About myself

andy@almanor.org

We are a family of five who love Lake Almanor. We make our livings working in San Jose, California, the "Capital of Silicon Valley". San Jose is the tenth largest city in the Nation, and is about 50 miles south of the smaller city of San Francisco. Along with the millions of people in the immediate area, San Jose offers incredible gridlock, noise, congestion, and a lot of other things that make Lake Almanor a very nice place to get away to. It is, however, the center of a lot of employment opportunities, so here there we stay until retirement or a big lottery win, whichever comes first.

Andy is president of Vickers Concrete Sawing, Inc., the best of the larger companies involved in cutting, core drilling and demolishing concrete. He's been with them for over nineteen years, after spending about sixteen years in the banking industry as a VP-level corporate banker. Vickers Concrete Sawing, Inc. has offices in San Jose, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Known throughout the industry as "The SERVICE People", Vickers is well known for their attention to quality service. Company information can be found at www.vickersinc.com. If you have any work for us, the number to call is (408) 573-9797. No job is too big or too small.

Mary Ann "Mac" is Manager of Customer Support for Endwave Corporation, a leader in high frequency RF systems and components (NASDQ enwv). She has been with them for about eleven years, and has done a lot to contribute to their success. Their website is www.endwave.com

We have three children, starting with our oldest son, Dan, who graduated from Chico State with a degree in accounting that he is now putting to use as an experienced staff accountant for an excellent firm. He just finished all of his qualifications and is now officially a C.P.A.. Christina graduated from Presentation High School a few years ago and is in college at West Valley, along with our son Drew, who graduated a couple of years ago from Saint Francis High School (Dan's alma mater.)

Andy started going to Lake Almanor with his family when he was about 12 (a million or so years ago). His father built a house in nearby Clear Creek in the mid-1960's that was in the family until 2007. Mac got dragged along by Andy to that house for several years before we started renting in Lake Almanor Country Club. We bought our first lot on W. Burnt Cedar in 1989 and built on that lot in 1997. We finished building our current home on Lassen View in 2000. Now we are preparing to move on to the next phase of our lives and have put the house up for sale. It is a great time to buy at Lake Almanor.

We enjoy boating, eating, wines, jet skiing, tubing, eating, fishing (but Andy is the skunk king), golf, and just generally lazing about the lake. One of our favorite pastimes is bobbing around in the water down by our dock and floating the afternoons away. We also enjoy driving our golf cart around the lake and visiting friends or our favorite hangouts.

During the past few years, we've gotten hooked on fine wines, mostly from California, and mostly from smaller wineries who put out a great bottle at a reasonable price. Our collection had grown to exceed our storage capacity, so we just increased our storage capacity. We still have too much, so we find ourselves seeking any excuse to open a bottle or two. Among our favorite wineries now are: Livermore Valley Cellars, Toad Hollow, Meeker, Kaz, Lake Sonoma, Amphora, BV (for Georges and Tapestry), Sterling, Rodrigue-Molyneaux, Seghesio, Burrell School, Loma Prieta, Adelaida, and too many others to list because I'm getting thirsty as I type. We even have a website to chronicle our hacking around wines at www.winehack.net.

Along with the wine, I've acquired a taste for good Scotch Whisky, mostly from Islay, which are usually described with words like "peaty", "smokey", "salty","seaweed", "iodine", or the catch-all "diesel fuel." If a Cuban stogie sneaks in every now and then, that's fine too.