Sunday, December 31, 1995

New Year's Eve 1995

On the first New Year's Eve that Sharon and I spent together, we had dinner at Fulton's Prime Rib in Old Sacramento and then saw a late showing of Leaving Las Vegas.

Saturday, June 03, 1995

1995 Sea Ranch

Sharon and I spent a short weekend at The Sea Ranch in early June of 1995. The house was very far north near the golf course. Although I have tried, I have never been able to figure out where it was.

Monday, April 24, 1995

Moscow Day 14


MONDAY APRIL 24, 1995 -- a very uneventful trip back.

the flight was delayed about an hour leaving frankfurt, but since i had more than two hours between flights in dallas i was not too worried. it is a long flight--over ten hours--from frankfurt to dallas.

and guess what movie they were showing.... that's right maverick! at this point, i can now say the words along with the actors. they did show speed after maverick which is one that i have never really got a chance to sit all the way through.

the only bad part of the flight was that there were alot of kids who were very restless and fighting amongst themselves. my favoritie was the mom, the two boys (5 and 7?) who repeatedly tried to kill each other and the daughter (9) who was sick and barfing about every 20 minutes. dad was in first class and he never once came back to check on them during the entire 10 hour flight. guess what nationality they were? that's right italian...

i changed planes in dallas. so having left frankfurt at 12:00 p.m. i was home in sacramento at 8:00 p.m. at time; 17 hours traveling with a 9 hour time change and was dog tired....

[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Sunday, April 23, 1995

Moscow Day 13


SUNDAY APRIL 23, 1995 - - the hotel i was staying in included an expansive bunch so i was a little slow and lazy in the morning sitting, reading my book and drinking coffee.

after breakfast I went down and bought a ticket for the river cruise. the boats run primarily from mainz north to bonn. if you went to cover the whole distance on a fairly conventional boat it takes about thirteen hours. given the boat schedule and my less than three days in germany, i elected to take a faster boat.

while I was waiting for the boat to take off, i went through the gutenberg museum which includes one of only 47 of the existing gutenburg bibles.

the boat tour took off in the early afternoon and covered the river from mainz to kobenz. this is about 45% of what might be considered the whole tour. nevertheless, the section from bingen to koblenz is said to contain some of the more impressive set of castles. it was a pretty impressive tour from which you can see the ruins on the hillsides of twelve to fifteen castles plus lots of small towns and vineyards. i can see the value of taking a slower boat and getting a chance to soak up the scenery, but the faster boat represented a good choice for the amount of time that i had.

i spent the late afternoon wandering around kobenz. the city was originally founded in 9 AD by the romans and has a major fortess on the hillside that dates from about the 1100's.

i then caught a late train from kobenz to the frankfurt airport and stayed at the sheraton at the airport. a cope-out maybe, but at this point i was pretty beat. i figured that i probably walked almost 10 miles a day on friday, saturday and sunday. the idea of rolling out of bed and on to the plane in the morning sounded attractive...

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Rhine River


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Saturday, April 22, 1995

Moscow Day 12


SATURDAY APRIL 22, 1995 - - i got up fairly early, had breakfast at the inn and went to took the castle ruins above heidelburg. I have to admit that it is pretty impressive. it is supposed to be the largest castle ruins in germany. the view of the castle from the river below and the view of the city, the neckar river and the valley from castle are amazing sights. I wandered around the castle and gardens, visited the museum and took a tour.

about 2:00 pm i started back to the train station and caught a train to mainz. rob had suggested that I go to mainz and take a rhine river tour. i am glad that i went there. I did not realize how much of a tourist trap heidelburg was until i got to mainz. it is a somewhat more typical german city. it took me a little longer this time to find a room, almost two hours before I got the city mapped out and I figured out where i was going to stay.

i then walked down to the cathedral. with most of it built In the 11th century, it is described by the guide book as one of the "three of the great romanesque cathedrals of the rhine." I have to say that I was probably more impressed with this church than with any of the churches that i saw in russia. the churches in Russia had a lot of character, but none of them took my took my breathe away quite like the inside of the cathedral at mainz. the size of the inside of this cathedral is astonishing.

