AlbuqRay's VirtualTourist Home Page

My three grandkids live in Albuquerque. It is a really wonderful thing to get to see them often. The twins are now 7 years old and Joel is 5 (but he thinks he is 7). It's a beautiful ordinary life because of the extraordinary people in it.

I went to Malaysia and Cambodia from 25 Feb - 24 Mar 09. Locations included Kuala Lumpur, Miri, the northern Borneo jungle, Mulu caves and Kuching in Malaysia. In Cambodia, I just visited Phnom Penh and the Siem Reap area. It was an amazing trip in many ways. Up-country Borneo and Angkor Wat were pretty remarkable but teaching How Things Fly to the teachers and kids at Phnom Penh's Stung Mean Chey municipal dump and the Borey Keila slum area was an unforgettable experience. The People Improvement Organization teachers and staff do an incredible job. Even though some of these kids live in conditions you can hardly believe, they are still loving and appreciative. It touches your heart. These kids have already learned life's hard lessons and now they are getting a more formal education. They will be surprising everyone (except their teachers) in how well they do in our now global society. I wish the young people in the USA realized how privileged a life they live and how many opportunities in education that they often turn down or do not fully utilize.

I retired on 24 Dec 08 with mixed feelings. I had a great job with an excellent boss and worked with nice people; however, I also want to have time to travel while I am still able to do it. I must wait 90 days but they would like for me to work part-time after that. Sounds like a good way to transition into full retirement to me. My last business trips included the 2nd CALCE counterfeit electronic parts symposium in College Park, MD, and an electronic parts distributor benchmarking trip to Hollywood, FL. Guess those business travel perqs were not too bad either.

On 1-7 May 08 I took a trip to visit my middle brother in Pen Argyl, PA. The best flight from Albuquerque to that area is to Baltimore's BWI (it is a direct flight). I had never been to Gettysburg, PA, so I decided to spend a night there on the way up to Pen Argyl, since it was not that much out of the way. On the way back to BWI I spent the night in Havre de Grace, MD. It is still one of my favorite places on the east coast. I have now finished my tips on Gettysburg, Havre de Grace, and the Delaware Water Gap. I also added to my previous Pen Argyl tips, including an interesting video clip.

In Nov 07 I survived another birthday (BTW, thanks to all my thoughtful friends and VT associates for the birthday greetings) and business took me to College Park, Maryland. I knew that the University of Maryland was located there but I had no idea that College Park played such an important role in aviation history. Most of my tips on College Park are about the College Park Aviation Museum. The museum had special meaning to me personally because it connected me to the history of the Ercoupe, a small plane that my mom and dad owned when I was a boy. It turns out that the Ercoupe was manufactured in College Park.

Got back from Alaska on 17 Aug 07. There was some bad weather and I did not get to do some of the things I had planned, but I had fun anyway. I have finished my tips. They include Bethel, Homer, Seldovia, Kenai, Ninilchik, Happy Valley, Anchor Point, Nikolaevsk, Cooper Landing, Girdwood, Hope, Anchorage, and Seward. I also have some general things along the Seward and Sterling highways that I'll put on my Alaska page since I could not figure out any other way to locate them on VT. Wow, the VT Artists Retreat in Questa was more than a year ago (Labor Day weekend). Time definitely flies!

In September 2005 I went to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I attended my 45th high school reunion, and Boston, Massachusetts, where I took a reengineering class from Michael Hammer and got these crab hats for my grandkids. Okay, okay, they are lobster hats but that does not sound as funny. Any classmates that come here and want to see some reunion pictures should go to my Tulsa travelogues.

I was born in Oklahoma but have lived in Albuquerque, NM, for several years. I am a physicist by education but do systems engineering now. My hobbies include growing grapes, fishing, wildflowers, and palmistry. I am very proud of my twin granddaughters and grandson. I love to travel, meet people and experience the way they live. I truly believe that work is what you do, but life is what you give. Sometimes the view from your own front door is the best. New Mexico, Earth, may not be "the best place in the universe" but it is a very nice place to live. Ralph Waldo Emerson said "though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not." I am sure he meant in our minds and hearts but a digital camera helps also.
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