Welcome!
Here you will find a compendium of stuff, nonsense, assorted ramblings and other trivia, possibly sprinkled here and there with a seasoning of useful information, and maybe even a little truth.
It contains text and photographs, most taken on the many trips my wife and I have taken all over the world, along with stuff about my other interests, namely computers, software, and photography, and anything else my warped mind decides to write about.
Diverse Details
The name of the site, the quote in the banner, and even the logo are homages to my favorite Science Fiction movie, Forbidden Planet - a masterpiece from 1956. You can learn more about it here or here.
To view my Fine Art Photography web site, click here.
If you are really interested enough to see a list of where my wife and I have been so far,
click here.
Searching for Intrigue in Iberia - September 2023
Well, here we go again. This time we visited the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal for those of you who never had to take a Geography course in school), and a few places nearby.
We spent a couple of days in Bilbao, Spain, then boarded the Norwegian Gem for a twelve day cruise to Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, one place in France, and a bit of Italy. We really enjoyed seeing most of the places on this adventure. Spain is becoming one of our favorite countries.
Searching for Intrigue in Iberia
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, France, and Italy.
Searching for Beauty in the Baltic - May 2023
Well, here we go again. This time we're going to visit the Baltic Sea and the places that surround it. This time I'm going to do something a little different. I'm not going to write a long-winded description of how things went getting to the airport, how things went getting to our destination, what scores we got during the trivia contests on board the ship, what we ate and where we ate it, etc. Do I hear a huge sigh of relief from out there in internetland?
Searching for Beauty in the Baltic
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to The Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, and Sweden.
What we did on our vacation - Chapter 3 - October/November 2022
And, yet again ...
What we did on our vacation - Chapter 3
Searching for Medieval Mediterranean Marvels - October/November 2022
My wonderful wife Donnie has been talking about going to Croatia for a long time. She even had a tour booked when the pandemic hit, but of course it was cancelled. Now that it was supposedly relatively safe to travel she wanted to take a land tour and I didn't. I don't like land tours anymore. You don't want to read my long-winded reasons.
But then I found another one of my brilliant (Ok then, lucky) compromises. I found a seven day "intensive" cruise that visited several of the places that Donnie wanted to see. The upside was that the cruise was on a small ship that could visit towns that a larger ship couldn't but the downside was that it only spent a day, or even only a few hours in the towns. Donnie wanted to spend a week in Dubrovnik for example.
The thing that clinched it was that I found another cruise leaving only a few days after the first one that went to several interesting islands in the Mediterranean and ended up in Spain. Since our granddaughter is currently living and working in Spain, and we would end up a train ride away from her, that sealed the deal. Another bonus is that we would be visiting Rome for a couple of days and Barcelona for over a week - two of our favorite cities.
This time we'll be gone a month and a day - so here we go again...
Searching for Medieval Mediterranean Marvels
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to Italy, Croatia and Spain.
Searching for Medieval Mediterranean Marvels - The Better Pictures
What we did on our vacation - Chapter 2 - May 2022
Continuing on a previous theme ...
What we did on our vacation - Chapter 2
Searching for Gelato, Ghiberti and Gondolieri - May 2022
After a two-year hiatus we got to travel again. It was long, boring self-imposed imprisonment, due to the pandemic. Then, some things came together - the pandemic eased somewhat, especially in Europe, and I, Donnie's loving husband, looking for a really unique, unforgettable way to celebrate our twentieth wedding anniversary, told her we would go on a first-class, no expense too large, two-week trip to Florence and Venice. Here is my rather boring trip report with illustrative pictures.
Searching for Gelato, Ghiberti and Gondolieri
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to Florence and Venice.
Searching for Gelato, Ghiberti and Gondolieri - The Better Pictures
Searching for Tut and Friends - February 2019
My wife, "The Amazing Donnie", did it again. She practically dragged me to go on this trip. My earlobe is still sore from the dragging. Where did she drag me? She and I went to Egypt, home of the Pharoahs, the Pyramids, the Sphinx, the Nile river, and a large quantity of sand.
We had an incredible set of experiences. The most memorable - we went to the Valley of the Kings and saw The Tomb of Tutankhamun, and even Tut himself. Wow!
Here are the pictures...
Searching for Kiwis, Kangaroos, and Coconuts - September to December 2018
“Please
come,” she cajoled.
“I
really am not interested,” he replied.
“You’ll
love it,” was her rejoinder.
"I
don’t think so,” he answered.
“But
I really
want to go there. I have always wanted to go there,” she came back
with.
“You
can go yourself. You’ve gone on trips alone before,” he
explained.
“But
I really want your company,” she pleaded.
“It’s
a 21 hour flight. NO WAY!” he said, with some emphasis.
This went on at intervals for several months. Then one day, he was searching the Web online, just casually looking at ocean cruises which were a mode of transport that they had recently started experiencing, and he discovered a way to make his wife happy with a minimum of hardship for himself.
Thus, the Great Pacific Adventure was born.
I'm going to do something a little different here. I'm going to leave the pictures out of the long - sorry very long - ok then - ridiculously long writeup and put links to them here.