I spent the rest of the evening looking for places to eat and drink. I also scouted out the schedule for the rhine boat tours. mainz is at one end of the part of the river that the tour boat cover. combined with the fact that the season does not really start until may 1, this meant that my choices of times were limited. I finally got a chance to talk to sharon on a half way decent connection.

trying to use my AT&T card from moscow was a another mess. it was a satellite link with a three plus second delay. rob made a good observation at one point that you almost need to treat it like a two way radio link and say "over" when you are done talking. one of the most frustrating moments of the trip (second only to having destructively re-initialized rob's email box) was trying to talk to sharon's mom on the phone. due to the time differences and some uncertainty about her schedule, we had planned for me to call her at her parent's the saturday night before easter. her mom answered the phone but would never stop saying hello long enough to hear me answer. this went on for about a minute before she hung up on me....

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Heidelburg, Germany



Mainz Cathedral, Germany


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Friday, April 21, 1995

Moscow Day 11


FRIDAY APRIL 21, 1995 - - rob and I got up at 4:30 am and started for the airport at 5:30 AM. barb's driver came to take us to the airport. it was a little less than an hour drive.

once we got to the airport, it quickly became apparent why rob insisted that we arrive at least two hours early. the Russians do not make it easy to leave the country. first you have to go through customs. this is a pretty long line that took about twenty minutes. rob and i stood and talked during this period. after getting through customs, i went through the standard international security check (where did you get your luggage?; has anyone given you anything to carry onboard). then after standing in a long line to check my luggage, I got in a fairly long line at passport control.

this was a major disaster. it took almost 45 minutes to get through this line. two of the people in front of me were pulled aside to a little room as they were having their passports checked. both appeared to be russian nationals.

once I got through this mess i walked out of what has to be the most inadequate airport that i have ever been in and on to the delta flight and was handed a wall street street journal (time warp). the flight back to frankfurt was uneventful.

I dropped my luggage at the airport and based largely on a suggestion by sharon bought a train ticket to heidelburg. After changing trains at the main frankfurt station, i was in heidelburg by 1:00 pm. I walked around town for about two hours looking for a room. with blind luck i found a room in a nice bed and breakfast about two blocks from the old part of town.

after an hour nap, i spent the rest of the day exploring the old part of the city, including sitting in the main square (marktplatz) drinking beers, wandering along the pedestrian mall (hauptstrasse), having a few more beers in places on back alleys and eventually finding a place to eat. I crawled back to my room to end the evening. the weather was absolutely beautiful.

i was struck by how different germany is from russia. while the language and architecture can be different, there were times in germany when i forgot I was not in america. I never forgot i was in russia.

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Heidelburg, Germany



[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Thursday, April 20, 1995

Moscow Day 10


THURSDAY APRIL 20, 1995--after three straight days of doing tourist stuff and with my flight leaving early tomorrow, the plan for today was less ambitious. rob and barb are still struggling with the rental agent trying to get the problems with the kitchen fixed.

barb's driver took me over to rob's work in the late morning. going to his work made me realize that not all of the buildings that I thought were apartment buildings are really apartments. when the driver dropped me off in front I was thinking why the hell is he bringing me here. sure enough it was his office and did look like one of the hundreds (thousands?) of other buildings i had seen. rob pointed out accurately that the windows in his building were bigger than those used in the apartment building version of the building. rob indicated that it was some of the best office space in moscow. the inside of the building reminded me of some of the older buildings on the UC davis campus. overall it made me realize that a number of the buildings that I had assumed were apartments were really not. some of this goes back to my earlier comment about the buildings not being marked on the outside. barb had a good remark earlier in the week about how when the russians find a good design they stick with it.

rob and i had lunch in the russian cafeteria in the building. it included some fish soup, meat, potatoes and bread. after lunch, rob an i were trying to delete an email that i had sent him from dallas from my hand held computer on my way to moscow. any time he read the email it would crash his system. as part of doing this and trying to add a password to his account, i deleted all of his email and folders. i felt pretty bad. rob's comment was "computer expert comes to moscow, deletes email." rather than try to make a bigger mess, rob called their russian systems support person to come in on friday and try to restore his stuff.

from here we took the company's van back to park place to pick up some furniture to move to the new apartment. we loaded up a fair size couch plus some smaller stuff. getting the couch up three flights of stairs was a pretty big job, but not impossible. one unsettling thing happened. while we were working to get the couch up the stairs, rob dropped a screw driver out of his back pocket. when he went back to get it, it was gone. this was not a good start for the new apartment building. we got back to park place fairly late, fixed dinner and had a short but wide ranging discussion on my impressions of russia (more on that when i have a keyboard) and philosophy of life in general. given that we had to get up at 4:30 am to go to the airport we turned in pretty early....

