South Florida

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We took a Florida vacation in late January of 2009 visiting Miami Beach, the Florida Keys and the Florida Everglades. This happened to correspond to the Martin Luther King holiday parade and the inauguration of President Obama. Both very interesting events.

In South Miami Beach we stayed at a recently refurbished Wave hotel (aka the Lord Balfour) just down the street from the Art Deco District (we love this area of the city). We took in an afternoon drag show which was real fun - outrageous and engaging the pedestrians walking by.

We went to the Martin Luther King parade and were pretty much the only white folk there -- it's not a well integrated city.

We visited the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables and the Villa Vizcaya -- two monuments to a time when buildings were grand, ornate and detailed. Villa Vizcaya had several bridal photo shoots -- it's a lovely garden setting. Both are worth a visit.

On our way down the Florida Keys to Key West we stopped at a bar for the inauguration of President Obama. There didn't seem to be much interest in the bar, but we thought it was pretty historic. The first black person to be elected president. And he turned out to be a very good one.

Key West is music, bars and drinks,  sunsets on Mallory Square, wild life of all sorts and a casual atmosphere that we enjoy. It was pretty cool weather though. We tried to go swimming at Bahia Honda State park but the water was frighteningly cold.

We had our travel bikes and road on the old 7-mile bridge out to Pigeon Key. We explored the Everglades National Park and met more wildlife -- lots of birds and lots of alligators to keep you on your toes.

Here's a link to some photos if you're interested.

Kendal

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Kate's work took us to Kendal in the Lake District of England. The area here is called Cumbria and most of Cumbria is the Lake District!

We flew through Heathrow where we stayed overnight at the nearby Crowne Plaza hotel (this has become a favorite). We rented a car for the duration of our stay and drove up to Kendal which is very near the Scottish border and Hadrian's Wall.

We had a brief visit with the Fry's in Woking (our sort of No. 2 mom and dad), a day with our friend Sam from Winnipeg in Oxford and an overnight with Chris (our sort of No.1 son) who was attending university at Nottingham. I'll focus on the visit to Kendal and the Lake District.

The Lake District National Park is a hilly area (the Brit's would say mountainous) jutting into the Irish Sea with the Isle of Mann to the west. Kendal is inland a bit on the southeast side, Carlisle inland a bit to the north east and bounds the top of the Park with the Firth of Soloway, Scotland and what remains of Hadrian's Wall to the north of that. Kendal and Carlisle are a major market towns in the area, but neither is very big — perhaps 25,000 in Kendal.

Kendal is a pretty town in a valley traversed by the Kent River which flows south to the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay. There are a ton of old buildings made out of the local stone and has come to be known as "Auld Grey Town". In the middle ages the town was a source of woolen cloth — not surprising given the countryside and the many sheep wandering about to this day.

We stayed at Stonecross Manor Hotel in Kendal. For me it was a short walk into the town center which I explored over several days. We had a nice room with a four post bed and could look to the north from our window to see the hills and countryside. Kate had her meetings here. It's  quite a comfortable old stone hotel.

Kate was particularly interested in visiting the border town of Carlisle to the north as we've learned that her ancestors, the Grahams, weren't Irish (well they came from Ireland to Canada) but rather Border Reivers in the middle ages (basically hooligans who terrorized the locals). They were kicked out and sent to Ireland. There's even a story about a collection being taken up by the locals to pay to be get rid of them and their ilk. We did make a day trip on Tuesday to Carlisle and did find some evidence of there having been Grahams there. Unlike Kendal, Carlisle seems to be mostly of red brick construction. The drive north took us through farm country - mostly pasture land for more of the many sheep.

Within Kendal itself I've mentioned already the many stone buildings. In several places there's long streets of stone row houses with chimney pots. There's an historic stone "Miller Bridge" across the river that's quite pretty, a nearby historic Trinity Church and Abbot Hall Art Gallery. On the east side of the river on top of a small knoll there's the remains of an old castle.

