Dear friends and family,

 This will be a short Christmas letter this year.  It has been an exceptionally busy year, and time has gotten away with me.  Tomorrow is the last day I have to get these in the mail.  Saturday morning, we depart for a seven day Caribbean holiday cruise.  Debi has been wanting to go on a cruise for years, but we never saved enough money.  This year she was so determined that she decided to pay a significant part herself.  We took the money we had saved for Christmas as a down payment, and Debi will have to pay the remainder off over the next year.  I'm sure the credit card company will appreciate the interest.

 In last years letter, Debi had started a new job with a healthy increase in pay.  Unfortunately, the company decided to “downsize” and terminated her on 31 December.  It was a depressing start to the new year, but she bounced back with another job at the same pay.  She wasn't happy with that job, but she had a new car to pay for.  She kept looking, and eventually found another job with a lawyer working in estate planning and trusts, which is what she preferred.  They were so desperate for someone to start immediately that they offered her an increase over her current salary.  She took the job, and six months later they gave her another raise because of her work.  It is a small office with four attorneys and a student.  They really keep here busy.  They have enough work for a second legal assistant, but they haven't hired one.  Debi gets plenty of overtime, so her paycheck has really grown.  Too bad she doesn't save any of that extra money.  We could have easily paid for that cruise with a little prior planning.

 Debi got me involved with her new office, supporting and upgrading their computer network.  They were running older 386 and 486 computers with DOS networking software.  I've upgraded all the computers and the software.  Most are now Pentiums, with a few of the old 486's in the less utilized positions.  Keeping the network and workstations working has become a fairly comprehensive part-time job.  Shortly after I had completed the first round of workstation upgrades, the company was forced to move into a new location.  The existing network was outdated, so I installed new network equipment at the new location.  They will be refurbishing the building, so I built the network to be flexible.  I've already had to completely reconfigure the network once, with at least one or two more moves remaining before everything settles down.  All this part-time work along with my regular Air Force duties has kept me really busy.  I don't seem to have much personal time anymore.  I have two main projects keeping me busy in addition to the normal personnel management tasks expected of a Major.  One of those projects had me deployed to a small desert island called San Clemente Island.  Don't confuse that with the San Clemente where Nixon used to vacation.  That's a seaside resort in southern California.  San Clemente Island is a rock, 21 miles long and three miles wide, 80 miles off the coast of San Diego.  The experiment lasted three weeks, and was a success.  We were all ready to go home after three weeks.

 Candace is not taking dance classes this year.  She has joined Razzle Dazzle, a sort of pep squad group for young girls.  She had a performance tonight, so I got a late start on this letter.  Candace is also taking piano lessons and is really doing well.  She likes to practice, sometimes too much.  We have to chase her away from the piano late a night, or when it interferes with other activities around the house.  We'll see how long this new love for the piano lasts.  Hope she sticks with it.  Aaron graduated from High School this year and has started taking classes at Universal Technical Institute in Houston, Texas.  He still drives back to San Antonio each weekend, or at least he did until he found a job.  He will be there for another year working at becoming a certified mechanic.  Afterward, they help him find a job, so we're hopeful everything will work out for him.  He's had a bit of bad luck with people breaking into the Jeep Renegade his Grandparents loaned him.  He never did get his Javalin running well enough to make the trip back and forth to Houston.

 It's getting late, and I have to get this letter printed so I can mail it tomorrow.  Hope you had a good year.  Drop us a line if you have time.  Both Candace and I can be reached by email.  My address is: r.hackett@ieee.org and Candace's is chackett@poboxes.com.  Candace also has a web page.  Stop in a http://www.highfiber.com/~rhackett/candace.html for a peak.  You'll find some family pictures there, and her science fair project.  She wants to publish some of her stories when we find the time to keypoke them into the computer.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

The Hackett's
Ron, Debi, Aaron and Candi