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Winter started early this year when the lake froze over on about December 8th, about a month ahead of schedule.

You should have heard Joanne's yipee! Ever the master of understatement, Nic had really given us a great way to end the year in celebration.

We all know you'll wish them both Mazeltov, and the best of luck for the future. Laura is a perfect mate for Nicholas and will make a great daughter-in-law (providing, of course, that her dad isn't asking too great a bride price). There's no date set for the wedding, but rumor has it that summer 07 may be the target.

The month of December ended with David and Michelle's wedding at the Edgewater in Seattle. David is Joanne's cousin, the son of her first cousin Ed Schlossberg and his wife Alice . The wedding was spectacular ending with fireworks off the Space Needle at midnght, New Year's Eve. A few pictures are available under the December 05 page of our monthly pictures. Michelle's family all pitched in to make a canopy of 1001 origami storks. What a great idea!

We visited with Judith Robertson, her son Gareth and his Daughter Oceana (Oshi). It was great seeing them all again. I just wish that we all lived closer. Pictures of this visit will appear on our January 2006 page when the month is over.

Winter is cabin fever time for Earl with lots of projects going on. Joanne is heavily involved in her usual volunteering efforts (13 different ones at this point) plus trying to organize a new Peace Corps alumni group for Oxford County. This could explain why she's so tired.

I'll be adding to this section as the winter unfolds.....so keep in touch. .......Earl

It's the end of the foliage season and we're afraid that you missed all the color up here.

I can't imagine a life without a New England Autumn! It was the season we missed most while we lived in Europe.

Aside from the riot of color, October is a month of working round the house preparing for winter and getting more involved in community events.

Most of the guests are gone and it's time to roll up sleeves and work. Earl is insulating the cellar (thanks brother Bruce and son Nicholas for all their help getting rolling). The cellar's already much warmer and should pay for itself pretty quickly given the current cost of fossil fuel. It's interesting to note that the cost of oil has surpassed the cost of wood for home heating....so this winter we may be using more wood than oil. The good news is that we can supply about half of our heating needs from our own renewable supplies. The house can run on wood, the boat runs on wood...now about that car?

Joanne is finishing the trim in the upstairs room and getting the garden ready for its blanket of snow. The fieldmice, chipmunks and red squirrels are trying like devils to break into the house to spend their nap time in the company of us and the cats. We had an unusually big acorn crop this fall so the woods are full of the little guys, all looking to spend time at the Morse's. I guess we'll have guests after all.

We took a few days off and headed to Quebec...what a wonderful time! It was like a little Brussels. Old buildings, great food and friendly people. With the Canadian dollar at 84 cents it was quite a bargain. It's going to take us weeks to work off the weight gain. Check out our September and October photo albums.

Well, it finally happened. Retirement! Joanne, Nick, and I left Pittsburgh on October second and headed to Maine. I got to drive the BIG TRUCK, Nick drove the Contour and Joanne drove the Escort. We arrived in Maine on Sunday the third and Nick, Laura (Nick's girlfriend), Joanne, Bill Roy (a neighbor) and I began the unloading process. Now, over two months later, we are almost unpacked and settled in.

I can't really describe how different being retired is from life in the world of work. It is nice not having to get up with an alarm clock, losing track of the day of the week, not having to travel if the weather is really foul, getting to those long delayed projects, and spending 24 hours a day with the person you love the most. The negatives, so far, are: no fat paychecks, prioritizing and managing those long delayed projects, finding people to help you build, repair, paint, dealing with foul weather (snow, mud and ice), and spending 24 hours a day with the person you love the most. Joanne's remedy is that she is already very active in our community, with aerobics and other scheduled outside exercise, volunteering for the community breakfasts, membership in two book clubs, and volunteer librarian. No doubt this list will continue to grow. Joanne gets out and about quite a bit, ....I'd better get busy since most of my projects are local, working on the house, workshop and boat. I'll keep you informed.

Sometime in late January I intend to begin the reorganization of this website using a different server and software. It should be more user friendly and have lots of sections for friends, family, and steamboat fans. The name of the site may change, however.

