Philip Stobo B.Ed., M.Ed.

Welcome to my HomePage. Originally, this page was set up as part of a project to get the school I was teaching at (John Ware Junior High), on the internet. That was in '94 (see John Ware's '95 webpage). The project went well. We were the first school in Calgary to have a school HomePage, first with internet access for all the computers on our network, and first with an E-mail address and HomePages for each of our students. A lot has happened since then, and the page has evolved away from computers and into a trip log for sailing adventures aboard Madgic Spell, a Macgregor 26x. BTW There are things other than sailing that I enjoy. I am also using this site to promote my Disk Jockey service, Rock & Roll to go, on line.

I was lucky to get into teaching micro computers long before most people, and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I started teaching junior high students about micro computers in '81. I was at Ian Bazalgette Junior High. We used the Sinclair computer. It had 1k of RAM, ran at 1 MHz and we used old 26 inch black and white TVs as the monitors. Programs were saved on cassette tapes, so I remember one of our first projects was to make music videos. The students would use timing loops in BASIC to synchronise simple graphics, to music they would play on the cassette decks. The final product was saved on 3/4 inch video tape.

Later we got a lab of Apple IIs, and I installed "sneaker net." Students would pass a disk around that had our E-mail program and each student's E-mail data on it. The disk allowed students to write e-mail to anyone in the school. Later, I would even forward internet messages from the disk via my DEC 10 E-mail account, that was in the Mid '80s. In '88, I decided to go back to school and finish my Masters degree in Computer Applications. At that time, I also decided to have a sailing adventure in the Caribbean, on my own yacht. Unfortunately, I did not have a yacht, much less know how to sail one. In fact, I did not even know how to swim.

A few slides from the Bahama Adventure

So that is where the 10 year odyssey began, to learn to sail (and swim), purchase a yacht, and take it to the Caribbean. I joined the Canadian Power and Sail Squadrons, partly to learn how to sail, and partly to find out what kind of people have yachts and take sailing adventures. I had expected they would be very rich, but no, they are just very determined. In '94 I started a deferred salary plan to take the '98/'99 school year off to sail in the Caribbean and in the spring of '96, I purchased Madgic Spell.

Learning to sail on the lakes

The first year I had Madgic Spell, I lake sailed. Here is a picture of Madgic Spell on Ghost lake with my Niece, Murielle, at the helm while my Sister, Annette, supervises. The second year, I took Madgic Spell out to the Gulf Islands. I had been out there several times before, but never in such a small boat and never as captain. You can follow the link to see some pictures and stories from that trip.

The next year it was the big adventure to the Bahamas. That trip taught me a bit more about sailing, but it also taught me that I am more of a teacher than a pirate captain, and how important it is to follow you heart. My only regret was that it took me a bit too long to fulfill that dream.