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Their New Apartment


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Wednesday, April 19, 1995

Moscow Day 9


WEDNESDAY APRIL 19, 1995--barb, their two kids, the nanny and i went on a walking tour of the patriarch pond neighborhood where their new apartment will be. the tour guide was an older russian woman who lived in the area. lasting over two and a half hours the tour provided an excellent overview of the architecture of the last 300 hundred years, including all of the different styles for each period. the tour included one of the two working synagogues left in moscow and a church dating from the 15th century that is in the process of being restored.

the tour really helped provide a foundation for looking at the city. it also gave me a better feeling for the neighborhood where the nooter's new apartment will be. when i say a better feeling I mean that maybe it is not such a bad idea for the nooters to move there. the area has a tremendous amount of history.

after the tour, the driver picked up the nanny and the kids. barb and I went up to check on the new apartment. unfortunately, the crew had just finished the kitchen and was not consistent with the plans that were shown to them. so barb spent some time talking to rob and trying to get hold of the property agent.

the transaction for this apartment is pretty amazing. the owner of the apartment is turning it over to the agent for the period of five years. the owner gets a jump sum payment up front and another apartment to live in for five years. the agent pays the costs of remodeling and furnishing the apartment. rob and barb get $20,000 from the agent to buy furniture. rob's company pays eighteen months rent up front ($5,000 a month or $90,0000 total). at the end of five years the apartment reverts back to the owner.

barb and I then caught the metro to the pushkin museum. we spent a couple of hours at this museum. it has a particularly large collection of french impressionism art and ancient civilization artifacts.

trying to fix dinner that night also highlighted another problem. there just is not anywhere to grab a bit to eat in the area where they currently live. you can not just go out to get a pizza or some mexican food. about the only thing near park place are a couple of small and expensive markets. there will be a few more place to eat near the new apartment.

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Patriarch Pond


Their New Apartment




[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Tuesday, April 18, 1995

Moscow Day 8


TUESDAY APRIL 18, 1995 --after having four days off from work, rob went back to work today. barb and i plus another american woman who lives In park place (the western style apartment where the nooters are currently living) whose husband manages a surgerical equipment plant went to the kremlin. I had always thought that red square is inside the kremlin but it is actually along the north west wall on the outside of the kremlin. the inside of kermlin in moscow contains a number of buildings and churches. the oldest of the structures date back to the 14th and 15th centuries. we walked through the compound and went into two of the largest churches. in addition to about half dozen churches and the czar palaces, there are a number of working buildinqs in the kremlin. we next toured the museum at the armory. the museum contained a wide ranqe of materials including clothes, weapons, carriages, eating services, regilious artifacts and other things such as the faberge eggs covering more than a thousand years of russian history.

one of the things that I did not expect was how brown things were going to here this time of year. they had the last big snow fall on April 1. while it is warming up now none of the trees have any leaves. most of the trees in and around moscow are birch trees. there is also no grass growing. the overall effect is a city with lots of dull apartment buildings with brown spaces between them. just in the last two days the grass has started to grow and the trees are starting to leaf out so that there is a hint of green. barb said that last summer when they arrived that the city was very green.

there have been a number of exchanges between rob and barb and I that have been priceless. my favorite to date was at night on tuesday night. during a late dinner i said that i thought that moscow was not such a bad city and rob responded "that's because you get to get on a plane on friday and fly out of here."

click on the picture for a larger copy!
The Kermlin




[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Monday, April 17, 1995

Moscow Day 7


MONDAY APRIL 17, 1995 -- the plan for monday is to drive out to sergiyev posad. this is about 45 miles from the center of moscow. lt is a monastry that is one of the centers of the russian orthodox church.

one of the interesting sidebars to this trip was the traffic in moscow. I had assumed that would be alot less than other major cities because fewer of the people would have cars. WRONG! the traffic was really bad. we went into the center of the city to pick up the nooter's russian language teacher. we got trapped in traffic that would have done los angeles proud. there are alot of cars here, i guess that i forget moscow is a city of 10 million people.

the drive out to sergiyev posad was also interesting. for the first time we got out of the city and saw buildings other than apartments. although there were smaller apartment buildings on the way, there were also lots of older typical single family dwellings. there were even a few dachas (nicer country homes primarily for the city residents) that looked like a modern spec house in california.

