Christmas 2003

Jan & Dan. Janet retired June 30 as Director of Religious Education at St. Stephen Parish.  For her retirement party, Suzie made a crossword puzzle cake, which Janet had to complete; Dan gave a PowerPoint video presentation titled, “This is your life Janet Kortenkamp”; and everyone sang “Brown eyed Mom” (to the tune of Van Morrison’s “Brown eyed girl”) with lyrics by Katy, Sarah and Dan.  Her children gave her a full-size electric piano (picked out by Peter); and Dan gave her a digital camera (she likes to receive/send pictures via the Internet).  Janet enjoys going for walks, working crossword puzzles, sewing, doing cross stitch, playing piano, singing in the church choir, participating in a liturgy study group, baking, and doing volunteer work.  However, there was also sadness this summer – Janet’s 91 year-old mother, Gertrude, died August 21.  Jan; Dan; Suzie, Kaitlyn, & Michael, and Sarah traveled to Indianapolis for the funeral.

Dan (who retired last year) enjoys working on the house, distance running, visiting his 93 year-old dad in Cedar Falls, IA, and genealogy.  After 13 years of research, he finally discovered the hometown in Bavaria of Janet’s “Lang” ancestors.  Dan also loves driving.  He drove to Houston in March to visit David and Nancy & family -- made the trip (1,389 miles door-to-door) driving through the night in 21 hrs. 34 min.  He helped David build a backyard deck (with some help from Matt), and Japanese-style trellis.  Dan & David also visited a couple Houston art museums, ran a 5-K road race (with Sarah and Katy), and did some kayaking.

David, Seabrook, TX, is a senior scientist with the Automation, Robotics, and Simulation Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, Houston.  He designs robots to assist astronauts -- for assembly/inspection/maintenance of the Space Station, and for planetary exploration.  He is also developing software for autonomous life support systems (air regeneration/water recovery) to be used for Lunar and Martian colonies.  And, David has two private research companies -- Texas Robotics and Automation Center (NASA projects), and Technobotics, Inc. (computer vision).  He also works one week a month at the Naval Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC.  As usual, David was busy traveling, giving talks/workshops, consulting, and serving as a judge at robot competitions -- Carnegie-Mellon U., Pittsburgh; NASA’s Ames Research Center, San Jose (Spacecraft Autonomy Group); Nara, Japan (International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Automation in Space); Vancouver, Canada (International Conference on Environmental Systems); Acapulco, Mexico (International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence); Stanford U., Palo Alto (American Assoc. for Artificial Intelligence Symposium on Human Interaction with Autonomous Systems in Complex Environments); Las Vegas (Comdex Convention); Monterey, CA; Lubbock, TX; Boston, MA; Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine; and Rice U., Houston.  David’s book on robots was referenced in Michael Crichton’s new #1 best-selling novel, Prey – “In a Nevada desert, an experiment has gone horribly wrong.  A cloud of nanoparticles – microrobots – has escaped from the laboratory.  This cloud is self-sustaining and self-reproducing.  It is intelligent and learns from experience.  For all practical purposes, it is alive.”  While in Japan, David spent a couple weeks traveling and visiting many temples, castles, and gardens.  However, he tired of eating fish and rice, and began looking for other restaurants – e.g., Italian or Mexican.  No luck!  David enjoys kayaking, salsa dancing, cooking and entertaining, wine tasting, running and working out.  He and his friends made their annual hiking-camping trip -- 7 days on the Pacific Crest Trail from Mount Hood down to the Columbia Gorge (rained continuously 5 days).  They also vacationed in Villahermosa, Mexico, visiting the Maya ruins at Palenque.

