This website illuminates my life and adventures, focusing on five areas, Adventure, Love, Art & Music, Economy and Philosophy. To these five areas, I have purposefully dedicated my life. This notion emanated from my belief that the human experience is driven by five innate momentums: physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. So, I desired to study, experience and understand these subjects, with the objective to understand not only the world around me, but to understand myself as well. Thus, these five areas of study match my innate momentums: adventure-physical, love-sexual , art & music-emotional, economy-intellectual, and philosophy-spiritual. This quest has led me to over 2450 of the world’s 3978 provinces, to every country on earth and to the summit of the highest peak on each continent (thank heaven for good weather!). In my travels, I learned to respect the intelligence and ingenuity of people of all races and callings both past and present. Come with me to see the world as I see it, if you will be so kind. Join me in re-examining our world and our selves, to contemplate how we can move to make our world a virtual Garden of Eden.
DISTINCTIONS: BBC 2017 Travel Pioneer • Journal Articles • Explorer’s Club Flag Expeditions • World Parks Project • Walk Across South America
Cambodia, Krong Pailin Prov, Girl And Brother
Latvia, Kuldiga Prov, River -
Greenland, Warming Island, off coast of Liverpool Land, Dennis Schmitt Leads Across Glacier, 2006 - On the afternoon of Sept 9. 2006, after the storm, Dennis leads a walk across the glacier to a point just above the new strait marking the birth of the world's newest island, a result of Global Warming.
Thailand, Sukhothai Prov, Buddha Faces Sky
Ghana, Berekum, Leather Salesman, 1987 - This man's facial scars were illustrative of a common practice among West Africans. I was told that parents would take a razor and scar their offspring at infancy. How interesting, I thought. If a parent did this in my home town in the western world, they would be imprisoned for a heinous crime. Yet for West African's it was a perfectly normal thing to do. Extrapolating on the phenomena of the inability of one culture to accept another's conventions, I am concerned of the ability of any world government to allow diversity of belief and cultural practices. Human beings have a tendency to believe there customs are the most acceptable. I later found out that these scars were performed with a special knife. Importantly, I am now told that such facial scarring is against the law in places like Ghana and Nigeria. I fear that such laws mark further politicizaion of local customs, engendering homogenization of the human race. I am opposed to such laws, laws that criminalize ancient customs that are not inherently harmful to a person's survival. For those in the Western world that do not agree with me, simply observe that male circumcision is widely an accepted practice in the West, but is no less inherently dangerous or disfuring than facial scarring.
Cambodia, Banteay Mean Chey Prov, Captive Ducks
Bactrophora Dominans, as collected in 2014.
I collected this specimen deep within the Meseta. This is the first Bactrophora Dominans ever found in Venezuela. Only a few collected specimens exist in the world. A paper was written and published in Check List, a scientific journal.
Slovenia, Lasko Prov, Arched Bridge
Chile, Antofagasta Prov, Lenticular Landscape
Curve, 1998