Josh, Anne-Marie, and Aylia Colwell’s Gazette

This was a year of ups and downs, both physically and emotionally, literally and figuratively. I spent a lot of time obsessing over the presidential election. Of course, our first votes as Floridians were rendered meaningless by the Florida legislature’s decision to break party rules and hold their primary too early. As a result, no democrats campaigned here and our votes weren’t counted until the outcome was decided nearly six months later. During the relatively short general election campaign, I became a junkie of the political polling websites and analysis sites. The best for a nerd like me was www.fivethirtyeight.com with its detailed statistical analysis of every poll from every state.

Although I had decided in the summer that I could not afford the time to volunteer and would limit my contributions to monetary ones, once things got under way (and I think the selection of Sarah Palin was a big motivating factor), I hit the pavement and went door to door canvassing for the East Orlando Obama office. I even convinced Anne-Marie to join me on a couple of occasions. I am still not convinced of the effectiveness of canvassing, but it was certainly therapeutic. The ongoing senate vote count in Minnesota is providing a nice soft-landing for my political addiction of 2008. Anne-Marie celebrated Obama’s election with a trip to Disney (where else).

2008 was a record year for travel for me. I blew past the 50,000 mile threshold for United’s Premier Executive status for the first time, and had three non-United trips as well for an estimated total of about 75,000 flight miles, nearly double my previous record. This was not a good thing, though it did help us bring Aylia home with frequent flier miles for Spring Break, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and make it possible for Anne-Marie to accompany me on a trip to Montreal for a meeting there in July. The most memorable trip was the flight to Paris via Frankfurt on which I got very sick to my stomach and passed out on the way to the airplane lavatory for round three of vomiting. The fall gave me a scary-looking but superficial set of wounds around my left eye. Following a short stay at the Frankfurt airport infirmary I was off to Paris to host a workshop on Saturn’s rings which went quite well in spite of the inauspicious start. What would have been the most memorable trip in almost any other year was my return to zero-g parabolic flights with a flight on the Zero-G corporation’s plane on December 7. Ironically, unlike the Frankfurt flight, I did not get sick on this “vomit comet” trip, and I have another one slated for February 8.

We had a big Christmas gathering with the “California Colwells” arriving en masse from L.A. and a few hundred carpenter ants arriving en masse from our bedroom wall. The latter made their appearance first and complicated our house preparations and our now presumably all dead.

Aylia got to see Daniel Radcliffe in New York City and is looking forward to a semester in London next Fall, and Anne-Marie and I are making plans for a June trip to England anchored around a Cassini meeting. Cassini keeps on chugging, and we are now midway through year 5 at Saturn with a current nominal end date of September 30, 2010. What happens beyond that will, among other things, such as my tenure application, be decided in 2009.
Josh

Bonne Année à tous et à chacun de vous qui prenez le temps de venir nous lire sur notre blog.
Vous avez vu sur notre photo que nous nous portons aussi bien que possible ce qui n’est pas le cas de notre monde. Mais tous nos efforts ont finalement payé et nous espérons que l’élection de Barack Obama va faire plus que nous donner à tous du baume au coeur.
La famille Colwell a passé une bonne année 2008 malgré les grincements de Josh. Aylia est devenue très indépendante et vit sa vie à Los Angeles. Elle manque beaucoup à ses parents qui s’habituent petit à petit à son absence et sa famille lui manque beaucoup (on n’est pas vraiment sur qui lui manque le plus: ses parents ou ses animaux!) Mais elle reste bien occupée par ses activités artistiques et son théatre. Elle a finit l’année en jouant 2 rôles dans “Saint Joan”, une loooongue pièce de G. Bernard Shaw qui parle de la vie de Jeanne d’Arc. C’est ainsi qu’elle découvre l’histoire de France.
Josh vit au rythme de son travail et ne prend guère de vacances, mais il a commencé à prendre un peu de recul et on espère prendre du temps en 2009 juste pour respirer. De mon côté, en Janvier 08 j’ai eu le privilège de me faire embaucher par ce petit musée local où je travaille les week-ends. Ca me donne le temps et le loisir de m’occuper de notre famille, notre maison et ma peinture. Si vous ne l’avez pas encore vue, vous pouvez aller sur www.bluetangoartfactory.com avoir une idée de ce que je fais.
Nous avons fait pas mal de voyages cette année, surtout Josh pour satisfaire ses responsibilités professionnelles. Je suis allée avec lui découvrir Montréal où je me suis sentie tout de suite à l’aise et ne rêve que de pouvoir y retourner vite y faire un stage artistique. En Mai, j’avais traversé une fois de plus l’Atlantique pour aller fêter les 80 ans de Maman dans les Pyrénées. En Octobre, toute notre petite famille a fêté mon anniversaire à New York. Quelle ville!!!
L’année s’achève entourée de tous les Colwells. De monde, mais bien des rires.
Nous pensons à tout le monde et envoyons nos voeux de paix, de prospérité, de santé et de bonheur.
Anne-Marie