Suzie, Jerry, Kaitlyn (9) & Michael (4), Middleton, WI (north side of Madison).  Suzie & Jerry were busy managing their business, Skyline Steel, Inc. (structural steel fabrication).  Suzie works 3 days a week when Micha is in preschool.  She does accounting, payroll, insurance, benefits, licenses/permits, taxes, etc.  They have over 30 employees, and are building a 9,000 sq. ft. addition to their plant.  When Jerry wasn’t working at the office, he was working at home finishing (in a “log cabin” theme) their basement project – full bath, play/exercise area, family room with fireplace, and guest bedroom.  Their home has become the central meeting place for their ever-expanding extended families.  They hosted the Kortenkamp family Thanksgiving again, made a little easier by the extra basement space.  This summer Jerry went to Canada fishing with his dad, 4 brothers and a nephew.  He also played softball (summer) and basketball (winter) one night a week.  Suzie enjoys crafts, baking and running.  On only three days training per week, she ran her first marathon -- Twin Cities Marathon -- with her sisters Sarah and Betsy.  Kaitlyn is in 3rd  grade.  Her favorite subjects are reading, writing, and art.  Her hardest subject is math.  She is very creative and loves to draw or write stories about her new interest – horses.  She went to a horseback riding camp with her Brownie troop last spring and got the “bug”.  Kaitlyn also enjoys gymnastics – she practices two nights a week for 4 hours and wants to join the competitive traveling team as soon as she perfects her back handspring (a must for competition).  She also attended a dance clinic with the high school dance team, and then performed at halftime during a high school football game.  For her golden birthday this year, Suzie took her to see Shania Twain in concert.  Kaitlyn also went to a performance of the “Nutcracker Ballet” by the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra, seeing her uncle Peter play Principle Horn.  Michael started pre-school.  The first few weeks were a little rough (separation anxiety), but now he enjoys it and has made a lot of new friends.  He loves to spend his summers in the pool, under the sprinkler, or playing with the hose watering whatever gets in his way.  The kids also enjoy attending UW-Madison Badger football games with Suzie and Jerry.

Steve, Jane, Oliver (4), & Eliza (9 mos.), Tucson, AZ.  Steve is an astronomer with the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, U. of Arizona, and the private Planetary Science Institute.  He researches the origins and evolution of planetary systems around stars, and attended the “Origins of the Solar System” conference in Bristol, RI, in July.  He is also co-teaching a planetary science course at the U. of Arizona.  Jane is an astronomer at the Steward Observatory, U. of Arizona; and makes frequent trips to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.  She works with a team that built and now operates the Multiband Imaging Photometer launched on the Spitzer Space Telescope in August.  This solar-orbiting Hubble-type telescope is the latest of NASA's space observatories.  It has an aperture twice as large as that of Hubble, and cameras bathed in liquid helium just a couple of degrees above absolute zero to detect faint objects at the edge of the universe.  At home Steve & Jane’s family grew when Eliza Jane was born March19.  She waves “Hi”, claps her hands, likes to “dance” (rock) to music, enjoys shouting back and forth with Oliver, and making an “evil” face (crinkled brow and nose) when shouting.  Oliver attends day care at the Jewish Community Center.  He can write his name and recite his phone number, enjoys singing (has a good voice), plays tennis, and is becoming fairly fluent in Hebrew.  Last spring Steve installed an irrigation system in the backyard, including a water slide for the kids.  Family trips included Lego Land (San Diego), camping with friends (Prescott, AZ), and the Phoenix Zoo with cousin Paul Kortenkamp and his family (from Los Angeles).  In November (8 mos. after Liza was born) Jane competed with Steve in a triathlon and in the 109-mile El Tour de Tucson bike race.  Jane would have beaten Steve in the bike race had she not gotten 6 flats and one complete blowout.  Jane also enjoys craftwork, and is regarded as the best stained-glass craftswoman in her neighborhood.

Nancy, Matt, Simon/”Sam” (3), Lance (2), & Jackson (8 mos.), Houston, TX.  Nancy is Director of Audiology at the Rosewood Ear, Nose, and Throat Center.  Matt is a househusband, and works part-time for a lawn care company as a mechanic.  He also takes night and Saturday college classes to become a science teacher.  Jackson was born April 11.  David and Dan (who happened to be in Houston) were able to visit Nancy in the hospital.  Sarah and Katy flew to Houston to help Nancy when she came home from the hospital.  Jackson likes to give hugs.  Lance is a climber, and has already been to the emergency room due to a fall.  Sam is into building things, and trying to figure out how things work (takes after his Dad).  Matt helped David build a deck in David’s backyard, paint the walls and install a new wood floor in his family room, and remodel his guest bathroom.  Matt also had a large garden this year – tomatoes, soybeans, watermelon, green beans, peppers (bell, cayenne, jalapeno, etc.), squash, strawberries, etc.  On December 20, Nancy and family will be moving to Middleton, WI, just 1 mile away from her sisters Suzie and Betsy.  Nancy has taken a job as a pediatric audiologist with the U. of Wisconsin Hospital Audiology Clinics in Madison, working with children with cochlear implants.

