Hey Guys!  I just got back from traveling two weeks in China, so I am now able to answer my emails.  A friend of mine here at Enron has a brother that lives in China and he got married to a Chinese national.  So I decided to join them for the wedding and sightseeing.  The sights were pretty amazing.  Great Wall, Forbidden City, Tianamen Square, etc.  Definitely culture shock though.  I know what it feels like to be a rock star now.  I was pretty much stared at wherever I went.  I am sure they think I look like a big nosed western devil freak.  The food wasn't as bad as I thought, although I did get the trots the last two days in country.  I knew I shouldn't have eaten the mutton.  

Fortunately I missed the flood of the century, Ernie!  I heard about it the first week in China.  Wasn't much I could do from China, so I just kept my fingers crossed and fortunately the house was safe and sound when I got back.  Some jackass drove up on my front yard and left some tire tracks.  There must have been high water in the street that he was trying to avoid.  Doooh!!

Other than that everything is going fine.  Doing the old dating thing!  Boy is that a ton of laughs.  Women at this age are definitely interesting.  I spend most of my time avoiding questions like, "Where is this relationship headed?"  Uh excuse me, but we only met last week!  

Congratulations, Paul on little Chloe.  I checked out the pics on your website and the family looks great.  Bieraugel you still look the same as the last time I saw you, but  Whoa, is that a little gray hair I saw on you Paul?  Oh well, we all have chinks in our armor.  Seriously though it is a beautiful family and I know it must be tough to be away from them.  Are you going to be staying in the Navy for awhile?  10 more years and you can retire eh!

Ernie,  Sounds like things are going well at work.  Congrats on the promo.  We definitely need to do a better job of getting together here in Houston.  You need to get the wife and we need to have dinner one night or something!  The Buick sounds prime.  240HP ought to take care of it.  Sounds better than the shaka-mobile.  What the hell ever happened to that car anyway?  I still love to tell stories about that car.  You can't beat a K-mart lawn chair for comfortable automobile seating.  Ernie, I think my focus is on the 5 series BMW.  Unfortunately my stock portfolio has delayed my auto purchase for awhile.

Let's pledge to all do better at keeping in touch.  It is great to hear from you guys.  We need to plan a little get together when you get back from sea.  It has been to damn long. Take care and be safe, Bruddas.  

Gerald
 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Ernie.J.Zavaleta@fritolay.com [mailto:Ernie.J.Zavaleta@fritolay.com@ENRON] 
Sent:	Sunday, June 10, 2001 5:20 PM
To:	LT Bieraugel 
Cc:	Gerald Nemec (E-mail) 
Subject:	Re: Dudes...

You're right, we need to do better at keeping in touch.  Gerald and I live in
the same town, and we still hardly see each other!  Great to hear from you.

I know it's got to be the hardest thing to leave for six months, especially with
the new baby when mama needs you the most.  Do you guys have any family in town
at least?  You're wife is probably involved with a network of military wifes at
least.  It's hard for me to leave for even a couple of days.  The week after
next I am in Dallas for a week of training, that'll be the longest I've been
away.

Well, my wife just went to the movies with my oldest, Sophie (she's four).  I'm
home with my two boys who are both napping, so I actually have a minute to
write.  I am about to make lunch for my neighbor who is from South Africa.  His
family just left for SA for two months, so I'll probably have him over often.
We're about to cook some Elgin sausage, remmeber where that is Paul?  I was in
Austin for work on Friday (drove there) and stopped to get some.  The road trip
was quite eventful: saw a few wreck and one car was even on fire.

You probably don't catch national weather Paul, but we just had a
once-in-a-century storm here in Houston (that's what they're calling it on the
news anyway).  Some places in the Houston area had 35" of rain in the last two
days!  We had about 20" in my area, no flooding though.  Gerald, how did you
fare?  So we've been declares a natural disaster area and all of that.


Other than that, not a whole lot going on.  Work is going well:  I got promoted
in Feb and am in line for another in August, so I can't complain - Frito-Lay is
a good stable company that treats it's employees well.  Let's see what else?
just got a new car that I am excited about.  I had a little Ford Focus 5spd for
my comuter car, but got tired of all of the shifting in traffic on the Beltway.
So I found a 1999 Buick Regal GSE with only 22k on it, in immaculate shape.  I
know, a Buick sounds kinda lame, but as far as Buicks go, this the only one I
would own.  It has leather, sunrfoor, sporty wheels, killer 220-watt stereo,
with a 240HP supercharged engine with room for 5 to boot!  I loaded up the
family and cargo to go to the Valley during Memorial Day, it even got 28 MPG!
Beats the hell out of the 14 or so in the Suburban, with gas prices these days.
Gerald, are you still in the market for a SUV?   I think you were interested in
the Toyota Sequoia or the Acura MDX?  You'd better just stick with the 5-series
Bimmer, I know I would if I were in your shoes!

OK, guys, gotta get to cookin those sausages.  Bieraugel, hang in the there out
at sea and keep us proud!

Ern






LT Bieraugel <BIERAUGEL@john-paul-jones.navy.mil>
06/08/2001 07:47 PM

To:   Ernie J Zavaleta/Frito-Lay/US@Frito-Lay, "Gerald Nemec (E-mail)"
      <Gerald.Nemec@enron.com>
cc:
Subject:  Dudes...

Ernie and Gerald, well dudes, we're doing just what we said we were not
going to do.  Fall out of touch again.  Here is the latest.  I am out on my
ship for six months now.  We left June 4th and we get back in November.
It's a bitch to be gone from the family for that long but it very busy so it
goes fast for me.  We had our fourth (and probably last) kid on May 13th.
Her name is Chloe Elizabeth.  She is perfect.  My two year old (Kate) was
very surprised when we brought her home.  Carson said he wanted a brother
and Kelly wants to hold her all the time.  You can check some pictures out
at www.geocities.com/pbieraugel.  Take it easy you guys and stay in touch.
Paul.