1989

How many of you get your daily exercise doing things like wrestling with your toddler to get her dressed, walking up a flight of subway stairs, hauling grocery bags or taking out the garbage? Even though we may get to the gym occasionally, eye the treadmill in the basement or play weekend warrior, this is the ordinary life as 40 approaches. This definitely is not SarahKonrad's life. Sarah, who is eyeing the 2006 Winter Olympics, shared her story with USA Today.com from Italy, where she was competing in her first World Cup biathlon event. Sarah skied for Dartmouth's development team our senior year and then went off to get her Ph.D. in geology. Along the way, she competed at a national level in cycling while pursuing her academic career. She studied glaciers and how they move, but quit her job last June to focus on her athletic pursuits. She first skied competitively at a national level at the age of 30. And according to USA Today, Sarah "falls into the 'late-bloomer' category of athlete. Frustrated with her progress in cross-country skiing, she turned to biathlon, which combines skiing and shooting. Then funny things started to happen. She won her first national cross-country tide (30-kilometer freestyle) in January 2004." This year Sarah qualified for the world championships in both Nordic skiing and biathlon. So keep your eyes on Turin, Italy, for next year's Winter Olympic Games. When that's all over, Sarah says she'd like to get back to the more average pursuits of mountaineering, climbing and backcountry skiing.

Elsewhere from the department of busy lives, Allison Moir-Smith is launching both a book and a baby. Little Annabel arrived on November 30, while Allison was busy finishing her book on the challenges of being a bride-to-be, called Emotionally Engaged:A Bride's Surviving the Ups and Downs ofGetting Married. Rewrites and plenty of diaper changes are ahead, and the book will be published by Hudson Street Press, an imprint of Penguin, in February 2006.

A January trip to Los Angeles brought us back in touch with some old friends. Ned Ward is happily living in beautiful Redondo Beach, California, with his wife, Noriko (Smith '88), and 4-year-old daughter Maia, who became fast friends with our 4-year-old, Julia.

Ned pretty much spends his days playing with toys. He works on the Hot Wheels account at Mattel Toys. We also ran into our Washington, D.C., neighbor Jeanne DeSa at the wedding we attended in Los Angeles. Jeanne continues her employment at the Congressional Budget Office. Jeff Kuskin also was in attendance. Jeff, an engineer, and his wife, Diane, a lawyer, recently moved back to our mutual hometown of Scarsdale, New York, with their two daughters after a number of years in the San Francisco area.

Congratulations to Zachary Levine, named by the Washingtonian Magazine as one of the 20 young people to watch in 2005. (Full disclosure: Yes, he's married to your class secretary.) According to the Washingtonian, Zach, a neurosurgeon, "is a pioneer in the use of deep-brain stimulation, a treatment for neurological disorders in which misfiring nerve cells are tamed by electrodes implanted in the brain and connected to a generator in the chest. After surgery, patients have walked away from wheelchairs; some with Parkinsons stop shaking."

Finally, the class of '92 has invited us all to join them at a series of mini-reunions/family picnics to be held in June in Boston, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. For complete details,visit www.dartmouth.org/classes/ 92/index.html.

Until next time.

5912 Aberdeen Road, Bethesda,MD 20817; jennifer.avellino.89@alum.dartmouth.org