Peter, Iowa City.  Peter & Julie had an amicable divorce.  Julie has been working for over two years as a music therapist at the Hospice of Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, FL.  Peter is in his last year as a graduate student in astrophysics at the U. of Iowa.  He passed his PhD orals this fall.  He also received the Physics Department’s Goertz/Nicholson Memorial Scholarship ($4,000) for "promise of achieving excellence in the field of astrophysics".  He does radio telescope research on interplanetary scintillations (variations in radio waves due to the plasma that fills the solar system).  He collects data at the North Liberty, IA, radio astronomy antenna, part of the Very Long Base Array (a series of ten radio antennas spread across the United States and its territories from the Virgin Islands to Mauna Kea, Hawaii).  He presented his research in May at the American Astronomical Society Convention in Nashville.  While in Nashville he visited the Parthenon – “an exact copy of the Athenian original.  Inside is the 42-ft Athena Parthenos, the tallest indoor sculpture in the Western world.”  Peter also presented a paper in June at the Very Large Base Array 10th Anniversary Conference in Socorro, NM.  He and his father drove to Socorro.  They toured the Very Large Array -- 27 radio antennas (each 82 feet in diameter) in a Y-shaped configuration stretching for 22 miles.  This array was featured in the 1997 movie “Contact” with Jodie Foster.  Peter and his dad drove on to Tucson to visit Steve and his family, where they went mountain climbing, visited the San Xavier Mission, the Desert Museum (with Jane & Oliver), and Kitt Peak National Observatory (altitude 6800 feet, home to 24 telescopes) with Steve, Oliver, and Eliza.  Peter’s first love is playing French horn (he has an MA in French horn performance).  He plays Principle Horn for the Central Wisconsin Symphony Orchestra (making frequent trips home for practices and performances), and has filled in for a sick horn player in the U. of Iowa Chamber Orchestra.  He also has been tutoring a young horn student in Iowa City for several years.  This year Peter auditioned for several orchestras -- Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, Madison Symphony, National Symphony (Washington, DC), Milwaukee Symphony; Elgin Symphony (Elgin, IL); New World Symphony (Miami), Ann Arbor Symphony, Jacksonville Symphony, Youngstown Symphony, etc.  Before auditioning for the National Symphony in the Kennedy Center, he and Katy waited in conductor Leonard Slatkin’s dressing room -- his tuxedo, toothbrush and conducting baton were all laid out ready for that night's performance.

Sarah & Kurt, Arbor Vitae, WI (near Minocqua, a small resort town in northern Wisconsin).  Sarah is a clinical neuropsychologist at the Marshfield Clinic Lakeland Center in Minocqua.  Marshfield Clinic, Marshfield, WI, is one of the largest medical clinics in the U.S. with over 700 physicians in 39 regional clinics.  In February, she and Kurt went to Hawaii where Sarah attended the International Neuropsychological Society Conference.  They went snorkeling and body surfing.  Sarah & Kurt enjoy the solitude of their house in the woods north of Minocqua, where their dog “Summer” (a Vizsla) has room to run.  They have a 4-car garage, part of which Kurt developed into an art studio where he works on his own pieces and commissioned pieces.  He has pieces on exhibit at a gallery in Door County, WI.  Kurt also works at home as a computer consultant via the Internet.  Sarah & Kurt kayak during the summer (their property has access to a lake), snowshoe, and cross-country ski in the winter.  This October Sarah ran the Twin Cities Marathon (Minneapolis-St. Paul).  It was the 10th anniversary of her first TCM, and she talked Suzie, Betsy, and Tony into running.  Sarah, Suzie, and Betsy ran together, wearing matching tank tops designed by Sarah with a picture of them together as children, their names, and the words, “Go, sisters, go” so people could cheer them on.  Mom & Dad, David, Peter, and Katy were there also to cheer them on, so it was a mini family reunion.  At registration for the marathon we got a family picture taken with Frank Shorter, first American Olympic Gold Medal winner in the marathon (Munich, 1972).  A couple other trips Sarah made were to Houston to help Nancy after Jackson was born; and to D.C. to visit Katy, where they walking-toured the city, went dancing, did some shopping, ate lots of ethnic food, met with David for dinner, did some running in Rock Creek Park, and took a trip to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Betsy Middleton, WI, is Co-Teacher at ARC Community Services (Center for Women and Children and Healthy Beginnings), Madison, Wisconsin.  She works with children from drug and alcohol abuse homes.  Betsy also has an online business called sisterbox.com -- “The faster, easier way to send a care package without losing the homemade touch.”  She sells pre-made gift boxes, and has a virtual mall for those who want to individually select items for a gift box.  Betsy’s apartment is only 1 mile from Suzie and Jerry’s house.  This is very convenient because Betsy often baby-sits Kaitlyn and Michael.  She also goes on training runs with Suzie; this year they ran the Madison Half Marathon, and the Twin Cities Marathon with Sarah.  In August, Betsy took a road trip to the West Coast along with Peter, Katy, and Tony.  They visited such sites as the SPAM Museum, Austin, MN (“the world of SPAM Family of Products with a variety of interactive and educational games, fun exhibits and remarkable video presentations”), the Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD, covered with murals made of corn, grain, grasses, wild oats, brome grass, blue grass, rye, straw and wheat ("agricultural showplace of the world -- wheat, rye and sorghum have their boosters, but it's corn that fattens our hogs, sweetens our muffins and puts the starch in our shirt collars”), Mount Rushmore, the Space Needle and Pike Place Market, Seattle (where Katy visited her AmeriCorp friend Tara), and Portland, OR (where Betsy visited her college friend Shelley).  They also drove to Redwoods National Park, California (where they camped on the Pacific beach).  On December 15, Betsy will start a new job as Pre-K Teacher at Clubhouse for Kids, Cross Plains, WI (near Middleton).

