I work for Safety Insurance in the financial district in Boston, Massachusetts (see my building) and to get to work, I take a commuter boat—a pleasant half-hour trip—during which I usually read or chat with friends (and sometimes have a little excitement!). The Boston Globe did a comparison of commuting from the South Shore by car, boat, train, and Red Line (the subway), and not surpisingly, the boat came out on top. When I arrive at work in the morning or at home in the evening I am rested and relaxed, a very different state than that of many suburban commuters, who drive their cars in the intense, bumper-to-bumper, rush-hour traffic. In my opinion, I have the best of both worlds—a nice, peaceful, safe environment for my home and family, and the daily adventure of being in a great city.

Times have certainly changed since I was a kid. For several years, my mother has been using email from her home in Boise, Idaho, to help stay in touch with her children and grandchildren, who all live thousands of miles from her. Alex also communicated with us from boarding school his freshman year of high school using another online method. He went to the Dialpad.com website on his PC in his dorm room, and using a headset he was able to place free (at that time) long-distance phone calls to our home phone number. Now he has a cellphone, which greatly helps us stay in touch with him. When Ben (who also has a cellphone) was away at camp one summer (French Woods) he used email with us (email at camp?) instead of the telephone or hand written letters. Ben also has a great website of his own. Family dynamics have changed a lot in my lifetime, and they are affected by much more than just new technology. Here is an article I saw in the Boston Globe, "Raising a Perfect Child", that presents an interesting view of parenting today. There are links to more parenting articles on the Articles page.

Walking

One of my main passions is walking. At lunchtime I walk a 3-mile loop from my office that takes me around the Boston Common and Public Garden at a brisk pace, not quite a power-walk but it does help to keep me in shape. I also do daily dog walks. Each May (10 years now) I go on Project Bread's 20-mile walkathon, Walk for Hunger, and at my rapid pace I have completed it several times in just 4 hours (that is walking at 5 miles-an-hour for 20 miles!). I have also participated in the AIDS Walk Boston, a yearly 10k event put on by the AIDS Action Committee. These fundraising walks are great for me because I get to do something I really enjoy while earning money for good causes.

Some of my other interests include reading, programming, music cities, maps, tennis, and travel, and I expound on these things on various pages on my website.

The classic Big Potato postard I saw as a child.

Some Idaho links...

	Come Find Idaho	–	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
	Virtual Guidebooks to Idaho	–	VR panoramas
	All Idaho on the Net	–	360° panoramas of every city in Idaho!
	Idaho Newspaper Locator	–	a nice map showing all the counties
	Idaho Potato Official Website	–	I couldn't resist including this one
	You know you're from Idaho when...	–	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
	Payette High School Class of 1966	–	a webpage for sharing things with my high school classmates

Above the Rest

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 the beautiful Mt. Rainier, that you can see to the southeast on a clear day (I know, there aren't enough clear days in Seattle, see for yourself on this webcam view) 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. Seattle is definitely one of the most scenic cities in the world.

Some Seattle links...

	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
	Seattle Skyscrapers	–	from Skyscraper Picture Collection
	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
	Lost in Seattle	–	a clickable map of downtown Seattle
	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 (works best in IE)
	Penny Postcards from Washington	–	many vintage scenes
	You might be from the Northwest if you...	–	from an email

My draft resistance

We Ain’t Marching Anymore

An interview with a Vietnam draft resister 35 years later

A "fan" letter

When I was in high school in the mid-60s I subscribed 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.

N

+

D

=

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.

• Gay marriage
  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 ammendments to keep gays and lesbians from having the same domestic rights as heterosexuals. Bush, our "compassionate conservative" president (now there's an oxymoron), even wants 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
  

• Gun control
  Possessing something which was designed to kill is too dangerous to be considered a "right" and it is not protected by the 2nd Amendment, which refers to a "well regulated militia," not anarchists with guns. This savage, barbaric activity should not be allowed 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, guns murdered four people in New Zealand, 19 in Japan, 54 in England, 57 in Australia, 66 in Switzerland, 151 in Canada, 373 in Germany, and 11,798 in the U.S.!  Read this webpage for some good reasons and statistics in support of my opposition to both hand guns and the death penalty
  
     The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
     The ACLU on Gun Control
  

• 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
  State "Do Not Call" Lists
  Fight spam – my own how-to section
  

• 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 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."

• 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 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. Give me a break ... can't they wait a few minutes until they are someplace more private?

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

• Other drivers!
  I am a fan of this Facebook page because it stated my feelings so well. 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 I have been a Bostonian since 1973.

• Peeling a hard-boiled egg
  After the egg has boiled let it sit in cold water for a minute before peeling. This usually makes the shell not stick to the egg.
  
  
• Popping all the kernels when making popcorn in a pan on a stove
  Follow these steps to pre-cook the kernels...
  1. Put the popcorn into the cold oil in the pan.
  2. Turn on the burner.
  3. When the first kernels pop, take the pan off the heat and let the kernels sit in the hot oil for 1 minute.
  4. Then just put the pan back on the heat and make the popcorn as you normally would.
  
  
• Curing hiccups
  This technique sounds like an old wives' tale but it works 100% of the time for me.
  • Sit with your arms unsupported and point your two index fingers at each other about 6 inches in front of your face.
  • Keep your fingertips almost touching but not quite.
  • Hold this position for at least a minute and your hiccups will stop.
  This may work because of the concentration required to keep your fingers so close but not touching.