A rainy Christmas day today but this makes for a good excuse to sit down and write something to update all of you about our year. The past year has been incredibly busy but, as a consequence, also quite fulfilling. We have been back in California for five and a half years now. Many things have changed over the course of the year and it has been mixed with both sadness and joy. Regardless, we count our blessings and good fortune as we move into a new year.
Ruth continues to work for Case Western Reserve University and has enjoyed further advancement and changes in her responsibilities. She has been traveling to more conferences and has been back to Cleveland a couple of times over the past year. She has enjoyed the new challenges that her work presents and appreciates the opportunity to telecommute from home.
Ruth has been diving back into her craft work. She has been making some wonderful bracelets and continuing to work on her knitting projects. Ruth's sister Julie has been a huge help with our garden and made it possible for us to grow some vegetables this year and take advantage of the prolonged growing season we enjoy here in California. We have had our typical crop of limes, pomegranates,
leeks, and now lemons and oranges are coming in. Unfortunately, we have not had many figs and olives since those trees are still quite immature. Hopefully next year we'll have a bigger yield and get some more figs and olives on top of the wonderful citrus we enjoy.
My work at Loma Linda University has gone very well this year. I have managed to obtain funding from both NIH and NASA and I have developed some excellent collaborations with colleagues here and maintained collaborations with dear friends and colleagues back at CWRU. My first PhD student from LLU, Paul Williams, graduated in May and has moved on to the next phase of his life. I have two new grad students, Lorraine and Tyler, and they are working on very interesting projects that expand upon our previous work on neuroinflammation. I look forward to the new scientific directions we are moving into.
Rhaya, my technician for the past three years until August, has also moved on to medical school and is fulfilling the goals that she has had for so long in her life. She was able to train her replacement, Jonathan, and he has rapidly become an indispensable part of the lab. We also have a Neonatology Fellow, Brad, who is working on an exciting project. So, all in all, the lab is a bustling and productive place right now. The energy and enthusiasm of our lab family is inspiring and makes me happy and excited to come to work each day. As always, we are working on new grants and manuscripts and we have managed to get four papers out this year with a few more in preparation.
Because work has kept me so busy with research and teaching, I have had very little time for guitar building or anything else outside of work and church responsibilities. I am still playing with our grizzled old man rock 'n blues band with colleagues from LLU and we now have a set list together that should allow us to play a few shows in the coming year. At least that's what we hope to do! Since I haven't had time to build any more guitars, I finally broke down and bought a lovely new Stratocaster in sage green metallic. I also bought a 2017 Kawasaki Versys 650 motorcycle. I have to say this is the most comfortable and fuel efficient motorcycle I have ever had the pleasure of riding. It has a 250 mile range and routinely gets about 60 mpg. With gas prices so expensive in SoCal, the Versys makes my commute sane and affordable.
Ruth's mother, Alice, passed away early this year quite suddenly after she took a fall. We were very surprised and were fortunate to have Ruth's sister, Sue, staying with us to help assuage the grief. We had a lovely memorial service at the Catholic church where she worshiped here in Banning. Many of the sisters were able to attend and we had lots of photos and stories to remember Alice and her life. With both Ruth's father and mother now gone, we had a delightful family reunion up at Lake Almanor and remembered them both. Many of their old friends from Moke Hill attended and it was wonderful to have so many around to memorialize their lives and celebrate their legacy.
We look forward to the new year and are planning some trips to visit family and friends back east.
Love,
Chris, Ruth, Mauve, and Jerry
