Why A Personal Web Site?
A large part of a personal web site is simply the elemental pleasure of self-expression,
of writings which might, at one time, have gone into a personal journal, with no visibility at all.
The privilege of actual publication, and so a wider audience, is only granted to few, and yet perhaps to too many.
But a personal web site at least makes one's written thoughts accessible to others;
they can then dispose of them as they wish - read, respond, or ignore.
Sometimes that does feel like a tree falling in the forest: "if no one hears it, does it make a sound?"
At least written words are less evanescent than spoken ones; there's always the delusional hope that they have some meaning and will be read sometime by someone.
The curmudgeon in me says that maybe with so much talking and so little listening going on these days, it may only be me talking to myself.
But there's also the appeal of building and controlling one's own little universe, at a time when so much of life demands compromises, accomodation or obeysance, if attention is paid at all.
Here I can write what I want, in the style that I want, whether it's pedestrian or has occasional insight.
Another part is simply the enjoyment of writing some code, just like I used to do before retirement, even it it's now only html instead of C, or Pascal, or some other computational language.
This includes trying out some new (to me) features, like embedded music, or animation.
Can frames be far behind?
Then there's the cataloging of information, like lists of favorite music and wine.
I make use of these myself, so why not make them accessible to others as well?
Over time, after hydra-headed Google discovered my site, and stored various odd references in its gargantuan database, another unanticipated pleasure emerged:
Responses from folks who discovered something of common interest on the site and then began a correspondence.
For example (of course without the names):
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From my time as a machine vision engineer at Automatix in the 1980s, a former engineer who was then a customer of the company's products and of my own work.
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Someone looking for old family records in Germany, doing a search on the village name "Neuenhagen", where I had grown up as a small child.
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A university researcher seeking primary sources, people who had experienced the war and the time directly afterward.
I was able to give a pointer to what was likely to be a helpful site.
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A professional musician specializing in 20th-century harpsichord music, finding my web pages on the subject, which included references to her recordings.
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A fellow enthusiast of "Listening with Watson", a unique radio music program in New York in the 1960s, in the hope of confirming a particular phrase from that time.
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A phone call for the store hours of Karl's Sausage Kitchen in Saugus.
I had cited and praised the store deep within my Recipes section.
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A contemporary composer whose music I liked and whom I had mentioned within my music pages.
She was captivated by my Reminiscences and sent me a very complimentary email about the writing.
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The Reminiscences do it again!
In my recounting of junior high school days I mentioned a name that stuck in my consciousness, never imagining that Google would find and reference it.
This time someone doing a search for a high school friend found the page and sent an email asking if I had any contact information.
The most fascinating contact of all came before I had set up the web site, but still through the Internet.
Someone was performing a search, for her brother, of email addresses with my name, looking for the person who had been friends with that brother back in 1949 in Bremerhaven, Germany, as 10-year-old schoolmates,
and who had then left for the United States.
Although not all of the old impressions matched up, there were more than enough to confirm that I was that very person.
We've been in touch by mail ever since.
Last updated 6/14/06
(Original Jan. 2003, revised and moved May 2005)