There's no rhyme or reason here, just a bunch of places that I found interesting.

Boats

I grew up in the boat manufacturing business. But I haven't owned a boat in years. I hope to some day retire to a small lake in Arkansas and own this boat. It isn't beautiful but it sure is rugged. William Least Heat Moon, wrote about crossing America - with a little cheating - in one.

Photography is a hobby. This Atlanta-based camera store is my favorite by far. It mostly does business by Web and telephone.

 And for some photos by me, click here.

Here are a few more: click here.

Everyone has a hero. When it comes to writing about technology this guy is my hero.

Shortwave Radio

I'm a ham radio operator (KQ4YA) but I also enjoy listening to the shortwave bands.

The Web has plenty of information about shortwave listening, but if you are interested but know nothing at all about it - my explanation here may help.

The Web

Ever want to take a look back to see how the Web looked in the earliest days? This is a terrific site, an archive of the Web at various points in time.

I admit it. I'm not good at math. So I collected some of the various calculators from around the Web and put them on this page. With them, you can figure percentages, mortgage payments, even how old you would be if you lived on Mars.

This is a handy page too. If you know the telephone number, you can use this page to find out the name of the person who has that number.

The Atkins Chronicle is a small and terrific newspaper in the Arkansas town of Atkins (that's where they invented fried pickles, or so I remember). It's run by an old friend and former co-worker, Van Tyson. Van left the city behind and moved to Atkins where a guy can edit a newspaper and play the trombone.

What's a dead media? This page will reintroduce you to the typewriter, the telegraph, the mechanical calculator and even carrier pigeons. It's called the Dead Media Project.

This is the spot on the page where I used to say "I dream about early retirement - although I know full well that I'll probably be tottering along to the newspaper when I am using a walker". Turns out, my dreams came true. I did take early retirement - but I still write the two technology columns as a contractor for the newspaper. So I'm sort of retired. But when I'm really and truly retired, here's where I'd like to live, on one of the three lakes there. A perfect place to use the C-dory boat.

Travel

Meanwhile, Mary and I are really enjoying the time we have now. You can click here to check out some of our recent trips.

Other stuff

This is a page that tells a little bit about growing up in Arkadelphia, Ark. Unless you're a close friend or family member, I doubt that it will mean much to you.

I always started my day at the newspaper checking out a few news sites. I enjoy the Drudge site as well as CNN. For an insider's view on the news business, I check out this site. I still read Drudge and CNN but find that, as times go on, I don't check the news business site as much anymore.

English is my second language, I grew up in Arkansas. But when I need to muddle my way through something written in German, Spanish or French, I try various Web translation sites, including the one that Google offers here. How good is it? Not very. But sometimes it is good enough to at least make sense of a Web page or to find the meaning of a foreign-to-me word.

Maybe it'll work better for you and, if it does, you can translate this.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of this one or not. One of my columns ended up in an literature textbook for high school students. But I was never sure if it was listed as a good example, or a bad one. All I have are scans of the four pages. And it's not real easy to read from the scanned pages. You're welcome to try.

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