Searching for Kiwis, Kangaroos, and Coconuts - The ridiculously long document.
If you want to download the humongous document as a PDF to read offline, here's the link...
Searching for Kiwis, Kangaroos, and Coconuts - The ridiculously long document as one PDF file.
Here are the "decent" pictures from our Great Pacific Adventure...
Searching for Kiwis, Kangaroos, and Coconuts: The "Decent" Pictures
Here are the "better" pictures from our Great Pacific Adventure...
Searching for Kiwis, Kangaroos, and Coconuts: The "Better" Pictures
Searching for the Maltese Falcon - May 2018
We did another trip. Amazing, right? This time we went to Rome for a few days,
and then took a cruise to Italy, Malta, and Greece. Read all about it and see some pictures here (not the best ones, they come later)...
Searching for the Maltese Falcon
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to Rome and our cruise to Italy, Malta, and Greece.
Searching for the Vikings - August/September 2017
I found a cruise. An amazing cruise. You won't believe what we did on this trip. I'll let you read all about it. Here is my poorly written, boring, very, very wordy, long, 43-chapter but otherwise Pulitzer-deserving, encyclopedic document about the trip. I warn you now, it's very long, way too long. Don't get mad at me. Here it is...
Searching for Parisian Fun - July 2016
We finally got to do something we had wanted to do for a while - we got to take our two lovely teenage granddaughters to Paris! They were looking for fun, we were hoping to show them Paris. I think we all succeeded. The weather was lovely - no warmer than the low eighties and cool in the evenings. Paris wasn't crowded. We got into the Louvre with no wait, and got up to the Eiffel Tower with only a ten minute wait in line. The city was lovely, just as we had remembered it. Here are a few pictures...
Searching for Sushi, Sake and Shrines - March 2016
We finally made it to Japan! As I said in a previous post, in early 2011, we had decided to go to Japan. We booked the flights and all the hotel rooms in Japan for an adventurous trip to both the well-traveled, tourist meccas, as well as some smaller, less well-known places. Then, a few weeks later, the poor Japanese got hit with a triple whammy: an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown. Feeling guilty, and very sad for the Japanese people, we canceled all our hotel reservations, and our plane reservation.
This time, worried a little about our ability to deal with the language barrier, we booked a two-week tour, visiting Tokyo, Hakone, Kanazawa, and Kyoto. We found Japan wonderful and fascinating, and, as usual, Donnie wants to go back. Here are some pictures.
Searching for the Good Gumbo/the Missing Mayans - December 2015 - January 2016
My lovely wife, Donnie was celebrating an important birthday (Her **th!) so I wanted to give her a really nice special gift. For her, the only gifts she wants are travel gifts, so I decided to take her on a trip to New Orleans and then on a Cruise from New Orleans to the Yucatan Peninisula to see Mayan Ruins. She had never been to NOLA (or N'awlins as they pronounce it) and neither of us had ever been on a cruise. Plus, because of her birthdate, we were in New Orleans for New Years Eve. We had a blast. Here are some pictures...
Searching for The Good Gumbo
Searching for The Missing Mayans
Searching for the Tastiest Tapas - November 2015
My Lovely wife, Donnie, did it to me again. This time, Spain: Barcelona, Madrid and a brief side-trip to Toledo. Barcelona was our favorite: a lovely city, lots to see, lots to do, beautiful architecture (especially the work of Antoni Gaudi, a genius architect), wonderful food, pedestrian friendly, clean, nice people, etc. etc. We really enjoyed ourselves. Here are a bunch of pictures.
What we did on our vacation - November 2015
A little bit of humor -
What we did on our vacation
Searching for The Inca Empire - May 2015
The intrepid explorer, world traveler, and heroine, my wife Donnie, also known by her superhero identity, ExplorerWoman, has wanted to see the world famous Inca lost city of Machu Picchu for many years. She has been hinting and cajoling and even threatening in order to get me to go with her. Finally, she won. We went on a tour of 'The Empire of the Incas', which included Lima Peru, Ollantaytambo, Machu Piccu, Cusco Peru, Lake Titicaca, and La Paz Bolivia. We, of course, took lots of pictures. Here are a few.
Searching for The Real America - August 2014
We finally did the cross-country, backroad road trip that I have wanted to do for many years. Well, almost. We drove the back roads from our home in New York all the way to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, and back. Not all the way across the country, but pretty far. It was wonderful. We saw both rural and urban America along our way, and saw several National Parks. We had a great time, but the ride was long, and sometimes tiring. Here are the pictures.
Searching for Ancestors in Virginia - October 2013
My lovely wife, Donnie, signed up for a seminar in genealogy in Williamsburg, Virginia. So, we spent a week in Williamsburg, right near the Colonial Williamsburg historic district. While she was listening to lectures and doing genealogical research, I was exploring and taking pictures. Here are a few.
Searching for Chili in the Southwest - September 2013
Donnie and I decided this time to visit the Southwest US. It isn't on a coast, but it was worth the visit anyway. The scenery was breathtaking and the weather was almost perfect. Here is my poorly written, boring, overly wordy, but otherwise Pulitzer-deserving tome about the trip.
