Another crazy year on the geo-political stage, so we once again shift the subject to the personal scene, sharing some happy tidings from 2025.
Becca & Galen tie the knot! (photo by Khulett Photography)
The year’s highlight was Galen and Becca’s wedding in August at Kiana Lodge on the Kitsap Peninsula. What a wonderful weekend with family and friends from far corners of the earth! Galen has since successfully defended his Ph.D. (yay!) and started a post-doc doing (similar) work on governance of online communities. Becca completed her post-doc and started a job working on advanced batteries at a local startup building electric planes (sounds close to rocket science to us). She also climbed her first 5.14 this year – wow! They just returned from a honeymoon in Europe, which included rock climbing in Spain, skiing with some of Becca’s French family in the Alps, and visiting her (French) grandpere.
Adam, Margaret, Becca, Galen (standing); Dan & Kiva at Copper Glance Lake
Adam’s work at Valve has taken him on several trips to China to help debug a new factory there, but his deeper passion seems to lie with his wonderful girlfriend Helene (they moved in together in September), friends, the outdoors and side projects. Adam, Galen, Becca and Helene have had much fun skiing, climbing, and mountain biking over the past year. Indeed, Adam and Galen are off skiing in Japan as we write this letter.
Mica (left) and collaborator Angela inspecting sea stars at the Northeastern Marine Science Center in Nahant (photo by Alyssa Stone)
Mica and their wife Ani are still living near Boston. Mica is just finishing their Master’s in conservation biology at Northeastern. Their passion is marine biology with a current focus on trying to understand sea star wasting disease on the East Coast.
Margaret with Kiva on Green Mountain in the North Cascades (Glacier Peak, behind)
Margaret continues at Seattle Children’s Hospital, mostly focusing on research but also clinical care. She cut back to 75% as of June, and is thrilled to be able to engage more deeply in each day and no longer feel like she’s on a treadmill.
An August backpack past Lake Byrne revealed that Kiva knows how to swim! (Glacier Peak Wilderness)
Dan is enjoying his work at Ai2, developing an AI assistant that helps scientists make new discoveries. It raises mind-bending questions like “How can one estimate the expected scientific impact of some experiment, x?” Maybe because these questions make his brain hurt, he’s cut back to 75% time, and this has allowed for a number of fun trips with Margaret… Some illustrations from the past year:
A quick trip to Sedona helped us escape March dreariness. (Though we did have snow at the start)Galen, Becca, Margaret, Dan & Helene in weekend dash to Death Valley (Adam heartlessly bailed on us at the last minute to attend a close friend’s bachelor’s party)While in Vegas, we got great seats for an incredible concert by the Grateful Dead at The Sphere. Whoa!Marcel joined for a beautiful spring backpack in The Gulch, a tributary of Utah’s Escalante river.In May, with Kathy, Becca, and Galen, we circumnavigated the Cordillera Huayhuash range in Peru.August brought us back to the Adirondacks for the annual Weld family reunion. After a scary accident, Eric and Darla were able to join for a short time. As usual, sailboat racing featured prominently, but Dan clutched during a key race :-(. Note: wind typically picked up after the dawn conditions, shown.Dan celebrated his 65th birthday with Margaret and the kids in the Methow valley, where an early storm dusted the high mountains with snow. Golden Horn, one of WA’s 100 highest, rises in the back.The autumn colors were fabulous in Death Hollow, Utah.Dan met Galen, who was returning from Europe after delivering a talk, for a quick photo tour of Iceland. The weather was spectacularly clear, but alas, no aurora borealis…With friend Eric, Dan kayaked in Caddo Lake (Texas) to photograph fall foliage. The volt of vultures were a surprise bonus!Two week-long work-cations took us to the beloved Methow Valley. One in the winter afforded some great XC skiing. The dogs liked that trip the best.We ended the year by using the holiday break to flee Washington floods, flying to the eastern Mediterranean and meeting Kathy & Sheldon. We first explored Cappadocia (Turkey) whose “fairy spires” stunningly beautiful (even without a sky fully of balloons!)Then, in Jordan, we trekked from the Dana nature reserve to the ruins of Petra – amazing!…and on to stunning Wadi Rum, where the movie Dune was filmed……and where we got to hang out with some friendly camels.Finally, we walked across the border to Israel, where we visited the Dead Sea (shown above, complete with salt deposits); then headed north to Jerusalem, and even visited the Ai2 office in Tel Aviv. We took the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the history of the area and the Palestinian conflict…. We won’t trivialize the issue with an attempted summary here, but we’d love to discuss the topic one to one.
Looking back, it’s been a wonderful year for us personally! That said, we watch with growing trepidation as our nation seems to be sliding towards autocracy, and are trying to figure out how best we can contribute to stopping this tide in 2026. Please send us your ideas – or, better yet, come visit!
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