On Wednesday I drove into the Lake District and took some pictures on Lake Windermere. It was a fall day with leaves turning color and not many tourists around. I gather in the summer time there are lots of people vacationing on the lake. This lake is long and narrow and the biggest of the lot. The picture above is from Bowness Bay on the lake. There's a good sized tourist town there called Bowness-on-Windermere (aptly named). Boating on the lake is a popular summer event. Not so on the day I visited — far too cool for that. But there was a tour boat taking people out for the fall colors.

From the lake I headed to the coast for some seaside views.

On Thursday, with Kate and her meeting friends, we drove west to the same Lake Windermere and then north to the village of Grasmere nestled in a valley by a couple of smaller lakes for a bit of touristing, some lunch and a visit to the poet William Wordsworth's Dove Cottage. He was one of the "English Romantic Poets" who popularized a pastoral view of the Lake District and the modest/simple country living that he enjoyed there. Kate knows far more about poetry than me — I get Woodsworth and Wordsworth mixed up! These days the Lake District is still very much a pastoral environment — pastures, rough stone walls and lots of sheep. It's a popular tourist area for those who want to get out of the city and rent rough stone cottages. It's also a popular hiking destination — especially if you can hike out of the valleys and onto the hill tops.

On Friday, Martin and I drove south to the coast to the Leighton Moss Sanctuary, Carnforth. It's a marshy area managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. We did some see some birds, nothing terribly interesting but then we didn't have the equipment for birding. There were other fellows who were far better equipped.

My final visit, near Keswick to the north, was the Castlerigg Stone Circle. It's another, but smaller, Stonehenge kind of place. Much more modest but equally mysterious. When this was built: prehistoric times. Why this was built: lost to history.

We drove a car load of Kate's chums from the meeting back to Heathrow Airport on Saturday where we all flew off to our various destinations. For us, it was home to St Marys via Toronto.

Niagara Wines

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Terry, Ken and I went for a tour of some wineries near Grimsby and Jordan in the Niagara Wine Region. If you don't know Ontario wines you should take a bit of a drive to the area and sample some. Kate and I like to go once a year or more.  We are members of the Ontario Wine Society (Niagara Chapter) which holds events at some of these wineries.

My friend Terry from is keen on Italian Wines (Sangiovese has not done well here) and Rieslings (the crisp kind, not the overly sweet stuff). My other friend Ken from Stratford is a member of my wine club -- the Stonetown Beefsteak & Burgundy. Ken is on a search for the illusive Pinot Noir. There are some good ones to be found but as they say, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.

The region is pretty intensive with some fine wines. We stopped at Tawse, pictured above, where they have very good wines -- not cheap, but very good. They've put a lot of money into this place. One claim to fame is their wines are gravity fed (meaning they don't have to pump wines from primary to secondary fermentors and on to barrles; instead gravity flow is used).

Wayne Gretzky Estates is nearby. I recall this winery having a different name not that long ago. There is a trend amongst wineries to have big names invest and put their names on the bottle.

Flat Rock Cellars is one of my favorites for Pinot Noir -- they claim their $20 Pinot Noir can stand up to anyone in the price range. They're built on the escarpment and again make some noise about gravity fed wines. I like the Pinot Noir but they also make a Rusty Shed Chardonnay from fields just below the winery and some Riesling from on top of the escarpment that Terry really liked. It's a very good winery.

Birchwood Estates, by contrast, is a modest winery without a fancy dancy tasting room.

Finally we stopped at De Sousa on our way home. They have a Portugese heritage -- I like Portugal and Portugese wines. Since my last visit they seem to have kicked it up a notch and have invested a bit in their patio/garden area which is quite lovely on a sunny day like today.

I was the designated driver and spent the day spitting wine. You still absorb some alcohol, but not as much as my buddies. It was a rather full day of wine tasting. They fell asleep on the way home! Lucky buggers.

Fred Picnic

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We camped at the Fred Eaglesmith Charity Picnic this year. We're not one for roughing it but borrowed a tent from Mike for the weekend (we ended up keeping it -- he has lots).