Searching for Chili in the Southwest
Here are the "better" pictures from our trip to the Southwest.
Searching for Cool Places - Summer 2012
Once again we decided to take a coastal road trip. This time we decided on the Northwest coast. We flew to Seattle, and after seeing the city for a few days, rented a car and drove north into Canada to see Victoria and Vancouver, two of our favorite places. Then we drove slowly south, through Washington state, and the Olympic Peninsula, down the coasts of Washington and Oregon, heading inland occasionally to see places like Portland, and Mount St. Helens, and then down the coast of California, all the way to San Simeon, and finally spending a week in San Francisco. We saw many wonderful and beautiful things and places, many of which we had never even heard of before.
Since the temperature back home in New York was in the high 90's, and the temperature on the Northwest coast was in the high 60's, and since we saw many "cool" places, I'm calling this adventure "Searching for Cool Places".
Here are some of the pictures.
Searching for Good Coffee - Fall 2011
In early 2011, we had decided to go to Japan. We booked the flights and all the hotel rooms in Japan for an adventurous trip to both the well-traveled, tourist meccas, as well as some smaller, less well-known places. Then, a few weeks later, the poor Japanese got hit with a triple whammy: an earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown. Feeling guilty, and very sad for the Japanese people, we canceled all our hotel reservations, and our plane reservation, but since the plane tickets were non-refundable, we had to use them to go somewhere, within a year.
Fast forward to Fall 2011. The expiration date for our plane tickets was rapidly approaching, as was Winter, so after much thinking and discussion and arguing and web surfing, trying to figure out where to go, we finally decided to visit two of our favorite places: Paris and Venice. So we did. We had a wonderful time, and almost as importantly, had some really, really, good coffee.
Here are some of the pictures.
Searching for The Eastern Shoreline - Spring 2011
Now that we are both retired, we came to the sudden realization that we no longer had to travel during the usual vacation times (Donnie having been a teacher meant that we only traveled when teachers were not working, during the summer and school holidays). This means that we don't have to deal with the crowds and the raised hotel prices. So we decided (actually Donnie decided first, and then "convinced" me) to take a leisurely, slow, unhurried drive down to Florida during the early spring. It was a fascinating experience, and an eye-opener in many ways. We decided not to take the fast superhighway route, but stick to the much more interesting back roads, and then after we were on our way, decided to try and stick to the shoreline as closely as possible on the way down, and take the inland, mountainous route on the way back. To see our route, click Here. We saw many unexpected things, including pretty seacoast towns, beautiful scenic spots, lovely well-preserved old towns, and fantastic museums, many of which we had never heard of. Here are some of the pictures.
Searching for Sunshine in the Benelux - September 2010
After some warmth in Istanbul, we decided to cool off a bit and head for the Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), with a brief side-trip to Germany. The result - we had to search hard for any sunshine at all, but it was wonderful.
Searching for Sunshine in the Benelux
Many more pictures from our journey to The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.
Searching for Baklava in the Bazaar - August 2010
Our World Traveling Duo sets out for Istanbul. Here's an all-too-brief story about the trip and the city, with a few pictures.
Searching for Baklava in the Bazaar
Many more pictures from our journey to Istanbul.
A Little Tribute to the Big Apple - June 2010
Since I haven't updated this website (blog, conglomeration, mess of stuff, whatever you want to call it) in a while, I have decided to add some pictures that aren't new, but comprise a small set of my pictures of New York City. I have quite a few, since we live about 50 miles north of Manhattan and visit there quite often. Here's a small subset.
Searching for Poutine in the Provinces - August 2009
A mere two weeks after their previous expedition, our intrepid explorers, Jeff and Donnie, set out once again, this time into the wilds of deepest, darkest Canada! Learn more in the gripping story entitled...
Searching for Pancakes in the Palace - August 2009
Here is yet another in our never-ending (hopefully) list of travelogues. This time my lovely wife Donnie and I went to St. Petersburg Russia, the Netherlands, Mont St. Michel and Brittany. Here is my long, windy, but possibly fun and interesting journal, with a few pictures.
Searching for Pancakes in the Palace
Here are more pictures from our trip to St. Petersburg, The Netherlands, Mont St. Michel, and Brittany.
Kung Hei Fat Choi - February 2009
Yesterday morning (Feb 1, 2009) my wife and I, on a whim, decided to go to chinatown in Manhattan, something we do fairly often. This time we went to see the Chinese New Year parade, which I have never been to, and my wife had last seen over 30 years ago. We had lots of fun (and a very good chinese lunch) and I think I got some pretty good pictures.
Searching for Croissants in the Sun - August 2008
During the summer of 2008, my wife and I went to the south of France, to visit relatives, to sightsee, to eat French food, and to take lots of pictures.
Computers/History - September 2007
A bunch of stories about my early days as a programmer and the interesting computer systems and programs I worked with, called...
Searching for Castles in the Mist - July 2007
Our first attempt at information, humor, and just a bit of silliness is about a recent trip to Bonnie Scotland and northern England, entitled...
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