My Facebook profile	About Me  - a page where I put lots of personal stuff	My family Our wedding Our house My career Retirement My 15 minutes of fame
"Finding a job you love means never working a day in your life." — Confucius

Me in 2018  Eric & Patti My name is Eric Pence, and I am a husband, a father, and retired (I turned 70 in 2018—I guess that makes me old?) after a very successful and satisfying career. I married Patti in 1979 and we have two grown sons, both college graduates, who live far away (New York City and Taiwan). We live in Hingham, MA, a Boston suburb on the coast on Otis Hill (see Our house for details and views). Before I retired in 2018 I worked in the Financial District in Boston and took the commuter boat from Hingham to Boston to my job every day for 35 years (an excellent commute). I worked in Boston and my last job for 24 years was at Safety Insurance in this building, the last 15 as a web programmer. Our son Ben has changed his name to Ulysse (that's pronounced "you lease"). He is 35 and I guess he can do what he wants. We still call him Ben. In 2024 he moved to Lisbon, Portugal. He had been living for several years in Taiwan. I see these posts about what you have to do when you reach 40, but I am over 70 and wish I had seen them years ago. My parents and in-laws are deceased so Patti and I are in the oldest generation of our families now. This is weird. Our 2 adult sons don't live with us, so our current family is Patti and me, our 2 dogs, Casey & Quinn and our cat, Pepper (we had 2 cats but Mandy died in 2018 at age 17). Since I am retired I don't leave the house too often except to walk the dogs twice a day and take the trash to the dump weekly. Only Patti and I live here now (without kids) so our lives are pretty simple. When the stay-home lifestyle occurred during the Coronavirus pandemic I was lucky to be retired and I didn't have to make major adjustments. I didn't have to worry about losing my job or learning new skills like working from home (which I have done) as many of my colleagues did. My life didn't change much except I made fewer visits to the supermarket (sometimes in senior hours because I am over 65). Patti and I have both been vaccinated (and we both got boosters and I got a bunch of those at home COVID-19 test kits), so that is 1 less thing we have to worry about. After graduating from high school in 1966 in Payette, Idaho, because of my high SAT math scores I started out majoring in Mechanical Engineering at University of Idaho (my home state college, where both my parents had graduated), but after 2 years I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do. (Fortunately, I missed this excitement by a few years!)  For the next 5 years I lived in Seattle (and worked at Boeing and other manufacturing jobs because I had learned to read blueprints as an Engineering major in college) and had long hair and smoked pot and tried hallucinogenic drugs. Because I wasn't going to college I lost my 2-S student-deferment and got drafted, and because of my beliefs (I was very anti-war!) I was a draft resister. I took up guitar when I was in college and had started playing jazz, so I went back to college in 1973 to study music at Berklee College of Music in Boston (I read Downbeat, a jazz magazine, regularly, and Berklee was listed often as a school that a lot of famous musicians had gone to), but after a couple of years at Berklee I had a summer job that paid pretty well and I got tired of being a student pauper and I discovered computers and decided that "computer programming" looked like a better way to make a living than being a musician. So I went to several more schools in Metro-Boston (including M.I.T. and Northeastern) and eventually graduated in 1983 and had a great career. Initially I commuted by car to my jobs, including driving up 128 to a job at ADP in Waltham, but for the last 35 years, when I was working in the Boston Financial District, I commuted from Hingham to Boston by commuter boat. Like most programmers in the early 80s I started out working on a large "mainframe" computer system shared by many users on terminals, but living in a modern world that became Internet-based this eventually evolved into web development, which I did for the last 15 years of my working life at this location. Us in 1990 I met Patti in 1977 when she had just bought a house, a 3-bedroom cape in Weymouth (a Boston suburb) and I still lived in an apartment in Boston, but I moved in with her in 1978 and we got married in 1979. We lost that house to a fire in 1982 and bought our 2nd house in Hingham (the town we still live in), and our 2 sons (Alex & Ben) grew up in Hingham, then graduated from colleges in New York City (Alex) and Washington, DC (Ben), traveled the world, and lived in foreign countries. Currently Alex lives in Brooklyn, NY, and Ben lives in Taipei, Taiwan. We don't see them often enough but we have frequent visits on Zoom. During the 2020 pandemic (when they both lived in NYC) they visited us in our 3rd house (also in Hingham) that we moved to in 2016 (this is not the house they grew up in). Ben came back to the U.S. in 2022 for the wedding of a high school friend so we had a short visit. (We have owned 3 houses in suburbs on the South Shore.) When our youngest son graduated from high school in 2007 and went to college in Washington, DC (Alex was already in college in New York City), we stayed in our large, 3-story, 10-room Victorian house where we had raised the boys for several years before we decided to downsize and bought our current house, which is relatively smaller but still large (3 bedrooms, 3½ baths). I am retired now and spend most of my time here in Hingham and I don't miss commuting (by boat) into the city every day. For 35 years my daily routine would consist of—get up, drive to the Hingham Shipyard, take a commuter boat to Boston (see photos), work all day, take the boat back to Hingham, and drive home. Since I retired I am glad those days are over and my life is much simpler now. I became friends with people I saw every day on the boat but sadly we haven't stayed in touch since I am not on the boat anymore. Here's the building where I worked in Boston, where it says 20 (the address was "20 Custom House Street", which was a side street so everybody used the front entrance to the building on Broad Street shown in the photo). I've been financially comfortable for most of my life. I grew up with college-graduate parents (dad was a banker and mother was a teacher) who made good salaries and I started college, mostly on my parents' money (and finished college on my money). In my adult life I've had well-paying jobs, and after I married Patti I came into some family wealth (her dad had a chain of supermarkets), and in my jobs in programming I've earned a lot of money (and Patti had graduted from college and was a Nurse Practitioner), so money was never a problem for us. We've put 2 kids through college and now that I'm retired I am comfortable. So that decribes my financial life. Our house The big event in our lives right now is our new house (we moved here in 2016 so I guess it's not "new" anymore). It has 2 garages for our cars and the Otis Hill location is great!  We lived for 34 years in our previous house where we raised the boys, but after they graduated from college, started their adult lives, and moved to other cities, we were "empty nesters" for 8 years so we sold our 10-room Victorian and we bought and rebuilt a smaller house and after we remodeled it it was a new house and we moved there in 2016.  Because we had an architect when we remodeled we made this house exactly like we wanted and I hope this will probably be where we stay for the rest of our lives. We are still in Hingham, where we have lived since 1982. We have owned 3 suburban houses on the South Shore. (Strangely, we live less than 2 miles from our previous house but since we sold it in 2016 as I write this in 2023 we have never been back.) Previous house Patti and I have been homeowners since 1977 but I realize that is not true for everyone. One thing I love about owning my own house is having a driveway to park my car in (and a garage so I don't have to shovel snow off in the winter). When I lived in Seattle in the 60s I always had a car, but when I was in college in the 70s and lived in apartments in Boston I didn't have a car, and took the subway or rode my bicycle everywhere. Since 1977 I've always owned a car and that is something I couldn't live without. For most of my adult life I have commuted to Boston and worked in the Financial District. I did this every day for years and at lunchtime I walked a 3-mile walk with my colleague (and very good friend) Margarette. I retired in 2018 after working for most of my life, and like most people I grew up thinking 70 was elderly, but I am not elderly. I am always surprised when I see a reflection of this gray-haired guy in a mirror or window becasuse I don't feel any older than I did 30 years ago and I walk the dogs twice a day on 1-2 mile walks with no problem. I've stayed physically active (mostly weekly tennis and daily walking and I used to be a runner), and I have tried to stay current with the new technology that has evolved in my lifetime, like the Internet and smartphones. My current car (a VW Tiguan) is keyless (I just have to have the car key on me to operate the car so it never leaves my pocket) and our house is keyless (the front door is locked with a combination keypad), so I don't need to put keys into locks in my daily life. Having a website is the definitive expression of many of my interests, and I enjoy it so much that working as a web programmer made me feel like I got paid to have fun (see my Confucius slogan at the top)!  I've had several smartphones and I got a new computer in 2019 and I am trying to keep up with the new technology. Among my many interests are travel, walking, music, cities, and maps, and I expound on these things on various pages on my website.

I was born in 1948, which makes me a "baby-boomer". My parents met in college and both graduated in 1941—my mother became a teacher, and my dad went into the army. After the war he married my mother, went to Stanford Law School, and they lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. When my mother got pregnant in 1946 with my older brother David (who died of early-onset Alzheimer's at age 66 in 2012), my dad dropped out of law school and they moved back to his hometown Payette, Idaho, which they thought was a safer place to raise kids (that is where I grew up!). My dad became a banker, which he did for his whole career until he retired at age 65. My mother had stopped teaching to raise kids (3 boys, I am the middle one) but returned to teaching when the kids were older. She also My mother retired at 65, something they still did in the 1970s (I retired at age 70 in 2018). My parents moved to Boise in the 1970s and my dad worked at the headquarters of the bank and my mother taught in Kuna. They would travel a lot in their retirement and sometimes stop in Boston (I came here for college and never left) to see us on their way to Europe, and we would sometimes visit them in Idaho. After my father died in 1993 I made multiple trips to Boise every year to visit my mother until she died in 2017 at age 98. My youger brother, Ed, lives in Los Angeles and is also retired and never married. He lives with his partner/girlfriend, Aganaze. I grew up in the small town of Payette, Idaho and lived there until I went to college in 1966 at the University of Idaho in Moscow for 2 years, then lived in Seattle for 5 years (where I had long hair and was a quasi hippie, attending many rock concerts, weekly in Eagles Auditorium, and 2 outdoor rock festivals in 1968 and 1969, and went to many antiwar rallies and peace marches and was a draft resister in 1969), then returned to college in 1973 in Boston (I finally graduated in 1983 - I've gone to many colleges in Boston that you can read about on my career page). I married Patti in 1979, and she got a Bachelor's from B.U. and a Master's from UMass and is a Nurse Practitioner. We have lived in metro-Boston since the 1970s. Our 2 sons have graduated from college, Alex with Master's and Ben with a Bachelor's. Alex lives in New York City and Ben lives in Taiwan.

There have been several very memorable national events that have occured in my life. I saw a Facebook posting that asked where you were when you heard about the Kennedy assassination. I guess I could ask that same thing here. 1963 - JFK assassination   –   I was in high school (10th grade), standing in a line at the lunchroom when I heard about it—school closed and we were sent home. We watched TV for days and actually saw the assassination of Oswald live as it happened. 1968 - MLK and RFK assassinations   –   We lost some great leaders this year, Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Robert F. Kennedy in June. (Was 1968 America's Bloodiest Year in Politics?!!!) 1969 - I became a draft resister   –   I was 21 and living in Seattle. I had dropped out of college and lost my 2-S student deferment draft classification (this was during the Vietnam War), and I refused induction into the army when I got drafted. 1969 - Apollo 11 moon landing   –   I was 21—my buddy, Rainmar, and I watched it on a color TV at a house we were house-sitting in Seattle for his friends who were on vacation. I think I was tripping on acid. Shockingly, there are people who don't believe this ever happened. 1969 - Woodstock music festival   –   I was 21 and living in Seattle. I didn't attend but went to the Sky River Rock Festival outside Seattle in 1968 & 1969. 1982 - Chicago Tylenol murders   –   The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. This incident inspired the pharmaceutical, food, and consumer product industries to develop tamper-resistant packaging, such as induction seals. These can be a pain to remove, but better SAFE than SORRY. 1986 - Space Shuttle Challenger disaster   –   I was 38 and working in an office in Cambridge, MA. Somebody in my office was monitoring the takeoff of the Challenger and reacted loudly when it exploded. This was caused by the failure of O-ring seals in a joint in the Space Shuttle's right solid rocket booster (SRB) 2001 - 9/11 Terrorist attacks   –   I was 53 and working in an office in Boston and my mother (in Idaho) called me to tell me what had happened, so I might have been the first in the office to know, but the Internet traffic was so heavy and slow you couldn't get to any news sites. Boston was evacuated and I had to take my commuter boat home at 11:00am (special boats where put on to operate outside normal commuting times). The commuter boat I took to work in Boston every day passed by the Boston Logan airport around the time the 2 planes took off that flew to New York and hit the towers, so I may have seen them fly over. I had friends in New York City and Washington, DC, but fortunately I didn't lose anybody I knew that day. My New York buddy worked in the WTC in 1993 when the bomb went off in the basement garage, but he was no longer there in 2001. I actually had been to the Windows on the World (Wikipedia) viewing area of the North Tower before the towers came down. 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia disaster   –   The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it reentered the atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. This was caused because during the launch a piece of foam insulation broke off from the external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. After the disaster, Space Shuttle flight operations were suspended for more than two years, as they had been after the Challenger disaster, and the International Space Station relied entirely on the Russian Space Corporation. Now many adults were very young or not born yet when some of these things happened. In 2019 I saw TV coverage of the 50-year anniversary of the moon landing and though I was an adult in my 20s at the time and witnessed it on TV and remember it, the TV personalities on the coverage show were 30-something and this event occured before they were born. It must be interesting to be born after such significant things happened. High technology evolved in my lifetime and I remember the early days of computers. Now it is everywhere and like everybody I take it for granted. I can do Google search on my phone which is in my pocket. I recently learned that they are going to start teaching cursive handwriting again. I wondered how people who did not know cursive wrote their signatures on things.

