I served in the United States Air Force from 1984-1988.

My first tour-of-duty was with the 2161 Information Systems Squadron located at RAF Greenham Common, Newbury, Berkshire, Great Britain attached to the Ministry of Defense working in conjunction with British Telecom.

My second tour-of-duty was with the 1882 Information System Squadron located at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin Texas where I completed my Bachelors Degree with Park University via staff from St Edwards University.

Completing my four-year enlistment, I returned to New York where I embarked upon a career as a Facility Planner/Maintenance Engineer employed predominately in heavy industrial atmospheres but was able to complete assignments on several medical campuses (ECMC was my favorite where I was tasked with evaluating 22-medial buildings during the summer of 2009 for either adaptive reuse or demolition).

My architectural skills and eye for structural design allowed me to volunteer my talents in repurposing homes for Habitat for Humanity for over 40-homes throughout the city of Buffalo, NY

I briefly played a role in 2005 employed with our military as an Army Civilian supporting our troops departing from Fort Drum to Afghanistan.

Regrettably, I gave up my own opportunity to be a career military member believing my Grandmother and Aunt Linda needed me more at home than being in the military.

When I returned home from the military I wanted to share all of my European adventures with my grandmother who I loved dearly.

In fact, I had collected five photo albums filled with memories displayed like scrapbooks thinking my grandmother would have been enthralled with its contents: I could not have been more wrong.

I shall never forget the indifference displayed on her face and the realization that I must have appeared to her as a braggart.

Family can be dysfunctional at the best of times but when you have a family member who wrote the book on dysfunction, adding chapters year after year, it becomes almost impossible to continue with any form of relationship.

I am now in the latter part of my career and have researched several family members on my mothers side namely Sidney George Burry who was killed in the Battle of Beaumont Hamel in 1916. (Memorial ID 56471178)

I have no doubt that my input will or has been subjected to criticism but I am the last surviving family member who has "verbal knowledge" about certain family members which I often edit and revise as I learn more about the individual. I believe family history is more than birth, marriage and death dates as these people had lives and relationships that can be determined by their travels, where they lived and how they worked.

Post-COVID19

September 11th-26th, 2022: I finally made it to my long anticipated and three-times-cancelled trip to Italy! Yes, the trip I have been planning for years finally became a reality for two-weeks last September.

I was not going to attempt a fourth time as I truly believe three-times-you're-out but decided to book and the trip proceeded right on time. It was an all-inclusive package tour as-like my trip to Newfoundland in 2018 which was fast-paced and you do not remain in one area more than one night with few exceptions.

We departed Pearson for Heathrow and then on to Milan which was exhausting as it has been 17-years since I last travel to Europe and many things have changed in regards to customs and immigration.

Milan was a very brief visit as we caught only a few highlights but what struck me as odd was the amount of graffiti that covered almost every available space that could possibly be covered which I would have normally associated with one of our own large cities.

Considering this is supposed to be the model capital of the world I was taken back by this vandalism in a city like Milan. However, I learned a long time ago that you take the unexpected with the expected during traveling as it is all part of the adventure and you only recall the positive after you have returned home and we were soon off to Verona and Venice.

Venice truly is an amazing city and it does flood during high tide but mostly contained in St Mark's Square. The Grand Canal certainly lived up to its name especially from the view of a gondola. Contrary to popular belief, the gondoliers don't sing but they do smoke which I suspect is for keeping the slight aroma of raw sewage from permeating their nose as it is noticeable in the narrower canals but a city built long before sanitary sewers and on a collection of islands, I am not altogether surprised.

We continued down the "boot" of Italy visiting Florence, Pisa, Siena & Rome. It rained in Pisa which was refreshing and the only time it did rain as the temperatures hovered around 85-90 degrees and the leaning tower of Pisa has an interesting video of how it has been stabilized and how only 25-people at a time can only climb to the top. Rome offered more Roman ruins than I had ever expected to encounter with statues of Cesar are almost everywhere you look.

St Peter's Basilica is amazing but the square was a disappointment mostly due to all of the seating they leave in place for mass service. I realize it would be a huge task to keep taking down and placing back up but all of the seats detract from the square.

We were provided a day of leisure in Sorrento which was welcomed as I believe we all needed to catch our breath at this point as we had visited nine cities in eleven days already.

Pompeii is huge and I was expecting to see the streets lined with the preserved bodies of the residents but only saw one and that was under glass. We discovered that all of the bodies and any artifacts had long since been removed and displayed at the Naples Archeological Museum which we did visit the next day. Naples, by the way, is busier and louder than New York City. The archeological museum was well worth the visit and we spent most of our time looking at the statues unearthed from Pompeii along with the murals and never did see another preserved body as, once again, we were out of time and needed to catch the overnight ferry to Palermo, Sicily.

The crossing was overnight not due to the distance but the ferry could not have been traveling more than 30-knots. We arrived into Palermo early morning and spent the day taking in all of the sights and sounds of this city before we ventured off to Agrigento to view the Valley of the Temples which are amazingly intact and the Greek theater with Mt Etna over shadowing us. Our final destination was Taormina where we remained for two nights as this is where we departed back home via Heathrow and finally Pearson.

Italy was not the trip-of-a-lifetime but it was enjoyable and a learning experience for me and the group I was traveling with have asked me to join them in Portugal next May but that has yet to be seen (Update: I did travel to Portugal but in September of 2023).

