Long time, no blog

Hey, what's news?

Our furnace died last week. Some dirt got in the fuel line, twice, so we went the weekend heat free. Fortunately, it's spring and the weather is mild. So, the landlord supplied us a couple of space heaters which were certainly slow to heat. It all had a little British feel to it. Heat off at night, and in the morning, the heat slowly wafting off radiators, cold pockets in the house and a cold hallway, minimal fossil fuel usage. Have duvet? If I could get the gas fire, and the electric "power" shower going, it'd be just right. :)

Kathryn is wonderful. With her red hair and all, she's real cute. She runs, jumps, tosses a ball and is oft getting into trouble. Drinks out of a cup now and is getting the hang of the tricycle. She's got her colors down, can say the alphabet and is counting pretty well. She sings well, too. Recently, she's taken a liking to the Disney movies over Veggie Tales. This is ok for now. We don't mind the Lion King, Alladin, Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story and Nemo. The Lion King is a really terrific movie! K made a card for Mommy's day and she picked out a handsome set of high-end Etymotic Research (ER-6) ear buds/attenuators for Mom's palm pilot. Now, how did K ever know Mom wanted that? Smart girl.

Grandma Drennan turns 75 tomorrow. Wow. She seems quite well and enjoyed her Mom's day. Gram (Alvis) is also well. We are looking forward to family visits in June, July, August and Semptember. Gee, why is it that noone visits in winter? glug glug glug. Skiing is great in the mountains!

Clarineting as at a lull, but there will be a Northwest Mahler festival this year. It's an audition gig, so that's a maybe for performance.

Reckon we might have a gander at houses this summer. Is it a bad time to take the plunge? The market STILL seems strong in the Seattle area. It's not easy to find entry level houses and we must be willing to live at least 12 miles out of the city or on the south side. The South Seattle scene just doesn't jive with me--- I like our corner to the north much better. One bedroom, 683 sq ft. condo in the U-district-- asking $285,000. Ok, let's get real. I don't think so.

Leah's work seems well. She had a dinner with the Washington Society of Audiology last Friday and had a fine time. She keeps busy-- selling hearing aids right and left. Even supplied 75 hearing aid batteries to Mom to celebrate her 75th birthday. Leanne and Bryce also offered Mom 75 of something (postcards, jellybellies, flowers, I'm not sure what all).

My (Ward's) work is rolling along. We've started fitting the new processing on a 10-year old girl and a man. Both like it. The girl is hearing her dad talk better, so this is all great news. It should be fun to continue with this. There will be several more clinical trial participants over the summer. We also will have an additional 30+ implantees coming in over the summer for general auditory testing, so we should get lots of data for ASA (December) and ARO (February) and subsequent publications. My latest submission from Michigan was accepted last week (JARO), so that brings my total 1st-author pubs to 7. It's kinda like winning a big game, or brining home a great report card. Worthy of cheers!

Und so, Cheers.