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Greetings from Florida. I thought you'd like to see who I am. When I'm not at the computer, We used to sail on LuLu, a friend's Hunter 28; and, in December ;99, the weather was just about perfect for it. The picture shows Eagle Point Marina, where LuLu is docked, in the background. It's located in midtown Venice and, from there, it takes the sailboat just a 20-minutes of motoring to reach the Gulf of Mexico where we used to sail.

I moved to Venice from the Silicon Valley, California in the Winter of 1998. I was tired of the Silicon Valley, and ready for adventure. Tigger, my crazy cat, who was much less adventuresome than I, agreed to accompany me in the car to make sure I didn't get into more trouble than I could handle.

I graduated from Miami University; and, contrary to popular opinion... have to tell you that it's located in Oxford, Ohio (a little North of Cincinnati) not in Coral Gables. With a manufacturing engineering degree, I went to work in California, in and around the Silicon Valley. Eventually, I caught the computer bug and have worked with and around computers since about 1980...

Where I couldn't apply them directly in my professional life, I applied them personally. I bought my first computer in about 1980. It was something called an Osborne, and was one of the very first of the 'portable' computers. It was of a pre-IBM vintage and ran an operating system called cp/m. On it, I learned atext editor, called WordStar, a database, called dBase and a spreadsheet, called SuperCalc (a precursor to Lotus 1-2-3 and Excel). In those days, you had to hand-wire your printer and modem cables, as none were commercially available... Early on, I brought this computer to work and utilized it wherever it made sense.

Since coming to Venice, I began teaching computer classes at the Venice library and at the Jacaranda library (see "Venice FL Class Schedule" in the side-bar above for the schedule of classes). More recently, I began a computer consulting business and now help small businesses and individuals with their computing and networking needs.

In June of '00, Sharyn and I bought our own sailboat (similar to the one pictured below) from a dealer in Falmouth, MA. We were delayed by the dealer on the delivery and had to sail her back to FL late in the year. To do that, I left Venice, my classes and my clients and began the long trip back...

But, Jack is now back....! And, as most of you already know, I spent 2-1/2 months delivering our new sailboat (a Hunter 380 we called Wildest Dream) to Venice from Falmouth, MA.

Yes, really, 2-1/2 months of pretty cold motoring down the Atlantic coast. Although under power the boat is pretty fast for a sailboat, 7-1/4 knots would beconsidered quite slow by most power boat standards. Anyway, translated to a daily run, it meant that I could only go between 30 & 60 miles in a typical day.

When I returnd, I checked the distances involved and estimated that the whole trip was approximately 1500 (kt) miles - a figure I didn't want to think about before I left. Before I left, people would ask me: "How long do you think it'll take...?" I really didn't want to know. Instead, I wamted to focus on the experience of the adventure - not the length of the trip. And, after all, it was the great adventure, as every day was a new experience with new, never before seen, places and people. And, every day, there was always that everpresent element of unexpected danger.

Some of the more well known ports of call were places like Newport, Groton, New York City, Atlantic City, Washington, Annapolis, Norfolk, Beaufort, Bald Head Island, Charleston, Fernandina Beach, St. Augustine, Daytona Beach, Melborne, Ft. Pierce, West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Coconut Grove, Key Largo, Marathon, Shark River, Marco Island, Ft. Meyers, Boca Grande, and finally Venice.

I lived on the boat from the time I left Falmouth until I returned to Venice. Now, to some, living on a saiboat, may seem like quite a hardship; but, this particular boat is very well equipped as a live-aboard. It has a head and separate shower, and a fully equipped galley including: range, oven, microwave, and referigerator/freezer. We especially liked the aft-cabin, which was a major selling point for us...

Here's a picutre of the interior of what's called the salon....

Although this is a picture of production boat from the Hunter Marine website, Wildest Dream looks exactly the same. In fact, one visitor who came aboard in New York, commented that it was even nicer than her own apartment.

We plan to day and weekend sail her around the Florida West Coast this year as we outfit her for longer trips. Now, we're pretty self sufficient, in that we have enough water for about a week and can sustain the electric requriements from battery for a day before having to start the diesel. But, after we add a couple solar panels, we should be able to recharge without having to rely on the motor at all. Later, we'd like to add a watermaker to augment our fresh water supply. I suppose all these modifications be a never-ending project, as we make the boat more liveable for longer trips. They tell me.... that's sailing...