Season's Greetings!

Christmas, 1999

Dear Friends and Family Merry Christmas! I hope things are going well with you, and that you are having a wonderful holiday season. I thought I'd let you know what's going on in my world(s).

As 1999 started out, you may remember that, thanks to Gerry Sheblé (the professor formerly known as my advisor) and Mani Venkata (chairman of electrical and computer engineering), I was about to embark on my life-long dream to be temporary assistant professor at Iowa State University. Let me just say this: It was great!!!! I got to write email, surf the web, read the newspaper and drink coffee. Then the semester began. I got to inspire fear and hatred in over 90 sophomore (pronounced FRESHMEN) students. (Wasn't that a title of a Dale Carnegie book?) It was actually pretty fun. I presented lectures espousing the virtues of a fully ISO-9000 compliant Death Star (all funded by the Empire, of course). The proposed Death Star would be constructed using an object oriented design & controlled via a GUI written in C++ and would orbit the moon of Endor and use its "LASER" to remind the Ewoks who is boss. Unfortunately, due to budget cut backs, the fully armed and operational Death Star was scaled back to a simple Polar Lander that never made it to the Forest Moon of Endor. In fact, it only got as far as Mars, where it crashed onto the surface with not so much as a puff of smoke. Darn metric system! What the heck is an erg anyway? My students found out. They claimed we covered nearly every topic under the sun... including the sun. Not every part of teaching is as fun as a walk on the ice-planet Hoth. After the spring semester had come to a close, I learned that 4 negative course-evaluations can hurt even when they come with 86 positive comments. Well, those 4 can just forget about a Christmas present from me!

During the spring, in between visits to see my cool sister Julie (Hi Jules! (who happens to write a mean Christmas letter.)) doing a Rockwell co-op in Cedar Rapids, I took Econometrics (pronounced STATISTICS) completing the course requirements for my MS in Economics. I learned a few Latin dance moves in a social ballroom dance class that I was taking at the University. The best part about that dance class was meeting some nice girls. I traveled to New York City in February for a conference. Meanwhile, I was continuing a 9-month battle with Citibank over a $5,012 fraudulent Visa charge, even after vehemently denying that I (and 2 friends) flew from Caracas to Madrid to the Canary Islands and back to Venezuela. Eventually I won (In your face Citibank!) and shredded their visa card. At the same time, I was introduced to departmental politics and territory battles--I had three offices in the span of two months. I ended up with a large office that began to seem smaller as they added officemates one-by-one. Luckily they stopped after Mashiur and Ming, who are great officemates. A great reason to get out of the office for a while, was to go to Fort Worth, TX where I got to be Todd's best man as he married Kayleen. Sundar and Girija showed their Texas hospitality by hunting a buffalo and cooking it up for me. Mmmm good stuff.

Later in the semester, I traveled to such exotic destinations as Waterloo, Ontario and Manhattan, Kansas where I interviewed at their universities. I eventually received an offer from University of Waterloo, which is a great university with some great researchers, but unfortunately my financial situation and the exchange rates would not allow me to accept it. Aye Carumba! In May, I went to Santa Clara, CA for another conference. I also traveled to Colman, South Dakota where the Richters were party to a lot of pomp and circumstance as Zeke Richter (famed lead singer and song-writer of the band "Staddic" (Hi Zeke!)) crossed the stage to get his high school diploma. The summer semester began, and I continued working at Iowa State. While Gerry Sheblé was off teaching in New Zealand, I was back in Iowa facilitating a course using control theory techniques to model dynamical economic systems. All four students (James, Derek, Valentín and Hao Wu) passed!

In June, my sister Betsy (Hi Bets!) admitted to having a serious relationship with a future lawyer named Kris Lehmkuhl (Hi Kris!), but only after she gave up the single life and was walking away from the altar in a wedding ceremony in Brookings. Although their baby was due within a day of Betsy's wedding, my sister Ginger (Hi Ginger!) and her husband Chad (Hi Chad!) (not wanting to steal any of Betsy's glory) graciously waited a week before giving Angel (Hi Angel!) a baby sister; Whoo-hoo! I was an uncle once again. Congratulations to the Rasmussens! I celebrated by throwing myself a birthday party.

In July, after an Independence Day party (Ely-style) with the Hagemans, I got to spend a week abroad. (Does Canada count?) I went to the IEEE PES Summer meeting in Edmonton, Alberta. It's like Sioux Falls, only 10 times bigger, people put an "eh" on the end of their sentences, and the sun doesn't go down until around 11:00pm in the summer time on account of them being fairly far north. I didn't run into Santa Claus, but I hear he stops in once in while. Following the meeting, I flew westward and spent a weekend visiting Vincent and Felicidade (a.k.a. Dadi) VanAcker in Vancouver, where they were taking a much-needed break from Ames, IA. Because Dadi expressed a fear of heights and also of dying, it was necessary to knock her unconscious before transporting her in the cable car to the top of Whistler Mountain. At the top, after reviving Dadi, we took pictures and competed in spitting for distance. I won. That evening, Madhura Bhave came from Seattle long enough to eat with us and to say, "Chuck Richter bahuth bura aadmi hai." The next day in Vancouver, we ran into Nick Nolte, who was filming a movie set in Wisconsin. They needed extras for a scene where people get killed, but when I heard they were using real bullets to cut-down on salaries, I declined the role. Finally the time came to return to sunny Iowa. However, Air Canada (otherwise known as United Airlines) had other plans. They switched my flights, rerouted me through Calgary, closed the Denver airport after I arrived (well, that was due to a thunderstorm, so I can't blame United), and delivered me to Des Moines four hours after my scheduled arrival. My luggage went to Sydney, Australia. Read more about it at: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crichter/canada1.html

