Barnes Family Christmas Letter 2017

Last year, unlike the 37 that came before, there was no Barnes Clan missive updating our comings and goings.  So, none of you have been dropped from my list.  Our schedules simply didn’t converge for a Thanksgiving photo—so no letter.  The beauty of turning a negative into a positive is that this year—as the TV sales-guy might say—“You get two, yes two, TWO YEARS IN ONE!” And from the above photo, you could imagine there is much to write.

Natalia had a heck of a couple years! In May 2016, after two years working up leg strength, she officially became certified to teach spin. (If you’ve been an avid reader of the annual Barnes family Christmas letter, you would already know she was born with spina bifida, and not expected to walk or dance, to say nothing of spin, or lead these rigorous classes!) She followed this “impossible” with more impossible a month later when she added the certification for High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).  She bonded with her manager from Baltimore’s Brick Bodies and was offered to teach a class on Wednesday evenings, so a new career was off and—spinning!  Soon, working a 5:45 AM class for the early-morning overachievers, she wanted still more than her then seven weekly classes—five spin and two abs.  So, off she jetted to London for international experience, and this year added Quebec and Dublin to her spin resume, scoring lifelong friends along the way—but that’s only her second job.  This year she began in office management at a much more hustling-and-bustling bigger medical practice, Park Medical, affiliated with Johns Hopkins—13 general practitioners, an oncologist, and pulmonologist.  In her cozy Fells Point one-floor walkup, she is greeted each afternoon by Riley, her little corgi-cattle-dog mix, and a recently added gray tabby cat, Mowgli—her happy brood.  The spin part of her life is quite an extraordinary story of constantly overcoming.  She would be an inspiration on a segment of Good Morning America, or even CBS’s Sunday Morning, and that is probably not just a Dad’s point of view….

Gavin and Joanie, now happily married for three years, last year, added Alexis to their household with an official adoption as she entered her senior-year of high school.  She is now studying nursing at Valencia College.  Joanie retired from teaching anatomy after a decade at Harmony High in St. Cloud, FL, and has transitioned to be a full-time student in the two-year Diagnostic Medical Sonography Program at Eastern Florida State College.  Gavin continues as a Senior Systems Engineer for Lockheed Martin where he is constantly advancing exoskeleton technology and earned his first two patents.  (Think Iron Man, but without flying.)  He was featured in a Ted-X-type promotional video, “FORTIS, Engineering the Future of Human Engineering,” at https://youtu.be/eQeLVY22PMk.  He travels nationwide for conventions and, last fall, demonstrated in Tokyo.  In St. Cloud, Chloe, a rescued schnauzer, protects the home front in Gavin’s absence, one fit of energetic barking at a time.

                Thomas excelled in his final two years of law school.  As a member of the honor board he conducted investigations on students accused of cheating and—taking after his father—drafted a manual, “How To Organize An Investigation.”  He spent a year in the Veterans Advocacy Clinic, providing legal support for those who could not afford it.  He won his very first case against the Department of Veterans Affairs for a Vietnam-era client who had been, simply, forgotten by the system.  It is uncommon to win such a case, and even less so while still a student, so kudos are in order.  As his last semester at U Balt Law began, he rescued Weber, a black-lab mix, and brought this happy-go-lucky, but very calm pup, to school as a certified Emotional Support Animal, providing comfort, not just to Thomas, but other law students with their own issues as well.  For his citizenship and contributions to the school, with seven others, Thomas was awarded the Dean’s Citation, graduating Cum Laude.  He finds great satisfaction as a law clerk for the Marine Corps.

Sebastian, after fifteen years at Citrix as their CRM Director in IT, left and joined Appirio, a technology consulting firm, as a Strategist. Travel is manageable and he’s visited across the country (for play and business), including Philadelphia, New York, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Asheville, Charlotte, and Indianapolis. He is excited to have completed his second book, Willow Tree's Gift, now on Amazon, with an option of a plush toy in a maroon bowtie.  It is a novel for young adults about kindness. Longtime family tabby cat, Ricky, departed this world and could never really be replaced.  Then along came Jude, a black rescue cat with only half of a tail, who was too playful to turn away, and found a home.  But most importantly, Sebastian is celebrating nearly two years with girlfriend, Sandy, a vice president at a physician placement company. With so much they have in common, their greatest enjoyment is attending “The U!” (University of Miami) Hurricane football games, and they are having a stellar, bowl-bound year.  Go Canes!

