Your Bio

I don't spend a lot of time or effort building this site. It is not a passion, or even a hobby. It is just a place where I like to post some photos for my friends and family to see a little bit of our life here. There are also some galleries of our previous life in Alaska and other areas. I occaisionally add photos or create new galleries.

I hope this site will give you all a little glimpse into what life in Mexico is like. It is not all tortillas and beans, dirt floors, adobe huts, dirt roads, cobblestone streets, or the unbearable heat and humidity on a beach in the summer.

We do have hot water, electricity, television, cell phones, and Starbucks (If you like weak coffee.)

I worked at a job I loved. I retired. I live in Cuernavaca, Mexico with the wife I love. Doris and I met in Cordova, Alaska. The official city motto of Cuernavaca is "The City of eternal spring", it is never very hot, and never cold here.

The original Nahuatl name of Cuernavaca was Cuaunahuac, "Place of great trees". It is believed the Spanish invaders couldn't pronounce it, so they re-named it Cuernavaca (cows horn). The Spanish are not held in very high esteem here. It is a mistake to refer to a Mexican as "Spanish".

I brought one snow shovel with us when we moved from Alaska to Mexico, so I could look at it once in a while. It always makes me happy, and I smile when I look at it.

We have family and friends, and dogs that love us, and we love them too. We have Grandkids we love. Our five kids aren't bad either. Life is good. Leave Social Security alone.

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Featured Galleries

Pump 8, 1976 : These are a few of the projects I have worked on in Alaska.  Some of these photos are over 30 years old.  I have forgotten the names of some of the people in them, so if I leave a name out, that is the reason.

I originally came to Alaska to work on The Trans Alaska Pipeline.  My original plan was to work in Alaska for only one year.  Alaska is a strange place, if you stay for one year or more, you don't want to leave.  

We were provided rooms and meals in temporary buildings called camps.  Communications was pretty primitive in the 1970s.  There were no cell phones, and no communications satellites.  That meant no live TV, the only phones for camp residents use were usually a couple of coin operated phones in each camp.  They required no coins to use them, but we could only make collect calls with them.  That made it hard on some of the single people who had given up their homes or apartments when they came north.  

The Trans Alaska Pipeline was, and still is, the largest, most expensive, privately funded construction project in the history of the world.  The pipeline is nearly 800 miles long.  At peak employment 20,500 people were working on this project at one time.

In bars and other centers of learning in the lower 48 states there was a lot of nonsensical talk that just about anyone could go to work and make big money building the pipeline when it was being built in the 1970s.  The big money part was true, the rest of those tales were not.  There was a lot of misinformation going around about the pipeline.  On a visit to California in 1994 one young man told me he was thinking about going to Alaska to work on the pipeline.  He looked a little non-plussed When I told him the pipeline was completed and had been in operation for 17 years.

There were very, very few unskilled workers employed on the job.  Only trained, skilled and experienced tradesmen and engineers were hired.  Pipefitters with experience in the petrochemical industry had an advantage in hiring.  To have easy and convienient access to hiring the most competent workers, it was a union job.  There was a waiting list to be hired.  The jobs were apportioned to all the union pipefitters locals in The US, based on the percentage of union members in each local compared to our total international membership.  Other trade unions with workers on the job had other standards.  The Electricians hired had to establish residence in Alaska and support themselves for a few months before being eligible for hire.  

Whatever standards the different unions used for hiring, getting hired to work on The Trans Alaska Pipeline for a tradesman was not easy.  It took me a year to finally get a job dispatch to work on the pipeline.  I was highly qualified.    

I hope some of you will find these pictures interesting.  For me, it was a great adventure.  It was the most interesting, lucrative, and the most enjoyable project I have ever worked on.

Pump 8, 1976

These are a few of the projects I have worked on in Alaska. Some of t ...