For steamboat fans there are a few mpg videos available on the steamboating section of this site. Click on the steamboating area below.

We just arrived back in Pittsburgh after a few weeks in Maine. You'll find new summer pictures scattered throughout these pages. Just a few more week in Pittsburgh, then I retire, we pack up the U-Haul and head back to the Maine woods. We expect to be settled in by mid October and hope to get lots of visitors, including you. Working at Starbase Atlantis has been lots of fun, and our crew has produced an exciting and challenging science and math program for 5th graders, it's time to turn the program over to a successor and depart. I still can't believe the amount of paperwork necessary!

Thanks to all our guests who pitched in and helped get the Maine house in order. I'm specially grateful to brother Bruce and Nick for many of the jobs they did. Insulating and sheet rocking sapped a good 50% of Bruce's vacation time...what a hero!

By the way, Joanne's tooth problem seems to be resolved. She's in much better spirits, now.

This winter I hope to revise this web page and get lots of my family's old photos onto the web. If you are able I'd like to ask family members to help me identify people, places and events to caption the photos. I'd like to get this done before too long.

We are about to head up to our place in Maine for the month of July. We hope that you are going to spend some time with us cause we really would like your visit. In case you don't get a chance to join us you can visit the pictures later in the summer.

This past year has been fun. Joanne just finished a great choral concert of Broadway tunes. I was blown away by the quality of the group. Ask Joanne for a copy of the concert CD in a couple of months. She has been very busy with retired people stuff, you know, exercise, choral practice, ladies clubs etc....enough to make you gag! I can't really believe that she has turned into such a square. To counter this, I have dedicated myself to an increased level of sloth, disarray, neglect, personal greed, distain, curmudgeonality, misogyny, and intransigence. I will become an NRA member and buy a personal assault weapon...Just to ward off the Welcome Wagon lady and other evil doers..I may even register as a Republican. Now that I think of it, the attributes that I hope to attain will put me in a perfect position to be a Republican officeholder! Watch out Dubya!

While life in Pitz continues to be fun, and my job at Starbase Atlantis is still very interesting and rewarding. However, we miss the quiet solitude and potential hypothermia of the frozen North. As a matter of fact we arranged a massive 20 hour power failure yesterday just to practice cleaning out the fridge and burying the contents...So, as you can see, we are planning more and more for my retirement and our eventual move back to N.E. As a matter of fact, Joanne and I are in the process of completing our Social Security paperwork and should soon be drawing just enough to starve on. I'm hoping we'll do OK financially, but I'm practicing just in case..."Welcome to Wallmart, SCAB!" Maybe I need to work on that a bit more. It's hard to let go of old feelings.

Take care of yourselves. Write to us often and lucidly. Keep away from Enron. ...

We continue to find new and exciting places in Pitz and with every new discovery we find that it's going to be a bit harder to leave this town. This is a great music area and the concerts and jazz have been terrific. We are continually amazed at the Pitz Symphony (PSO) , even their pop concerts are spectacular! On Valentine's Day we went to hear the Westmoreland County Orchestra with a harp soloist from the PSO...spectacular. We also found a couple of new restaurants including a Greek taverna where the food and the wine are all made on the premises (tastes like a real Greek demestica red table wine). We've even found that a local motel has a great jazz Sunday brunch with a nice trio rolling out very smooth renditions of standards on guitar, base and drums.

Joanne has begun working as a substitute teacher and the demand has been overwhelming. She got nine calls in a single day last week. It must feel great to work when you want to a with whom you choose. As you can imagine, she's got a story to tell at the end of each day...But, unlike a full-time teaching job she can laugh, walk away and tell the stories. I think there's some great writing material here....Let's encourage her to put it on paper!

She's saving her sheckels to buy plane tickets sooo....watch out. She may be heading your way.

Our Starbase school year is starting to wane and, in a short while, I'll be planning our summer sessions. I can see the light at the end of the full-time employment tunnel and it's starting to look more radiant by the day. In the meantime we just got an email from Ron and Maura regarding science exploration ideas for some little kid. Eventually, you'll be able to visit the Rosie E. page and see a few ideas and, I hope, a few new pix from Ron and Maura.