WHAT'S NEW! - The Latest from the Thiringer Household

July 27, 2009

Hi everyone! As you can see we havn't been updating this website in about eight years. This is Melissa, by the way. I have decided that I want to take over the website because I think I can really make it more modern.  So, I will be editing the website (Under the supervision of my family of course!) and adding a lot of new stuff for you guys to see. There as been a lot of things that have happened over the years. And, frankly, it's a litttle TOO much to explain.

If you have been checking out the photo album, then you noticed a little boy in the pictures. Yes, that is my little brother Joe. If you want to see his page then just go to Family, and then Joe's Page. He is almost seven years old now and LOVES playing legos. There are so many that there is barely room to stand! He also loves to play soccer and T-ball. He loves to play on the Wii and the DS. But he loves to play Club Penguin the most. He loves to sketch pictures and color in details. He enjoys playing with the neighbors and likes it when I take him and his friends on nature hikes through the woods.

Stephen is twelve years old now and is still doing every sport imaginable. He plays basketball, soccer, and baseball, and had a small encounter with tennis. He has been on travel soccer teams that took us down to Virginia Beach. He has also been on All-Star Baseball teams for two years in a row. He also loves to play on the Wii or plays on his new Rip-Stick (strange skateboard thing) outside. He is very into going biking in the woods with Dad or just going into town.

Melissa is fourteen years old and will be going into high school in the fall. She loves to play volleyball and softball. She also loves to sing and act. She had a minor role in her eighth grade play Guys and Dolls, in which she was able to have a solo in a song. She also loves to draw and has been taking private art lessons with her friends for about three years. Another one of her hobbies is reading. She volunnteers at the library so she can get new books each week. She reads almost a book a day during the summer and maybe two or three books a week in the school year.

Pete now works for IBM and loves it. He loves to tend to our flourishing garden and tries to get the multiplying deer out of the way. He used to coach Stephen's many different teams, but now sticks to coaching Joe's soccer team and Melissa's volleyball team. He also enjoys cooking traditional Hungarian recipes like Lecso and Chicken Paprika.

Kathy is working at a local elementry school as a reading teacher. She is also getting her Master's degree, in which she is having her last class today! along with driving the kids everywhere, she enjoys reading and hanging out with the family. She will be getting back surgery at the end of August, only a couple days after she helps to celebrate her parents' 50th anniversary dinner.

So, I hope you enjoy the new additions to the website and we are looking forward to hearing from all of you! I will try to update the website at least once a month. Cross your fingers!!!

August 22, 2001

Well, at last Pete has taught me how to edit this site!  It's only been a year and a half!  And, actually, it has taken that long for anything interesting and worth writing about to happen to us.  But there is probably too much to write all at once.  So, for now, I will give a quick overview of the goings-on in our lives in the past two years.

We have moved to a new house in Vienna and have been here almost four months.  I am overwhelmed with "stuff" all over the house....it's a slow process!  Take a look at the realtor pictures at www.thiringer.com/house.

Melissa and Stephen are growing up way too fast, as expected.  Melissa will start first grade  in a week and Stephen will enter his last year of pre-school.  Melissa remains as enthusiastic as ever, spending her time drawing and weaving intricate plots of fantasy with her endless supply of toys.   This, in turn, captivates Stephen, and, the next thing you know, they're either setting up a restaurant, saving dolls and animals from a "flood", or putting out a "fire" in the "hospital" (a.k.a., the guest room).  Stephen balances his time between his favorite playmate (Melissa), singing and experimenting with instruments, and every sport imaginable.  Basketball seems to be his favorite so far, though he can throw a mean spiral with his football.

And the other big news has been the departure of both my parents and Pete's!  Since September of this year, both families sold their homes here in Virginia and headed south to sunny Florida!  My parents have relocated to Ocala and Peter's to Sarasota.  We have just returned from a visit to see them both and their new homes!

I am now committed to updating our site more frequently (dare I say monthly?!).  Next will be an update to the photo album!

December 30, 1999

Whoa, it's been a long time since I've updated the site.   Sorry...  It's almost Y2K.  If you don't hear from us, it means our server isn't Y2K compliant.  Either that, or we got blown up by terrorists.

Things have been quite busy.  I've been working like a dog, but having a lot of fun.  I got trained this past fall in BroadVision, an industrial-strength internet e-business application development tool.  It powers some pretty big sites out there, like Home Depot, Circuit City, and Walmart.  I've been splitting my time between teaching week-long BroadVision courses within my company, and using BroadVision to build an e-commerce site for an overseas telecommunications company. Whew!!

