A few years ago I had the chance to show images from my Europe travels to an A.P. Art History class at Benicia High that my daughter was taking. The very nice and enthusiastic teacher Ms. Thomas invited me to come and hold forth about architecture in any way I wanted for one class period. I created a power-point slideshow by using photos from my 1980 trip done as a college student and the more recent visits made with my family, as well as some online images and maps added for good measure. For about an hour I got to [...]

            On our big raft on the Colorado River we live in swimsuits, water shoes, and SPF 30 sun-block. We have lifejackets too, but those come off whenever we pull up to the little sand beaches to hike the side canyons and creeks. If we get wet, the canyon heat dries us within a half hour. It all works. We get wet often. There are twelve of us on a five day trip through a hundred miles of the Grand Canyon with two professional guides. Our raft is thirty feet long with big pontoons on the sides and is [...]

  My buddy Chris and his family are heading to Italy soon and I don’t get to go. But since I’ve been already, I got over it and settled for watching A&E’s “The Miraculous Canals of Venice,” a forty minute documentary available on Youtube and also as “instant viewing” on Netflix. It’s a way to get a dose of Venezia without having to even get out of your chair. I love getting a brief overview of a place with interesting history, especially if the emphasis is on interesting big-picture stuff and not so much on political details and dates. Some [...]