MY_WTC

Special songs

Cars I've owned

Stanley Clarke - School Days

The Road To Perdition

My Facebook profile

	For some reason my wife Patti took this picture, probably in the 70s, showing a gas pump with the price of gas in those days. 34¢ a gallon but I remember 25¢ a gallon when I started driving in the 60s.
	You can really express yourself with a great bumper sticker. My personal favorite is which I put on my car.

I got a new desktop computer in October, 2019, from RGB Computer Solutions on Station Street in Hingham. It is an "All-in-One," meaning the computer case and system components are built into the back of the monitor so that the entire PC is contained all in one unit (no separate box or tower). My new computer 24" monitor Intel Core i5 processor 12 GB of RAM 1-terabyte solid-state hard drive Wireless keyboard, wireless mouse It came with Windows 10 and I put Classic Shell on it to emulate the XP Start Menu I have upgraded to Windows 11 Current desktop Since I took that photo showing my computer I've replaced Paris in the desktop background image with this view of Hingham Harbor, showing Otis Hill in center, where our house is located and Boston in the background. I am pleased with how fast it is! I had to do a lot of configuring to get this computer to behave the way my last one did, including setting up the tools to manage my website and my music which I put on my phone. I succeeded!  I use Firefox as the primary browser on my desktop and laptop and I have them syncronized so they both have the same bookmarks and add-ons. (I had Firefox on my PC at work synced when I was still working.) I took my last computer to the electronic drop-off area at the dump (but first I disabled the hard-drive). I previously had a Pentium computer with Windows XP that I got in 2009. It had a 250 GB hard drive that was always getting filled up. (I also have a Windows 10 laptop but the desktop is my main computer.) Patti has an I-Pad on our kitchen table so I needed to get a tablet. I got a Samsung Galaxy tablet to replace my laptop. I know Microsoft had discontinued XP and didn't support it anymore, and I kept getting messages that things couldn't run on it, but I still used it until I finally got tired of the messages and couldn't upgrade things anymore. Our computer history . . . In 1988 we got our first home PC, a DOS 286, that had a 32 MB hard drive that I thought was plenty big. My kids, who were born in the 80s, grew up with there always being a computer in the house, and they got their own computers when they were quite young. In 1992 I got my next computer—a 486 with Windows 3.1 that had a 250 MB hard-drive that I though was huge! I put Windows 95 on this one when it came out, ultimately upgrading to Windows 98, and then Windows 2000. In 2003 I got a PC with Windows XP on it. I had that computer until I got my current one in 2019.

I keep one of these in my closet and lay my phone on it to charge at night when I'm sleeping. No plugging in required. I start out each day with a fully charged phone. Patti also has a couple of these, one for her phone and one for her earpods. Yootech Wireless Charger Our son Ben turned me on to this. It works fine on my Samsung Android, but I've heard it doesn't on older iPhones, but Apple fixed this on the newer ones. (Patti has a new iPhone.)

I always like to know the current outside temperature so I know how to dress when I go out, so I keep a couple of these mounted on walls—one where I can see it from the table I sit at to eat and one next to the coat closet near the door to go outside. This has a unit that you mount outside the house and one that gets the temperature using WiFi and displays it. ThermPro digital thermometer

2022

2015

2012

2011

2009

2000

1994

1991

1990

The boys

My mother

My dad

Brother David

Brother Ed

I didn't grow up fantasizing about getting married and having kids, but it happened in a perfectly natural way and I am sure glad it did. I couldn't imagine life being any other way. Go below to read about the boys. Eric & Patti I am retired, and my wife, Patti, is still working as a Nurse Practitioner at Harbor Health which has several locations in Boston. Primarily she works at Neponset Health Center, but she also works at another Harbor Health location, Geiger Gibson, which was the first community health center in the country. She graduated from Boston University in 1979 (the year we got we married) and was an R.N. at Planned Parenthood until she went back to school at UMass Boston and got her Master's becoming a Nurse Practitioner in 2001. We are the proud parents of two grown sons in their thirties, both college graduates, and we have been "empty-nesters" since 2007, when our youngest son graduated from high school and left for college, so we gave up our bigger house (a 3-story, 10-room, 5-bedroom Victorian) where the boys were raised and bought a smaller house in 2015, remodeled for a year (and made it bigger), and moved there in 2016. Before I retired in 2018 I had a great career with the skills I learned in school. We live in Hingham (a Boston suburb), Massachusetts (see Our house), a coastal community on the South Shore of Metro-Boston, and for most of my career I took a commuter boat from Hingham to my jobs in Boston. I'm so glad Patti and I met and had a relationship in the 1970s before email and texting and social media (and I love those now!), where we really got to know each other in person the old fashioned way, with socializing and dating and eventually living together. Getting married and becoming a father were the biggest adjustments I've ever made in my life but I couldn't imagine life being any other way! I get so much pleasure and experiences of pride, and it just continues and continues as my family opens new doors. Our sons have traveled the world, lived in other countries, and had many interesting experiences in places we've never been, and we've taken some trips with them!

The Vale For our wedding in 1979 Patti and I rented an antique house in Waltham (a Boston suburb) named "The Vale" (the Lyman Estate). We had previously been to a wedding in this beautiful house in the fall, and decided that it was where we wanted to have our wedding, but when we got married in July the temperatures were in the 90s, and we couldn't use the unair-conditioned house for much more than a setting for photos. All wedding activities were outside under a big canvas tent. "The Europeans," a British film starring Lee Remick, was filmed at The Vale (this was released in 1979 so it was probably filmed not long before our July wedding). The Lyman Estate (The "Vale"), Waltham MA – a couple married at The Vale in 2003 took these photos

• Eric retired in 2018, after decades of working in Boston and commuting by boat
• Patti is a Nurse Practitioner at Harbor Health Services in Dorchester (a Boston neighborhood)

• Alex is a college teacher, and lives in New York City.
• Ben lives in Taipei, Taiwan, previously San Francisco, CA, and New York City (East Village, Manhattan).

2020 photos

• March - Ben and his Chinese roomate, Dongyi, traveled from Taiwan, where they have lived for a couple of years, to Lisbon, Portugal, where they plan to live
• March - Patti goes to Connecticut to see The Simon & Garfunkel Story.
• February - I tested positive for Covid (Patti has Covid)..
• February - Patti and friends went to Vermont for the weekend, and she got sick and I had to drive up and bring her home.
• February - false alarm; Boston only got a dusting.
• February - expecting another snowstorm, possibly 5-8 inches accumulation.
• January - expecting a big snowstorm but so far all we've gotten is rain.

• December - Patti went to Vermont on Christmas to help our friend, Brenda, run a store for a friend. I stayed home with the dogs.
• December - We had our first snowstorm of the season. Not too bad. We also have frequent rainstorms. Is this from global warming? I hope not!
• November - Alex, Lylynn, Agatha, and 2 dogs came up from Brooklyn for Thanksgiving, as did Patti's brother Arthur.
• October - We went to Hawaii for 10 days, and stayed in a hotel on Waikiki Beach and we met with Ben (Dongyi, Ben's roomate in Taiwan, joined him)
• September - Ben flew to San Francisco—after a week he will go to a wedding in Hawaii, where we will see him, then home to Taiwan
• September - Eric and Patti got COVID-19 boosters, Eric also got a flu shot
• September - Ben came back from Vermont to our house and at first wore a mask and kept his distance from us because of his COVID-19
• September - Ben and Michael went to a 1-week meditation retreat in Vermont - they caught COVID-19
• September - We met Arthur & Wilma, Jon (Arthur's son) & Jack (Jon's son) for lunch in Worcester—Ben was with us
• September - Alex visited us for a few days
• September - Eric has some minor health ailments
  - I have a sore right heel—went to doctor, and they x-rayed and found nothing and said I have PLANTAR FASCIITIS which I take naproxen for
  - I have things floating in front of my left eye—I tried to swat them to no avail—on an eye exam the opthalmologist found nothing and said I have "floaters" in my eye
• August - Ben is back and will be with us until he goes to a wedding in Hawaii in October.
• August - Ben and his friend, Michael, have gone to a retreat in upstate New York.
• August - Patti met Ben in Burlington, VT, and they spent a week in Montreal and Quebec City.
• July - Ben was at our house for a week and has now gone to a wedding in upstate New York.
• July - Ben is back in the US and will come visit us next week.
• July - Ben just flew to London.
• June - Alex, Lylynn, and their friend, Agatha, just visited us with a couple of dogs for several days.
• June - Ben has been to New York, Washington, and Baltimore.
• June - Ben is in the U.S. and we will see him in late summer or early fall.
• June - Summer is finally here and I'm wearing shorts for the first time this year.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center. I guess I should stop posting this.
• Eric has started taking over-the-counter sleeping pills (currently Avinol PM) to get a good-night's sleep
• I still walk the dogs twice a day.
• It's been a mild winter.

• Patti went to Vermont on Christmas to help our friend, Brenda, run a store for a friend. I stayed home with the dogs.
• We had a Thanksgiving visit from our son, Alex, Lylynn, their friend, Agatha, and 2 dogs, all from Brooklyn, NY.
• Alex moves in with his girlfriend Lylynn in Brooklyn.
• I got my 3rd Moderna COVID-19 booster and annual flu shot at CVS.
• Ben, who visited friends in New York City, Washington, DC,  San Francisco, Portland, OR,  Dallas and Austin, TX, visited us again before going back to Taiwan.
• We had a another short visit from Alex, who picked up Ben at the airport (we were surprised!).
• Alex got his 2nd bout of COVID-19 (mild) and he is over it now.
• Patti talks to Alex and Ben regularly on phone calls.
• I got my 2nd Moderna booster shot for COVID-19.
  - The CDC card was too small to hold all the vaccination records, so I downloaded and printed it to keep in my wallet.
• We had a short visit from Alex who came to New England from his home in NYC because he was going to hike in Vermont—but due to rainy weather he went to the Berkshires in Western Mass. instead.
• We had a visit from Ben, who came to the U.S. from Taiwan, where he lives, because he had to attend a high school friend's wedding in New York. It was nice to see him again after so long.
• Not much happining so far this year. I still walk the dogs twice a day.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.
• Alex and Laura get divorced.
  

