My wife, Deborah and I have been together for twenty-nine wonderful years and married for twenty-eight. 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 Lyons 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. Our favorite neighbors have names like: elk, mule deer, black bear, bobcat and mountain lion.
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 of 2008 we added six new galaxies in the constellation Leo on just one night.
Here is my favorite toy. It is a beautifully restored 1966 MkI MGB 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. This is the latest of six English and Italian roadsters that I have owned. It won second place out of twenty-some "chrome-bumpered" MGB roadsters at the English Motoring Conclave in Denver September, 2007.
My normally "stay-between-the-lines" wife has been enjoying her specially ordered 2007 MINI Cooper S since July 2007. 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.
We just added the stunning automobile below to our stable on June 9th. It is an ex-California 1972 Alfa Romeo GTV 2000. The car is almost completely unrestored and original but was always garaged, meticulously maintained and has absolutely no rust anywhere. Only the alloy wheels, tires and electronic ignition are non-standard. I've wanted one of these for about forty years now and it was well worth the wait.
I am still searching for one more classic European car. There is room for one more car in our steel barn. It would be a 1969-1973 Fiat 124 Sport Spider in excellent original condition or completely restored by a professional. One of these beautiful roadsters was my first car back in 1971.
We needed an efficient way to get further into the high country to fly fish the less frequented headwaters thus the two-person Polaris ATV below just found it's way into our toy box. Now we just need more time off to play.
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
My life was screwed up before I was born. - Steve McQueen
The Earth was made round, so that we could not see too far down the road. - Isak Dinesen
It's now possible to wear out a way of life in less than a lifetime and you can get either angry or morose as the world you've learned to live in becomes unrecognizable, but it won't stop or even slow the process. And anyway although, gazing at the past is pleasant enough, it can cause you to back into the future ass-first, which I don't recommend. - John Gierach (my next door neighbor) from Fool's Paradise.
A book's a great place to hide out in - Trevanian
Humility is a right estimate of oneself. - Rev. Sam Tallent, Lyons, CO
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
Allow intelligent design into science textbooks, lecture halls, and laboratories, and the cost to the frontier of scientific discovery—the frontier that drives the economies of the future—would be incalculable. I don't want students who could make the next major breakthrough in renewable energy sources or space travel to have been taught that anything they don't understand, and that nobody yet understands, is divinely constructed and therefore beyond their intellectual capacity. The day that happens, Americans will just sit in awe of what we don't understand, while we watch the rest of the world boldly go where no mortal has gone before. - Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo
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