the complex at sergiyev posad was amazing visually. A number of churches and other buildings surrounded by kremlin walls sit on a hillside. words do not do justice to the architecture of the site. hopefully the pictures will come out.

the site is one of two working monasteries for the church so there were priests moving back and forth. the russian orthodox uses a different calendar so that yesterday was palm sunday and next sunday is easter. as a result this is very religious period and there is a great deal of activity in the churches.

the countryside outside of moscow reminds me of upstate new york or pennsylvania. when we got back in the late afternoon, we stopped at gorky park and looked at some local art for sale and had a quick bite to eat.

rob and i then went out to buy a VCR for their new apartment. this was quite an experience and provides an idea of how screwed up their financial system is. in the store the goods were marked with prices by dollars. to buy the item you had to go down stairs to the bank and convert your dollars to rubles. when we came back up to store rob realized that the exchange rate was different in the store and he did not have enough rubles. when you go exchange for dollars for rubles the clerk has to fill out this 8 by 5 inch form by hand that you are supposed to save. plus they recommend not changing too much money at once due to the continuous decline in the ruble. last summer the ruble was 1600 to the dollar, it is now 5000 to the dollar. rob was saying that the russians have a high rate of savings but that it is all saved as dollars or marks. in general it is a very screwed up financial system.

after a late dinner I crashed falling asleep on the couch. it was really the first night i went to bed before midnight since I have been here.

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Sergiyev Posad






[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Sunday, April 16, 1995

Moscow Day 6


SUNDAY APRIL 16, 1995 11:59 pm -- we got an early start to a fairly large market that is located almost an hour away. the market mainly caters foreigners with a wide range of russia crafts and art work. we took the kids in a stroller plus the nanny and her friend.

since i have been here, rob has been driving a full size ford econoline van that belongs to the company. moscow traffic is pretty wild. rob has likened it to the traffic trying to leave a football stadium parking lot after a game. only it is this way all the time and everything is moving full speed. there are lots of sections where the road is six or eight lanes wide and there are no lines painted. while the weather was partly cloudy on saturday, it was bright and cool on sunday.

the market was interesting although a number of the "traditional" crafts do not appeal to me. one example of this are "matroishka" dolls which are egg shaped figures that stack inside each other. While most were traditional Russian characters, some were american sports heros; pretty wild stuff. rob and barb spent the end of the afternoon shopping for rugs for their new apartment. there was an amazing assortment of new and old rugs.

the drive to and from the market was pretty eye opening. moscow is primarily a city of apartment buildings; there are no single family residences like you would in america. so on the drive to the market and back it was nothing but apartments 30 to 40 miles of 10 to 30 floor apartment buildings. the buildings are spaced pretty far apart rather than being right next to each other. this time of year there is no grass so that the spaces between buildings are dirt.

after an early dinner, rob and i took a long bus ride to the downtown to an irish pub. we sat at the bar and drank guiness most of the evening. the main bartender was from claire ireland, was named locky and was kind of a character.

afterward we walked across the moscow river with a great view of the kremlin at night. the problems associated with reading the signs were quickly reenforced. we got turned around trying to get to the right level [on the subway] and it took a few minutes of studying the signs and the names on the signs in this wild alphabet to get going in the right direction.

when we got to the end of the line which is where their current apartment is, rob bought a couple of beers from a kiosk on the street. it turned out that they were some kind of beer with vodka in it that was so bad that neither of us could drink it.

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Their Apartment Building


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Saturday, April 15, 1995

Moscow Day 5


SATURDAY APRIL 15, 1995 11:00 PM -- after yesterday's forced march across moscow and the countryside, we spent the day doing a number of more "normal" things. rob and I went for about 2.5 mile run in the morning.

we then went to several places shopping. the first stop was a conventional group of stores including a clothing store that would have been in place In most malls in the united states.

the second stop was a large regional market with a number of vendors in stalls both inside and outside. there was a good array of meat, fish, produce and flowers plus miscellaneous sundrys. this type of market is called 'rinok.' barb bought a number of items to use in the kid's easter baskets.

we made a stop near the kermlin for dog food. the next stop was a french supermarket. one of the things about stores here is that it is difficult to tell where the stores are because they typically do not have displays in the windows and are not very well marked from the outside. as a result, you on walk right up to something and never know that there is a big store inside. the fact that the language and the alphabet are so different makes it extremely difficult to tell what you are looking at. I now have some appreciation for why rob was strongly suggesting not trying to come into the country without some one to meet you. it is just to hard to read the signs. the french supermarket was kind of a trip because although it was well stocked, none of the brands were familiar.

