A brief update from Sandy and Tom Barlow: Like others who are enjoying their freedom, they have traveled to some interesting places, including Scandinavia and St. Petersburg, Scotland, Ireland, Eastern Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and lots of places across the U.S. They enjoy that part of life!

They moved to Lincoln, CA in 1999 as some of the early residents at Lincoln Hills. They occasionally see Barbara Bryan, Jim and Pat Page, Frank and Suzanne Tokarz, Paul and Judy Brown, Bill and Madeleine Jackson, and Betty Stewart; there is certainly a good representation from "the Lab" up there.

As you probably heard, Norman Stewart passed on earlier this year; Norm and Tom both came to the Lab in 1960 and worked together for many years. They miss his smile and good humor!

Sandy has become deeply involved in church work in Lincoln, and has developed an interest (and talent) in quilting and spinning. Tom has remained active in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in a number of roles, and was recently elected to be its next President, with a term that begins in June, 2008. He also serves on the Washington State University's External Advisory Board for the School of Mechanical and Material Engineering, returning to his "roots" and enjoying every minute of it. Keeping track of both of these has kept him busy - but it is fun.

Pat (G Division, 1990) and Jane (Engineering, 1993) Ellis took a long, enjoyable trip this past June. They returned home on a Wednesday evening after two really long days in airports. They were supposed to fly from NY on 1st class but they had to change to a smaller plane, and they got bumped along with 7 others. They were really looking forward to first class after being on the back of the plane for two days (back means row 59 out of 60. Not only did they get bumped but the plane had an emergency landing in Chicago due to a passenger having a heart attack. So they were over two hours late getting home. Don't know how the passenger is.

They had a great tour director in Russia, went to Hermitage Museum (really nice), and Catherine's Palace, which was great! They had dinner at a family's house which was so nice; they even had a small group come in and sing -- supper evening. Then to Peter & Paul Fortress and St. Isaac's Catheredral. If anyone likes cucumbers they would love to eat in Russia - every salad has them, (too bad neither Pat or Jane care for them). The last night they went to a ballet and saw Romeo and Juliet. The theater was beautiful, but they thought another ballet besides Romeo and Juliet would have been better. The morning before they left they had a lecture from a Russian University Professor. Both Pat and another person were both approached and luckily they realized what was going on. They tried to get Pat's camera and their friend's fanny pack. They hold something up trying to get your attention and then go for it. Overall, though, they both really enjoyed Russia.

Helsinki was the next stop on their City tour. They saw the King and Queen of Norway's boat come in and waited for quite a while for them to get off boat but had to leave before that happened. You could tell their security is nothing like U.S.; people were all around waiting and very few police, etc. The next day they flew into Ivalo at the neatest small airport they had ever seen. They stopped for dinner on the way to the hotel - the dinner was reindeer soup and salad, their first experience with eating reindeer but not the last. They again had dinner with a family and another super experience…Jane offered to help serve dinner and they welcomed her to do so - that was fun. Next day they took the bus into Kirkenes and stopped for lunch, YES, salmon, great! The next day they boarded the Costal Steamer and saw some beautiful country. But the weather wasn't super so they missed some things. They had lots of short stops in many ports and did some sight seeing.

Their next stop was Bergen where they took a City tour about the Old and New Norway. Boy, has oil made a huge difference in their lives - much more $$$. From Bergen on to Oslo by bus, and train - the train ride was beautiful - the water falls were outstanding and the tunnels were amazing. They then took a ferry and decided that Norway is just plain beautiful In Oslo they did another City Tour and saw where they had the Olympics in the 50's - where the ski jumping was really something. They also have the youth Olympics and that is very big. Everything is very expensive in Norway. They paid $22.00 for a hamburger and fries which is something they all wanted after all the fish, cucumbers and reindeer.