• I got my Moderna booster shot for COVID-19.
• Sorry, no travel experiences to share here during the pandemic.
• Patti got her booster shot (3rd vaccine).
• I received my annual flu shot.
• I received my 2nd vaccine shot.
• We got a new Labradoodle puppy, Quinn, in March.
• Alex got a mild case of COVID-19 in New York, called an 800-number, and they quarantined him in a hotel for a short time.
• I've received my first Moderna shot at Patti's clinic in Boston.
• Patti has been vaccinated at work (even though she mostly works at home and contacts people on the phone).
• Ben has relocated to Taiwan. We visit on Zoom now.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• I received my annual flu shot.
• Alex and Ben have come up from New York City to spend time with their parents during this pandemic.
• With the pandemic it looks like our travel plans will be non-existent for awhile.
  For the time being we are spending a lot of time at home, alone mostly.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• Alex and Laura spent Christmas with her mother in Ithaca, NY, and came to our house 2 days later for several days.
• Ben came up from New York and stayed with us over Christmas.
• Ben visited us for 5 days.
• I received my annual flu shot.
• Alex and Laura stopped by for a couple days after a "mini-moon" (not quite a honeymoon) to Cape Cod after the wedding.
• Alex and Laura get married.
  We went to their wedding in the Catskills and really enjoyed it, and saw lots of family and friends who attended.
  The wedding was at the Floating Farmhouse in Eldred, NY, and Alex, Laura, and many friends stayed in rooms at the farmhouse.
  Many others, including Patti and me, stayed at the Catskill Mountains Resort, 10-minutes away.
• Ben moves to New York City after living in San Francisco for 4 years.
• We made a weekend trip to Brooklyn where Patti attended Laura's wedding shower at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. We met her sisters and her father, Daniel, who had a birthday that we celebrated.
• We went to the Catskills looking at places where people can stay when they come to Alex and Laura's wedding in August. We were joined by Adriana, Laura's mother.
  The wedding and reception will be at the Floating Farmhouse in Eldred, NY, in the Catskills.
• Ben and his Chinese roommate, Jack (who joined us in Italy last year), went to Taiwan and China for a couple of weeks.
• We had a visit from my cousin Bert and his wife Sonya from Austin, TX, on their trip to Boston
• It has been a pretty mild winter but we did have one storm in early March that left a foot of snow that took a couple of weeks to melt.
• We went to Cold Spring, NY, on the Hudson River to help Alex and Laura select a venue for their wedding this summer. They selected a chapel in Cold Spring for the ceremony but since then have decided to do everything in one location in the Catskills.
• Alex and Laura came up from Brooklyn and Ben from San Francisco to celebrate Patti's birthday in January.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• We took a 2-week trip to Italy in June-July. This was an extended family vacation of 14 people, including Alex, Laura, and Ben.
• I received my annual flu shot.
• Eric retires!
  I tuned 70 in April but I do a 20-mile fund-raising walk every year the first week of May that I collect donations for at work, so I had to work until after that, then I retired in May.
• I used to use vacation days from work to visit my mother in Idaho but she passed away last year, so in the last few months before I retired I used my remaining vacation days to work 4-day weeks.
• Ben left Twitter and still lives in San Francisco, focusing on non-profit endeavors.
• Alex and Laura came up from Brooklyn for weekend visits in December, once by bus and once in a rental-car.
• Alex gets rid of his car.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.
• The 3-day weekend for New Years had freezing temps, and the Hingham commuter-boat was cancelled temporarily when the dock was damaged by ice, so I took the train to work for 2 weeks.
  Definitely an inferior way to commute than what I'm used to.

• Alex and Laura, and Ben with 2 friends, visited us for Thanksgiving.
• I received my annual flu shot.
• In September, Eric's mother, Immy, passed away in Boise at age 98.
• In September, Alex and Laura drove up from Brooklyn for a weekend visit.
• In August, Patti and I went to a wedding at a country club on Long Island, NY. Alex and Laura also attended from Brooklyn.
• In July, Sheri, our au pair in 1988 when Ben was born and she was 18 years old, came for a visit with 2 of her kids. We have stayed in touch with her and visited her in her home in Utah.
• In June we made a trip out to Boise to see my mother, who is ninety-eight now! She lives in assisted living and they seem to take good care of her.
  On this trip were Patti, me, Alex and Laura from Brooklyn, Ben and friend from San Francisco. and Dorothy, my mother's sister, from Seattle.
  We enjoyed eating in some fine Boise restaurants from many cultures.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• For his birthday I got Alex an E-ZPass transponder to put in his car for tolls on highways when he travels (hopefully on trips to visit us).
  Massachusetts recently removed all toll boths and went entirely digital (pay with transponder, as we do, or get license plate photographed and receive bill in mail).
• Remodeling photos of the new house all posted, and some new photos after we moved in.
• I went to my 50th high school reunion in Idaho and saw some classmates I hadn't seen since high school. (Many of us keep in touch on Facebook.)
• We saw extended family and Alex in Avon, CT.
• Alex came up from Brooklyn for a weekend visit (our first overnight-guest in our new house).
• We sold our previous house of 34-years and moved to our newly-remodeled house on June 27.
• Visited my mother in Boise for a week in February and saw some old high school friends.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.
• We had a nice 2-week visit from Ben over New Year's. Now he's back in San Francisco.

• I am posting remodeling photos of the new house (here are Before & after pictures).
• After living for 34 years in the house the boys were raised in, being "empty nesters" we bought a new house.
• Alex is going to graduate school at The New School in Greenwich Village, New York City.
• Ben attended the annual DEFCON hacker conference in Las Vegas, which he has gone to several times before.
• Patti and I have purchased a smaller house in Hingham now that we live alone and don't need the huge one we have owned since 1982.
  We will be remodeling this house for the next year before living there.
• My mother is 96 now, still in good health, and I plan to visit her soon in Boise.
• Alex and Laura have moved back to New York City for teaching assignments since returning from Vietnam.
  
• Ben now lives in San Francisco where he works for Twitter.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.
• After several severe snowstorms we have 3-6 feet of snow all around our house. I made slideshow of photos on my website and a photo album on Facebook.
  

• The 5 of us (Patti, Ben, Alex, Laura, me) took a trip out to Boise to see Grandma and up to Seattle to see friends and relatives.
  Seattle has changed so much since I left in 1973 that except for familiar places like Pike Place Market and the Space Needle it is almost an entirely new city to me.
  We saw the fascinating Dale Chihuly glass sculpture exhibit at Seattle Center.
• Alex and Laura have arrived. It is great having the whole family together after a long time apart. Time for a family photo!
• I attended my late brother David's 50th high school reunion with his daughter Heather (my niece). It was interesting to see people I'd known in high school for the first time in 50 years!
• We visited my mother (Heather's grandmother) in Boise on this trip. I journeyed from Boston, Heather from New York.
• Ben is doing some traveling around the U.S., including Las Vegas (a DEFCON hacker conference),L.A., Washington (DC), New York City, and Chicago.
• Alex says he and Laura will be coming home from Vietnam in October. I don't know what their plans are.
• Ben and Michael went to South Korea for a week after Tokyo, and came home in June. Ben will be making plans and moving on.
• My mother is 95 now and still in good health. I hope to visit her soon.
• Ben called and he is now in Tokyo with Michael. They got together with our Japanese friend (and high-school exchange student), Mayuko.
• We had a great visit with Ben in Jamaica. Now he has gone to Toronto for a week, and he will soon fly to Tokyo to re-join his friend Michael and complete their travels.
• Ben is now in Moscow and will fly to Jamaica next week for some friends' wedding where we will join him.
• Ben has flown to Beijing, China, where he will take the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow, Russia. He and Michael have split up but will reconnect in a month.
• Ben and Michael are now in India, after visiting Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Laos, and Vietnam, where they saw Alex and Laura.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• Alex and Laura have left Turkey and now live in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Vietnam.
• Ben, and his traveling companion, Michael, are now in Indonesia after spending 2 weeks in Taiwan.
• Alex and his girlfriend, Laura, who lived in Brooklyn, NY, for years, have gone to Izmir, Turkey, where they plan to live and work.
• Ben, who worked for the Department of Defense for 2 years after college, is taking some time off to travel in Asia.
• My mother is 94 and lives in Boise, ID, where she is in good health, and I try to visit here several times a year.
• Patti continues to work at Neponset Health Center.

• Patti starts working as an N.P. at another Harbor Health location, Neponset Health Center, which is located in the Neponset neighborhood in Dorchester, a shorter commute.
• Alex graduates from college, The New School in Greenwich Village, New York City.
• My brother David passes away in October at age 66 from early onset Alzheimer's, which is a horrible disease that science and medicine are battling.

• Ben graduates from college, George Washington University in Washington, DC.
• A tree limb fell during Hurricane Irene destroying a sailboat we had on a trailer in the backyard.

• Ben graduates from Hingham High School.
• Ben starts college at George Washington University in Washington, DC.
• Patti starts working as an N.P. at Geiger Gibson Community Health Center (part of Harbor Health), located in Dorchester near UMass Boston—the first Community Health Center in America.

• Alex attends his first year of college at UMass-Lowell.
• Alex graduates from Wellspring Academy in Hull with a high school diploma.

• Ben starts high school at Hingham High School.

• Patti starts working as a Nurse Practitioner at Planned Parenthood
• Patti gets her Master's degree at UMass Boston.
• Alex goes to high school at Hingham High School.

• Alex starts high school at Wilbraham and Munson boarding school in Central Mass.

• Ben starts school in 1st grade at Foster.
• Eric takes a programming class at Northeastern.
• Eric starts working at Safety Insurance in Boston, and continues commuting to by boat from Hingham.

• Ben goes to kindergarten at Foster.
• Grampa Jack passes away outside St. Louis on a trip back to Boise from East Coast..
• Grandpa Jack and Grandma Immy visit us in Hingham.

• Eric creates a website: penceland.com.

• Alex starts school in 1st grade at Foster.
• Ben starts nursery school at Wilder Memorial.

• Alex goes to kindergarten at Foster Elementary in Hingham.

• Grampa Jack has leg amputed that wouldn't heal after car accident.

• Eric takes programming classes at MIT,

• Grandpa Jack and Grandma Immy are involved in a head-on collision in Oklahoma on a cross-country car trip, Eric flies to Tulsa to see them in the hospital.
• Carter Rice has offices in New York and Washington so Eric gets to travel.
• Eric starts working at Carter Rice in Boston and starts commuting to work by boat from Hingham.
• Alex starts nursery school at Wilder Memorial, where both boys will go at that age.
• Ben is born.

• Alex is born.
• Eric starts working at National Teledata in Norwell, a short commute.

• Eric starts working at Harper and Shuman in Cambridge.

• Eric is now a compter programmer and will be so for the rest of his working life.
• Eric graduates from Center for Computer Education in Newton, and after a 2-month internship job at McBer and Company on Newbury Street takes a permanent job at ADP in Waltham.

• After losing our Weymouth house to a fire we buy a house in Hingham, MA and move to Hingham.

• Patti starts working as an R.N. at the Preterm Health Services clinic near Cleveland Circle in Brookline.
• Patti and Eric get married.
• Patti graduates from Boston University.

• Eric moves in with Patti in her house.
• Eric takes photos of the Blizzard of '78 which occured while he was living in the Fenway. These will appear on his website in a few year.

• Eric and Patti meet.
• Patti buys a house in Weymouth, MA with a fenced in yard so she won't have to walk her dog in parks in Boston.

• Eric stops going to school after 2 years, moves to the Fenway, and starts working at Beacon Auto Radiator with skills and knowledge he learned as an Engineering major in his first 2 years of college (1966-1968) at University of Idaho (his home state school).

• Eric comes to Boston from Seattle to study at Berklee College of Music.

Dad and Mom

My parents are both deceased and I am at an age that would make me a senior citizen. Ugh!

My parents were born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. My dad grew up in Payette, Idaho (where I was raised), and after he graduated from high school he went to college in northern Idaho in Moscow at the University of Idaho. My mother was raised on a ranch in Southeastern Washington state and she lived with a wealthy aunt and uncle in Spoken when she was in high school (for a graduation present they gave her a trip to Europe) and then she also went to the University of Idaho, where she met my dad. After they both graduated in 1941 my parents got married and my dad went into the army to serve in World War II and my mother became a teacher in Idaho. After the war my dad went to Stanford Law School in Palo Alto. California, and my parents lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. When my mother got pregnant in 1946 with my older brother David (who died of early-onset Alzheimer's at age 66 in 2012) my dad dropped out of law school and they moved back to Payette, Idaho, which thy thought was a My mother better place to raise kids (I was born 2 years later in 1948). My dad became a banker and my mother was a stay-at-home mother and didn't start teaching again until we were older. My parents moved from Payette to Boise in the 1970s and my dad worked at the bank's head office and my mother taught in Kuna. My dad died in 1993 at age 73 when he had a seizure on a cross-country car trip outside St. Louis. (I was in Washington, DC, on business when I learned about this.) My mother, who would teach until she retired at age 65 in 1974, continued to live in Boise where I would visit her multiple times a year until she died in 2017 at age 98. Patti and I got married in 1979 and have 2 children born in the 1980s, and they both graduated from college and are adults and haven't lived with us for decades.

Spanning 25 years

2020 photos

Alex was born in 1985 and lives in Brooklyn, NY, and is a college teacher. He got his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The New School in Greenwich Village, New York City. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, and teaches ESL (English as a Second Language) at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, NY, mostly to foreigners who work in the United States. Because of the pandemic all his classes were online for awhile, so he could do them on Zoom when he visited us. Alex met Laura in college and they lived together for years, including a trip they made to Vietnam, where they lived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) for a year. They were married for awhile but are divorced now. Alex lived with Laura in Brooklyn for years and he still lives in Brooklyn in another apartment with Lylynn, who is Vietnamese (her parents are immigrants) and she was born and raised in the U.S. He visits us occasionally because he is just hours away, so he can rent a car and drive up for a few days.