back at their apartment they colored easter eggs using the kits that sharon and I had picked out for me to bring. after we had a quick dinner, the nanny came to take care of the kids and we left for the ballet.

we took a bus to the nearest "metro" which is the russia subway system. their system seems to work pretty well and seems to compare favorably to the other big cities such as London or Chicago.

the bolshoi ballet house is very near red square. the building was pretty neat. the theatre was built in 1825 and is pretty strange inside. the floor In front of the stage probably seats 1,000 people. the upper levels are arranged in a horse shoe shape around the floor with the walls straight up and down. there were seven levels (decks). we were in the second level pretty much dead center in the back. the level we were in had only three rows, while it looked like the seventh level had only one row.

the ballet was called "the lesson about love" and was written by an azerbaijani. it was a three act ballet with strong modern dance influences. before the performance and during each of the two intermissions we went to a dining room off to the side and had first some really bad wine, then some better champange and finally some coffee. the performance was good but i have to admit that i had a hard staying awake both because the theater was warm and Rob and I were drinking beer pretty heavily while the kids were coloring easter eggs.

after the ballet we went to a spanish bar near the kremlin before we headed home on the metro getting home about 12:30am....

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Wesley, Rob and Madeline


Wesley and Barb



[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Friday, April 14, 1995

Moscow Day 4


FRIDAY APRIL 14, 1995 11:06 PM -- rob and barb are moving to a new apartment next weekend so we spent the morning loading furniture in a van. we went to the new apartment which is still being remodeled. the "new" apartment is in a building that was built in 1908. it is in an area called patriarch pond which is In the center of town near the american embassy. my guide book describes the area as "one of the oldest and most charming residential areas in Moscow."

After having lunch in an american style cafe, we went to RED SQUARE. the most impressive part of this was saint basil's cathedral which occupies one end of the square. any description of this structure would not do it justice (hopefully the pictures will turn out). we walked past lenin's tomb which was not open and through GUM a giant indoor mall built in 1891 that runs along side the square.

next we went to the tretyakov gallery. A museum which has been closed for ten years and only opened back up in the last week. rob, barb and i (the kids spent day with nanny) spent about two plus hours going through the museum and probably only covered about 40% of it. it would really take two or three trips to do it justice.

at this point we were running late for dinner. we hurried back to their apartment and the driver picked us up and we drove to a restaurant about 30 miles outside moscow on the moscow river. dinner consisted mostly of bread, a variety of different kinds of dried and smoked fish and meat, mushrooms, caviar, and some berries. we finished up with a small fish and dumplings main course. Rob and I had a moderate amount of vodka and a couple of beers. the place we ate was essentially an old two story house in the country. we ate in what was a private room. we got home about 10:30 pm.

I talked to sharon on a poor connection when we got home. it was one of those satellite links with about a three second delay. more soon.

click on the picture for a larger copy!
Red Square




Rob and Barb at Dinner


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Thursday, April 13, 1995

Moscow Day 3


THURSDAY APRIL 13, 1995 6:00PM -- rob worked today, he is going to take the next four or five days off, so i spent the day with barb and madeline. the weather was pretty good, about 50 degrees and sunny. i went to madeline's school in the morning and to her ballet lesson in the afternoon.

it was kind of an interesting way to see the city and the people. barb has a driver with a car that she uses several days a week to take her and the kids to a number of different activities. wesley spent the day with a british nanny who took off on outing to meet some other kids.

after the ballet lesson the driver took us to the lenin hills. this is one of highest points in moscow. from this point you can see towards the downtown. you can see the white house which is the government building that figured heavily in some of the political problems of the last two years (tanks shooting at the building), parts of the buildings of the kremlin, and all seven of the stalin buildings which are large ornate structures that stalin had built to honor himself. one of the largest of these buildings is on the bluff and is the site of the moscow university. just below the hill is the site of number of venues for the 1980 Olympics, including both of the ski jumps And the 100,0000 seat Olympics stadium.

i got to spend alot of time with barb and get some prospective of her issues with why she wants them to live somewhere esle. essentially she "hates" living in what feels very much like a hotel under the watchful eye of 14 rude security guards.

