So, what do I do when I am not traveling or teaching? Ron and I run a charity Bingo game on Tuesday nights at our mobile home park. The Bingo makes money for Guide Dogs of America. Besides our weekly Bingo, twice a year, we put on a Special Bingo Party. We just had out…

As usual, I get to spend my summer traveling and teaching AP chemistry teachers in week-long summer workshops. I have met a lot of wonderful teachers and get to learn as well as teach. These summer weeks are very rewarding.

I flew into the Vancouver airport and was impressed with the beautiful design and native art. We had to go through customs, but much of the work is done at a kiosk now, so the process was painless. I took a long cab ride to my hotel. I’m in West Vancouver on the North Shore…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We visited Theatricum Botanicum, an outdoor theater in the hills above Topanga Canyon about 40 minutes from our home, west of Los Angeles. We saw a nice production of the Shakespeare play. This theater was built on land owned by Will Geer, best known as Grandpa on The Waltons.

Day 7 of the AP Chemistry Reading and we are finished! Figuring the number of tests with seven questions on each exam, as a group we scored 1,117,592 questions over the past seven days!!! The exams are packed and probably on their way back to ETS in New Jersey already. Our fearless leader, Roger Kugel,…

At the end of Day 6 of the AP Chemistry Reading, a bunch of us boarded the Hop-On Hop-Off bus for a special after-hours tour of Salt Lake City. Usually the bus tours end around 3:00 p.m., but the company put together a special bus for us. We got to see many of the sites…

After scoring AP chemistry papers all day, five of us hopped in a rental car and drove up into the mountain ski areas to the trailhead for Donut Falls. The spruce, birch, and aspen trees were beautiful, but the hike had some very steep climbs that I found pretty challenging. Of course, there were others…

I’m here in Salt Lake City to attend the AP Chemistry Reading. I will be in SLC for 12 days. These first days are getting prepped for the Readers who will come and help us score the thousands of exams that students have taken across the country. From my hotel room, I can see snow…

Yosemite National Park–Day 5 Since I did not see Happy Isles and The Fen, we took a walk to that area this morning. It was interesting to see the water level sign from the 1997 Flood. We can see the water level from yesterday and today… pretty high. After that walk, we packed and the…

Yosemite National Park–Day 4 We did different things today. Ron hiked an uphill trail to see Vernal Falls. He also walked through Happy Isles watching the rushing water (higher and faster than usual for this time) and visited the Fen, a marshy area with feathery fields of fern (alliteration) that gave a fluffy, fuzzy appearance…