Ben was born in 1988 and lives in Taipei, Taiwan, and is a software engineer. He graduated from college in 2011 with a degree in Computer Science from George Washington University (GW) in Washington, DC, which is located between The Watergate Complex and The White House. He worked for 2 years after college in Maryland, then spent a year when he was 25 (2014) traveling the world, mostly in Southeast Asia, and visited Alex and Laura in Vietnam, who were living there at the time. He went to China, Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, and Russia, on this trip (he took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Beijing to Moscow). We asked him once when we would see hin again and he said he was going to a wedding in Jamaica, so we went to Jamaica and saw Ben. After his travels he worked for Twitter in San Francisco for 4 years, then he worked on Wall Street in NYC for a year and lived in East Village, Manhattan. He left his job in NYC and came to stay with us for a short visit before moving to Taiwan, so who knows what's ahead for him? Ben has always had close friends who are Chinese and visited Taiwan several times. When he was in college he spent several months living in Amsterdam, Holland, on a study-abroad. We visited him there on a European trip, where he joined us in Paris and Amsterdam. In 2020 he moved to Taiwan. After living in Taiwan for 3 years, Ben and his Chinese roomate, Dongyi, moved to Lisbon, Portugal in March, 2024.   With beard

I thought it would be fun to "re-visit" all the places I have lived in Google Maps Street View. Payette, Idaho (1948-1966) I spent the first 18 years of my life in the small, isolated town of Payette, Idaho. I was surprised it made Street View. Childhood home (Center Ave.) 1951-1966 – my parents bought this house when I was 3—we had a huge tree next to the driveway that has been taken down (see then & now) Moscow, Idaho (1966-1968) I spent my first 2 years away from home in college at the University of Idaho in Moscow. Borah Hall (U of I) 1966-1967 – freshman year I lived in a dorm that was part of a big complex First apartment (U of I) 1967-1968 – sophomore year I shared an off-campus apartment with 2 friends In 2022 there were some murders a block away from here Seattle (1968-1973) I lived for years in Seattle in a variety of places. Some of the older buildings are no longer there, or the vegetation has changed so much I had difficulty recognizing them, but I tried to show the locations if I could find them. Addresses followed by (?) indicate that I was unable to find the exact building I lived in (probably gone now), and it has been so many years I am not always sure if this is even the right street. My former roommate, Ben, who still lives in Seattle, helped with some of the locations. I also found the Bird's Eye view in Bing Maps a good search tool. 15th Ave NE (U District) 1968-1969 – first time living alone, across the street from Cowen Park (my apartment was main floor left in view), then basement apartment with Rainmar—friend Ben lived in another apartment in same building NE 54th St (?) (U District) 1969 – I'm just guessing on this location; it was in that area and this sort of looks right with the hill and openness; one memory of this place is that it was where I was living in 1969 (with Rainmar) when I received my draft notice N 41st St (Wallingford)   1969 – foliage now hides the outside entrance to our apartment and the little cottage that was occupied by a nice young hippie couple; my roomate was Ben Naomi Place (U District) 1969-1970 – lived here with group of friends (including Bill and Andy) in era of long hair and rock festivals (roommate Pat nicknamed this "Naomi house"). Pat was my first roommate when I came to Boston for college in 1973. 12th Ave NE (U District) 1970-1971 – lived here with group of friends, same era (roommate Pat came through with another nickname, "Excellent house") "Minor Manor"(?) (Cascade) 1971-1972 – the run-down complex of old buildings we lived in, and the taxi business next to it, seem to be gone Franklin Ave E (Eastlake) 1972-1973 – my roommate Bill usually stayed at his girlfriend's so I basically lived alone; one great thing about this apartment was the view—we could look across Lake Union and see the Aurora Bridge Boston (1973-1978) I came to Boston in 1973 to return to college and I've been here ever since. Beacon St. (Brookline) 1973-1975 – shared apartment with Seattle friend & roommate Pat when I went to Berklee Peterborough St. (Fenway) 1975-1976 – the beginning of 3 years of living alone in the Fenway Queensberry St. (Fenway) 1976-1978 – where I was living when I met Patti, and during the Blizzard of '78 South Shore (1977-present) I met Patti in 1977, we soon lived together and got married, and we have two grown sons, both college graduates. We've have owned 3 houses on the South Shore. Morningside Path (Weymouth) 1978-1982 – Patti had just bought this house but hadn't moved in yet when we met, I moved in soon after—when we were first married we lived there until it was gutted by a fire in 1982; it was rebuilt by the next owners, who added the additions and changed the color to green; Paula, who is still our good friend, lived next door Lafayette Avenue (Hingham) 1982-2016 – this was the family house where our two boys grew up (we added the 2-story addition on the right in 1991—family room downstairs, master bedroom upstairs); after they left as adults (Alex to Brooklyn, Ben to San Francisco) we realized it was time to downsize Talbot Road (Hingham) 2016 . . . – this is our current house on Otis Hill, a neighborhood across from the Hingham Lobster Pound on Route 3A

1st house Weymouth

2nd house Hingham

3rd house Hingham

House locations

		1977 - 1982	–	1st house	–	Weymouth	–	Morningside Path, a "Cape" near Whitman's Pond (we lost this house to a fire)	–	1977 purchase price was $32,900 (Patti bought the house in 1977, I moved in in 1978, we were married in 1979)
		1982 - 2016	–	2nd house	–	Hingham	–	Lafayette Avenue, a "Shingle-style" Victorian in Hingham Square	–	1982 purchase price was $123,500, remodeled over the years, and sold in 2016 for over $1 million
		2016 - present	–	3rd house	–	Hingham	–	Talbot Road, a Gambrel Cape on Otis Hill, second-to-last house on dead-end street	–	2015 purchase price was $789,000, appraised after remodeling at $1.4 million

Fire photos Next house We lost our first house in Weymouth to a fire in 1982. It was on a June afternoon and Patti was next door, sun-bathing on chairs in the backyard with our neighbor and good friend Paula (we are still good friends with Paula even though we live in different houses in different towns now), and Paula asked Patti if she if she had left an air-conditioner on because there was smoke coming out of a bedroom window that had an air-conditioner. The bedroom was above the kitchen, which is where the actual fire was, and Patti rushed home to deal with it. When she opened the kitchen door she saw the fire (an electrical fire that started in a wall) and it was already out of control, and our cat rushed in through the open door (to his death). I was at work in Boston and she called me and said, "The house is on fire!" and I rushed home (I drove a car to work in Boston in those days) but the firefighters were rolling up their hoses so I missed it all. The house was burned out inside and was a total loss (see photos). It is tough to lose everything you own in a sudden tragedy like that but you recover and go on. Fortunately we didn't have kids yet, but we lost 2 cats in the fire (our dog was tied up safely outside). Living through a horror like a fire is not something you prepare for, and the experience opened up a whole new world to us with people who deal with that on a regular basis—adjusters, lawyers, and various emergency services. The insurance company offered to put us up in a hotel or have a mobile home in the driveway. We took the mobile home option (I expected something like a camper trailer but was shocked and pleased that they delivered a 2-bedroom modern mobile home) and we lived there that summer, where we had a pool in the back yard, and talked to people about rebuilding the house but we realized we would have made the house we wanted to build by far the most expensive house in the neighborhood so it was better to move to the house we wanted rather than build it. We bought a Mobile home in driveway Remodeled cape house beautiful house in Hingham on a corner lot (a few miles away) and moved. The fire was many years ago, before we had children (they were born in the next house in the 1980s), and my memories of it are pretty dim. For years we would be wondering where something was that we owned, then would realize it was lost in the fire. (When Patti and I started living together we merged our stereo systems and stored some of the unused components and other things in the basement, so these were not damaged in the fire and were used again in our next house.)  We sold the burned-out house to a young couple who remodeled it with several additions and made it their home. This house was the first of 3 houses we have owned.

Payette in 60s I grew up in Payette, Idaho and I lived there until I finished high school in 1966. There is more information about my childhood on my Payette page. Some of you may be interested to know that Idaho's in the Northwest, not the Midwest, and this map shows you that Idaho and Iowa are two different states a thousand miles apart!  My great-grandfather, Peter Pence, was one of the pioneers of the town (more Payette history). My late cousin Bob assembled a Pence family tree, starting with Peter's son (my grandfather, Albert Loyd Pence). I have one famous relative, my late uncle Herman Welker (married to my dad's sister, Gladys), who was a U.S. Senator from Idaho from 1951-1957. I don't agree with his politics (he was a Joseph McCarthy supporter) but I was just a kid then so it didn't cause me any distress. After graduating from high school in 1966 I majored in Engineering at University of Idaho in Moscow for 2 years (1966-1968). (Fortunately, I missed this excitement by a few years!) After 2 years I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do, so I stopped going to college and moved to Seattle and for the next 5 years I worked at Boeing and other manufacturing jobs (because I had learned to read blueprints as an Engineering major). I started playing guitar in college and had become a jazz guitarist so in 1973 I went back to college in Boston to study music at Berklee College of Music, but after a couple of years I discovered computers and went to several other colleges and after graduating became a computer programmer, which I did for the next 35 years (I commuted from my home in Hingham to Boston by boat) until I retired uin 2018.   Pence family tree – I try to keep this updated Here's an interesting juxtaposition, my childhood home in 1963 and 2005 (the newer photo taken by my friend Barbara Wilson). You can also see it in Street View. Following high school, in 1966 I went to the University of Idaho in Moscow, where I majored in mechanical engineering, partly because my high school guidance counselor and my SAT scores pointed me in that direction, and partly because I thought that when I got out of college as an engineer I could avoid the draft (more about that here), which was something that all men of draft age (18-26) had to worry about at that time. The classic Big Potato postard I saw as a child. Some Idaho links . . . Official Idaho Vacation Guide – see some beautiful Idaho images on this travel and tourism guide Idaho.gov – the Official Website of the State of Idaho Idaho Commerce & Labor – the Idaho Department of Commerce has a very thorough website State & County QuickFacts – from the U.S. Census Bureau Idaho Genweb Project – this site has lots of interesting information Imaging/Imagining Boise – a photographic exploration of Boise's past and present Idaho Potato Official Website – I couldn't resist including this one You know you're from Idaho when . . . – from an email 200 year old copper wire – from an email Payette links . . . City of Payette – the official town website Payette Chamber of Commerce     – just what you'd expect Payette, Idaho - Wikipedia – good info here Payette on City-Data – I love the photos Payette County IDGenWeb Project – this genealogy page is part of the IDGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Wikipedia: Payette – I was surprised to find this Payette on Google Maps – Looking up main street in Street View My Payette page – created originally for sharing things with my high school classmates

For years I made regular trips to visit my mother, who still lived in Boise (my father died in 1993), but she passed away in 2017 so with no family there now my Idaho trips may diminish.