Katy, UW-Madison, was a research assistant during the first part of the year at the Urban Institute, Washington, DC (a think tank for nonpartisan economic/social policy research).  During this time she was also interviewing at graduate schools.  While in Austin interviewing at the U. of Texas, David, Nancy & her kids came from Houston for a visit.  Katy also got a free trip to Madison to interview at the UW, and got together with some family at Suzie & Jerry’s house to celebrate Betsy’s birthday.  Katy eventually turned down offers from Princeton and the U. of Pennsylvania to become a graduate student in the Dept. of Psychology at UW-Madison. She now earns a meager living as a teaching assistant for the introductory statistics course.  She is very interested in statistical methods and experimental design.  Her areas of research interest are environmental psychology and decision-making.  While in DC, Katy made trips to New York City – saw the Broadway musical “42nd Street”, danced in the rotating restaurant atop the Marriott Marquis (on Times Square), toured the Guggenheim Museum, etc.  She also took road trips with friends to Boston and Philadelphia.  And she had visits from Sarah, Peter (when he auditioned for the National Symphony), and David (when he works at the Naval Research Lab).  Katy attended a conference on “Systematic Reviews in the Social Sciences” at the Inn at Perry Cabin on the Chesapeake Bay.  She also tutored- math at a DC high school for teens involved with the juvenile justice system.

Tony, UW-La Crosse, is a senior education major, planning to teach high school science.  This fall he did his “clinical experience” work at the School of Technology and Arts II in La Crosse.  Tony enjoys distance running -- running several half-marathons this year (getting a personal record of 1:30), and getting a personal record of 3:38 in the Twin Cities Marathon.  His girlfriend, Brenna, also an education major, plays on the UW-La Crosse women’s club hockey team.  In September she did the NorthShore Inline Marathon -- “the largest and most scenic inline skating event in the U.S. along the beautiful North Shore of Lake Superior at Duluth.”  This summer Tony went canoeing and camping for a week with Brenna and her father in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (part of the Superior National Forest in Northern Minnesota) -- “a million acres of wilderness, with over 1,000 pristine lakes and streams, and 1,500 miles of canoe routes.  It is considered by some as the most beautiful wilderness they have ever seen.  National Geographic named it one of ‘50 Destinations of a Lifetime’.”   In September, Tony, Brenna and her family went to the Renaissance Festival, Shakope, MN -- “22 acres of lively entertainment, unusual foods, unique crafts and family fun, create all the ingredients for a 16th century amusement. Costumed characters represent village life from simple peasants to ornate Royalty.”  Tony also enjoys writing songs and playing guitar, and performed at several open mikes around La Crosse.  One high point of the summer was the road trip he made to the West Coast with Betsy, Peter, and Katy.  During summers and weekends Tony works as a driving instructor.