Interests

I have a very wide variety of interests.

When I am activating Summit-on-the-Air summits I am always engaged with the flora and fauna, the geology, the weather and the human history of the area. So: History, archeology, ethnography, genealogy, geology, zoology, biology and meteorology all captivate me.

I’ve sailed on sailboats since I was a child and my Dad often chartered small sailboats, notably to Santa Catalina Island most years while my brother, sister and I were growing up. I’ve since gotten into sailboat racing, thanks to Captain Lee Rhoads and done the Newport to Ensenada regatta six times among numerous other races, including the Sunset Series in Marina Del Rey. I did a boat delivery from Richardson Bay near San Francisco to Channel Islands Harbor. That was fun!

Thanks to a librarian mother, I am an avid reader. I love all kinds of books – classical fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction — all kinds of stuff. I will post a top 100 books of mine here at some point.

Besides basic hiking I enjoy backpacking, rock-climbing, bouldering, ice-climbing, cross country ski touring, downhill skiing, and snowshoeing.

As a motion graphic artist, I love all kinds of art and music. What I love about motion graphics is the marriage of art and music. I love photography and I often carry a Canon EOS R5 although I often just shoot with an iPhone. I am into flying Chester the drone – a DJI Mini 4 Pro and gathering footage from my mountain excursions. I play guitar (poorly) but I love music theory and musicology. I have both electric and acoustic guitars.

When I was about 12 my friend Al Gardner described what he could see through his small telescope. We were in what they used to call junior high school at lunch and I remember that he drew a little picture of Mars on the grubby lunch table. I was shocked! You could actually see the polar ice cap on Mars?! I was hooked. Astronomy became an absolute passion and all my money went to telescopes.

To be continued…