Seattle Aerial view Seattle map Seattle photos

Me, 1969 Beginning in 1968 I lived for 5 years in Seattle, Washington, a great city and definitely one of the most scenic cities in the world. Initially I lived in the University District ("U-District") because the few people I knew in Seattle were students at the University of Washington. I always assumed I would become a student at the U but I didn't go back to school until I came to Boston in 1973. During my Seattle years I lived in many areas including the U-District, Wallingford, Cascade (South of Lake Union), and Eastlake (Capitol Hill). I lived in several houses with groups of friends and had several apartments, usually with a roommate and sometimes alone (see my Seattle dwellings for some Google Street View photos). You might call those my "hippie" years, when I had long hair and lived a lifestyle emulating the values of that culture (and did lots of drugs!). I went to many antiwar rallies and marches (see Where I stand), rock concerts and rock festivals (see 60s music), and in 1969 I got drafted and was a draft resister. (Please don't associate me with Donald Trump, who was NOT a resister but only had a fake bone-spurs deferment.) In summer 1969 my friend and I were house-sitting a house in the View Ridge neighborhood that had a color TV and we watched Apollo 11 land on the moon while we were tripping on acid. I have many fond memories of my years in Seattle, where I made few commitments and pretty much focused on the here and now, living a lifestyle of hedonism. I did my share of drugs including primarily marijuana (which we called "grass" or "dope" but it is mostly referred to as "pot" these days) and LSD (acid). It's sad when I think of how many of my Seattle friends have died from various causes (some violent). Weren't we all supposed to live forever? Eagles Like many people of my generation I went regularly to rock concerts by the top West Coast groups of the day at the Eagles Auditorium. My roommate Bill was friends with the Retina Circus who put on the light shows (Andy, another roommate, joined them, went back to San Francisco with them, and is in the video) and since everybody in Seattle knew they would be at Eagles every Saturday night and their house would be vacant, for security reasons Bill and I volunteered to "baby-sit" their house. They had a great stereo and Voice of the Theater speakers so we enjoyed these evenings (and of course we got very high). One night the Retina Circus hired Bill and me to do the stage lighting for a Byrds concert at Eagles. The next night we drove to Spokane to repeat it. When we were setting up the lighting on the microphones on stage people would assume we were roadies and ask us what it was like to travel with the Byrds. We sucked it up and didn't deny it. One memory I have of the Eagles concerts is that they regularly played Ike & Tina Turner doing "River Deep, Mountain High" between sets when the bands were changing. Seattle panoramas Mt. Rainer Seattle is a beautiful city, bordered on the west by Puget Sound, a salt-water inlet from the Pacific, and on the east by Lake Washington, a fresh-water lake (see map). There are many smaller bodies of water throughout the city and it is known for its boating. I once read that Seattle has the most miles of shoreline of any city its size in the world. There are many bridges and ferries that bring visitors and commuters into the city. To the east of Lake Washington is the Cascade mountain range which includes Mt. Rainier and to the west of Puget Sound is the Olympic Peninsula, which contains the Olympic Mountains. From the city you can look to the East or West and see mountains. As you will notice most photos of Seattle show the Space Needle, that was built for the 1962 World's Fair, which I attended. Here is a view of Lake Union showing quite a lot of the city. Original REI store First Eddie Bauer REI and Eddie Bauer, two national outdoor gear chains, had their original stores in Seattle and only those single stores existed when I lived there. REI, which stands for Recreational Equipment Inc. and called "the Rec" by my friends and I, was sort of a warehouse type store on Capitol Hill where many items were put on shelves still in their shipping boxes, and as I recall you had to put the price on individual items yourself. The Eddie Bauer store on 2nd Ave. was more like a department store, much classier. We bought camping (backpacking) equipment at REI and outdoor clothing (parkas and sweaters) at Eddie Bauer. At that time you had to join REI to shop there, and decades later I shopped at an REI store in the Boston area (where I live now) and because I had joined REI in the 60s the sales clerk told me I had the lowest membership number she had ever seen. Starting in 1969, after my draft resistance experience, I lived in a house with a bunch of guys on Naomi Place in the U District (given the name "Naomi House" by roommate Pat Stanton, who was my roommate when I came to Boston in 1973 and currently lives in California with his wife and kids). We also had roommates Bill Schaefer, Andy Neddermeyer (who joined the Retina Circus light show group and moved with them to the San Francisco Bay area), and Russ Taylor, whom I have also kept in touch with. We all later moved to another house in the U District on 12th Ave NE. (named "Excellent House" by Pat) and we had women living with us at this time. I went to Mexico with 3 Seattle friends in 1972. I had other apartments in Seattle in the U District, Wallingford (with Ben), Cascade (in a complex we called "Minor Manner" that is no longer there), and Capitol Hill (with Bill). See Places I've Lived for descriptions and photos of all my Seattle dwellings. Deceased former roomates   Bill Schaefer was my best friend and frequent roommate when I lived in Seattle. Bill was a student at University of Washington when we met. After college he had relocated to Eugene, OR, and was married with one grown daughter. After I moved to the East Coast in 1973 I saw Bill only once on a return trip to Seattle when he still lived there, and our only contact since then was by phone or email. I learned of his death from Russ Taylor, another Seattle friend and roommate. Bill died Janunary 15, 2006 from liver cancer. He was 58 (we were the same age), Bill's father was in the military and he was raised all over the world. He went to high school in England.   Ben Lindekugel and I lived in the same apartment building when I first moved to Seattle in 1968. Ben was a student at University of Washington when we met. He became my good friend and roommate and I was living with him when I received my draft notice in 1969. We kept in touch and I have seen him several times on Seattle trips after I came East. Ben was quite accomplished in his career that spanned over four decades of community service as an exemplary healthcare leader and public policy advocate. He was Executive Director of Association of Washington Public Hospital Districts. Ben died June 21, 2019. He was 69 (2 years younger than me). Ben was born and raised in Lead, South Dakota (we humorously referred to this as "LSD"). (obituary, remembrance from colleague)   I had a couple of other Seattle friends who had freaky, violent deaths after I was living in Boston. Tom Sheimo - a former roommate, who many years later was shot to death by a crazed gunman when he drove down a street where a man with a gun was holed up in a house that was surrounded by police. Mike Schwabe - who was later incarcerated and deported from a European country for drug dealing and came to stay with Pat and me in Boston for a short time, and later moved back to Seattle and was hit and killed by a logging truck on the Olympic Peninsula Coincidently, Mike and Tom are both in the cab in this photo. Childhood memories When I was growing up in Idaho my grandparents lived in Seattle, where they managed and lived in a family owned hotel, the Calhoun Hotel, which was located downtown on Second Avenue. On regular visits we stayed in that hotel (maybe I should insert my Seth Thomas clock story here) and had Seattle excursions. By the 60s they lived in a house on Queen Anne Hill, and in 1962, when the World's Fair was hosted in Seattle (that's when the Space Needle was built) we visited them there and attended the fair. We actually ran into someone from our hometown, Payette, at the fair. I remember once we took a ferry from Seattle up to Victoria, BC, Canada, on Vancouver Island. One thing that stuck in my memory of this trip is that my younger brother, Ed, was put in a harness and perhaps on a leash to control him on the ferry. That was the 50s when people did crazy stuff like that. Rainy Seattle? Seattle has gotten a bad label as a rainy city but that is not the way I remember it. I had a bicycle in Seattle and rode it all over and rain was never a problem. Seattle gets 38 inches of rainfall annually, but in Seattle Doesn't Get That Much Rain you'll read that major U.S. cities that get more are Mobile, AL (65), New Orleans (60), Miami (58), Memphis (52), Houston (48), Nashville (48), New York (43), Philadelphia (41), and Boston (44) where I live now. Perhaps the rainy impression of Seattle comes from it being cloudy a lot. Seattle neighborhoods I've lived in See Seattle under Places I've Lived for photos and descriptions of places. U-District      - When I came to town my friends were students at the University of Washington - I lived in the U-District in 1969 when I received my draft notice Wallingford - foliage now hides the outside entrance to our apartment and the little cottage that was occupied by a nice young hippie couple Cascade      - I lived here a short time in a grungy place we called "Minor Manor" (it was on Minor Ave) Eastlake      - Nice place on Capitol Hill with a view Jobs GRANDMA'S COOKIES When I came to Seattle in 1968 after 2 years of college I needed a job. I applied to Boeing, the largest employer in town, and was hired at a position several levels above entry-leval because I could read blueprints (I had majored in Engineering in college). I worked there off and on for several years at the Developmental Center and Plant 2, south of Seattle. Near the end of my time in Seattle I was looking for another job and since I could see the big, red, neon GRANDMA'S COOKIES sign on a building in Wallingford across Lake Union from my apartment on Capitol Hill. I decided to apply there. It turned out that the building still had the sign but was occupied by a machine shop, and because of my Boeing skills I was hired. Unfortunately, Grandma's Cookies was no longer in the building and the current shop was manned by a religious-cult who had prayer meetings at lunch and I didn't fit in or last long. My music One thing I did a lot in those days (the sixties) was collect vinyl records. Being a musician my taste in music tended to be somewhat esoteric so I didn't just go to the standard commercial record stores like Discount Records (one of the big chain stores that has since disappeared), but sought out harder to find records, many times at used record stores. One of my favorites was a store on the "Ave" (University Way) in Seattle named "Puss 'n' Books", which sold used books and records, and had cats roaming around. They bought records from you for $1 and sold them for $1.50. I sold them many records (purging my record collection of albums I no longer wanted to own), and I was pretty good at taking the platter out of the jacket and eyeing it for scratches before buying it. I created a record collection of hundreds of albums which I kept for decades and in 1968 I started a component stereo system that I had for years, upgrading many times (read more here). Now my music is entirely digital and I listen on my smartphone. My vinyl record collection was regularly updated (cleaned out) because I removed albums I no longer liked and didn't want friends playing or requesting those albums. I played guitar when I was in Seattle, and since my style was fairly experimental my musical tastes evolved into jazz, so when I decided to go back to school to study music, I chose Berklee College of Music in Boston, where I switched to upright bass (see more on my Music page). So, in 1973, I came to Boston (and never left). Some Seattle links . . . Google Maps – click Photos on left and scroll through (map in the lower left shows location of each photo) Seattle.gov – the official website of the City of Seattle; take the Virtual Tour Beautiful Seattle – a site with access to lots of information Dan Heller's Photos – Dan Heller's photographs are always beautiful Seattle Photo Galleries – the title says it all A Seattle Lexicon – Lingo from the Far Corner SeattleCenter.com – events, attractions, map, etc. The Space Needle – I first saw this at the 1962 World's Fair SeattlePI.com – Seattle Post-Intelligencer SeattleTimes.com – the Seattle Times Homepage HistoryLink.org – The Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History Seattle Pop History: Rock to Zero Dock – a clickable map of downtown Seattle Lost in Seattle – many old Seattle memories Seattle Viewpoints – where to see and take photos of Seattle's great views VRSeattle.com – the Quicktime VR Tour of Seattle Seattle Waterfront 2002-1907 – panoramic photos of the waterfront from the same vantage point, taken 95 years apart Penny Postcards from Washington – many vintage scenes List of Seattle landmarks – some historicial stuff here You might be from the Northwest if you . . . – from an email

Travel We lessened our traveling during the pandemic!

Traveling is something I've always enjoyed, both in the U.S. and abroad. My family took many trips when I was growing up in Idaho in the 50s and 60s, always by car (my first time flying was in 1974, flying home from college in Boston). Living in Idaho we usually went to West Coast locations like Seattle, California, and Oregon, typically to see relatives—my grandparents lived in Seattle, my dad's brother, Pete, lived in the S.F. Bay Area, and I had aunts and uncles in Eugene, Oregon. We went to Tijuana, Mexico, once on a California trip and one time we took a ferry from Seattle to Victoria, BC, Canada.  In 1956 (when I was 8) we took a cross-country car trip to New York City (saw parents' college friends, rode on a subway), Ithaca (where we saw my mother's sister Ruth and her husband, Gordon Streib, a professor at Cornell), Massachusetts (aunt and uncle lived in Petersham), and Washington, DC, (uncle Herman Welker, married to my dad's sister, Gladys, was a U.S. Senator, their daughter Nancy now lives in Boise) stopping in St. Louis to see my dad's brother, Abe (his daughter Pat is now a veterinarian in metro-Boise that I see on Boise trips, and son Bert is a real-estate entreprenuer in Austin, TX), and Colorado (saw my 1st-grade teacher who had relocated there). On this trip we drove over the Continental Divide and Royal Gorge in Colorado.  I remember my brother, David, had a U.S. map on the wall marking all the roads we traveled on. In my life I've actually been to 47 of the 48 continental states (never Arkansas), and I confess, I've only been to North Dakota once when my plane was diverted to Fargo after the Minneapolis airport, my connecting airport on a trip to Boise, was temporarily closed due to an unexpected blizzard.* Speaking of missing Arkansas, I one drove from Florida, to New Orleans, then to San Antonio, TX. This route went through Louisiana on Route 10, beneath Arkansas. My parents lived in Boise and I visited them several times a year, sometimes attending high school reunions on these trips. My dad died in 1993 and I continued to visit my mother until she passed in 2017. It was always a kick on these trips to get reaquainted with my high school friends who still live in the Boise area, and see my first cousins Nancy and Pat, and many of us have stayed in touch on Facebook. * On the trip when I went to Fargo I was originally scheduled to arrive in Boise at 1:30 in the afternoon. My connecting flight to Boise left the Minneapolis airport when it opened after the snow had been cleared, which was before I had returned from Fargo. The airline put me on a flight to Chicago, then to Salt Lake City, then to Boise. I asked what time this plane would arrive in Boise and was told 11:30pm. I said that was unacceptable and made up a story that my mother had been rushed to a hospital and I needed to get there ASAP. They put me on a flight straight to Boise that arrived in mid-afternoon. Now why did I have to lie to get this flight, which apparently was already scheduled?

