Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Neergaards

Notes from Dick and Lois
 The year has – mercifully - been all about trips and kids and day-to-day life (see below for “kids”).
Other than our annual snowbirding pilgrimages to Hilton Head, we enjoyed a jaunt to Virginia in September to participate in the fifth of our deeply warming, informal biennial reunions of fraternity brethren (TDX at MIT) from the classes of the ‘50’s.

Richard and Ishraq Gone Native
Then in October I sponged off our kids in Europe.  First stop was with our son Richard and his family in Istanbul for a couple of weeks, featuring a whirlwind tour of Turkey’s interior.  I’ve always liked shish-kabob, ordered it every chance I got, which was a lot;  I now think I’ve at last eaten enough.   Istanbul  is chaotic, but Woerdense Verlaat
experiencing it was made delightful by my charming guide, Ishraq, our daughter-in-law.  What a contrast then was my next visit, with our daughter Sue’s family in their bucolic new home in The Netherlands, equally graciously hosted, but the sojourn and environment wonderfully quiet, peaceful and quite lovely.

(Tourist tip:  anyone who has half a day free near Amsterdam would do well to visit the flower auction in Aalsmeer.   It’s a mind-blower.)

During the rest of the year, in Cincinnati, the city’s estimable opera and theater season provided a quite sparkling backdrop to the pleasant social fabric, and we managed to keep our blood moving in our veins by playing (at) tennis as often as we could.

NOW - to report news of the more interesting and certainly more energetic members of our family, I’ve again succeeded in recruiting the youngsters themselves to compose their own sections to this letter (Yesssss!).   Accordingly:


Notes From the van der Werff’s
        – our Daughter Sue, her Husband Jan Willem, and our G’kids Willem & Nick:

For Sue, Jan Willem, Willem and Nick the year 2007 started out quite peacefully.  We had just moved to a beautiful spot in Cincinnati, and were making good progress on our new-home improvement projects.  As soon as the snow and ice receded, we opened our swimming pool in anticipation of a leisurely summer.  As you, longtime reader of these chronicles, will by now suspect, tranquility was not to be.  In August fate led us to pack up our bags and go.  Not peacefully, not quietly:  it was a sudden move, a double move, part across town, part across the Atlantic.

Jan Willem had accepted a call from Suzlon, an India-based wind energy company, recently gone global, to assume worldwide responsibility for manufacturing their rotor blades.  Location:  The Netherlands.  So we sold our Cincinnati home, bought a condo in town (Cincinnati), bought a home near Amsterdam in Woerdense Verlaat (we’d never heard of it either), and moved our goods once more.  Now Whamp! here we are, catching our breath and telling ourselves that 2008 really will be the year that Peace and Quiet come upon us.
Jan Willem has had a busy first 6 months at Suzlon, traveling about 90% of the time, mainly in the US and India.  But that has now come down to a more digestible 50%.   [editor’s note:  Suzlon is the fifth largest wind-power company in the world;  JW is president of one of its three divisions]. 

Sue has been very successful in rebuilding our social life, which she was able to resume from where we’d left it when we departed The Netherlands four years ago.Our sons Willem and Nick have joined the International School of Amsterdam, where they are doing well in 5th and 3rd  grade respectively.  They had both been wrestlers in their Cincinnati school, and after our move, joined a wrestling club in Utrecht, where they recently had their first tournaments - and wins!

And now, this Christmas, we’re looking forward to being in  Cincinnati, to zonking out at our place there, and to visiting friends and family (but of course the underlying objective will be to fill up on SkyLine Chili!).    Merry Christmas!
Business Trip in India?

Notes From our Son Arthur:

2007 has been a busy year for me on the personal/professional front, since I’ve started my own small business.

I’ve been a competitive rifle target shooter for several years.  Two years ago, my vision went fuzzy (as it is apt to do at for folks of my age), presenting me with an increased challenge.  In the course of researching the gun-sight equivalent to reading glasses (such a thing does exist!), I invented a new rear sight for rifles which improves vision, by, well, sort of squinting for you.
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I hired a patent attorney, filed for a patent, started a small company, designed parts to fit commercial rifles, set up a web site, and started selling my sights to competitive shooters.  At present, I’m still in the early stages of getting the word out and convincing shooters who are at the top of their game that they should try something new, but little by little the buzz is starting.   More and more people are hearing about my sight, asking around to find out who else has tried it, building a consensus as to its efficacy.When the 2008 shooting season starts next spring, I expect that the word will have spread.   So far, I’m not planning to quit my day job at P&G, but it is an exciting adventure, I’m learning hands-on how to run a business, and my investment in the company is less than a year's tuition at Harvard’s B-School, so there’s no down-side in sight.  As it - ahem - were. 

On the personal front, my cat collection has stabilized, no strays having found my front door in 2007 (though this was written in early December – there’s time yet).  I continue to sing in an Irish glee club from January to March 17 each year, and am dutifully gargling in anticipation of the coming year's session.    



Arthur
Notes from our Son Richard, his wife Ishraq and Our G’kids Samer and Lila:
Time for the ol’ mid-life crisis;  Harley Davidson came to the rescue, providing as an added benefit a satisfying way to help support the American economy.

Business continues to go well in Turkey, and the job is great because working with (often reining in) the crazy Turks is very exciting. 
Coco (Chanel) Kids' pressure for a puppy finally resulted in one.  We got lucky and found a very nice friendly and calm chocolate Labrador.  Her name of course was Coco (inevitably expanded by Ishraq to “ Coco Chanel”).  Family is OK but misses Brussels, the expat life there and its great international school.   Therefore they spent the whole summer there.

Samer has become quite a computer expert with making professional level 3-D movies.   Lila has become very enthusiastic about the piano and is getting quite good at it.   And Ishraq is making a big contribution to the school as a board member and head of the marketing committee.    
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Richard and Hog

Notes from our Son Peter and G’Kid Steven:
I’m still with IBM, doing much the same work as I’ve done for the last few years.  I’m the technical lead of a team which develops training courses for one of IBM's flagship software offerings called WebSphere.  Don't expect you ought to have heard of the software, it’s used to run large-enterprise computing systems in places ranging from Wall Street to eBay.

The year included such exciting work venues Rochester, Minnesota and Bloomington, Illinois, but at the price of suffering through dreary places such as Jamaica, Vienna and Caracas.  On a serious note, the work, wherever it is, is both challenging and rewarding.

Not only do I spend time teaching at work, but I’ve also taken on the task of teaching tennis.  In addition to the occasional neighborhood tennis clinics, my private students include my son Steven (age 7), and my girlfriend, Cathy (age 29... again).  At least one of these students can keep a rally going without hitting the ball over the fence. 

If your backhand doesn’t do it… 
When I’m not on the tennis court, I enjoy inline skating on courses through city streets with fellow enthusiasts, mostly in Pittsburgh, but also in weekend group skates in e.g., Miami, New York, DC and Philadelphia.  Although Cathy is more of a cyclist than a skater, she does, on occasion, join me for some of these events.   Even Steven has now "gotten into" inline skating.

Steven's big interest these days is Karate.  He’s advancing through the ranks quickly, and is already about 40% of the way toward achieving a black belt.  Aside from his interests in tennis, skating and karate, Steven just loves to learn.  Whether it’s math, science or history, he just cannot seem to get enough.  As we approach the Christmas holidays, he is really looking forward to spending time with all his (geographically) distant cousins from around the world.  [editor’s note – as are their grandparents!]    
…. try a left foot


Editor:   And they’ll all be with us for Christmas again this year – bless them! 


Most cordially, 


Dick and Lois