h marc lewis (click for more photos)

My life

Funny how many of us seem to define our lives by our professions, titles or work. I used to do that — I was a software engineer, and frequent semi-reluctant software development manager. I've been pretending to be retired since about 2002, and so far it's working great! Lucky me.

Nowadays my life is focused more on my family, on cooking dinner sometimes, which I'm enjoying a lot (as it's much like programming — lots of multi-tasking, decision making, compromises, hard work and sense of accomplishment). I also love reading and learning new stuff (books and the 'net), exercising fairly regularly & watching my diet, and trying to realize I'm enlightened.

For Fun...

In 1995 I put my own server on the 'net and named it MicaPeak.com (the real Mica Peak is a 5200' peak visible from our front yard). It blends my interest in programming, doing Webpage development, writing, communication and motorcycles (which is the focus of micapeak.com).

Another favorite activity (in the physical realm) is motorcycling, and I have another web page devoted to that. I recently cut down to just 5 motorcycles, and a 2005 BMW R1200GS is the one I now ride the most. In January of '06 I bought a Honda XR650L from a friend in Oregon which I've hacked on enough that it's now quite a good dirt-oriented dual sport. Even handles the pavement okay on knobbies.

My family bought me an iPod for my birthday. I've discovered podcasts and spend most of my iPod time listening to them. My favorite is This week in technology (aka TWiT). I hardly even listen to the XM radio in my truck anymore.

Perhaps my very favorite thing to do these days is babysit our grandkids. We have five, three boys and two girls, with ages from 1 to 7. They are the most fun thing there is. And the boys (who are all in the 3 to 7 age range) seem to be interested in motorcycles, too. Being a grampa rocks!

Family

At the beginning of 2003 my long-time girlfriend, Wanda Brookhart, and I got married. She's a 5th grade school teacher in Spokane, and a hard-core computer geek too. Wanda also likes motorcycling (big surprise, eh?). In 2003 she decided she prefers dirtbiking to street riding, so she sold her Ducati and her Honda and now rides only her slightly modified Yamaha TT-R125L. It's pretty cool having a wife who, when she sees a new computer store, says: "Let's just zip in there for a 'sec, okay Honey?"

Wanda and I have five wonderful children, each of whom makes us incredibly proud. Oldest to youngest, they are:

Jennie	Daughter #1 has more college degrees than I can count and works for N.O.A.A. in Washington, DC. She's always zipping around the planet, putting a gorgeous and very liberal human face on the USA for the the rest of the world. Good girl!
Amy	My younger daughter is a mother, homemaker and runs her own business: Redefined Interiors. My son-in-law David is Director - Strategic Planning - OneCare for Microsoft, in Seattle. Their children are Conor, Griffin, and Kasey.
Rachel	Wanda's oldest daughter is also a mom and homemaker, plus works as a gradeschool teacher substitute and a Mary Kay representative. She and her husband Cory, who is an electrician, have a son, Austin, and a daughter, Kaylee. We get to babysit them often — Yeah!!!
Lindsay	Wanda's youngest daughter is an R.N. working at Sacred Heart Hospital in Spokane. She, her husband Omar, and his family run a local Mexican restaurant (La Milpa). She's got the neatest blog at AmericanChimp.com, which I host for her on micapeak. Lindsay is kinda like Jennie — she's extremely well educated, speaks fluent Spanish, and is passionate about all things human.
Ryan	Wanda's son works at a local mailing service. Like many 20-somethings, he's an avid gamer, and favors musical groups that Wanda and I have never heard of. We see him every week or two when he comes over for dinner and a 5mbps Internet fix. He wears a black hoodie most of the time, and drives a Subaru WRX.

My extended family includes a bunch of wild and crazy cyberspace bikers over on WetLeather. Damn, but I love those people!

My Web sites

I've done quite a few Websites over the years, and recently have been doing some post-retirement consulting. I favor 'vi' and hand-coding the style sheet and the HTML by hand, or maybe with a little perl or PHP perhaps mixed in with some database stuff. Here are some I've done recently:

Sites I visit daily...

Other stuff

In 1995 I discovered a family diary which was written in 1882 during a wagon train trip from Kansas to Washington Territory.  If you have any McDowells in your family tree you might want to check it out!

I like a lot of different things — talking with friends over dinner or via email, motorcycles, movies, reading, bird watching, ethnic resturants, net surfing and working on new stuff for my various Websites. Here are some links to stuff I've written about some of my favorite things:

Slide Shows & Photo Essays

2001:	A motorcycle vacation in the Alps
2002:	My first long ride on the FJR1300
2003:	I'm sure I went somewhere, and took some photos, but maybe I didn't. I was working pretty hard during this period...
2004:	A trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico A motorcycle trip to Baja, Mexico A motorcycle trip to Sheepranch, California A trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
2005:	A motorcycle trip to Yellowknife, NWT, Canada A motorcycle trip to the US MotoGP race, in Monterey, CA A motorcycle trip to Mesa Verde, Colorado A motorcycle trip to the Canyon Country of the southwestern USA Riding Moab's famous Slickrock Trail
2006:	A trip to Arizona, with photos. Riding the Apache Trail, in Arizona. Riding the Oregon Outback on dual-sport bikes. Riding to Ely, NV for the White Pine Fever rally. Documenting the 5-day Spank Rally organized by my friend George Zelenz.
2007:	The 3rd annual Dirt Gather, near Winthrop, WA (a motorcycle camping trip). Riding some single-track trails near Wallace, Idaho.
2008:	My 2nd motorcycle trip into Baja, this time via dirtbikes, with two friends.

Misc. stuff

Here's my Grandmother's Welsh Cookie recipie
The fantastic Argon Zark comic strip!

HMarc
20-Mar-2008