• Florida (Patti's parents lived in Boca Raton in retirement—also trips to Disney World, Key West, and Sanibel Island)
• California (primarily San Francisco and Los Angeles)
  The first trip Patti and I took to California was the year after we married, so we always think of this as our honeymoon trip. We flew to L.A., rented a car and stayed in Santa Monica for a few days, went to Disneyland, down to Laguna Beach, then up the coastal road, Highway 1, stopping at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, up through Big Sur to Carmel (where we ran into someone we knew), then onward across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito, where we spent several days at a hotel with a balcony and a view of San Francisco), then we spent several more days at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco before returning home.
  This was our first California trip. We've been back many times, and I've been there many times before I met Patti.
• Washington, DC (many times to visit our son Ben when he went to college there 2007-2011, to visit my brother and family in a Northern VA suburb, many business trips because my Boston company had an office there)
• New York City (visited Alex in college and Patti's family, many business trips because my Boston company had an office there, and weekend trips when in college in Boston—first time was with family in 2nd grade)
• Seattle (city where I lived for 5 years, 1968-1973, been back several times—grandparents lived there so went many times growing up)
• Idaho (where my parents lived and I grew up, visited my mother many times and reunited with high school classmates)
• Arizona (Phoenix, Sedona, Tuscon)
• Montana (Helena, saw former Hingham friends)
• Wyoming (Yellowstone Park)
• Atlanta (actually ran into a neighbor at the airport one time!)
• Toronto (rented 2 houseboats and explored 1000 Islands in the St. Lawrence River with another Hingham family, the Bourrets, then on to Toronto)
• Carribean many times, including Bahamas, and a 1981 Club Med trip to Guadaloupe
• Paradise Island, Bahamas (several times with the kids, once to Atlantis)

SLC tornado

We were in Salt Lake City in 1999 visiting our friend Sheri who lived there (she was our au pair in the 80s and is now married with kids) when an unexpected tornado ripped through the city causing millions of dollars of damage. We happened to be downtown right where this tornado came through and fortunately got into a building and watched it go by. I remember earlier looking down the street at the Delta Center building noticing a cloud of smoke coming off, which then separated from the building and realizing it was not a fire I said, "It's a tornado!", which my kids mocked me saying for years.

Las Vegas

Patti had a medical conference in Las Vegas in 2013 and I went for the fun. We stayed in the Mandarin Oriental hotel on the Strip, which is non-smoking and has no casino. We did all the usual tourist things including going to a Rod Stewart concert at Caesar's Palace. We also visited the Wee Kirk o' the Heather wedding chapel, where my parents were married in 1942.

Business trips

From 1988-1994 I worked at Carter Rice, a Boston division of International Paper. We had many offices I frequented including Boston (my oiffice), New York, Washington (I went there regularly), Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Harrisburg (PA). Because so many people traveled to the New York office rather than pay for hotel rooms it owned a condo on Park Avenue so when I went there and stayed over I just walked down 5th Avenue past the Empire State Building to the office across from Madison Square Park (that's the Flatiron Building in the center of the photo). I also went to Chicago on trips for this company (I remember once buying a half-frozen, deep-dish, Chicago pizza and nervously having it in the overhead bin above my seat on the plane coming back to Boston!). I made trips to other IP locations including Kansas City, Milwaukee, Charlotte (NC), Denver, and Providence (by car). On a trip to San Antonio I was at a conference at the River Walk and stayed in a hotel across from the The Alamo (which I've seen a couple of times). On that trip I rented a car and drove up to Austin, so see my 2 cousins, Nancy Terry (who later moved to Boise where I've seen her several times) and Bert Pence.

Club Med

Patti and I have gone on many vacations to the Caribean, including once around 1981 a trip to a Club Med resort on Guadaloupe. On this trip President Carter was staying nearby and his motorcade would go by our restort. Since the Club Med resort had a heavy French influence the regular beach was topless and there was also a nude beach. They had a great house band that played in the dining area and I remember between sets they played their rendition of Stevie Wonder's "Another Star." We made several other trips to the Bahamas, once staying at the Atlantis hotel on Paradise Island off Nassau and once years before staying at a hotel which became part of Atlantis. (It was strange when we stayed at Atlantis to see our old hotel be a separate wing.)

Mexico – (map of trip, see locations mentioned below)

Map of trip In fall 1972 (I remember the year because it was November and everybody voted absentee for McGovern for President) I went to Mexico for a couple of months with 3 Seattle friends—Randy Scofield, Pat Stanton, & Bill Schaefer. Randy, had a new pop-top VW Westfalia camper and we stayed in American owned campgrounds (little pods of America with showers and laundries) at various locations around the country. (I remember our sleeping arrangements: Randy, who owned the van, slept in the pop-top, Pat splept in a small hammock strung over the front driver/passenger seats, and Bill and I slept in the back.) On the way to Mexico we went to Tulsa, Oklahoma to pick up something for Bill at his parents' house, then went through Dallas, TX, and we saw Dealey Plaza, where JFK was shot. We entered Mexico at Nuevo Laredo, went through Monterrey to Tampico and Tuxpan on the Gulf Coast, travelled over to Mexico City, then up for a week at San Miguel de Allende in the mountains. They had this custom where in the evening in the square the males would walk one way around the block and the females would walk the other way, to encourage them to mingle. We did this and met some women! Then we went over to Guadalajara (where my cousin's father was the editor of the English speaking newspaper), then over to San Blas on the Pacific and then down to Puerto Vallarta, where we saw the beach cove where the movie "Night of the Iguana" was filmed, then up the coast, spending the night on the beach in Mazatlan, where we saw lots of American surfers. We spent many nights and days at many of these places. We finally reentered the U.S. in Arizona, then over to California then up the Pacific Coast (stopping at Tower Records in San Francisco where I spent my remaining vacation money on records) and back home to Seattle. More info on my friends . . . Bill Schaefer was my roommate several times and one of my best Seattle friends. He passed away from cancer in 2009 Pat Stanton is retired from Oracle and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area He was a programmer when we were roommates in Seattle in the 60s and we shared an apartment when I came to Boston in 1973 to go back to college He came to our wedding in 1979 and we visited him and his wife in San Francisco in the 80s Randy Scofield lives on Whidbey Island, North of Seattle and we are Facebook friends

Cross-country car trips

I've made 4 cross-country trips by car, all originating in the Northwest; 3 were round-trips, the last time was a one-way trip to Boston for college (and I am still here and now retired, after college, working, getting married, and raising a family and owning 3 houses):

First trip was in 1956 with the family when I had just finished 2nd grade. On this trip we went to: New York City (my first subway ride), where we saw college friends of my parents Ithaca, NY, where we saw my mother's sister Ruth and her husband, Dr. Gordon Streib, a noted gerontologist and a professor at Cornell Petersham, Massachusetts, where my mother's other sister was married to a Unitarian minister, Dr. Leon Hopper Washington, DC, where my uncle Herman Welker (dad's sister Glady's husband) was a U.S. Senator from Idaho. I have memories (probably faulty and fabricated) of seeing JFK as a senator and Nixon as Vice-President (and also a neighbor of my relatives) in DC. Next trip was in 1967 after a year of college, with my older brother David, for whom I was going to work selling dictionaries door-to-door, which he had done as a summer job when he was in college, so successfully that he was able to recruit his own crew. We went to Nashville (for training, where I had guacamole for the first time and discovered I love avacado) then to a suburb of Atlanta to sell. I got my fill of this in a few weeks and hitchhiked cross-country to San Francisco (the place to be in 1967, the "Summer of Love"), getting one long ride in Kansas with a guy going to San Francisco, until his car broke down in Salt Lake City and we split up and I resumed my hitchhiking, getting a ride in Nevada with a Canadian woman who had her kids in the car. On this trip I saw a college roommate in St. Louis and connected and lived with another college friend when I got to the Bay Area. I didn't find the permanent job I had hoped for and went back to Idaho and my 2nd year of college in the fall. Next trip, around 1971, when I lived in Seattle. I went with my younger brother Ed (who was in college) to Bill Monroe's bluegrass festival in Indiana (I was a guitar player and jammed with several famous bluegrass musicans including fiddle-player Kenny Baker and later played in a bar in Nashville with mandolin-player Roland White (brother of Byrds' guitarist and all-time best bluegrass guitar player Clarence White), then onward to North Carolina, down to Florida, then back through New Orleans and San Antonio (saw The Alamo) and ultimately California. I remember I had an older car and we kept putting used tires on it when the ones on it wore out and went flat (the things we did in our youth!). Next trip was in 1973 when I drove from Seattle to Boston to go back to college. A Seattle friend rode with me on this drive but he chose to stay with friends in Detroit so I drove the rest of the way alone. I remember I spent my last night in a hotel in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. When I got to Boston I moved in with my Seattle friend, Pat, who had gone on the Mexico trip with me. I had that car for a year in college and got so many parking tickets it finally got towed. (This trip was one-way and Boston has been my home ever since.)

Walk for Hunger Walk for Hunger route I have participated in several fundraising walks, which lets me do something I really enjoy while earning money for good causes. I do the Walk for Hunger with my regular walking partner and dear friend Margarette (we did this 20-mile walk together 20 years. every year from 1999 until I retired in 2018). The first few years (when we were so much younger!) at our rapid pace we completed it several times in just 4 hours (that is walking at 5 MPH for 20 miles!). We go a little slower as we got older but we still passed a lot of people. The money-collecting for sponsorship was done at work, where the company matched my pledges. I wish good luck to Margarette if she continues. Our walks . . . (I've finally started taking selfies of Margarette and me!)   2015 2016 2017 2018

I've also done fundraising walks for AIDS, Cancer, Alzheimer's, and ALS.

Project Bread, The Walk for Hunger

Walk to End Alzheimer's

AIDS Walk Boston

• Former – in memory of Lucy
• Current – with our 2 dogs, Casey & Quinn

Smartphones have really changed our lifestyles, although I read that kids who grew up with smartphones and tablets can't relate to older technology that was common before they were born. I currently have a Samsung Galaxy S9 Android cellphone (I love this phone!). I perviously had a Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini for 4 years and most of my descriptions here are based on that. I have had various cellphones since 1995, starting with a series of flip-phones, but in 2011 my son Alex gave me my first smartphone, a Droid X. I used it for several years before replacing it with my Samsung in January, 2014 (purchased for 1¢ on a Staples promotion!). I got my S9 when it came out because I assumed the previous model, the S8, would be discounted, and when I went to Best Buy to get it they gave me a $300 discount on the S9 so I bought it!  One of the things I like best about having a smartphone is having a computer in my pocket at all times, so I can (besides make phone calls!) use Google, email, texting, Facebook, GPS, and of course, listen to music. Lest anyone think the smartphone has complicated my life—before I had one I listened to music on an iPod and read books on a Sony Reader (and before that I carried a paperback). Now I do both on my phone so I've done away with 2 extra digital devices I used to carry around— so having a smartphone has actually simplified my life. Airlines now allow you to read a smartphone on planes in Airplane mode and when I travel I don't take a laptop anymore, only my smartphone. I listen to music on my phone with earbuds when I walk our dog, Casey, twice a day. I use wireless earbuds that have to be charged.

• Contacts  —  for making phone calls and texting
• Google search
• Google calendar
• Gmail (also accesses Contacts)
• Text messaging
• Facebook
• Web browser  —  I keep shortcuts on my Homescreen to many websites I visit frequently, like CNN.com, Boston.com, and the ferry & commuter train schedules
  
• Android weather  —  I can always see the current outdoor temperature on my notification bar and get a forecast for Boston and other cities I visit
• Maps  —  How did I ever exist without this?
• For reading...
  • FBReader  —  easily reads EPUB and PDF formats
  • Amazon Kindle  —  some Kindle epub books are protected and have to be read here
  • My eBooks  —  I used to carry books to read, then a Sony Reader, now I just read on my phone (see more about this on my Books page)
• For music (using earbuds)...
  • Samsung Music player  —  I used to use an iPod but since my cellphone is always with me I use this app to listen to music (works on Bluetooth in my car)
    
  • iSyncr  —  copies music & synchronizes playlists from iTunes on my PC to my music player on the cell
  • Shazam  —  identify any song you hear
  • Radio FM  —  this app is liking having a transister radio in your pocket
• Purchasing...
  • LevelUp  —  scan my phone to pay for food (includes selectable tip %)
  • Starbucks  —  scan my phone to pay
• Notepad  —  I keep lists on my phone that used to be on pieces of paper in my wallet
• Voice Recorder  —  when I want to leave myself a quick note, especially if I'm driving, I just speak into my phone
• Silent Boot  —  I added this app so that when I restart my phone it doesn't do the default chime melody
• Mute  —  a single click on this app will toggle off/on the sounds of my phone so it will be silent if I am at a movie or in a meeting

External battery charger  (This is not needed for my current S9, which has a stronger battery than the S4 Mini did.)