Updated: May 25, 2006 6:30pm PST

Xochicalco : Xochicalco is 38 KM (23 miles) south of Cuernavaca.  It was an important place in ancient times (AD 650-900) and is an important Archeological site today.  It was actually a city built on a few low lying hills.  It is a huge place.  We have only explored the lower level. The ladies did not want to climb to the top levels, and neither did I on the day that we visited the site.

There was no water supply for the inhabitants, so a series of cisterns were built.  The rain water from the plaza’s, etc. filled them.  The cisterns were built on the hillsides, each one a little lower than the one before it.  When the highest cistern was filled, the overflow was channeled to the next lower cistern, etc. until they were all filled during the 3 to 4 month rainy season. 

A primitive celestial observatory is near the highest level.  A hole was drilled in the ground so that the movements of the sun could be observed and recorded in an underground cave.

A meeting was held here several centuries ago when all the best men of science gathered to correct what is commonly called the Aztec calendar.  It had become inaccurate by six days.  The Aztec calendar is slightly more accurate now than the Gregorian calendar which we use today. 

There is a museum (and restrooms) at the entrance gate to this site.  Sundays are free, the rest of the week there is a small fee to enter the site.  There are some picnic tables below the level of the public plaza, so you can bring a lunch, etc., and take a break there.

Xochicalco

Xochicalco is 38 KM (23 miles) south of Cuernavaca. It was an importa ...

Updated: Dec 07, 2006 3:37pm PST

Finnegan : When Finnegan the squirrel was orphaned, Madmoiselle Giselle adopted him just before her own babies were born.

Finnegan

When Finnegan the squirrel was orphaned, Madmoiselle Giselle adopted h ...

Updated: Oct 28, 2006 11:51pm PST

Salto San Anton : The Salto San Anton is a waterfall in the center of Cuernavaca.  The name in English would be more or less The falls of San Anton.  It is in a nieghborhood right in the city.  If someone didn't give you directions, it would be hard to find.  The river that flows through town has cut a very deep barranca (gorge).  You would never even guess that there is a 90 meter (295 feet) waterfall in the nieghborhood it is in, until you climb down to see it.

Salto San Anton

The Salto San Anton is a waterfall in the center of Cuernavaca. The n ...

Updated: May 21, 2006 4:07pm PST

Gallery Categories

Family

9 galleries with 122 photos

Updated: Sep 27, 2006 6:07pm PST

Construction jobs in Alaska

7 galleries with 125 photos

Updated: May 25, 2006 6:30pm PST

Alaska

1 gallery with 13 photos

Updated: May 28, 2006 12:07pm PST

Archaeology

4 galleries with 22 photos

Updated: Dec 07, 2006 3:37pm PST

Restaurants

4 galleries with 21 photos

Updated: Mar 05, 2006 9:19am PST

About Mexico

3 galleries with 21 photos

Updated: Oct 27, 2006 2:33pm PST

Events

5 galleries with 29 photos

Updated: Dec 27, 2005 9:36am PST

Nature

1 gallery with 5 photos

Updated: May 21, 2006 4:07pm PST

Weddings

4 galleries with 55 photos

Updated: Nov 20, 2005 1:16pm PST

Travel

1 gallery with 13 photos

Updated: Sep 07, 2006 2:58pm PST

Parties

1 gallery with 7 photos

Updated: Dec 09, 2005 5:04pm PST

Friends

1 gallery with 15 photos

Updated: Mar 06, 2006 1:06am PST

Pets

6 galleries with 49 photos

Updated: May 11, 2006 4:23pm PST

Computers

1 gallery with 7 photos

Updated: Sep 16, 2006 6:25pm PST

Flowers

1 gallery with 8 photos

Updated: Aug 28, 2006 8:53pm PST

Animals

3 galleries with 11 photos

Updated: May 21, 2005 9:26am PST

House construction

1 gallery with 17 photos

Updated: Sep 16, 2006 6:23pm PST

Landscapes

1 gallery with 1 photos

Updated: Jul 15, 2005 8:22am PST

Humor

1 gallery with 9 photos

Updated: Jun 02, 2006 10:13am PST