In August, after nine months of coaxing and anticipation, of being inspired and convinced while listening to other proud parents and television commercials, I myself, became the proud father,.. well, owner,.. of a 1999 red Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. Yeah baby! With its 4.7 Liter V8, and 4x4 quadra-trac II drive terrain, I truly believe that I will be able traverse from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other to fetch an overthrown Frisbee. Chris says it has a cute butt. That's another thing that happened--a week or two into August, I was able to convince Dr. Christine Hall (whom I had met in a dance class earlier in the year) to dump the pilot and/or US senator she was dating and hang out with me. The moment I asked her out, she looked into my "20/10 minus 2" green eyes and responded with an enthusiastic, "Sure, what the hell." She's a foxy optometrist (pronounced DENTIST) who's not afraid to quote lines from Austin Powers, drink wine and homebrew beer, or argue with me about randomly chosen words from the dictionary, e.g., syzygy, posthumously, etcetera. She claims to have played league tennis at national and/or regional tournaments, but she refuses my challenge to a one-on-two all-out match for glory. I get Pete Sampras.

Also in August, my contract at ISU was ending. I briefly contemplated an extended world tour, or taking a job elsewhere (I interviewed at Siemens in Minneapolis which quickly offered me a good job), but two weeks before my position was to have ended, a deal was reached that allowed me to stay in Ames until December 31. I was happy, because staying for an extra semester would give me a little time to prove to Chris how strange I really am--initially she thought it was all an act. Now she knows "I have detailed files." As if enough wasn't already happening, because I hadn't signed a lease, I had to move to a new apartment. At that time I canceled the rarely used phone service to my apartment.

August was definitely a busy month, we got together in Rock Rapids to baptize Hope (Hi Hope!) and celebrate her birth in the Rasmussen's remodeled home--with improvements (including a new garage) thanks to the efforts of Chris, Tom and Company (Hi Chris! Hi Tom!, Hi Jake!, Hi Megan!). We also played basketball. A week later, I loaded up the JGC and headed to everyone's favorite town that borders Lake Michigan and is 20 miles south of Milwaukee. Yep, you guessed it, Racine, Wisconsin. Mike "the Shark" Hageman and Don "the Fish" Perella decided they would see how long 3100 CC of air would last me 110 feet below the surface. Not too long, as it turns out. After a 20-minute review of the rusty basics of scuba-diving (I had been out of the water for 7 years) in the Racine quarry, the intent was to dive two shipwrecks (The Prince Wilhelm, and The Milwaukee) conveniently located at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Fortunately, I was diving with people who were experts. Wanna know if I survived the ordeal? Read about it at: http://www.public.iastate.edu/~crichter/diving.html

In September, I flew down to Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona where I gave a seminar and had an unofficial interview with G. Heydt & the EE department at Arizona State University. I got to experience delicious authentic southwest cuisine; the prickly pear cactus fruit, javelina, and other desert produce turned out to be quite tasty. In October, the opportunity to give four presentations at the North American Power Symposium took me to San Luis Obispo, California. Chris came along to be my tour guide (having lived in CA previously). She introduced me to her brother, Tim, and his family in Redondo Beach, where she braved the surf to go swimming. I had to break up a fight between she and the kids (Eddie and Katie) over some pokémon trading cards. We returned to the Midwest in time to see Nancy's (Hi Nancy!) play in Flandreau. Chris met Dad (Hi Dad!) and my siblings (Hi Bill!, Hi Alex!); then we returned to Ames for a millennium ball sponsored by the college of engineering in the new Howe Hall building.

In November, I was requested to write and submit some chapters on power systems topics to various publishers. Aware that my contract deadline was approaching, I did some more interviewing, this time in California, Texas (home of my sister Laura (Hi Laura!)), and North Dakota. Since Grandma & Grandpa Richter (Hi Grandma!, Hi Grandpa!) were heading to south Texas early this year, the Richters celebrated Thanksgiving a bit early--November 13th--at Ginger and Chad's place. I became embarrassed when Grandma, from across the room, accused me of playing Doctor with Dr. Hall. Honestly Grandma, I swear was just rubbing the front of her shoulders, which were sore from exercise. On Nov. 25th (Thanksgiving day), Chris and I visited her sister, Kathleen, in Minneapolis where I met her parents. Except for a moment when I mistook Kath for Chris, everything went well. (Thank goodness I stopped short of a full-blown hug and kiss!)

In December, only a week later, wanting to spend a bit more time with Chris, I told California that I couldn't accept their offer yet. At the time of this writing, I have not accepted any positions. As a professor at ISU Gerry Sheblé must use ISU's antiquated accounting system, and had given up hope finding further funding for me. Fortunately, last week he found some money between the cushions on his office couch, and thinks it will be enough to extend my contract through January. This moves me out of the fire and back into the frying pan, but I'm going to have to take a position soon. (Or perhaps I could take time off to write the all-American Christmas letter. Nah, that doesn't pay the bills.)

So my year was fairly uneventful--a full page less eventful than last year--as you can see. I hope you and your family remain safe this holiday season. Remember, if you're gonna party like it's 1999, to do so responsibly. Stay in touch and have a happy new millennium! Warm Holiday Wishes & Seasons Greetings,

Chuck Richter, Jr.