Christmas 1999

David designs/tests robots at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston, for construction of the space station; works on computer systems for NASA's BioPlex (biosphere); and works at Texas Robotics and Automation Center, a company he started in 1994.  He also edits a series of books from MIT Press -- Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents.  David gave presentations/workshops in Los Angeles (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Pittsburgh (Carnegie-Mellon U.), Detroit, Seattle, Washington, DC, the U. of Virginia, and Stanford U. in California.  While in California he was able to attend the wedding of his cousin Mark Kortenkamp to Joanna Cerruti.  David also gave a presentation in Stockholm, Sweden.  He then went to Budapest to view the solar eclipse of last July.  The American Assoc. for Artificial Intelligence Mobile Robot Competition was held in Orlando this year.  David was again a coordinator and judge.  In Florida he got together with Sarah & Kurt, and Katy who was visiting.  They went to the Atlantic coast to watch a space shuttle launch.  It was to be the first shuttle mission with a woman as commander -- Eileen Collins.  However, they were very disappointed when the launch was cancelled 7 seconds before ignition.  David enjoys trips with friends.  They went to Mexico City to see the sights, including the pyramids north of the city.  And, they made their annual scuba diving trip, this year to the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean.  On the 4th of July, David went to Boston to see the fireworks and listen to the Boston Pops Orchestra.  David also enjoys working out, and runs occasional road races.

Suzie & Jerry and Kaitlyn had an addition to their family – Michael Elijah.  He was born June 15.  When Kaitlyn first visited Suzie and Michael in the hospital, she asked for Michael to be put on the floor so she could “teach him to crawl.”  After Michael was brought home, Kaitlyn showed some sibling rivalry when she was overheard telling Michael that he better behave since she was bigger than he, and she could “throw him in the garbage.”  Actually, she has been very helpful caring for Michael.  Kaitlyn started pre-school this fall (she turned 5 in December).  She also takes dance, gymnastics, and swimming lessons.  Jerry is Head Draftsman at McFarlanes’ Mfg. -- structural steel construction -- in Sauk City, WI.  He and several partners are starting their own structural steel fabrication business -- Skyline Steel -- in a former Del Monte canning warehouse in Arlington (near Madison, WI).  Suzie (a corporate lawyer and CPA) works as their lawyer and accountant.  Suzie enjoys baking, sewing, and craft work.  Jerry was busy landscaping around their new house, and building a deck with a spot for a future hot tub.  He also golfs, and plays on softball and basketball teams.  They enjoy attending UW Badger football games (Suzie is an alumnus).  The Badgers will be going to the Rose Bowl for the second year in a row.  Suzie & Jerry also spend occasional weekends fishing and water skiing at the Raflik family cabin on a lake in northern Wisconsin.  Jerry enjoys hunting and fishing with his father and brothers.

Steve & Jane had their first child on August 29 – Oliver Lang Kortenkamp.  Steve says that Kaitlyn had better be nice to her little brother Michael, because soon Oliver and Michael will be able to gang up on her.  Steve & Jane moved to Columbia, Maryland, where they live halfway between Baltimore (where Jane works) and Washington, DC (where Steve works).  Steve’s parents visited them in August, and were given a tour of Baltimore, including a harbor boat ride to Fort McHenry where Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner.  Steve is an astronomer at The Carnegie Institution of Washington (part of NASA's Astrobiology Institute).  He is researching theories about the formation of Earth-like planets, asteroids, and the extra-solar planets recently discovered.  He gave presentations at conferences in New Hampshire and Estes Park, Colorado.  This year NASA accepted a spacecraft proposal from Steve’s department -- the Messenger mission to Mercury -- which will be launched in 2004.  It will conduct remote sensing experiments and map the surface of Mercury.  Jane is an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, where she does star mapping research for the Hubble Space Telescope.  She made her annual research trip to Kitt Peak Observatory near Tuscon, Arizona; and gave presentations at conferences in Germany, and Estes Park, Colorado.  While Jane & Steve were at Estes Park, they made a visit to Steve’s Aunt Miriam in Colorado Springs.  Steve and Jane also got together with her family for their annual “Beach Party,” this year near Charleston, SC.  They made a side trip to the Charleston neighborhood where Steve’s great-great-great-grandparents lived after immigrating.  Steve & Jane enjoy running road races and marathons.  Steve made his annual pilgrimage to Boston to run the marathon.  Jane ran an 8K race when she was 7½ months pregnant.  Steve also enjoys woodcarving and woodworking.

Nancy became engaged to Matt Mikel of Houston, Texas.  They met while running the Houston Marathon last January, and plan to get married at mile 8 (where they met) during next year’s marathon.  Matt works for a lawn-care business and takes night courses planning to be an elementary teacher.  He enjoys running road races, marathons, triathlons, etc.  Nancy has been running road races and marathons for many years, and is now beginning to do triathlons  and quadrathlons (canoeing-swimming-biking-running) with Matt.  Nancy was working in Madison, WI, until June when she took a new job as Head Audiologist, Rosewood Medical Center in Houston.  She loaded up a U-Haul and drove to Houston, moving into an apartment complex with 9 swimming pools, a movie theatre, computer room, etc.  Nancy, Matt, and David drove home for Thanksgiving; so Matt got to meet some of the family.  Nancy also traveled to Atlanta for a training workshop for her new job.

