Having available some time to reflect on this mild Friday (43 F) in Atlanta and having just celebrated my 53rd birthday this past Monday I am wondering, probably like many, how all those years have gone by so fast ... and how the days, weeks, & month's seem to go by even faster today. A natural phenomena, my late father used to say.

Overall life has been good to the Leone family. After the passing of my father, mother and father-in law, 2005-2007 things have settled down and were in the "fast drive" mode again.

Eldest daughter Megan will graduate from the Univ. of Tennessee in Knoxville with a degree in Social Work and will go on for her Masters at Georgia State Univ. in Atlanta.  She wants to be a High School Social Worker where the calling for this position has tripled in the last ten years.

Daughter, Katherine, is a Sophomore at Georgia State and is majoring in Psychology and Spanish. My wife (Anne) hopes they will get together and "hang out their shingle" someday....she lives in a modern apartment complex in downtown Atlanta where the city has been evolving for the past ten years.

Son, Richie, is a Junior at Roswell HS in the north burbs of Atlanta is having a good academic year in school his first semester.  Recently he was nominated by the school to represent them this summer in a History Forum/Debate at Georgia Southern Univ.

Richie is the punter/kicker on the football team and had an excellent year, excelling in punting and kickoffs....with the majority of kick offs into the end zone and some inside the 10 and punts of 69, 62, & 56 net.

In early January he attended the National Kicking Finals for the Combine Series of ActiveRecruiting.com/Kicking.com for football, held at Rice Univ. in Houston where he went up against 42 other Junior finalists from around the country.

Richie placed in the top seven nationwide for Punting, Kick-offs and PAT's.  Go to ActiveRecruiting.com and log in with "richie2010" and see him kick......in the preliminary's (finals not posted yet).

We just had his highlight video made and will be sending off approximately 20 carefully selected D1 schools mainly in the south after national high school signing day (first week of February) for the class of 2009. His first choice is Univ. of Virginia as he is a Thomas Jefferson disciple...and there is a fit for a punter/kicker in the roster.

My wife Anne, continues to make our home that special place for the family and the kid's friends when they have get together's and sleep overs.

John Greer ('73), Len Weaverling ('73) and Rich.

I am still playing soccer in a very competitive over 50's league in the Fall & Spring, and attending tournaments in the off season.  Am getting ready for the Disney Soccer Classic in Orlando Jan. 29-31 where we will play 3 games in 3 consecutive days.....(owww!)   We bring a very full roster to allow for injuries. It's a very uplifting experience playing against former latin pro's who live in Miami and travel to Orlando for the competition.   Not sure how many more years my knees will hold out but I just don't get the same enjoyment from golf.

My industry (newspaper printing equipment) continues to feel the effect of not only the economy but the overall reduction of readership and electronic media......have been focusing on selling used and rebuilt equipment overseas in Latin America and Asia (mostly Indonesia) where I have been successful over the past 5 years.  Large newspapers are suffering the most...where once they were the "darlings" of Wall Street earning up to 40% in non competitive markets up until 15 years ago .. now their stockholders are not happy with 6-5% profit ... where any other industry would be. Small newspapers and free distribution weeklies with their niche markets are doing better.

I also still rep a US company for new presses covering 8 southeastern states based out of Pennsylvania that was purchased by an Indian company 2 years ago but sales have been flat for the past six months....we were to travel to Mumbai in early January to visit the factory but it was put off due to the bombings. I was looking forward to this trip as I had never been to India.

I have been communicating with several ASIJ'ers in the past year namely, Nick Reid (whom we saw in Atlanta last October) Mike Vajda & John Greer......also had a visit from Scott McCoy this time last year.

I still will get back to Japan with wife and family someday; for now my travels take me all over the US and Latin America.

Rich