About me

I am a sixty-ish (somewhat newly) retired male who intends to delve into several different fields of interest in the years ahead. As of this instant, these areas include gardening, photography, 3d art, cooking and music.

Gardening – While no means an expert (or even close) I DO enjoy playing around in the garden. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh compost! And so long as I can shield myself from the obnoxious mosquitos who simply LOVE feasting on me, tending to the plants brings me a LOT of joy and happiness. Instead of focusing on vegetable plants, one of my gardening goals is to propagate plants used by pollinators (bees and butterflies.) Speaking of butterflies, over the past four years, I have been having a blast raising hundreds of Monarch butterflies! The early years just involved planting Milkweed (host plant needed by the Monarch caterpillars) and nectar sources (for the grown Monarch butterflies.) Later years brought such things as raising the caterpillars in indoor mesh cages as well as collecting/raising them right from the start (i.e., eggs.) I admit I am a VERY easily-amused person, but taking pictures of the Monarchs and letting them crawl around on your arm is an admittedly simple yet awesome experience.

Photography – So much to learn in this area. I’m using the term to include not only “taking” pictures with my iPhone or Nikon cameras, but learning how to COMPOSE great pictures AND post-processing them with Photoshop and other digital editing tools. I also want to become proficient in macro photography (close-up images) to capture some of the beautiful plant structures visible when viewed up-close.

3d Art – I love seeing/appreciating works of art created by computer. While I doubt I have the talent (or years left to attain such talent) of creating the next ‘Toy Story’, I DO want to learn to create cool 3d images.

Cooking – I am admittedly a Neanderthal “meat and potatoes” guy, but I would love to expand my cooking/baking skills. The deal is that my wife brings home the paycheck, so I’m responsible for putting dinner on the table. In addition to learning more recipes, I also want to learn to know more about HOW/WHY one does things; this is sometimes referred to as ‘food science.’

Music – I still have my Fender Jaguar guitar (circa 1960’s) in its case under the bed. I haven’t played it in decades. I self-taught myself chords to play songs for my own amusement, and have never had a desire to “join a band” or play in public. But I never ventured into learning to play a keyboard. These days, relatively inexpensive keyboards can be used along with computer software to produce sounds from a Steinway piano to a violin or synthesizer. So my efforts in this are to teach myself to play songs on a keyboard (again, for PRIVATE entertainment!)

II’ll try to record this journey through retirement with the hope that others might enjoy and/or learn something along the way…

Ray