symposium of Electron, Ion, and Photon Technology and Nanofabrication,
International Steering Committee of the Micro Nano Engineering conference (held micrograph contests at both of these conferences),
Industrial Advisory Board of Engineering college at UT Dallas and University of North Texas, Industrial Advisory Board of UT Austin's
Engineering Research Center NASCENT, Advisory Board of MaxIR (a startup created by Udi's wife Katie Roodenko), carpenter and
electrician for the Queen of Shiba's construction company, Co-Chairs the Judging Process of Tech Titans, AND the Industrial Advisory
Board of STEM Center of Excellence of the Girl Scouts of North East Texas. YES, John is man enough to be a Girl Scout! He is working
to get Girl Scout Badges in Quantum Technology. Really! I am NOT making this up! As busy as John is he is incredibly grateful to work with the spectacular individuals at Zyvex Labs: Jim Von Ehr, Rahul Saini, Bill Owen, James HG Owen, Barbara Johnson, Udi Fuchs, and Robin Santini. He also has the privilege to interact with some spectacular engineers and scientists including Reza Moheimani, Wiley Kirk, Sergei Kalinin, Maxim Ziatdinov, Shashank Misra, Ezra Bussman, Joe Lyding, S.V. Srinivasan, Michelle Simmons, Tina Kaarsberg, Jason Gorman, Neil Zimmerman, and Rick Silver whose team produced a groundbreaking result in quantum transport through an array of artificial atoms. The transport data is embedded, in plain sight, in this website.
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Ashely UpdateAshley and Ian Roettger (LA Ian) are doing well in California. Ashley is building her client base as an intimacy
coach and working in a wellness center. Mambo, Gwen, and Senor Beau, Ashley's much traveled four legged fur babies, still gaurd the house,
keep the bed warm, and provide entertainment. Mambo helps Ashley weed out unsuitable clients.
Patrice and John visited in early 2019. They live in a very pleasent neighborhood in easy walking distance to Redondo Beach. Ashley had been
talking about all the running she had been doing. John suspected that she was gently jogging. This turned out not to be the case as Ashley
demonstrated that she could easily outrun her father, leaving him panting in her dust. We met Ian's parents who are a wonderful couple
with a story of how they met that was as entertaining as ours (Where Patrice accosted John at the ketchup stand in the UC). We had a
wonderful time meeting Ashley and LA Ian's friends who were interesting and entertaining people. See Photo on Left of Ash and Ian with good
friends Nicky and Justin. We (Patrice, John, Ash, LA Ian and some of their favorite friends ate at a very upscale restuarant that is owned by
another of Ashley's friends. OMG was this a spectacular meal and evening where the owner treated us like royalty. |
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Randall Ramblings: John's brother Mike and wife Margaret, living in Houston, are adjusting to Margaret hanging up her professorial robes after many decades. Margaret is doing pilates 5 times a week, yoga twice a week and the rest of her time looking after Mike. She and Mike are riding bikes on the weekends. Mike hasn't done any ocean treasure hunting this year but stays busy working with longtime bud Tres Ginther building electrical controls for drilling rigs and windmills. He is staying active bicycling with Margaret, as well as hunting, shooting, and other testosterone spewing activities. Mike's son Cody is still in the Army stationed in Wasilla, Alaska with his wife Kelsie and daughter Parker. Cody is a sergeant in the Army and plans to continue his Army career working in satellite communications. Mike's daugher Kalli had her second baby boy, Xander, in October this year with Brainerd Councilman Dave Badeaux. Dave and Kalli now look after Xander, Xander's older brother Rowan, and Dave's two children Izzi and Maverick. For those of you geographically challenged, Brainerd is in Minnesota. John's sister Cindy and hubby Skip are planning to put in a pool in their backyard in Houston. (John wants to know how they are going to keep the ducks out of their pool.) Cindy - FINALLY - is an official rep for GK Elite, travelling to wherever there is a gymnastic event, and keeps gymnasts in snazzy looking attire. Cindy's daughters Kelsie and Shelly are also in Houston. Kelsie lives with Nick, and they take care of the irrepressible Rilynn who is now in kindergarten and doing (who would have thunk it) gymnastics. Kelsie is still a vampire (phlebotomist) Shelly is a rockstar technical sales person for Microsoft. Matt is still running his consulting company, but has been hired full time by one of his clients, a California company, but works from Houston. Their son David is in kindergarten and studying Jujitsu. Their daughter Sarah is two and a half and is taking swimming lessons and believes that she lives in the movie Frozen. |
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The Stepchinski Saga: Patrice's older brother Patrick and wife Erica are empty nesters with Leanne in Graduate School and working at University of South Florida. She is collecting a long list of awards and doing research investigating the presence and nature of hydrological connectivity within wetland complexes and the surrounding hydrological landscape, especially within non-floodplain wetland systems such as vernal pools. Their son Alan is off in Madison, Wisconsin to work at Epic (Biomedical Software company) and can't tell you what he's doing because it’s proprietary. Patrice's "Little" brother Nigel and wife Rhonda are still retired from the police department, but Nigel doesn't seem to take well to retirement as he spends a large amount of time running security at Houston's Toyota Center. Rhonda is taking retirement more seriously concentrating on being Gigi to Annabelle. Nigel and Rhonda's son Kyle stays busy in Houston. Daughter Caitlin, married to Tyler who is an Emergency Medical Technician with the Houston Fire Department, is both an emergency room nurse at Texas Children's Hospital and working for a Forensic Nursing Company servicing outlying counties in the Houston area. This brings us to Annabelle. Now 4 years old, is growing like a weed, loves to dance (see video above in the Ian Gets Married Section) and sing. Most of her repertoire is from Frozen according to Grandad Nigel.
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The Randalls wish you all a Happy and Prosperous 2020!