Ann Bethune:  

Life Though a Colorado native, I've lived in California since I was two, except for 14 months in Germany as an exchange student at the Odenwaldschule following high school and nearly six years in New York State. I received my BA from Stanford (anthropology, psychology). I met my husband Don there. He was a senior in physics my freshman year. I moved to Berkeley after graduation where Don was getting his PhD in physics and worked at UC in various departments,.....did some primate research with Thelma Rowell in the zoology dept and then was briefly a grad student in anthro/primate behavior at UC Davis, but didn¿t complete the degree. Worked in Berkeley for another year or so, married Don, had my first child Ben in late 1976, then moved to NY State (Mt Kisco, Westchester County) where Don got a post-doc and then was offered a permanent job with IBM. We had two more sons, Michael (1979) and Steven (1981), before returning to California nearly six years later at the end of 1982. We¿ve been in our current house since October of 1983. We completed the family with daughters Caitlin (1985) and Marieke (1987). Don has been with IBM the entire time. I was home with the kids until the youngest entered Kindergarten. At that point I started part-time work with an internet start-up, LogSystems. Thoughout, whether working outside or not, I¿ve done a lot of volunteering for the various activities the kids were involved with: school, band, choir, school plays, scouting, year-around US Swimming, cabana summer league-swimming, soccer, basketball, volleyball, etc. In 1999, after LogSystems went belly up, I went to work full time for ELetter and had a roller coaster ride with that company until it tanked in April 2001. Now I¿m unemployed, except for volunteer activities and occasional publication gigs. I publish newsletters for the band at the high school and for our local cabana swim team. I¿ve done programs and biobooks for some of the musicals and plays my kids have been in and a couple of brochures for sports organizations at Stanford. I¿m hoping to find a permanent job when the economy in Silicon Valley recovers. While I was working full time, I was doing software quality assurance, user experience (usability) and technical writing and editing. Our kids: (as of February 2008) Ben is 31 and a...Expand for more