We camped out so we wouldn't have to drive home. We also hoped to stay up late and get involved with some camp fire sing-alongs.

Springwater Conservation Area, where this event is held, is a little over an hour south of us near the town of Aylmer, Ontario.

There was an impressive guest list for the shows. Including of course the finely honed lunacy of Washboard Hank and his partner in crime Mountain Muriel. Roger Marin returned with his band (he used to tour with Fred). We always enjoy the talent that plays this event. And it's a charity event too.

The most important guest, for us, was Audrey Auld. She has a duet she wrote and sings with Fred, "B-Grade Affair" -- pure country.

New York City

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Kate attended the XIII World Meeting of the International Society for Research on Aggression (ISA), July 12-17, 1998 at Ramapo College in Mahwah, New Jersey, USA. We drove down and, while Kate was at the conference, I got to see some of NYC and the area around Mahwah. 

The conference had organized events for folks like me who were attending with our spouses but not participating in the conference itself. But sometimes we did things together. One evening the conference had an outing where we were bussed to the New Jersey shore and took a boat ride around the city and under the Brooklyn bridge. Another was an evening outdoor Shakespeare in the Park event at the college.

One day we spouses went on a bus tour that went to nearby WestPoint (the military academy) on the Hudson River. A funny story they told us of cadet hijinks (let's assume it's true) — apparently one time the cadets had all agreed to flush to all the toilets in one building at exactly the same time. The rush of water flooded things and even popped manhole covers. It was a little more than they expected.

We also visited an outdoor sculpture garden that day — the Storm King Art Center. Another day we spouses went into the city where we had free time to explore on our own. I recall walking across Central Park to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I spent most of the day; I didn't make it across the street to the Guggenheim. The driver, we were a small group in van which had several rows of seats, told us that it cost $120 to park the van for the day while we had our free time. That's another good reason to not bring your car into the city.

Kate and I went into the city together (without the conference folk) another day. There are pictures of Little Italy, museums and galleries. We took the Staten Island Ferry; I recall that it was free. I also recall, vaguely at best, that Kate and I took the car one day and drove to the Connecticut shore. But that might have been another trip. Much of the places, the sequence and event time line has, unfortunately, faded from my memories. I should dig out Kate's photo album to fill things in better.

Ps. This note was composed 2025/01/05 when I bumped into some old photos (they would have been slides) that had been scanned during the COVID pandemic but had not been written up. The photo above, includes the twin towers of the World Trade Center which was destroyed 9/11 in 2001.

Victoria

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We were in Victoria BC, this year for Kate's annual KBS conference. Victoria is famous for the "newly wed and the nearly dead" -- a honeymoon and retirement capital.

We flew Westjet out of London, with stops in Winnipeg and Calgary. Our European friends who flew over the pole had shorter flights than ours! Our return flight was quicker with a single stop in Calgary and then directly home to London.

It's good that we have Westjet flying out of London. We'd rather fly out of London than deal with Toronto and the traffic to get there. Besides, parking in London is pretty cheap by comparison.

We stayed at the conference hotel, the Harbour Towers on Quebec Street, which is only a couple of blocks from Fisherman's Wharf (to the west), the Inner Harbor (due north), the Legislature and the Empress hotel (to the east). It's a modern high rise hotel and the conference events were held on the lower floors. We had a suite with kitchenette that our friends Arlinda and Keith had reserved. We have some nice pictures from the hotel of the harbor to the north and the mountains of Washington State to the south. The neighborhood is called "James Bay". The James Bay area has a lot of lovely old homes.

Next door to our hotel there's a quaint Victoria clapboard restaurant we visited for lunch several times --the Gatsby (now called the Pendray Inn and Tea Garden/Huntingdon Manor Hotel -- Victorian bric-a-brac wooden). It was just out our door, across the street, and towards harbor.