When last we heard from Ariel, she was about to join the editorial team at Milk Studios, a creative media-based company in New York.  She went on to interview artists and write articles covering music, technology, and politics, as well as becoming involved in Fashion Week.  With her interview skills she does freelance writing and has contributed to online platforms including Track Record and Format Magazine.  (I have managed to keep from mentioning in these annual letters, a very difficult divorce, but Ariel has written something extraordinary and personal, Mommy Issues, with her perspective from those times, well worth the read: www.arielbarnes.com/mommyissues) She has also taken on the role of Social Media Coordinator at The Fat Radish, a farm-to-table restaurant in Lower Manhattan where she works a few nights a week.  In her spare time, Ariel volunteered with a rescue group to foster puppies, nurturing several cattle dogs on her own before they moved to “forever homes.”  With much pride in her, and, happily, her pride in her Dad, she claims her most rewarding accomplishment this year was as the new editor for my essays and, more importantly, for my FBI counterintelligence manuscript, The Last Spy: The FBI and Catching Robert Hanssen.  Another addition to her pro bono work was graciously editing Sebastian’s book, Willow Tree’s Gift.  (If you need an editor, she’s your girl!)

And last, Wayne and Cynthia, now together 14 years.  The loves-of-her-life, daughters, with new last names, Marissa Benjamin, and Ali Baker, have moved far away.  Marissa and Haim make their home in Denver where her Physician Assistant work is amenable to any location while Haim’s engineering-attorney background made him sought-after a mile high.  Ali and Jeff brought a child into the world, Dylan, more importantly, a new love-of-Cynthia’s-life for a doting Grandma.  “You need a weekend babysitter in Virginia?  I’ll be right there!”  (Jet Blue must love her!)

I sprinkle here photos from two-years of trips to six national parks—Sequoia, Channel Islands, Big Bend, then Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier, taken as a whole, quite breathtaking.  In all the restaurants, beginning at Jackson Hole, almost up to Canada, an exchange program with Romania brought dozens of students from their universitate.  I was pleased to engage them in their mother tongue, humorously, to the astonishment of many.  Hey, doesn’t everybody speak Romanian?

In August a dreg left over from the Cuban Mariel boat lift in 1980 deigned to write a fraudulent check on my bank account for $1000, then tried it again two days later.  Two days after that I had investigated the matter, ID’d him, obtained his photo, his criminal record from Arizona and Miami, and provided his address to the Miami-Dade Police Department.  The moral, for the immoral: Before you forge a check to defraud someone, first see if he is a retired FBI agent!

I continued (at my own level) as a patron-of-the-arts.  I commissioned Tampa fine artist Jon Smith to create an oil on canvas from a photo of one of my favorite spots in the world, the cliffs of Del Mar in San Diego.  Here are Jon’s remarkable results:

Did I mention butterflies yet?  Cynthia brought this city-boy into the world of flighty creatures and it took hold—with a vengeance.  I now give presentations on butterfly photography for chapters of the North American Butterfly Association and we participate in national butterfly counts and giving tours in local parks.  We visited Big Bend National Park, a place so far away from anything that you simply cannot “stop by” on your way to someplace else, a good four-hours south of Midland, TX.  That was followed by our second visit to the National Butterfly Center in Mission, TX, and more extraordinary butterflies—species by the dozens, total, by the thousands, two pictured here:

And here is what makes you feel old—attending your 50th high school reunion—but seeing how many are not retired and still as active as you are brings hope and a smile.  But with age comes experience and sometimes reward.  The Florida International Bankers Association needed a speaker and asked me to make a presentation about investigations.  It turned into a Ted-X talk: Interviewing – The FBI Way.   You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ3kXA6CZfg

And very last—The Last Spy—where is it, so many have been asking, and when can you buy it?  Well, there is no good answer, yet.  The FBI Prepublication Review Unit, by their own rules, has 30-45 days to review and get back to the author, with their need for deletions, edits, and any other issue they want to raise—but they haven’t.  My completed manuscript was submitted on October 10, 2016, so they have had it over 14 months, ten-times their own allotted time, so what gives?  It almost feels like a modern-day version of “Banned in Boston.”  They are losing the ability to deny its publication in the face of their own administrative lethargy, but I will wait a bit longer.  For some essays that have been written in-the-meantime, see my website: www.Barnes-Investigations.com.

A Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday Season to all!