The primaries have started and the campaigns for the presidential nominations are in full swing.

Over the last couple of days we've been watching quite a lot of television: campaign speeches, debates and news shows. C-SPAN, cable's political channel, provides 24/7 coverage of all things political which is great.

Yesterday we saw the results of the New Hampshire primary coming in. The CNN reporting was a lot more interesting than the coverage of the New Hampshire local channel, at least as long as Lou Dobbs wasn't talking.

I'm looking forward to a year of many election events and it's fascinating to follow all this... only 6 more days until Michigan.

One of the many highlights of our vacation in the Dominican Republic was a snorkeling trip to a reef in the ocean.

Some pictures of a wonderful adventure. The waterproof case of the camera was great.

Early in the morning a bus picked us up from the hotel and we went to beach about 30 minutes away. There we got in our swimsuits and got ready for the snorkeling...

...and for the speedboat!

It was a great experience to go with a speedboat on the open sea. There was pretty big waves so the boat was jumping on the ocean, and a view of the island was stunning.

We were with one other couple and a guide, who stopped after some 15 minutes at a buoy in the ocean. I don't have a picture of where we stopped, but above are some other boats in the area so you get an idea. It was cool to jump out of the boat in the middle of the sea.

A guide took a picture of us just before we jumped in.

We had a waterproof case for the camera so we were able to take pictures under water. Not many -- I choose to enjoy the view rather than spend a lot of time taking pictures.

Under water.

Fish.

A great trip... and great to be 'back home' in the hotel afterwards.

This afternoon we did some shopping in the outlets in Smithfield and we went for a walk in the Cliffs of the Neuse state park. It's a very nice park, not very big but pretty. It must be very nice in the spring also.

I'm still working on the pictures of Punta Cana... There is so much to do and think about.

A great article in the New York Times about electronic voting machines.

A very true statement:

"One might expect computer scientists to be fans of computer-based vote-counting devices, but it turns out that the more you know about computers, the more likely you are to be terrified that they’re running elections."