A constant need with a smartphone is to keep the battery charged. I charge my phone overnight so it is always fully charged at the beginning of the day. When I had my S4 I also used a 10000mAh external battery charger that had a short chord that was plugged into the phone. The S4 had a 1900mAh battery so this was basically a battery that was 5 times bigger hooked up to the phone. I haven't needed that with the S9 but I might still use it on a cross-country plane trip. Anker PowerCore 10000   (size about 2½ x 3½ inches)

Tips  (Mostly written when I had the S4 Mini so not all relevant anymore.)

There seem to be apps for everything now. When we had a frozen harbor in Winter 2015 and the commuter ferries were not running I took the commuter rail. To pay for parking I used an app associated with my credit card instead of having to stuff 4 dollar bills into the slot for my parking spot. (I pay for parking by the month at the boat in a private parking lot, but the MBTA lot also uses this dialup app.) You can get airline boarding passes sent to your phone which get scanned at the airport. In Boston (my town) the MBTA (local transit system) has made the passes that previously only came on plastic cards available for smartphones in this fashion. Certain businesses, like Starbucks, that use cards to scan for purchases now offer apps that do this and you don't have to pull a card out of your wallet every time. I anticipate more and more things coming this way. There are many websites with good smartphone tips like how to maximize your battery, or using the Cloud, so I won't list those here, but here are some things I do on my phone.

• Create folders on your Homescreen (longpress, select Folder) to group related app icons and keep screens simple and uncluttered. I have folders for Camera (Camera, 2 Gallery apps), eReaders (FBReader and others), Music (several music players and support apps), Social (Facebook, Messenger, and Twitter), Files (file management apps), News (news apps like CNN and others), Web (browser apps).
• Google - all my contacts are Google Contacts, and I use Gmail for email, so transfering to a new phone is not an issue
• SD card — I try to keep as much as possible on my SD card for portability. In Manage applications if you go into an app there is an option to "Move to SD card."
• Home button — you can customize the Home button. I use an app called Home2 Shortcut to set a double-click to run an app called Mute to instantly silence the phone's speaker when I got to a movie or a meeting. Now I can silence it instantly!
• Holiday schedule  —  I keep an image of a 12-month calendar of my company's scheduled holidays on my Homescreen (I stopped doing this when I retired)
• Flight schedule  —  when I travel I put the flight schedule on my Homescreen for quick reference (and also boarding passes)

• Press the lower-left button to display running apps
• Press Close all to stop them

• Ringtones — get ringtones I have created here

	I have had 3 Androids and never owned an iPhone, so I am not entirely familiar with the iPhone, but I have noticed things that I definitely like better about the Android.
	Homescreen	–	The iPhone homescreen looks very busy (I see people scrolling for apps all the time), while the Android homescreen is very simple and easy to manage. On an iPhone it appears that every installed app has an icon on the homescreen(s), but on the Android you only have homescreen icons for things you want there. All installed apps are in the "Apps" folder and you can add any of them to one of the homescreen panels, or remove them from the Homescreen without uninstalling the app.
	Replaceable battery	–	My S4 Mini had a replaceable battery but my current S9 doesn't (and doesn't need it).. One of the best features of the Android phone is the replaceable battery. I keep a spare battery fully-charged in a battery charger, so I can swap batteries whenever my battery is low. When I travel I have an external battery pack to recharge my phone, or I use the available electrical outlets in many terminals, and more planes are putting USB ports at every seat.
	Universal buttons	–	My S9 phone still has these buttons but they are different from what I am describing here. (I really miss the Menu button!) My Android phone has 2 touch-sensitive buttons below the viewable screen, on either side of the Home button, which are hidden until you press on the phone where they are located. There is a Menu button on the left and a Cancel button on the right. These buttons work in pretty much every app on the phone. Press Menu and you get the app's menu, press Cancel and you go to the previous screen, either in the app or it closes the app if you are on the first screen. I have become so dependent on these that when I am on someone's iPhone I tend to press in these places for that functionality that I am used to on my phone, only to discover that the iPhone does not have these features.

	I want my contacts, photos, and music to be backed up so they are available should I ever get a new phone. You can back things up to the cloud, for instance your Google drive, but here is what I do:
	Contacts	–	When I enter a new contact it is associated with my Gmail account and automatically backed up to the Google server (so I guess it is on the Cloud).
	Photos	–	I have my photos in albums so I copy these to my PC.
	Music	–	All my music is on my PC in iTunes so I can reload it from there.

I listen to music using earbuds that I always have with me.

I'm really enjoying a present from Patti, a Bluetooth cap that enables me to listen to music off my phone without earbud wires connecting to my phone in my pocket. Because this is a knit cap I guess this is only a cold weather option.

Where I stand

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."  — Kurt Vonnegut

I'm a liberal and I love this Facebook posting... "What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do?   They opposed them on every one of those things—every one! So when you try to hurl that label ('Liberal') at my feet, as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from...     it won't work, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor. I was born in 1948 (I'm a baby-boomer) and I was raised in a household similar to the one I raised my kids in, where my parents taught me values that I retain to this day. My parents were both college graduates (Dad was a banker, Mom was a teacher) and during WWII my dad would not carry a gun and was a non-combatent in the Army medical corps. In my childhood home my dad (who had gone to Stanford law school but became a banker) subscribed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the New Yorker magazine so I grew up with a much broader view of life than what was happening in the small town we lived in. The Treasure Valley has a very large Japanese population, probably resulting from internment camps in WWII, and in the 1950s my father quit (or refused to join) the local Elks club because they wouldn't allow Japanese to join. In our very conservative community my dad stood out as a liberal rebel and I proudly inherited that trait. I will always remember the impression that was made on me when my mother was out of town (at her father's funeral in California) and my dad took us to see Gregory Peck in "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee's story of bravery and justice in small-town America, and I have hopefully passed these values on to our sons—values like integrity and charity, and a desire to participate in a kinder and gentler world, and to help create a more humane and just society. I was raised in a very non-violent household and even though I played sports like football in high school I have always lived a very non-violent life amd take a non-violent stand on all issues. During WWII my dad was in the army like everybody else's dad, but he was in the medical corp where he wouldn't have to carry a rifle. We had some old army stuff that I played around with as a kid and I assumed his wartime experiences were like all the other dads. Later when I realized he had non-violence views like I did I got more respect for him. We didn't go hunting like other families I knew did and he didn't preach non-violence but we lived that way. Both of our sons have graduated from college and are doing good things with their lives. Alex has a Master's degree and is a college teacher in New York City. Ben graduated in Computer Science and worked for Twitter as a programmer in San Francisco for 4 years, then lived in New York City and still worked as a programmer, and now lives in Taiwan. We are proud parents! Both boys have traveled around the world many times and lived abroad. I'm just glad neither of them had to deal with the draft as I did. Coming of age in the 1960s civil rights have always been very important to me. When I evaluate a candidate who is running for public office, the first thing I look at is his stance on social issues like women's rights and gay rights. If the candidate fails on those I don't care what his positions are on everything else, he will never get my vote.

I took this Political Compass test (a brief explanation) and the results show me as "Libertarian-Left", meaning I believe in social freedom and some economic regulation. Not surprisingly, I am at the exact opposite setting on the compass to George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

I think guns are a horrible thing and have no place in our civilization. I am opposed to them being used for anything! I hate to admit it but when I was a teenager I belonged to the NRA. We used to go down in the basement of the Bancroft Hotel in my hometown, Payette, Idaho, and shoot rifles at targets. I think this was just a teenage thing and it didn't last—it was mosly an excuse to go out in the evening and do something. I have never owned a gun and don't think I have ever known anybody who did. My friends used to go hunting with their fathers so perhaps they did. I never went. I don't want guns to be in my life. I was totally shocked when Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted. Give me a break! This guy showed up at a rally and killed 2 people with an illegal gun.

• Black Lives Matter
  

  We have this sign in front of our house.

  
  
• All lives matter - the idea that some lives matter less is the root cause of all that is wrong with the world
  

  This is one of the most poignant postings I've ever seen on Facebook.

  
  
• Greta Thunberg, who sailed across the Atlantic in support of fighting globel warming
  

  Another very poignant Facebook posting

• 2016 Presidential Election
  

  Donald Trump sounds just like Archie Bunker

  This section was created when Trump was still in office. Those were bad times! I'm writing now in 2022 and Biden has replaced Trump as President. I expect better times are ahead. Trump is such an idiot. I can't believe people take him seriously. Trump is certainly the worst President in my lifetime, perhaps the worst President of all time. Sadly, it says a lot about the horrifying reactionary forces in our country when the first black President is followed by a President publicly endorsed by the KKK and the American Nazi Party. A top Nazi leader says, "Trump will be a 'real opportunity' for white nationalists." As President-elect, Trump appointed fellow racist, xenophobic, misogynist, anti-Semitic nationalist, Steve Bannon, as his chief White House strategist and senior counselor (Bannon was arrested on federal charges later). Trump has said he wants to unite the country, but "As long as a champion of racial division is a step away from the Oval Office, it would be impossible to take Trump's efforts to heal the nation seriously," said Harry Reid. Trump keeps saying he "inherited a mess," but the only mess he inherited is his struggle to function as President. He was in way over his head. When George W. Bush became President I thought we had hit the bottom of the President standing for good things, but then came Trump. Trump's main mission as President was to undo everything Obama accomplished. I am afraid I took it for granted when Obama was in office, but now I realize how wonderful we had it. Trumpsters are always saying the 8 years of suffering under Obama are over. Boy do they have it wrong. This is so racist. What they really mean is 8 years with a black President. During his campaign Donald Trump made so many mistakes (here are 37 Fatal Gaffes That Didn't Kill Donald Trump) that it is amazing that he made it all the way to the White House. Every time he put his foot in his mouth I expected to hear that he was dropping out of the race. I can't believe that people still took him seriously. The Access Hollywood tape should have completely disqualified him but people were still too stupid and voted for him. And like many, if not most, people I expected Hillary Clinton to win. What a blow that was! Big winner of 2016 was George W. Bush, who will now no longer be the worst President in U.S. history. With Trump's goofiness I am expecting to get many more items to put on my Political satire section.

• Obama
  
  

  Artist Shepard Fairey created this great portrait of Barack Obama. "I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can change the status-quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. I am privileged to be a part of your artwork and proud to have your support." — Barack Obama to Shepard Fairey, February 22, 2008

  
  I live in Massachusetts, a very blue state, and am happy to be around others who feel the same way. I have always found the anti-tax view of conservatives to be selfish ("I don't want the government to take my money to help others." Compassionate conservative? Give me a break—what an oxymoron!) and was offended by the right-wing trying to turn Obama's "spread the wealth" comment during his first presidential campaign into something negative. Obama is the best President we've every had and his changes have compensated for 8 years of Bush's policies. And then Trump tried to undo everything Obama accomplished, and many in the GOP supported him.

  Obama Accomplishments – here is a list I made after he had served 2 years
  
  

  This cartoon appeared in The Boston Globe after the GOP retook control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term elections. In some convoluted logic the voters think the Dems failed because in 2 years they couldn't fix the problems the Republicans took 8 years to create. click to enlarge

• Adjust, don't conform
  
  

  Windsor Mt. School

  "Humaneness is one of the hallmarks of being a liberal." — Walter Cronkite

  My social and political views are very liberal, which is the essence of logical thinking and humanitarian concerns. During my formative years in the 1960s I was mostly surrounded by people with the same values, but as I got older and moved away from the college setting I came to realize that I had been living in a somewhat sheltered environment, and in order to co-exist with some of the others I met whose views were very different from mine I would have to keep some of my opinions to myself (though I would not have to change my values). I thought this philosophy was stated very well in the slogan at the progressive New England boarding school my wife Patti attended, the Windsor Mountain School in Lenox, Massachusetts (closed in mid-1970s): "Adjust, don't conform."

