My wife, Deborah and I have been together for twenty-seven wonderful years and married for twenty-six. Deb is a Senior Level Application Development Team Lead for IBM Global Services. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Utah State University and is IT (Information Technology) Specialist certified by the industry.
Our log home and workshop is nestled in the foothills of the Front Range between Longmont and Estes Park, Colorado. The nearest town, Lyons, is five miles away. It is a thirty-five minute drive to the entrance of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Here is our male Bengal cat.
Our interest in amateur astronomy has allowed us to enjoy observing the night sky with an Orion XT10" Dobsonian reflector telescope. We have logged hundreds of deep-sky objects including all 109 from the Messier Catalog and just added a 90mm refractor with motor driven equatorial mount for trips higher into the mountains. It's a lot more portable than the fifty-five pound Dob and you don't have to worry about bumping the collimation out of allignment. In May, 2006 we added ten new galaxies from the Virgo cluster on just one night. Last December we added two comets: Holmes/17P and Tuttle/8P.
Here is my favorite toy. It is a beautifully restored 1966 MkI MGB convertible roadster. The extensive search for just the right one took eight months. Driving it for the first time in December, 2006 was like stepping into a time machine. I owned several British and Italian roadsters in what seems like a former lifetime and had forgotten how involving it is to drive a LBC (little British car). It won second place out of twenty-some "chrome-bumpered" MGB roadsters at the English Motoring Conclave in Denver last September.
I am currently searching for a 1969-1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider in professionally restored or original but near perfect show condition with either a 1438cc or 1608cc engine. In other words, the car must be one of the finest examples in existance and I will go almost anywhere in the continental USA to get it. I can also see myself in a big, roomy '60s MkII Jaguar 3.8 sedan with lots of old leather and wood inside sometime in the future.
My normally "stay-between-the-lines" wife has been enjoying her specially ordered 2007 MINI Cooper S since July. With an acceleration rate of 0-60mph in 6.2 seconds and a top speed of 139mph it was probably a good thing that she included cruise control. I'd say she looks rather happy about it.
Some favorite quotations:
The tragedy in life is not what men suffer, but what they miss. - Thomas Carlyle
People who have only enemies don't know what complications are; for that you have to have friends. - George F. Kennan
To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious, but the stupid have an answer for every question. - Edward Abbey
There is no fairness and there is no justice in this world. Those are human concepts and function only in the world of ideas. All ideals suffer in the confrontation with reality. There is no paradise and there are no utopian ways of conduct. There are only principles and the ironic sorrow that comes from trying to live according to those principles. - Deng Ming-Dao
A book's a great place to hide out in - Trevanian
Humility is a right estimate of oneself. - Rev. Sam Tallent, Lyons
One hour's meditation on the work of the creator is better than seventy years of prayer. - Muhammed ibn-Abdullah
Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job. - unknown
It's never too late to have a happy childhood. - Tom Robbins
Life is a series of open horizons, with one no sooner completed than another looms ahead. Some are traversed swiftly while others extend so far into the future one cannot predict their end. Penetrations into the unknown, all give meaning to what has gone before, and courage for what is to come. More than physical features, they are horizons of the mind and spirit, and when one looks backward, we find they have blended into the whole panorama of our lives. - Sigurd F. Olson
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. - Mae West
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away. - unknown