Evelyn Heald (Mechanical Engineering and Physics, 1993) and her son Vince of San Diego recently returned from their wonderful two-week adventure in Italy. They spent several days at Lake Como and then journeyed on to Castellamonte which is north of Torino where Evelyn's maternal grandfather was born and drove to the nearby Alps surrounded by snow to visit the home where he lived and met several nearby neighbors. They seemed very excited that two Californians would visit their area and were able to understand and speak the dialect of the region (or least they tried). Their next visit was Florence. They found themselves in the midst of a Chianti Wine Festival in all its pageantry. The delightful medieval city of Assisi was next on their agenda. Rome was the final stop of their journey. With only two full days in Rome, time evaporated, but they were able to spend a memorable and delightful evening with cousins who live in the Testaccio section of Rome.

The results of the balloting were overwhelming in favor of the four named candidates, John Pitts for Chair; Chuck Meier for Vice Chair for Speakers; Bob Hickman for Treasurer; and Harold Pfeifer for Secretary. Congratulations to them all, and be sure to give them our support in 2008.

Message from our new Chairman, John Pitts: Our LLNL Retirees organization is one of many LLESA Networking Groups and any changes resulting from the new management at LLNL that affect LLESA will likely affect our Retirees organization. Although we have little control over changes dictated by the new management, we can keep informed and try to bring items of concern to the attention of the management for their consideration.

Our activities are mainly social in nature with monthly luncheons that allow retirees to renew old relationships, develop new ones, and learn the latest information about items affecting retirees such as your health benefits, etc. We work to have interesting luncheon speakers for your education and enjoyment. Other functions include our annual summer picnic to be held on Wednesday, June 18, 2008, at the Ravenwood Historical Site and a dinner-dance where retirees and their spouse/guest can enjoy a buffet dinner while listening to live music for dancing. All of our functions are listed at our web site, which is www.llnlretirees.org. Check it out; learn the latest about our activities, including travel slide presentations, and sign up for luncheons. Dinner-dances require filling out a simple form that includes the names of retirees/guests that will be attending, enclosing a check and mailing it to LLNL Retirees, P.O. Box 2202, Livermore CA 94551.

We welcome any comments and suggestions but please remember that we are all volunteers, so we may ask for some help if your suggestions require additional effort.

Retirees are advised that the Lab has decided, as a cost saving measure, to terminate the publication of the paper version of Newsline effective February '08. Publication will continue on-line, but there will be no more paper version mailed to homes. In view of that fact, we have included the entire LLNL Retirees Travel Group's 2008 Schedule. From January through June the Travel Group will meet on the fourth Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. in the Livermore Police Department Community Room, 1110 South Livermore Avenue.

January 22 Circling Iceland - Arlene and Stephen Chin

February 26 Driving to Colorado - Miles and Jackie Loyd

March 25 Australia: The Easy Trip - Steve Massey

April 22 Waterfalls & Old Forests in the Oregon Cascades - Bob and Juanita Berlo

May 27 Cities and Mountains of Switzerland - Margo and Arnie Kirkewoog

June 24 North Pole, South Pole, and 7 Continents Inbetween - Frank Rainer

The next Retirees' luncheon will be held on Wednesday, January 16th at the Elk's Lodge in Livermore, 940 Larkspur Drive, across from the Springtown Golf Club. The speaker will be LLNS research physicist Dave Dearborn, and his topic is "Using a nuclear explosion in space to divert or fragment an asteroid so that it poses little or no danger to Earth." Doors open at about 11:30. Food will be served at noon. Price is $15, payable at the door. Reservations must be made in advance.

The next event is the Feb. 9 dinner-dance. If you are not a member, please get the form from the website (above) and join now - you can't attend any of the functions until you join (and sign the liability waiver), so please join now.

Please send any news or input (please include the date and department from which you retired) to Jane or Gus Olson. E-Mail: Jane@LLNLRetirees.org or Gus@LLNLRetirees.org.

This article appears in the January 18, 2008 issue of Newsline