  
  
• Pacifism & resistance
  
  

  "My pacifism is not based on any intellectual theory but on a deep antipathy to every form of cruelty and hatred."  — Albert Einstein

  I have always been a pacifist but my commitment to my beliefs was really put to the test in 1969 during the Vietnam War when I became a draft resister. Like millions of other Americans I opposed the war for political and moral reasons and participated in many antiwar marches and rallies in Seattle, where I lived. After a couple of years of college I took some time off which resulted in the loss of my student deferment, and when I received my draft notice I responded in the spirit of what we used to chant—"Hell no, we won't go!"—I was a draft resister. Taking this stand put my personal freedom in jeopardy for a period of time, but finally, after an anxious year involving lawyers and an FBI investigation, I was able to put that episode behind me (with no court or prison time) and move on with my life. I was far from alone in my war resistance—the Justice Department identified 570,000 men who were draft evadors (none of whom I've ever met). This was a big part of my life for years, but now it is ancient history and I never think of it. Most people I've met don't even know about this because that war was so long ago.    My draft resistance – a serious and stressful episode in my life    An interview with a Vietnam draft resister 35 years later – this could be me    A "fan" letter – from someone who does not agree with my views

  
  
• Peace Symbol explained

  When I was in high school in the mid-60s, I subscribed (with many thanks to my open-minded mother) to the Berkeley Barb, an underground newspaper loosely associated with students at UC Berkeley. Something I learned in one issue was the history of the Peace Symbol , a superimposing of the semaphoric signals (nautical signal flags) for the letters "N" and "D," standing for Nuclear Disarmament, and created in 1958 in the UK.
  This is somewhat esoteric knowledge and I presume if people have any association for the symbol they just know it stands for peace. Now I see it on clothing and other items as a "fashion" icon and realize that many very young people might not even know its meaning. Oh well, it will always symbolize an anti-war theme for me.

  
  
• War is immoral
  
  

  "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

  War is a hostile and barbaric action that is the result of a total failure of diplomacy (or as Isaac Asimov put it, "Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent."). I strongly oppose war and I do not support our leaders who get us into wars when they cannot work out problems with other nations using non-violent methods. I do support the men and women in the armed forces because they are honorably putting their lives at risk for the security of our country, and they are not responsible for the failure of our leaders' diplomatic efforts. We have a military to protect our freedoms if our country is ever threatened or attacked by another nation (which is why we call it the Department of "Defense"), but when our troops are sent to preemptively attack the citizens of another nation on their own soil as we did in Iraq, we are invading them, and I say,   "Bring our troops home!" (I can't believe our National Guard is being sent to foreign countries to participate in war—isn't the mission of the NG to protect the homeland?) This is from A Grandfather's Last Letter To His Grandkids on Huffington Post. I thought it was pretty good advice. "Don't join the military or any organization that trains you to kill. War is evil. All wars are started by old men who force or fool young men to hate and to kill each other. The old men survive, and, just as they started the war with pen and paper, they end it the same way. So many good and innocent people die. If wars are so good and noble, why aren't those leaders who start wars right up there fighting?"   War Resisters League – "There is no way to peace – peace is the way."   Nonviolence.Org – "War is just a racket." – Major General Smedley Butler, USMC   Letter To Bush – I received this chain letter after 9/11
  Dailai Lama says it so well
  Winston Churchill quote
  Jimi Hendrix — Power of Love

  
  
• Liberties & rights
  

  "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, that you can't even passively take part; and you've got to indicate to the people who run it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!"  — Mario Savio

  It is everybody's right to live free of arbitrary, unnecessary rules, and we should all be able to openly express our personal freedoms. Unfortunately, we do need laws to protect these freedoms because not everybody is respectful of the rights of others, but if you want to engage in a non-harmful activity there should be no law restricting you.    Free Speech Movement Archives    The Berkeley Free Speech Movement

  
  
• Gun control
  I'm tired of firearm enthusiasts saying the Second Ammendment gives them the right to own guns. The Second Amendment states
  
  

  	"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
  	"Yes, a well regulated militia, not a personal arsenal free-for-all!"  — Jon Stewart

  
  When this was put in the constitution in 1791, the most lethal weapon was a single-shot musket, not the semi-automatic handguns and assault rifles that anarchists have today. Possessing something that makes killing this easy is too dangerous to be considered a "right" and this savage, barbaric activity should not be allowed or encouraged in civilized society in the 21st century. Compared to other countries, the gun situation in the U.S. is really out of control.

  In one recent year, gun deaths by country:

  New Zealand	4
  Japan	19
  England	54
  Australia	57
  Switzerland	66
  Canada	151
  Germany	373
  U.S.	11,798

  
  And for those Americans ranting about taking on the government if they try and confiscate guns, who exactly are they planning to shoot? Soldiers? Police officers? Maybe their neighbors' kid who joined the National Guard?
  
  Personally I see no need for guns in society and would love to live in a world that had no guns. But that is unlikely, and after mass shootings in several locations like Columbine, Aurora, and Newtown it is clear we need to have some regulation of guns.
  
     The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
     The ACLU on Gun Control
     Put reason back in America's gun debate  
  
  

• Gay marriage – Yay! The Supreme Court has finally legalized it!
  

  All this activity to prevent gays from marrying is nothing more than homophobic people trying to validate their prejudices by making them into laws. Many states, including Massachusetts, are trying to enact constitutional amendments to keep gays and lesbians from having the same domestic rights as heterosexuals. Former President Bush even wanted to write this into the U.S. Constitution. Give me a break.    Human Rights Campaign – working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equal rights    Wedding distractions – Brian McGrory, The Boston Globe¹, 2/13/2004    Where Is My Gay Apocalypse? – Mark Morford, SFGate, 3/5/2004

  
  
• Women's rights
  

  Gender discrimination is immoral. Women and men have the same entitlements, and there should be equal compensation for equal achievements. There should be no restriction on a woman's right to choose abortion. The attempts to create laws controlling this are typically made based on religious grounds, which is an illegal basis for law. No one's life should be restricted by someone else's religion. Down with dogma!    Human Rights Watch: Women's Rights    A Woman's Right to Choose – at the Center for Reproductive Rights

  
  
• Discrimination
  

  Growing up a white, middle-class, college-bound boy in America made me feel very privileged in life, but I had the experience of feeling like a minority for the first time at age 19 in 1967. When I was in high school, influenced by the Beatles I grew bangs like many boys but our hair could not be over the ears, and when I came home from college the first time with long hair and a beard I found out what it felt like to have people discriminate against me based on superficial values like my appearence. People I had been around for years that had always accepted me were shunning me, and even making rude comments. A local barber that I had always gone to refused to give me a haircut when I wanted to trim my long hair because he said he wouldn't touch my "filthy" hair. I washed my hair every day like I always had and it was certainly cleaner than the hair of some of the "greasers" who's hair he normally cut. It was a real eye-opening experience and it altered my respect for my hometown.

  
  
• The GOP and money
  

  Federal Budget

  This chart shows what a small portion of the Federal Budget is taken up by public assistance programs like food stamps. According to some GOP supporters, lazy, poor, people are to blame for our national debt. Liberals don't work and we are all on welfare. Blaming the poor for wealth inequality has become a national past-time! "Get a job, folks. Pay your taxes and support the military and the top 1%."

Yay! Bush is Gone! (And so is Trump!)

A monument has been erected in Iraq to honor the journalist who threw his shoes at Bush. This was created after I removed this section and I thought it deserved its place of honor here.

---

Rants

"People who think they know everything are annoying to those of us who do." — Isaac Asimov

• Telemarketers & spammers
  Every merchant is entitled to provide products and services for a profit, but consumers have rights too. I used to receive frequent annoying telemarketing calls at home, but I was able to stop them by signing up on the Massachusetts Do Not Call registry. (There are still problems implementing the national registry, but the state one is working great.) I think we also need a 'Do Not Spam' registry to shut off the huge volumes of spam we get in our email.
  
     National Do Not Call Registry
     Fight spam – my own how-to section
  
  And now I am getting telemarketing calls on my cellphone. For years my cellphone was somehow immune to this but now my number is on all kinds of lists that are being sent around. If I see an incoming number I don't recognize (which I can block but I prefer not to) I send it to voicemail. Usually telemarketers do not leave a message (but they occasionally do).
  
  And now they've figured out now to go directly to voicemail without ringing the phone, so you get notified that you have a voicemail message and when you listen to it it is a recorded spam message. Ugh!

• Smoking
  People who smoke cigarettes may think that it is their right to do so, but when they do it in my breathing space it robs me of my right to breath fresh air. My friends and family do not smoke so it is not an issue in my house. In Massachusetts, smoking is not permitted in workplaces, including restaurants and bars, and smoking is prohibited on the public transportation in Boston, including cabs, so I live in a 100% smoke-free environment (it surprises me when I travel to another area, even in the U.S., that is more tolerant of smoking). Many smokers find private spaces to smoke, like their cars or homes, but it saddens me when I see parents smoking around their young children, knowing the health problems those kids may have from growing up inhaling second-hand smoke.
  
  
  

  "If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action." — On a sign in a non-smoking area

  
     Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
     CDC's Tobacco Information and Prevention Source (TIPS)

• People who impose their religious beliefs on others
  I have been an atheist my entire life, and I find it disturbing when people who believe in God assume everyone does. My point of view on most things has a strong foundation in science and reason, which religious faith lacks. The term "faith" means accepting something as truth based only on "belief," which doesn't work for me at all. A pithy quote that expresses my view very well is from a Tess Gerritsen novel, The Sinner, where a woman who has strayed from her Catholic upbringing is being questioned by a priest.

  He says, "You grew up in the church. Isn't there anything left of your faith?" She replies, "Faith requires no proof . . . I do."

  And what's with this "Bless you." when someone sneezes? I find myself wanting to stifle a sneeze in public because whenever I do sneeze I immediately hear "Bless you." from those nearby and I feel obligated to acknowledge it with a "Thank you." or something. What does that mean anyway? It sounds more superstitious than religious but I am not sure.

• People who can't stop emailing or texting on their cellphones in public
  If you are behind or approaching one of these obsessed "CrackBerry" addicts on a sidewalk you may have to walk around them since they are so absorbed in their task they don't know you are there. I can't believe how often I find myself behind one of these people in a line, say at a place like Starbucks, and it's all they can do to stop long enough to order their coffee. What's with all these people I see walking on a sidewalk staring at (probably reading) their cellphones? Give me a break—can't they wait a few minutes until they are someplace more private, or at least not walking?
  
     Stay Focused: Don't Text & Drive – and texting while driving is the worst
  

• Doddlers
  Waiting in a queue is generally tension producing (there was a good article on this behavior in The Boston Globe¹), whether standing in a line of people or in the car in bumper-to-bumper traffic I find it stressful when I find myself behind someone who does not move forward when the person ahead of them does, or when the car ahead of me doesn't keep pace with the car ahead of them. This lackadaisical behavior doesn't jibe with my natural sense of order and efficiency. Label me OCD but it irritates me to have my time managed by someone so "tuned out."

• Other drivers!
  I saw this great page on Facebook that doesn't exist anymore. Fortunately, before it went away I copied some of the postings here: Yelling at the car in front of you. OK, you could say this fits right in with the spirit of Boston driving, but after all, I have been a Bostonian since 1973.

• People whose voicemail message doesn't identify them
  I hate it when I call someone, perhaps for the first time, and a voice says, "You have reached number ###." If they don't identify themselves, at least by first name, I am not sure if I have reached the right person and I don't want to leave a message.

• Greasy hair on men
  I can't believe greasy hair has made a comeback for men. Growing up with the dry look of the sixties I find it disgusting! I want to be free to touch my hair and not be repulsed! I find it particularly irksome when I see guys with short hair that has grease applied, which they obviously don't need to keep their hair in place, but they just want that greasy look.

Disclaimer
	If I sound very opinionated it may be because I grew up in the 60s, the era of the Free Speech Movement, when it was considered pretty normal to express yourself openly.

To guard against spambots that search webpages for email addresses I am not spelling out any complete email addresses contiguously anywhere on my website. Replace (at) with @ in the following email addresses to use in email. My email address:    ericpence(at)gmail.com My cell phone number:    617-750-4728 My home phone number:    781-740-1414 Patti's email address:    pattirosenfield(at)gmail.com I have stopped listing our penceland.com email addresses, and while they are still valid, we'd prefer you use our Gmail addresses (and the old addresses don't get checked anymore). If you try to email me for the first time and I appear to be ignoring you, I apologize. It may be that since your email address is unknown to me my spam filters are perceiving you as a spammer and preventing your email from getting into my Inbox. The easiest way to make sure I see your email is to put certain words in the subject line that I accept as something that a friendly stranger would say to me. These include,     music, tennis, payette, hingham, boston, penceland, PHS, ipod, boat, ascii Any of these words in the subject will trigger my Inbox to accept your email.

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Robbie's Handy Household Tips and Tricks