June 21, 1998 Father's Day

Dear Friends and Family,

As some of you know, we have been gone for the last 10 days, rafting on the Colorado River. We got home last night (Saturday) and I wanted to get this letter out before I go back to the office and get buried with work.

Since the last newsletter, we went to Cleveland (sans Lorien who was busy preparing for finals) to celebrate Jeremy's graduation. In four years he earned a BS and MS in computer engineering at Case Western University in Cleveland. He is back now, and it is good to have him at home again. He thinks he should grow up, get an apartment and so forth, but I am trying to discourage that sort of thinking. He has a job working for InWorldVR doing contract work for Intel (he has worked summers there for 3 years) but is looking for programming in the entertainment field and is interviewing with a number of Bay Area companies. Marty and I hope he finds a job he likes in the area so we can still enjoy his company.

Lorien had a great time at the Jr./Sr. Prom. Dad and mom took lots of pictures.. sigh... so young, so fresh, so innocent. (yes they are posted on our web page) She then went on a "Vision Quest" trip with many in her senior class. They went to Mono Lake in the Sierras, and Lorien had a 3 day solo camping experience. She said the time passed very quickly, unlike what she expected. Her graduation from Marin Academy High School was lovely. Lorien received awards in English, Art, History and Math. Needless to say, we are very proud of her. As I mentioned in the last newsletter, she will be going to UCLA next year. In light of the fact that she has not found another job for the summer, she has consented to work for dad. I hope she can figure out a way to have some fun with it.

Eric's volleyball season ended with school (new picture album. www.friesen.org). Eric is ready to start building computers for his summer work. I have ordered a couple for the business. If you are looking for a computer, send him an email. eric@friesen.org.

Marty has joined the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and will be singing her **** off starting this fall with a heavy schedule. In addition, she is doing a local concert with a group of friends "Consort" and will be preforming Handel's Dixit Dominus on August 23 at Stewart Chapel in San Anselmo. For those of you in the area who want to join us, let me know.

It is real nice for me to be off of the trading floor. The family was able to take a reasonable vacation without dad scrambling to find service for his cell phone. I have a great bunch of traders working with me and don't need to be glued to the markets as much. Which is real good because as I mentioned earlier, we just got back from rafting the Colorado River down the Grand Canyon and baby.. they don't have cell phone service there.

We started at the South Rim of the Canyon, and walked down the Bright Angel Trail, descending 6700 feet from the rim to the river. The weather was unseasonable cool, which was a real gift, because the temperatures can hit 110 degrees. We met the "Oars" rafts there, which had been launched higher up river at Lee's Ferry. We were late starting because one of our fellow rafters had a hard time making it down the steep descent (68 years old and two canes but he made it). We went a little down river and camped. The next morning, we prepared for Crystal Rapids, one of the class 10 rapids. I was in the last boat to go through. One boat before us, got "wrapped" around a large rock. The family aboard got stuck on the rock for 4 hours. A large motor raft was able to add an extra motor and get into the eddy behind the rock and attach a line. The family then jumped into the water one by one and guided by the rope, work their way down to the motor raft which then took them to shore. That left the river guide who spend the rest of the day unloading provisions, tying the stuff together, and letting it float downstream. They were unable to move the raft, so it was abandoned.

We spent the night on the beach, and lost a day of time. The next couple of days were very full as we pushed our now overload rafts (down to 4) to make up for lost time. We took some glorious side hikes that were very demanding (one was 14 miles with 3000 feet of elevation climb). We had some very narrow ledges to cross above vertical cliffs that seemed to be more of concern to me than the guides or the kids. We also caught up with some of our floating supplies (the meat locker was found, so we did not have to go hungry). Wednesday night after we set up camp (without tents) and had finished our lasagna dinner, a wind came up from nowhere, and blew up a sandstorm that was pretty intense. We could not see to walk. We managed to put up our tents during the storm. Fortunately, it started to rain, which settled some dust so we could see a bit of what we were doing. Eric did a great job of providing tent weight to keep the tents from tumble-weeding into the river.

The highlight of the trip was of course Havasu Canyon and Beaver Falls. A three-hour hike up a gorgeous aqua blue river brought us to a series of Garden of Eden type water falls with aqua blue pools of water to swim in. It was hard to believe we were in the Grand Canyon. We climbed up some rock walls via small ledges and in one of the pools, we were able to swim under a hidden ledge and go into a cave like grotto. From there we could jump 25 feet into the lower pool. Once Marty climbed up, there was just one way down and jump she did. Landed on her butt and got a spanky. One teenager who was in the raft incidence, decided to climb up by himself and make the jump again. Only he slipped crossing the upper stream and went down the upper waterfall, out of our sight. I have no explanation how he did that without getting killed or breaking any bones but he did. We heard his cries for help, and I scrambled up the cliff along with two guides where we found him hanging onto an underwater rock, terrified he would be swept down the next waterfalls. We got him to shore and other than scratches and bruises, he was ok. He was brave enough to make the jump to the lower pool and swim to shore.

The rest of the trip was as scheduled. Lava Falls was a piece of cake and not nearly the "experience" I was expecting. Since we did not have much rain, the waters was pretty clear and we did not have to deal with the muddy water that fills the canyon after a big rain. The food was excellent and the guides were good. I did some rowing during the non-critical times and enjoyed that very much.]] At Whitmore Wash we were helicoptered out to the Bar 10 ranch, and from there took a Cessna to Las Vegas. From the depths of the Canyon, to the depths of depravity. What a contrast. We took in a couple of motion simulators (remember Maximagic?), an Imax 3-D production and a magic and dinner show. Just for fun we all (yes, Marty too after some arm-twisting) went skydiving in a vertical wind tunnel. You lay down on a wire mesh above a HUGE propeller and they crank up the prop. The air then lifts you up until you are stable. It was quite a challenge to stay in the middle of the airflow and not slip off to the sides. Everyone did quite well. We did not have our camera for pictures, so you will have to imagine the experience.

Now we are back home. Marty is doing a ton of laundry to get out the Canyon dust that is everywhere. I am cleaning up old photos and getting ready for work tomorrow. I have posted some new pictures on our web page which you can get to with our new URL (the old one still works too). This index page lists all the old and new photo albums and newsletters with links.

I added (or will add) some of Jeremy and Lorien's graduation photos, and Lorien's prom pictures. The Canyon photos should be posted in a few weeks and I'll let you know when they are up. I did not take the digital camera to the Grand Canyon (just too much stuff), but most film developers have a new service that gives you digital pictures on a disk in addition to the negative and prints. Not as good quality, but it works.

Also, with the addition of the "friesen.org" URL, each of us has a new email address. The old ones will still work for some time, but we will keep these current as email addresses change over the years. At least this is the plan.

Hope you are all well. Let us know what is up. We always enjoy your letters so keep them coming.

Rich