Peter & Julie were married May 22 at the Sturgeon Bay Yacht Club in Door County, WI.  Julie grew up near Green Bay.  They wrote their own vows, and arranged their own wedding ceremony, which included readings by members of their families.  The ceremony was outside -- it was a beautiful sunny day, with Sturgeon Bay in the background.  Music was provided by the Kurylo String Quartet (friends of Julie from the U. of Iowa).  Their honeymoon trip was to Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies.  Peter is a second-year graduate student in astronomy; Julie is a second-year graduate student in music therapy, both at the U. of Iowa, Iowa City.  Peter’s interest is in planetary systems around distant stars.  He works as an astronomy lab assistant and conducts telescope observatory sessions for students and the public.  Peter’s other love is playing French horn (he has a master’s degree in French horn performance).  Because of the night observatory sessions he has not been able to play in performances during the year; however, he did play for the University Symphony during the summer.  Julie has been taking some interesting music courses such as steel drum band, and African drumming.  She is researching music perception in children with cochlear implants, and has had a paper accepted for publication.  She attended the Ninth World Congress of Music Therapy in Washington, DC, in November.  While there she was able to spend several days visiting Steve & Jane and Oliver.  And, Peter & Julie, living in Iowa, were able to make it to the annual Kortenkamp Family Reunion in August, held in Aurora this year.

Sarah & Kurt moved to Queens, NYC.  Sarah finished her graduate coursework at the U. of Florida, and in August started her one-year internship in clinical neuropsychology at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.  In Florida, they loaded all their belongings in a U-Haul truck (Katy went down to help), and drove home to store most of it.  Then they packed their little Tracer station wagon and headed for NYC.  Sarah’s parents followed a couple weeks later driving a rented van loaded with more of their stuff.  Kurt still works as a program computer support specialist for the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, Dept. of Psychiatry, U. of Florida.  He works from home via the internet, and makes regular trips to the Center.  He is also a free-lance web page designer.  However, Kurt’s first love is studio art (he has a degree in art), and he works on his own art pieces and commissioned pieces.  He also has a degree in creative writing, and enjoys writing fiction and songs (accompanying himself on guitar).  Sarah & Kurt have been enjoying the sights of NYC, and have gotten down to DC to visit Steve & Jane.  Sarah also traveled to Boston and gave a presentation about her epilepsy research at the International Neuropsychology Society Convention.

Betsy works with children from drug and alcohol abuse homes at a family crisis center (ARC Community Services) in Madison (she has a degree in psychology).  She had been living with Katy and Nancy in a condo, but went to live with Suzie this summer after Katy graduated and Nancy moved to Houston.  She was able to help out a lot when Suzie came home from the hospital with Michael (Betsy’s godchild).  After a few weeks, Betsy moved into her own apartment within walking distance to her work.  It is within a couple blocks of Vilas Park and the Madison Zoo, a nice place to jog, and to walk through on the way to work.  Betsy, Katy, Nancy, and their mother ran a 5K race last summer – “Race for the Cure “ – raising money for breast cancer research.  Last winter, Betsy and Tony drove to Houston to visit David; and she visited other people she knew when she worked there.  Betsy is applying to graduate schools for next fall, and plans to become a school psychologist.

Katy graduated from UW-Madison, with majors in psychology and environmental studies.  For her Honors Thesis she collected data on the development of environmental awareness and environmental ethics in students from grade school through college.  In May, she presented this research (along with two other studies) at the Midwestern Psychological Association Convention in Chicago.  After graduation, Katy came home to do a summer internship at the National Environmental Education Advancement Project here on campus, and hang out with a couple high school friends who had also graduated.  In October, Katy began a one-year internship with AmeriCorp, the Domestic Peace Corp.  She lives at Hawley, MA, with other AmeriCorp workers in several cabins on State Forest land in the Berkshire Mountains, and teaches environmental studies at a nearby elementary school.  Next spring and summer she will do trail work in Massachusetts forests and parks.  On her way to Massachusetts, Katy stayed a few days with her high school friends who had taken jobs in DC; spent some time with Steve, Jane, and Oliver in Maryland; and also visited Sarah & Kurt in NYC.  Katy and Sarah visited the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), and took in a Broadway musical – The Scarlet Pimpernel.  Katy also spent Thanksgiving with Sarah & Kurt.  Katy enjoys running and training – she visited David in January and ran the Houston Marathon.  This summer she did her first triathlon, taking 3rd place in her age group, riding her old 8th grade bike.  Katy also took up bird watching this summer, making several birding trips with her father; and one with her mother and father to the International Crane Foundation at Baraboo, WI, which has breeding pairs of every crane species.  And, she and her father made a motorcycle trip looking for Aldo Leopold’s “shack” (a chicken house converted to a cottage) on the Wisconsin River.  It was there, 50 years ago, he wrote his famous book -- A Sand County Almanac -- which began the environmental ethics movement.

Tony is a junior at UW-Eau Claire, majoring in computer science, and also taking advanced astronomy courses.  He is doing very well – getting straight “A”s this semester.  He spent the summer working at his dad’s university here.  He worked with a crew doing whatever jobs needed doing – washing windows, setting up/tearing down for conferences, etc. – and clerked Fridays in the University Surplus Store.  Tony also helped his mother set up her personal web page, and the St. Stephen’s Church web page (his mother had received a grant to purchase a new parish computer and do the web page).  In January, Tony drove with Betsy and Nancy to Houston to visit David.  There he ran the Houston Marathon (his first) with Nancy and Katy.  This summer Tony also did his first (two) triathlons, placing 5th and 4th in his age group.  Not bad, considering he was riding Steve’s bent-up old bicycle.  At college, Tony makes a little extra cash by donating blood plasma twice a week.