About This Web Site ...

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I really hate going to some web sites.  Sites where I have to wait and wait and wait for a dozen advertisements to download before I see anything useful.  Sites that throw up JavaScript windows advertising WebCams or other crap that I wouldn't have if it was free.  Sites that tell me I must have this "Plugin" or that "Plugin" to view anything, or that I "Must" enable cookies or I "Must" enable Java or JavaScript to use the site.  Sites that are nothing but one huge image map that takes forever to download, or sites with "Style Sheets" that never display properly in anything except one particular browser.  I leave and I don't go back!  There are too many other sites on the internet that are properly designed and properly behaved to put up with those sites.

(One thing, while I'm on the subject  If you are tired of those damn annoying pop-up windows you might want to take a look at the Mozilla browser.  Mozilla has always been at the heart of Netscape, but they have recently released their own browser.  It is about 1/2 the size of Netscape's latest and greatest, has all the bells and whistles of Netscape, is faster, does not have the AOL garbage or Real Player trash, and best of all can be configured to block pop-up windows!  It is free and can be downloaded from the Mozilla Web Site.   In the current version there are entries on the "Tools" menu that allows you to explicitly block popups, cookies, or images from a particular site (or alternatively unblock them), and this is one of the handiest features I have found on any browser.)

Web site developers tend to loose sight of the fact that the site visitors are the guests.  The guests are doing the site a favor by going there, not the other way around.  Web sites don't tell me how to configure my browser, I configure it the way I want to and the site will accomodate my settings or I don't go back.  That's why they are called "User Preferences" and not "Web Site Developer Preferences" in the browser configurations.

This site has no advertisements and it does not use Java or cookies.  Note that something in the Microsoft Internet Information Server that my web host uses sets a cookie called ASPSESSIONxxxxxxxxx.  This cookie is not being used for anything that I am aware of, it's just another example of Microsoft sticking their nose where it doesn't belong.  Feel free to block it, the site will still work exactly the same.  You won't see any missing links and "Click Here To Download The Plugin!" messages.  It sure as hell doesn't have any of those annoying pop-up windows!  At the time of this writing, it does not even have much JavaScript on it, and the items that do have JavaScript will also work just fine with it disabled.  I do use some ASP, however your browser sees this as pure HTML so there is no magic there at all (that is the major difference between ASP and Java or JavaScript; ASP pages are server-side pages and all of the work is done on the server.  Java and JavaScript are client-side pages and the work is done by your web browser.   ASP does NOT execute on your computer, it executes on the server and all your web browser sees is pure HTML code).   There is also a little bit of "CSS" or "Cascading Style Sheet" code, however it is used to enhance the pages and not as the basic structure for the pages.  If "Style Sheets" are disabled in your browser the pages will still display properly, just a little differently.

I will do nothing on this site that will adversely affect the operation of your computer, nor will I put anything on this site that writes anything to your computer except for the files that are held in your browser's cache.  I will not write code that favors one particular browser over another or will only run on a particular browser or requires plugin after plugin.  You can always come to this site with a generic web browser, or a fully-featured web browser with everything turned off, and the pages will work right.  You do not have to have cookies or Java or anything else enabled to visit this site.  It is a basic web page by design, and it will stay that way.

I have tried to keep the images small to keep the download times as short as possible.  Except for an animated logo or two the only large images are on pages that you have to explicitly download to view.  In short, I have tried to keep things as small and simple as I can, and make it the kind of site that I would like to visit.

I hope you enjoy your visit and will come back again sometime.