Saturday, August 1, 2026

Phoenix and Portland, March and April 2026

In March, our friends Bridgette and Julianne came to visit for a week.  They each had a private room in Central Park North at the Beatitudes.  Among other things, we had a nice visit at the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve: https://deervalley.asu.edu/ Then ten days later, my sister Helen visited us at the Beatitudes.  Among other things, we celebrated Patty's 75th birthday.

In April, I spent three weeks in Portland to take care of Mr. Stowe while Ben and Martha were traveling.  When I arrived on the 7th, I was impressed with how many trees were already in bloom.  




As I continued to enjoy all of the spring blossoms, I tried to regularly send updates to Ben and Martha about how Mr. Stowe was doing.  I would also visit Megan and get photos of Miss Piper to share.





From Ben and Martha's home, one of the coffee shops I would walk to was the Bipartisan Coffee House.  They have a magnificent collection of photos and posters from political contests, showing people from all political parties.


These maple trees on Division Street has so many seed posts they turned the sidewalk yellow.









Did I mention that I enjoyed the spring blossoms and taking care of the dogs?  And when Megan is available, she enjoys many of the same things.



And another trip to Bipartisan Coffee.

























And then after three weeks of spring blossoms, dogs and family, it was time to return to the dry, hot weather in Phoenix.

Friday, July 31, 2026

INTED 2026, Valencia, Spain, February 28 - March 7, 2026

I was fortunate to get funding from VTSU to attend INTED 2026 - International Technology, Education and Development.  This was the 20th year of the conference and the third time I have ended.  My interest was to see what other faculty around the world as doing with artificial intelligence in higher education.  One of the opening speakers on Monday was from ASU.  There was much about how education has changed and will continue to change.














 

This slide summed it all up, talking about where we were 20 years ago and where we are going now.


Last year, I really enjoyed a lot of the individual workshops, but not as much this year.  Here are a few points from one I enjoyed, talking about how to make A.I. a learning partner.
 




 
Wednesday, I skipped the city tour as I have been in Valencia many times.  In the afternoon, I had a wonderful lunch with Carlos and Kim, retired New York City professors who now live in Valencia to be near to where there grandchildren live.  I met them at a previous Vaughan Town trip.  We had a wonderful Spanish lunch over three hours at Pelayo Gastro Trinquet: https://grupogastrotrinquet.com/restaurantes/pelayo/ 

Thursday,  I took the train to Madrid where I relaxed and then went to my usual Friday evening meeting of the English Speaking Group at Cafeteria Restaurante VIA 22.  Besides our wonderful discussions, we also had this interesting game 
 



And then on Saturday, it was back to Phoenix.