In case you have been asking the burning question: “What about Bob?” Here’s the answer:

I’ve been on the Internet since 1992 when I got got my first account through Humboldt State Universtiy while I was teaching there in the Theater Dept. I would log on to their old Vax system and surf around using Gopher. It was heady times discovering all the remote files on servers around the globe. It felt like such a treasure hunt. Anybody remember InfoSlug at UC Santa Cruz? At home, I was also using my 300 baud modem to log on to various Bulletin Boards that I found. Even though it was all text, it was sometimes painfully slow, and the content often not interestin. But again, I thought it was so cool connecting with people over this Internet thing. I couldn’t get enough.

The next year, when someone showed Mosaic to me, (the first “popular: graphical web browser), I was really floored and began to see the future unfolding before me.

Somehow, I forced myself to learn HTML (by reading the source code of web pages), basic server technology and scripting. I made a painful transition from HSU to the private world and started building web sites. That was in 1995. I’ve worked on the web since then, though I did take a couple years off to sell real estate.

I now own a company called Morse Media where we produce and host web sites.

We also manage HumGuide, a community portal. HumGuide is not a business, as some believe. We barely make enough money off the Google ads and Enhanced Listings to pay for the hosting and maintenance time. But I have always felt HumGuide to be a valuable community resource. It gets thousands of visitors each week. People visit from all over the world to learn about our region. I didn’t create HumGuide. Andrew Jones did back in 1996. But I talked the company I worked for back then in to buying the site and then hire Andrew to manage it. He was getting tired of the volunteer hours it took to keep it running. After Andrew left the company we made some design and backend changes and expanded its services. In 2001 when my division got the axe as the corporation that owned HumGuide downsized, I talked them in to giving it to me so it wouldn’t disappear. We’ve recently redesigned it and made some technical improvements, moving it to the Drupal platform.

The last few years I’ve become interested in the skeptic movement and critical thinking. A few years ago I made my first trip to a skeptical conference in Las Vegas and have been inspired to become more than just a bystander and fan, but find ways to become more actively involved in the skeptical movement.

Several years ago, when my mother died as I watched over her, I found myself wanting to explore my own feelings toward death and look at societal attitudes toward dying. I created another website, Speaking of Death, and wrote columns in a local paper called Point of Departure that addressed many issues surrounding this ultimate mystery.  I am now working on compiling, editing and revising those columns and blog posts into a book.

As for this site, I have neglected it badly. But I have put some time into upgrading its system and hope to begin posting here more often.

 

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