Our Story

I first lived in South Africa in 1972, found and married my late wife, Estelle, in 1973, and have been back every two years or so ever since both visiting family and touring that part of Africa including trips to Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania. My wife Sarah and I typically spend winters in Cape Town. While I lost Estelle in 2021, South Africa and her/my family there remain close to my and Sarah's hearts. While there is much I still haven’t seen,

(Note, this was written in 2021, the year my late wife, Estelle, passed away due to a brain tumor) I leave it up because I think it may be more valuable than ever to people with loved ones in the hospital) Before Estelle and I can count on one hand all the hospital admissions for both of us. Now I’m beginning to feel like an experienced patient advocate. Given Estelle’s blindness and the nature of her health issues this year, I always felt I had to stay in the room with her 2

After retiring a few years ago, and taking a year off for overseas travel, Estelle and I settled in back home to discover our new life in our old home of 38 years. Covid hit and pretty much guaranteed we’d be right here until a vaccine came along. What we weren’t prepared for was discovering the joy of our neighborhood. One would think, after living here all this time, we would know our neighbors well. In reality, my working life as an entrepreneur and Estelle’s drama studio,

Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. Find a soulmate to share your life with and experience the joys of making that person happy for the rest of your lives. Be caring and compassionate with your family, friends, and your fellow man Time heals almost everything, give it time. Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them. You have no idea what their journey is like. Stop thinking too much. It's alright not to know the answers. They will come to

Since we were without our NBB adventure group expert trip secretary Rube, on this trip, I’ll try to substitute. It was a small NBB group this time with Dan, Sam, and I making our respective trips to Southeast Georgia. We were all feeling airplane deprived since Dan and I are both temporarily grounded and so, Dan drove 11hr round trip from Canton, GA, I did about 10 hr of commercial air time, and Sam did about 10 hr of drive time to and from Carrabelle with stops at JAX to shu

We’ve been to many 2 nd and 3 rd world countries. We always struggle with understanding the history of how they ended so far behind the First World countries. Australia is a completely different experience. Here we arrive at a previously isolated, former British penal colony, at the other end of the world, that has created a first world country and has maintained it for many years. “How did dey do dat?” We always thought we’d get a chance to visit here one day, and indeed a

Estelle and I knew being overseas for seven months in Egypt, South Africa, Australia, etc had risks. And we knew at our ages that unforeseen health issues can happen, but we’ve both been very healthy and I don’t think we gave that risk a lot of consideration. So, we land in Johannesburg Monday night after two weeks in Australia, back with family, Wednesday morning I feel some mild chest pain. It comes and goes, feels like some kind of indigestion to me. The next day, Thursday

I was not her star pupil by a long shot. But my junior and senior year English teacher at Montgomery Bell Academy had more impact on me than she or I could have ever imagined. I was a bit of a geek, even in the 60s, always into mechanical/electrical stuff, destined to become an engineer. But one great thing about a good education is that it doesn’t let you get by just doing what you think you like. It exposes you to a broad-based range of studies that will serve you well in y

Dalcon International, Inc. was founded by David L. Condra in 1978, and incorporated in 1979 in Nashville Tennessee. The company initially did business as Nashville Computer Center, subsequently changed the DBA to Dalcon Computer Systems in 1981. The product focus of the company was business computer systems designed to meet the needs of small businesses. As an indication of how early Dalcon was in the Nashville market, it was the first company to be listed under the then new

This blog is a continuing chronicle of our transition from a working life to retirement—with odd other posts as something comes up. I write it to crystallize my own thoughts and also for the few folks reading who might be contemplating their own retirement options and plans. As I hit 70 and decided to fully retire, Estelle and I conceived the idea that it would be an adventure to spend six months living in South Africa. It is a comfortable second country for us, given her upb

As an old engineer/gadget guy who has gone a bit overboard in my retirement implementing smart home technology, I get questions at times about what I recommend. This post is my current thinking on smart home technology implementation and I’ll try to post updated versions as the world keeps changing. Of course it's a bit techie but my main point is, if you are building or remodeling, you should consider at least some of this and you need some level of understanding to make sur

Historically, when taking a big vacation to a special place, I have been challenged to get the most out of it since I rarely allowed the time to do reading in advance or to digest and absorb the trip on return. With my newfound retirement time, I was able to do more advance reading and this trip to Egypt was so impact full I felt the need to write down thoughts along the way and did a couple of emails as well. Here’s the consolidated trip report. I understand most won’t have