The kids are doing great (check out the new pictures), and Kathy's busier than ever.  She's getting a lot of feedback from her tutoring web site.  Mostly from people who want to be tutors and are asking her for advice.  She should become a consultant. ;-)

July 19, 1999

A bit of sad news.  The benz album will have to wait a bit longer.  A somewhat intoxicated 4th of July reveler backed into it on our street.   It's in the body shop as we speak.  New hood, new front grille, etc.  Oh, well, it's only a car.  And besides, the hood had some nasty pock marks in the paint anyway...

On to happier news.  I was promoted at my job to a "Principal Consultant" (yee-haaah).  Not that I'm doing anything different, mind you -- in fact, it makes almost no practical difference whatsoever.

Kathy's tutoring business is cruising along.  She's got five students now and is getting about as busy as she wants to be.  Check out her site at www.thiringer.com/tutor.

Also, we've finally added the links page.  Go and see where we spend our online time...

June 11, 1999

Check out the new guestbook format.  The old one used a free service called "Guestworld".  While it's free, it's also pretty inflexible.  It also had some advertising banners on it which were occasionally rather questionable...

Just in case anybody cares, I'm running the new guestbook using a CGI PERL script.  It was a little tricky to set it up on my NT server, but I got it up eventually.

The other big news.  Kathy is now the most wired private tutor in the country.  Check out the web site I built for her at www.thiringer.com/tutor.  It has already netted her one well-paying client, with more to come, I'm sure...

April 21, 1999

I finally got 'round to putting the family pictures in a format that a lot easier to maintain and add to.  Also, we've added a whole new album of Melissa's artwork.  Go check it out!

April 15, 1999

Happy Tax Day everyone (U.S. residents only, actually).  Yes, today I will send my check to the good ol' government.  I hope they use it well (har).

So, what's new with us, you ask?  Well, two new developments on my (Pete's) side.  The first is -- THE NEW BENZ.  Well, not new, actually.  Not even close.  I recently acquired a 1990 Mercedes 300E.  (Pictures to follow shortly...)  Yes, it's nearly ten years old with nearly 100K miles but I love it.   Driving it makes me wonder why people spend nearly double what I spent, just to get a new Chevy or a Honda Civic.  I'm trying not to get too materialistic, but it sure feels nice to drive in it...

The other thing is that, as you can probably tell, we have a new address.  (A virtual address, that is -- we wish we had a new physical address!)  I've been doing a lot of internet development work, both though my job and outside efforts (like this one), and got sick and tired of the lame Cable & Wireless web site hosting service.  Yes, it was free, so I shouldn't complain.  But, it took a lot of time effort to work with it (it didn't even allow FTP access!) and it wouldn't let me do any of the fun stuff.  Another benefit is that I'm now the legal owner of the "thiringer.com" domain, in case I ever need it.  Both of you other Thiringers out there are out of luck.  :-)   So now I'm fully equipped with the tools and technology that I need, so watch out for some changes to the site ahead.  This could be dangerous.

Oh, the other thing is that Kath & I are on a bit of a fitness kick.  I've lost 15 lbs. since Christmas (still a bit to go) and both of us are exercising regularly.  We do those Tae-Bo exercise videos a couple times a week.  So, now we'll not only get in shape, but we can kick a little butt whenever we feel like it.  Don't worry, I'm kidding...

March 8, 1999

Hello, new friends and old ones, too!  The reason why this site has been under construction for so long is that it was up to me (Kathy) to write it!  We're having fun playing with this thing and Pete is learning a lot because he is currently the IT guy at his job!!!

The first thing to note is that the "beautiful" picture of Pete and I was taken at my tenth UVa. Reunion.  Ugh-- ten years and two kids later we've changed a bit and  decided to bite the bullet and get ourselves in shape.  So get ready for a new "us" soon!!!

As you can probably predict, most of this site will be devoted to our kids (at least watching them grow is more appealing than watching us grow!).

Melissa turned four in January and is loving pre-school and her once-a-week gymnastics class.  Though she was a late bloomer in the verbal department, she has more than made up for it!  I came away from my parent-teacher conference knowing that Melissa is very cooperative, loves to play make-believe and tends to dominate the conversation!

Stephen, therefore, has blossomed quite early as a verbal child.  He sings his ABC's, the happy birthday song and will mimic anything you say.  His big love, next to taking apart anything mechanical and flushing the toilet thirty times a day, is music.