I served in the United States Air Force from 1984-1988.

My first tour-of-duty was with the 2161 Information Systems Squadron located at RAF Greenham Common, Newbury, Berkshire, Great Britain attached to the Ministry of Defense working in conjunction with British Telecom.

My second tour-of-duty was with the 1882 Information System Squadron located at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin Texas where I completed my Bachelors Degree with Park University via staff from St Edwards University.

Completing my four-year enlistment, I returned to New York where I embarked upon a career as a Facility Planner/Maintenance Engineer employed predominately in heavy industrial atmospheres but was able to complete assignments on several medical campuses (ECMC was my favorite where I was tasked with evaluating 22-medial buildings during the summer of 2009 for either adaptive reuse or demolition).

My architectural skills and eye for structural design allowed me to volunteer my talents in repurposing homes for Habitat for Humanity for over 40-homes throughout the city of Buffalo, NY

I briefly played a role in 2005 employed with our military as an Army Civilian supporting our troops departing from Fort Drum to Afghanistan.

Regrettably, I gave up my own opportunity to be a career military member believing my Grandmother and Aunt Linda needed me more at home than being in the military.

When I returned home from the military I wanted to share all of my European adventures with my grandmother who I loved dearly.

In fact, I had collected five photo albums filled with memories displayed like scrapbooks thinking my grandmother would have been enthralled with its contents: I could not have been more wrong.

I shall never forget the indifference displayed on her face and the realization that I must have appeared to her as a braggart.

Family can be dysfunctional at the best of times but when you have a family member who wrote the book on dysfunction, adding chapters year after year, it becomes almost impossible to continue with any form of relationship.

I am now in the latter part of my career and have researched several family members on my mothers side namely Sidney George Burry who was killed in the Battle of Beaumont Hamel in 1916. (Memorial ID 56471178)

I have no doubt that my input will or has been subjected to criticism but I am the last surviving family member who has "verbal knowledge" about certain family members which I often edit and revise as I learn more about the individual. I believe family history is more than birth, marriage and death dates as these people had lives and relationships that can be determined by their travels, where they lived and how they worked.

Post-COVID19

September 11th-26th, 2022: I finally made it to my long anticipated and three-times-cancelled trip to Italy! Yes, the trip I have been planning for years finally became a reality for two-weeks last September.

I was not going to attempt a fourth time as I truly believe three-times-you're-out but decided to book and the trip proceeded right on time. It was an all-inclusive package tour as-like my trip to Newfoundland in 2018 which was fast-paced and you do not remain in one area more than one night with few exceptions.

We departed Pearson for Heathrow and then on to Milan which was exhausting as it has been 17-years since I last travel to Europe and many things have changed in regards to customs and immigration.

Milan was a very brief visit as we caught only a few highlights but what struck me as odd was the amount of graffiti that covered almost every available space that could possibly be covered which I would have normally associated with one of our own large cities.

Considering this is supposed to be the model capital of the world I was taken back by this vandalism in a city like Milan. However, I learned a long time ago that you take the unexpected with the expected during traveling as it is all part of the adventure and you only recall the positive after you have returned home and we were soon off to Verona and Venice.

Venice truly is an amazing city and it does flood during high tide but mostly contained in St Mark's Square. The Grand Canal certainly lived up to its name especially from the view of a gondola. Contrary to popular belief, the gondoliers don't sing but they do smoke which I suspect is for keeping the slight aroma of raw sewage from permeating their nose as it is noticeable in the narrower canals but a city built long before sanitary sewers and on a collection of islands, I am not altogether surprised.

We continued down the "boot" of Italy visiting Florence, Pisa, Siena & Rome. It rained in Pisa which was refreshing and the only time it did rain as the temperatures hovered around 85-90 degrees and the leaning tower of Pisa has an interesting video of how it has been stabilized and how only 25-people at a time can only climb to the top. Rome offered more Roman ruins than I had ever expected to encounter with statues of Cesar are almost everywhere you look.

St Peter's Basilica is amazing but the square was a disappointment mostly due to all of the seating they leave in place for mass service. I realize it would be a huge task to keep taking down and placing back up but all of the seats detract from the square.

We were provided a day of leisure in Sorrento which was welcomed as I believe we all needed to catch our breath at this point as we had visited nine cities in eleven days already.

Pompeii is huge and I was expecting to see the streets lined with the preserved bodies of the residents but only saw one and that was under glass. We discovered that all of the bodies and any artifacts had long since been removed and displayed at the Naples Archeological Museum which we did visit the next day. Naples, by the way, is busier and louder than New York City. The archeological museum was well worth the visit and we spent most of our time looking at the statues unearthed from Pompeii along with the murals and never did see another preserved body as, once again, we were out of time and needed to catch the overnight ferry to Palermo, Sicily.

The crossing was overnight not due to the distance but the ferry could not have been traveling more than 30-knots. We arrived into Palermo early morning and spent the day taking in all of the sights and sounds of this city before we ventured off to Agrigento to view the Valley of the Temples which are amazingly intact and the Greek theater with Mt Etna over shadowing us. Our final destination was Taormina where we remained for two nights as this is where we departed back home via Heathrow and finally Pearson.

Italy was not the trip-of-a-lifetime but it was enjoyable and a learning experience for me and the group I was traveling with have asked me to join them in Portugal next May but that has yet to be seen (Update: I did travel to Portugal but in September of 2023).