Last Updated 11 September 2008

There are several sections to this page, each dealing with a different facet of my varied interests. The entries in the pulldowns to the left point to detailed pages about those interests and activities.

The abstracted photograph which forms the background of this page represents a goal of mine that I completed in 1999, namely climbing my eponymous peak in the eastern Sierra Nevada range in California.

Another long-term goal is to reach as many as possible of the geographic highpoints of the 50 states. (As of September, 2008, I had checked off 42 of the 50 state highpoints.)

When not under water, I can often be found under the hood...of my 1986 Fiero SE.

As my son grew through his Cub Scout years, we developed a certain expertise at building winning Pinewood Derby cars. For an explanation of our techniques, spend some time on the Pinewood Derby page of this site.

In addition to heading "up", I also like to explore "down"...that is, under the sea. To date, I have logged in excess of 150 dives in the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.

A certain wanderlust afflicts both my wife and myself, so our travels have taken us to some of the more interesting and out-of-the-way corners of the world. The Travel pulldown has stories and photo albums from several of these trips.

Obviously, photography plays a major role in many of these activities. One technique that I discovered after starting to shoot mostly digital images is the production of full-spherical panoramas using fisheye images and appropriate computer software to generate composite image files formatted for a Java applet panorama viewer. For samples of these and further information on their production, take a look under the Panoramas pulldown.

The Divertissement page contains a number of interesting links to sites associated with various aspects of this page and other oddball things which have caught my fancy.

Home base for all of these activities is just west of St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is known for its variable weather...10° below zero in winter (-23° C), and upwards of 100° above in the summer (+38° C). Current conditions are reflected in the image below. Click on it for a detailed five-day forecast to see what sort of meterological fate is befalling me at the moment.