jwnewman53

About Jim...

Hello!

My friend Paul has been a member of Postcrossing for quite a while now, so I thought I would try it, too.

I am retired from my job as a database administrator for a large bank, and now attend Northern Illinois University as a Ph.D. student in Geography. I hope to complete my degree by December 2012, but I need to get very busy if I am going to meet that target!

I am married and have two grown children. The older is our son; he is married but does not yet have children. He is an accountant at a large Chicago bank. The younger is our daughter; she is single and is a Ph.D. student in Molecular & Cellular Biology at the University of Washington.

I have lived in the Chicago area almost my entire life, except for a brief period when I was in Florida (where I met my wife!). We are now blessed to have a second home on Whidbey Island, about 47km northwest of Seattle, Washington. As a student, I am able to spend the summer at our island home, as well as about six weeks in December and January, and some short trips throughout the year. When my wife is ready to retire, we will probably live in Washington most of the time although we may still keep an apartment in Illinois near our son and his wife.

I was 50 before I finally had an opportunity to travel outside North America! I had a wonderful time in The Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany, and hope to return before too long. My mother-in-law was born in Germany, so our family has some relatives there. Our daughter spent one college term as a student in Freiburg, Germany, and greatly loved the experience, making many new friends with whom she has stayed in touch.

Both of our homes are beautiful, each in its own way. Illinois is mostly flat, with rolling farmland covering most of the state, growing mostly maize (corn) and soybeans. However, the city of Chicago has one of the most beautiful skylines you will find anywhere in the world, and Lake Michigan is a magnificent part of our northern Illinois landscape. From our Washington home, located in Puget Sound, we can view the Cascade Mountains to our east and the Olympic Mountains to our west. When we take the ferry to the mainland, it is often possible to see Mt. Rainier rising majestically to the southeast of the city of Seattle. Washington has much more moderate temperatures than Illinois, and better still - we have no mosquitoes at our Washington home!

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