Christmas2001

Hello,

Here we are, another year older, and we feel more blessed than ever before. We're hoping that your life is filled with as much love and happiness as ours is.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Here's what we've been up to in 2001:

Romance: The "excellent candidate for spousehood" Eric reported in last year's Christmas card (a.k.a., Melissa - the Love of my Life (a.k.a., the LOML)) promoted herself to wife. Eric is now married! We have two children, aged 5 (daughter) and 9 (son).
Vacations: We spent three weeks at our family's cottage in NW Michigan on beautiful Crystal Lake. We also spent a week and a half at our favorite summer camp, Camp Michigania.
Athletics: Our son played baseball for the first time and made the all-star team. He continued his soccer career, aided significantly by his attending a week-long soccer camp, complements of his grandparents. He is on a local swim team and has made tremendous progress thereat. He is an avid wrestler as well.
Charity: Our principal charity activity focused on our local non-profit daycare center this year.
Sports: Eric's Michigan Wolverines football team did well again. His Duke basketball team won the ACC regular season championship for a record fifth year in a row and won its third NCAA national championship in eleven years. They are again favored by many to win the national championship.
Navy: Eric's still a Commander in the Navy Reserve. Unfortunately, his reserve unit meets in the Washington DC area, so he regularly makes the trek out East to do his duty.
Good first run movies seen: Finding Forrester, What Women Want
Good books read: While we didn't match our son's reading accomplishments (52 books read this past year), Eric did read some good ones: The Food of the Gods (Wells), Common Sense on Mutual Funds (Bogle), A Random Walk Down Wall Street (Malkiel), Against the Gods: The remarkable story of Risk (Bernstein), The only Investment Guide you'll ever need (Tobias), American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to your Child's Nutrition (Dietz), Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (Mackay), The Hound of the Baskervilles (Doyle), The Intelligent Asset Allocator (Bernstein), Stocks for the Long Run (Siegel), Capital Ideas (Bernstein), It isn't about the bike (Armstrong), The Mouse that Roared (Wibberley), Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes (Belsky and Gilovich), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne).
Genealogy: The only real progress made this year was to get some information from Eric's mother's cousin.
Employment: Eric has entered a third career as a personal financial planner -- one of the few ethical ones. He's started a company, Altruist Financial Advisors LLC, to provide financial planning services to individuals in a highly ethical manner. His advice is completely objective since he doesn't take any commissions (and in fact don't sell anything -- so people can trust him). Perhaps the most unique thing about Altruist is its complete satisfaction money-back guarantee.
Eric saw a wild Pileated Woodpecker this year. It was about 14 to 16 inches long! Woody Woodpecker is a Pileated Woodpecker. However, unlike Woody, the one he saw was not blue.

Smile & Be Happy!

Eric & Melissa Haas

Eric's personal Home Page
Eric's Christmas Card Page

To send Eric an E-Mail, click here.

This page last updated 12/24/07