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This year we attended the 90th annual Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club. It was our first live golf tournament and we had a spectacular time. Getting a chance to watch anyone who is the top of their sport is always exciting, and observing players drive a ball over 300 yards, placing them with…

When James was living in Ottawa back in the 1970s, he saw pretty much every band that came through town, including Aerosmith, Foreigner, Leslie West and Mountain, Cars, Alice Cooper, Peter Gabriel, Jethro Tull, Yes, Rush, and many others. But he opted to skip on Bruce Springsteen, whose music wasn’t quite his style back then. A…

In early 2024, we began a concerted effort to improve our physical fitness, partly with a goal of maintaining our active lifestyle as we aged. We wanted to keep participating in recreations such as hiking and scuba diving well into the next decade or two. This would require reasonable levels of strength, balance, and cardiovascular…

I love all forms of engineering so it’s a pleasure to have just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Founded in 1964, the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is a private, independent, nonprofit institution that provides engineering leadership in service to the nation. The NAE advances the welfare and prosperity of the nation by…

In a decisive victory, our Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13 in Super Bowl LX to claim the Vince Lombardi Trophy. It was a low-scoring game, and some would argue a blow-out, but when you are in the building, the excitement is palpable and we were on the edge of our seats the…

Camp Muir is the main base camp for Mt. Rainer ascents and, at altitude 10,188 ft (3,075 m), is the mountain’s highest point accessible without a climbing permit. Reaching the camp, named after famed naturalist John Muir, requires a 4.4-mile (7 km) trek with an altitude gain of 4,639-ft (1,413 m), much of it across the…

“Why are you going to Burlington?” the Niagara Falls Canada Customs officer asked, somewhat dubiously, after we stated our plan to spend the following night there before returning back home to Seattle. “The night life”, we joked, before giving the actual reason of attending a friend’s birthday party. Burlington, a small community of just under…

The Great Mayan Reef is the second largest in the world, stretching 700 miles (1,126 km) along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. After diving the reef during a day-trip to Honduras as part of a Caribbean cruise, we returned a few months later to spend a long weekend diving in Cozumel. An island off the coast…

We had a memorable start to the year with a fabulous holiday season cruise to South Georgia  to take in the region’s diverse and striking wildlife. Our cruising plans for Dirona had long included a visit there to view Ernest Shackleton’s grave in Grytviken, but we just didn’t get that far south. Snowshoeing at the…