Graphic copyright Autoweek Magazine, 1997
Merry Christmas, and welcome to our modern equivalent of the Christmas newsletter. Sandy and I would like to wish all of our friends and family a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We've been forturnate to be able to visit with many of you. And for those of you we haven't been able to see, I hope we can get together in the coming year.
No big news to report this year. Just our normal amount of travel, auto racing, and such. Our travel season started out with a trip to Nevada and Arizona in April. We stayed in a small casino town on the Colorado river called Laughlin NV. We aren't big gamblers, so we mostly went for hikes and drives in the desert. Our highlights were seeing the Hoover Dam, visiting the ghost town of Oatman AZ, and driving to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in the "Ultimate Off Road Vehicle". (A Chevy Corsica rental car).
For our racing season we were able to see several races at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course; Vintage Sports Cars, Indy Cars, and the SCCA National Runoffs. At Sandy's prompting were also able to see the Cleveland Indy Car race for the first time. And for NASCAR action, we went to the Brickyard 400 with Ron and Lori Reazin. For driving schools, I was able to take a 3 day TrackTime course at Putnam Park road course in Indiana. I was better behaved this year than last year, and kept all 4 wheels on the pavement the entire time. The fact that Sandy (my crew chief) was there watching probably kept me under control. However, I did wear out my racing tires down to the cords trying to keep up with some of the faster cars. :-)
I was able to get in quite a bit of rock climbing this summer, with trips to the New River Gorge and Seneca Rocks in West Virginia, and a trip to Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Dayton also has a very nice local gym, Urban Krag.
Sandy was able to see one of the reunion shows of the Psychodots, her favorite band. She has been missing them since they "broke up" a year ago. It's always fun to see them at Canal St. Tavern. And of course Sandy has spent her usual amount of time attending to our cats, which like all cats seem to think they are the bosses of the house.
We were able to visit family in Michigan, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania this year. We will soon have some photos of the NJ family reunion on the non-Christmas part of our web site. On a sad note, Sandy's grandfather Vern McConnell passed away this year at 101 years of age. He had his health and energy to the end. We were able to scan in some old photos of Vern, including some good pictures of him in his WWI army uniform. We will be adding them to our web site soon.
My brother Chuck is now on patrol as a Montgomery County police officer in Bethesda Md. It's good to find out that being a police officer is less eventful than I thought it would be, but I think he wishes he had a rougher beat and more action. My father Charlie is still enjoying his retirement, and I think my mother Helen is looking forward to her retirement given how troublesome her students are this year.
Sandy's father Stan retired this year after many years at General Cable and took up fishing. Sandy's mother Melva is still a columnist at the Cass City Chronicle. Sandy's brother Mark and Sister in law Shelley have their hands full with Drew and Spencer. Mark has been on lots of exciting but tiring business trips with Fore Systems.
On the career front, Sandy continues to advance at Lexis Nexis, which she still enjoys despite frequent Dilbert like moments and the occasional pointy haired managers. :-)
I've been a little less patient at work than Sandy, and have just moved from Ohio Electronic Engravers, where I've been for the past 2 1/2 years, and started working for a medium sized computer consulting company, 3X Corporation. I'll be working on short to medium term assignments at various customer sites in the Dayton and Cincinnati area.
Well I suppose that is about it for now. If you've visited this page, feel free to drop us a note. Especially if we don't have your email address or have lost touch with you.
Andy and Sandy Welter
Dayton Ohio, December 1997