Christmas Letters Past - 2006

Christmas 2006

It is time to hang the lights again. For the first time, it was actually warm as I hung Christmas lights. Initially, this seemed like quite a bonus; no stiff, frozen fingers, no wintry breezes, just outside getting some vitamin D while climbing on ladders and the roof. Unfortunately warm weather means the bugs are still out. The minor event was when I stumbled across an occupied wasp nest. There were several of the pesky critters, and even though Phyllis had charitably allowed them to live rent free they were not all that friendly.
After much whooping, waving of arms and a liberal spraying of Wasp-Be-Gone, the wasps and I came to an understanding. Ironically that wasn’t even the first insect incident of the day since I earlier met up with the king of spiders. (Okay, a spider isn’t really an insect but how could I pass up “insect incident?”) How big was the spider? Well, if you are of a certain generation you will remember the ants in an old movie called Them. If you are a Harry Potter fan, think Aragog. If neither of these help, imagine the biggest dog you have ever seen, then imagine a spider big enough to eat that dog.
Phyllis and I recently received a very nice Christmas card from former President Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. Now I can honestly say I don’t remember the last time we heard from the Carters, but the letter they wrote was very touching (not as humorous as my Christmas letters, but we each have our specific talents).
The Carters talked a lot about some of the recent accomplishments of the Carter Center – working to defeat guinea worm and river blindness in Africa, as well as AIDS prevention in Third World countries.
While reading the letter I realized that many of you probably don’t know about our foundation: The Magady Center for Home Improvement and Technology Studies (M-FITS for short). Not having the soap box of the Carters (and being 100% privately underwritten) our foundation has a much narrower focus. For example, we are in the midst of a 3 year examination of replacement windows. Each year we replace a window then research the difference in temperature and utilities between the old window and new window. We hope to complete our study by 2009.
We are also in the middle of a 5 year study of the Toyota Prius. Our research is examining fuel economy with a specific focus on whether men or women are more successful at achieving higher better miles-per-gallon scores. Unfortunately conclusions based on the preliminary data are in dispute. Our female analyst claims that the data proves women our much more efficient drivers. The male analyst feels the data is too incomplete to make any conclusions. I (I mean the male analyst) also feel that the female analyst is using her superior math education to skew the data by creative rounding. Though the male analyst cannot prove it, but he suspects that the female analyst may be inserting something called “imaginary numbers” into the male driver’s data.
Phyllis is interested in a program on food preparation: specifically she has collected an enormous amount of data on food prep times in a ‘dated’ kitchen. She hopes to compare this data to prep times in a ‘remodeled’ kitchen and prove that the time required to prepare dinner is directly related to the age of the kitchen (newer kitchen – less cooking time).
I hope to soon produce a study of gaming systems. Many of you know that Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have recently released new game systems. Reviewers have examined the plusses and minuses of each system from a “playability” or “fun” perspective. I hope to examine each of the game systems from a caloric standpoint. Does one game system help you burn calories more efficiently than the others? Does one game system increase stress, while another is a stress release?
These are questions that need to be answered, problems that need to be studied, so Phyllis and I are addressing them.
*
I am happy to say we have had a pretty smooth year on the remodeling front. No disastrous ceiling fans, no big plumbing mishaps. We have new guttering and have removed the peculiar little half-wall in front.
A few things to keep in mind if you plan to do your own brick wall demolition: 1) Brick is really really heavy, especially when you are tearing stuff down then tossing it in your pickup. 2) The weight of brick is not constant – I did several studies and the sections of wall that weighed 10-15 lbs while laying in the yard were upwards of 425lbs by the time you carry them 20 feet to the pickup. 3) If your pickup is full of brick, your gas mileage will suffer. 4) If you take 1500 lbs of broken brick to the dump after it has rained, the dump will be very muddy. 5) Not only does this mean you will get muddy, but also that you will get stuck after you lighten your pickup by dumping the bricks. You then have two choices: put bricks back in your truck to add weight or convince the guy in the bulldozer – the one laughing at you– to pull you out.
Phyllis was tested for allergies this year. After some 160 sticks (Phyllis was a very very brave little girl) we discovered that Phyllis is, well, allergic to the outdoors. Her biggest reaction was to something called Russian thistle. We thought this would be okay as we weren’t planning any trips to Russia in the near future. Unfortunately we discovered that Russian thistle is one of the most common weeds in Oklahoma. Pretty much anything else that is outside– including our grass (Bermuda) and the tree in our front yard (Sycamore) – produced an allergic reaction.
We have much to be thankful for this year. We saw Tara’s graduation this summer, where Terry & Cheryl again welcomed us to their home for the graduation celebrations. Earlier we had the opportunity to see my father inducted into the Lee’s Summit High School Hall of Fame. We had another great 4th of July family picnic with Sue & James, Donna & the kids, Bobby & Lisa and the Kids, plus Nola and Manne. Phyllis and I went to War Eagle for the arts and crafts fairs with Manne & Nola. A great little mini-trip even though the weather people had us completely upside-down (the rain that they promised wouldn’t occur on Saturday came in torrents.)
We are going to have a new family member very soon. Kent and Nicole are expecting, and we hope to have another little girl in the family the last week of December. We are also very thankful that Mom’s chemotherapy treatment is going very well and she has had few side effects.
In June, Manne & Nola also saw “The Lion King” musical with us. If you haven’t seen it and ever ever ever get a chance – see the show. The staging and costumes were amazing!
(Personal Disclosure: I am not and have not been involved with Disney, and am not being paid for this promotion. If you happen to be involved with Disney, Time Warner, CBS, ESPN, The New Yorker, Sony, Microsoft, Apple, AT&T, Samsung, and would like to purchase a product placement or an endorsement for future Christmas letters, please contact us. If your company is not in the above list, please send us an email describing your company and product and we will consider it.)
We’ve said more than our share of goodbyes this year. I don’t think I realized how much tragedy reached our extended circle until we started working through our Christmas letter list. As many of you know, Lorraine and Linda Magady both passed away this fall. There is so much to learn from both their examples; caring for others, kindness, the need to take every moment and enjoy it, a willingness, even desire to care for others. Linda and Lorraine were not the only losses this year, many other spouses, parents, grandparents passed away. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of you this difficult holiday season.
School seems to be going well for Phyllis. I say seems because most of the time, I have no idea what she is studying - “ the vector of the cosine of the gibberish, times the square root of the gizmo, stir in two imaginary numbers and bake for 45 minutes at 270 degrees.” Is an example of what I hear when she is studying. She also developed a couple of websites in one class. (http://arapaho.nsuok.edu/%7Emagady/) was her personal web page. She also developed a web-based math lesson.
Sorry for the lateness of the Christmas Letter, it seems the earlier I start the later I finish.
Wishing You the Best this Holiday Season
Merry Christmas
Darren & Phyllis