the number of locals they are employing is also interesting. in addition to the driver and nanny I mentioned there was someone here this afternoon to give russian language lessons to rob, barb, and the nanny. there is also someone who comes in once a week and cleans. about half of these people were here this afternoon while i was taking a nap. rob and i were laughing about the "nooter full employment act for the russia people."

the three of us finished up the night by playing cibbage and batgammon. more soon

click on the picture for a larger copy!
One of the Stalin Buildings


The White House


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Wednesday, April 12, 1995

Moscow Day 2


WEDNESDAY APRIL 12, 1995 11:10 am german time -- no one asked to have bag opened, although i have had my passport looked at half a dozen times. i have to admit that I have lost most of my sense of time at this point. i am not sure what day it is, let alone time it is. the security guy checking my luggage was asking me where and when I had started from and I was getting confused.

i had about a five hour lay over here in frankfurt this morning. as with most of the trip to date, everything has gone off on schedule and has been extremely uneventful. i have about an hour until the flight leaves for moscow.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 12, 1995 10:50PM moscow time -- i made it; thankfully, no one asked me to open the bag here either. although some woman spent ten minutes looking at my password and visa.

rob picked me up at the airport and we had a couple of beers in car on the way to their apartment and a few more when we got there. very much the same old rob just thinner, rob said that he is down to 175 while i probably picture him in my mind at 190.

after a dinner and a walk of the dog, i am crashing hard. zzzzz

click on the picture for a larger copy!
View from the Nooter's Apartment towards downtown Moscow

Rob and Madeline


[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Tuesday, April 11, 1995

Moscow Day 1

TUESDAY APRIL 11, 1995 11:27 pm german time, well i am off to moscow. at this point i am somewhere between dallas and frankfurt. the route that I will be taking is sacramento to dallas to frankfurt to moscow. the flights from sacramento to frankfurt are on american while the flight from frankfurt to moscow is delta. things have been very uneventful to this point with full flights but everything on time.

a couple of hours into the flight i am on my fifth free beer (drinking a german beer in a can called DAB). boy, do I like international flights and the good news is that (gratuitous reference to an obscure event) like i was on my last transatlantic flight in 1991 when tomasin, bachman and i went to the world cup.

unfortunately, the movie is maverick, one that sharon and i watched with the kids last weekend. so it is going to be a long flight, nine hours from dallas to frankfurt.

I also realized sitting here that the bag of maternity clothes that barb's sister sent is locked and I do not remember seeing a key. god knows if I will have a problem with customs getting into germany or russia.

[originally written on a Newton MessagePad 120
using handwriting recognition.]

Saturday, February 11, 1995

plans for Moscow trip plus BLONDES!

Sent: Saturday, February 11, 1995 9:50 PM
To: 'Nooter, Rob (ROB)'

Subject: plans for Moscow trip plus BLONDES!

Noot,

[Moscow trip planning stuff deleted...]

As I mentioned in my letter about Chabrier's wedding, I had drinks with an attorney last Monday night. I HAD A GREAT TIME. She and I have checking each other out since the bank's Christmas party. probably one of the best things that I ever did was take Larkin as my date to the Christmas party.

Sharon actually sat down next me at the Christmas party and we ended up talking for a while. It turns out a number of short stories came out of her and I talking that night which I will save for one night in Moscow over a beer.

Sharon and I had planned to meet for drinks at 6:00 p.m. on Monday February 6 and ended up having dinner and closing the place down about 11:00 p.m. they finally threw us out of the restaurant. anyway, Sharon is 33 and an interesting person. she scuba dives, downhill and x-country skis, plays golf and hikes and is into impressionism art and jazz; blonde about 5 feet 6 inches tall. Sharon is an attorney specializing in contracts for the bank after being married about four years, Sharon got divorced almost a year ago.

Sharon and I went out again Friday night, February 10, after work for a couple hours before I had to pick up the kids. it was interesting because I was under a time deadline to get the kids, but it was obvious that neither one of us really wanted to leave--a nice feeling. we are also putting together some plans for next weekend which is the three day president's holiday.

wallen was counseling me on the phone on Tuesday after I had gone out with her the first night not to get too excited.

/s/ heringer

Saturday, January 28, 1995

Greg and Dean's Wedding

Greg and Dean got married at the Highlands Inn in Carmel. I spent the night at the Green Lantern Inn in Carmel.