After a few wonderful trips to Sandals St. Lucia we considered traveling to Sandal's "home" island of Jamaica. In 2004 we went to the Royal Plantation. This was a small Sandal's property next to the very popular Ocho Rios property. They were trying a new concept when we went. They were using this small property to test a higher service Level and tried switching to a pay as you go plan from the Sandal's Ultra Inclusive.

I was not thrilled with this new concept. Karen loved the level of service and quieter feel of the property. It was till a great trip, but I asked not to return.

Photo Album: Royal Plantation, Jamaica in October 2004

Tags: Sandals

Chuck loves cars, he had no one to go to the 2004 NYC Auto Show with him. I thought it was a great idea. We hopped in his race car and went to the Javits Center.

I saw a concept truck from Honda! two years later I bought the production version.

Tags: NYC

Sangria in the streets, because we ended the week of meetings at a Spanish restaurant in Germany.

Photos: Limburg

The state of the art in 1982 was the Apple // (or ][) and as a gifted student in our school district’s Intermediate Enrichment Program I had access to one. Once a week. I brought my pencil, graph paper, code samples and a ruler to conquer the mysteries of microcomputers and write a program.

Later I would buy my own home computers and continue to use Apples in school. As I approached college age and considered my future I was faced with business machines that still used punch cards or magnetic tape. Rarely was there a color screen or Random Access Storage. Hard drive arrays were still refrigerator sized, custom built beasts I could only see at Berks Campus and Penske Leasing.

I was spoiled by Apple, TI, Commodore, Amiga. Mainframes and boring IBM model 30’s were not catching my attention. I left computer for a time and only returned after graduating and getting jobs where LANs had made PC’s an acceptable business tool and the occasional Mac could be found in the art department.

Tags: Jim, Geek