One day, when Kate as at the conference, she went outside for a bit during the break and bumped into our friend Scott talking to a weirdly dressed fellow. Kate approached, and recognizing who it was, she says "Valdy!" (he's a popular folk singer we've seen many times over the years -- he lives in the area). Valdy looks at her and says, "Kate!" (he read her conference name tag).

We had a National Car rental for duration. This meant we were able to see some sites beyond the immediate area. We also brought our fold up bikes with us, that made visting in the area easier. We were able to get out of the city to visit with Cai & Natasha, Jeananne & Jim. We drove out of the city to the west and up the coast of the island to Port Renfrew with Deborah and Jerry one rainy misty day.  It is a real rain forest area with lot of ferns and thick moss on hanging on the trees. We bumped into some of the huge slugs Kate had warned me about. They are huge!

Mostly, however, we were hanging around the city center which is quite scenic. The harbor, of course, is quite a tourist draw.  The picture above shows some of the Victoria Harbor Ferrys. They shuttle around the harbor on a back and forth tour to the West Bay with several stops along the way. They do a daily synchronized performance in the Inner Harbor to music. Over at the West Bay there are more house boats tied up. There was also this very weird house at the West Bay. I saw a bunch of sea otters frolicking on the docks. On Wednesday afternoon we (i.e. the conference group) took a whale watching cruise from inner harbor out to North West channel. We did see some seals sun bathing but we didn't see any whales and, while it was sunny, it was very cold and windy. We were quite chilled. There were other cruises on small open rubber dinghy's that went out to the same spot looking for whales -- they must have been very cold, and very wet. I'd not recommend doing that.

From the inner harbor there are sea planes that come and go. We had taken a sea plan from Vancouver a few years ago that landed here. It's expensive but a quick way to get from downtown to downtown. The car ferry to Port Angeles, WA docks in the inner harbor. The huge cruise ships land at a special cruise ship dock on the outer edge of the Victoria Harbor. It's in James Bay, the far south westerly corner.

British Columbia is famous for totem poles carved by the coastal natives. There's a stand of them in a park by the parliament building, there's another along the water front when we biked over to Fisherman's Wharf which is just a little to the north west of our hotel (walking distance really). The wharf is a scenic area that I returned to again and again. There are a lot of house boats anchored there, some commercial ships, sail boats and even some square riggers. Very scenic. An added bonus is the friendly harbor seals who patrol the area. And to top that there's the playful sea otters. There's also a very good fish and chip shop at the wharf.

On the ocean side of James Bay (due south of our hotel) and I wandered along Holland Point Park and Findlayson Point. There's a long breakwater extending out with a lighthouse and cruise boat wharf to the west. You would sometimes sea big cruise boats on the horizon as well as the car ferry which goes to Port Angeles in Washington State.

Kate and I visited Craigdarroch Castle which is very near the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria to the west a bit in the Rockland area. Both are interesting Victorian structures (there's a lot of that in the city). As for famous artists, the Emily Carr house is near our hotel in the James Bay area near Beacon Hill Park (more totem poles there) -- I visited her home one day. Another day there was an open air market in a nearby park.

We visited the Victoria Butterfly House a couple of times. There are lots of stunning butterflys and moths in a pretty glassed green house setting and it's not too far from the city center. I visited Goldstream Provincial Park with a friend's daughter to see more rainforest and moss covered trees. We took the Brentwood Bay Ferry back across Saanich Inlet to land near Butterfly house.

Finally there are some wineries near Victoria. We visited one.

IST/Security

I left Information Systems and Technology at the University of Waterloo in May of 2008 and retired then to become a house husband. I was at UW/IST for 10 years as the "Senior Technologist Security" and worked under Roger Watt (as my immediate superior) later under Martin Timmerman when Roger retired.  Jay Black and later Allan George where heads of the IST department during my tenure. Much of my work has been archived on the Way Back Machine.

See the IST/Security site as archived on May 8, 2008. See my home page ist.uwaterloo.ca/~reggers archived April 22, 2008.

My history at Western predates the Way Back Machine so much of my writing there has been lost to history. 

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This note posted January 2026.