Bob Hayes' Web Page
The personal web page of Robert G. Hayes

 

Contents

 

Flash:

I am a granduncle!   Meet Jon Steel Meyers, my grand-nephew.  JS arrived at 5:04 PM May 19th.  Parents and child are doing fine.

Welcome to my webpages!

I've collected news and info that might be of interest to my friends and family. Please enjoy these pages and let me know what you'd like to see added or changed.  Please sign my guestbook, don't be shy, I like hearing from everyone.

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What's new with Bob?

Well, I've been pretty busy the last few years, with most of my free time being dedicated to social activities. I still ride my bike, 2000 miles / year or so.  I am still working at Raytheon but I can retire in October 2008.  I have been concentrating on simply getting to eligibility for early retirement, and it's been a struggle at times.  No, I have no plans whatsoever for what to do with myself if I retire, suggestions are welcome.  I'm thinking I need to keep working, if not at Raytheon, somewhere.  Pretty bold for a baby-boomer to call it quits at 55, considering health care expenses, life expectancy, and inflation.  I figure I could live another 35 years and I've only worked full time for 34!

I still live on the Mesa in Santa Barbara (see below), and I still drive my F-150.  I occasionally still teach in-house classes at work.

My mother

Many of you are aware of my mother's sudden and tragic death on December 16th, 2001, in an automobile accident. The outpouring of support from friends and relatives has been a comfort to the family, I thank everyone. I have created a memorial page to her here.

Again, thank you each and every one for the innumerable kind gestures and thoughts. 

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It's a !

On Friday, April 27th, 2001, I bought a Ford F-150 XLT Supercab Flareside 4x2 pickup truck. I've placed a couple of photos of it on the photos page. Here's the window sticker. With factory and "recent college graduate" rebates and "Internet pricing" I paid many thousands less than the MSRP.

I like the truck, it's very buff with the flareside bed and sport package. Power everything you could imagine, including the pedals. The truck handles amazingly well for a 4300 pound vehicle, due to 17" wheels with 60 series tires, anti-sway bar, and stiff rear suspension. With a 5.4L V8 engine, 3.55 limited slip rear axle, and four wheel ABS disk brakes, it starts and stops pretty well too.

I have over 100,000 miles on the truck now, with no significant problems, knock on wood.  It's on its second set of tires, Michelins, they're much quieter than the OEM BFG Longtrails, and the handling is top notch.  The disk brakes do get chewed up pretty quickly if you do any hauling or aggressive braking.  I think this is due to the non-asbestos brake pads, they're just not as good as the asbestos pads and never will be.  And it does sip the petrol with a heavy thirst - at $4.00 + / gallon, this gets old pretty quickly.

I put over 209,000 miles on the GTi in the 17 years since I bought it new in May of 1984.

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Bob's in Santa Barbara! (aka The American Riviera)

For anyone discovering this page who hasn't been in contact with me, in August 2000 I started my new job in Goleta, California, at the Raytheon Vision Systems. Goleta is in southern Santa Barbara County, immediately west of the city of Santa Barbara, about 100 miles from the Los Angeles area. I've rented a small, old, one bedroom apartment "on the Mesa" in Santa Barbara proper. It's in the high rent district but then everything's outrageously priced in this area (median home price still over $1 million). I have a view looking inland at the hillsides where the rich people with ocean views live. A five minute walk takes me to a bluff overlooking the Santa Barbara Channel, Channel Islands, Stearns Wharf, and the oil platforms. I have a 12 mile work commute each way. The locals tell me that sure, the rent's high, but I'm "living in Paradise." (Another friend referred to the area as "heaven's foyer"). An aerial photo of the Mesa can be found here. The apartment building I live in is at the top of the photo, at the base of the hill, and on the exact vertical centerline of the photo. Santa Barbara Point is at the bottom center of the photo, with Leadbetter Beach at the bottom right, and downtown Santa Barbara in the distance at upper right.

Why did I do it? Well, a nice raise plus a sizeable bonus were the biggest reasons. I had been planning to move out of Inglewood when I completed my degree in any event, and this way Raytheon paid for the move. The cost of living in the Santa Barbara area is very significantly higher, and overseas business trips will be a thing of the past. And instead of having three different offices of my own, I'm sharing a small walled office.

I said goodbye to my home of 25 years in Inglewood. Sure it was a dump, in a very bad area, but it was indeed home. I moved into the place in 1975 when I was 21 years old and the rent was $160 / month, and I could walk to work on Century Blvd!

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Burgenland visit.

I returned May 1st of 2000 from a trip to the Middle East and Europe. After two weeks working in Jordan, I flew to Vienna and then visited the Perlinger ancestral village of Sankt Johann, now known as Jánossomorja, in Hungary. I spent six days roaming around western Hungary and eastern Austria. I've created a report of my trip, which you may enjoy, and I've posted some photos on pages dedicated to Perlinger genealogy.

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Stuff I think is cool

Have you seen Google Earth? It is way cool - I can spot my truck in the photo of the Mesa! I've spotted most of the homes and farms of friends and relatives! You need broadband for this.

If you have broadband, you can watch hi-definition, video on demand for popular shows like "Lost" and "CSI", and it's free!  The networks have finally come around to this idea.  There are still ads, but they are much shorter.  Try CBS, ABC, NBC, CWTV, Fox, Hulu, Discovery Channel, Frontline (PBS).  Video on demand was the holy grail for a long time for cable providers, but now with the prevalence of ADSL, the content providers are doing it themselves directly.

ADSL has becoming practical for a lot more people of late.  I have Verizon service, and can get broadband for as little as $15 / month!  I opted for the 3 mb/sec version at $29 / month, still a good deal in my opinion.  Check and see if your local phone provider is offering a similar deal.

 

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Last Revised: 21 May 2008
Copyright Ó 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008 Robert G. Hayes.
e-mail the webmaster: rghayes@earthlink.net 

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