Hello all...

Well, after a year and a half of exile from the net(self-imposed, might I add), I have returned with a vengeance. OK, maybe more of a wimper, but things are gonna be changing here. Slowly but surely this whole damn site will be rearranged... OK, not even rearranged, but MANGLED! That's right. All the links will still work, but there will be MORE! And I'm not just talking more links(of which there will also be plenty), but I've decided to focus more on Content... And, my friends, content is King. OH, and the topics will have changed. You see, a lot has changed in the last year and a half, I have changed quite a bit, both philosophically, spiritually, and politically. Here's the ways in which I have changed(just a quick run-down... The devil's in the details, and he'll be comin' later)

1. Spirituality:
   The biggest change in my world-view is spirituality. I am no longer a Christian. However, this doesn't mean I am an atheist, nor am I a new-ager, nor a buddhist, nor a hindu, nor muslim, nor jew, nor agnostic, nor gnostic. Neither deist nor satanist am I... Neah, I am a Pantheist, and this will be one of the major focii of my site. I will be adding some general links to some pantheist sites on the net(and of course, many other religious sites)... Though I do not believe in any of the other religions listed above, I am interested in what they have to say(though I may not agree with them all) The primary of those is Buddhism. Very interesting indeed...
   
2. Philosophically:
   I have become a materialist. I do not believe in a spiritual plane(except for the fact that the spirit is all around us... The universe is the "Word made flesh") We(as in you and I) aren't an entity separate from the world. The self is not some spirit from beyond, rather it is a collection of processes in the mind, neurons rapidly firing signals back and forth creating consciousness... I am still an extropian, also.
   
3. Politically:
   I have moved to the left. I wouldn't call myself a liberal... No. But I don't think I could call myself an "anarcho-capitalist" anymore. I think I would still consider myself pretty libertarian, but I like to think of my current view as "progressive libertarian" I still don't have this part of my life fully fleshed out, and my political philosophy is still in a state of flux(will it ever stabilize? probably not, for I am one who not only adapts to change, but embraces it.) I guess what I mean by progressive libertarian does not mean that I'm liberal(like a progressive would think of the term), but more of a moderate, of course, leaning to the left.

OK, now for a few other things... A couple other big changes have happened within the past year. The first being my move to Madison(due to the move of our band, which was Corduroy Joy, and then donnareed, and then... NOTHING!!! that's right, that's the second big change here. We have officially broken up. No hard feelings, just different ways to go. Two of the band members moved back to Door County(Matt and Kit), and Tony and I have stayed in Madison. And, it's moving time, so things are going to be a little hectic for a while. The need for a new exhaust system on my car(sorry Mother(as in Earth)), the need for rent money, the need to clean my room, the need to clean my freakin' car, the need to be responsible for once... OK, anyways, this is just to let you know that it won't be until a while that my page is really worked on hard-core(and even then, it might be tough as I settle into my new job working with an appraisal company.) But here's the major concept of what I plan to do...

A complete redesign of my pages. And I hate to say this, but in order to see them in all their glory, you're gonna need Internet Explorer 4.0... Now, this is not my choice, but Netscape doesn't properly implement Cascading Style Sheets. CSS is a new feature to web design which gives one greater control of the presentation of their pages, and I plan on using it. I really hope that Communicator 5.0(which is free btw... I'll have more to write on that, also), will implement it properly. Apparently, the hold-up w/proper implementation is the way they have tied CSS into their JavaScript engine. Both Netscape and Microsoft have claimed dedication to CSS, but it's harder for NS to implement. I have faith that in time they will. And when NS Communicator 5.0 comes out, I will definitely return to that browser(I hope...), but until then, I'm using MS, because it has more features, and it truly is a superior browser IMO. I REALLY HATE SAYING THAT, because I don't particularly care for Microsoft. When I run Communicator, it really likes to crash on me, but MSIE rarely crashes. Well, I guess I should really shut up now. I do urge you to support v5.0 of Communicator, because it will truly revolutionize the industry(well, it's a small step at first, but yet very large)... It is the first major commercial company that I'm aware of that will use the FreeSoftwareFoundation concept of the "CopyLeft" Freely distributed source code, and freely distributed software. I will have more links in regards to this change in future updates.

One thing I plan on doing is a sort of "dummies/idiots" guide to computers for newbies. I want to start with the basic concepts of what a computer does, and explain how the computer works(binary number system, I/O, OS's, hardware, software, programming concepts, etc... Just something for the beginner. Simple GUI/Windowed concepts) Perhaps I would like submissions for this section... I'm not sure yet, but I really think I would do that. It could be a great resource for people new to computers.

Well, I guess that's as much as I can think of for now. I hope you will enjoy this site as much as I enjoy bringing it to you. It's going to take up a lot of my time to really get this going, but in the end I think it'll be worth it. Oh, and my friend Brent Gustafson has just got a job with ImationStudios this past month doing web-page design. He's got a new site started(well, if you can even call it started) Check out his new page at www.vitaflo.com It's only an opening page so far, but it's already lookin' decent.