OK, Mr. Fancy Pants, why a website?
Excellent question. I thought you'd never ask. So, here's the story:
For a long time, I used to post my photographs on the web, using two neat applications: iPhoto to edit them and iWeb to post them. It was easy and seamless, and I loved the way the photos looked on the web, where family and friends could look at them and, if they wanted, download them. So far, so good.
Then the folks at Apple started messing with me. In one of their many changes, designed to keep us all on our toes—and to increase their profits—they made the iWeb route impossible. That application still existed on my computer, but Apple no longer provided the space in the cosmos for those photos to live. So I had to look around for a web hosting company. That didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Then I stumbled across Weebly, which made it pretty easy even for a dolt like me to create a website.
In fact, Weebly made it so easy that it seemed a shame to pay them just for a place to post my photos. So I decided to use it for other purposes as well:
Paragraphs
During my decades in the paragraph factory, I wrote hundreds of thousands of words, on subjects ranging from school board and town board meetings to presidential elections, papal visits, and serial killers. Thanks to my compulsions, I saved them all, though I have no idea why. They sit in chronological order in a file cabinet in a closet. Once in a while, when I'm looking for a specific piece among that yellowing pile of clips, I read some of the more obscure articles, and I think: "Oy! This is a cure for insomnia." But there are other pieces that I'm happy to acknowledge as my own. So I thought I'd put a few of them on the website for friends and family—from my final two decades at Newsday, on the religion beat, and then the editorial board. If you pull down the Paragraphs menu, you'll see sub-menus for articles and columns, with further sub-menus, by broad subject area. The Paragraphs menu also has a sub-menu called Books, where you can read about my three worst-sellers.
Videos
Some of these are family videos. Others come from various corners of the web, covering subjects such as baseball, criminal justice, war and peace, and politics—the stuff that dominates my conversation. If you're looking for YouTube videos of playful cats or reality TV, you'll have to try another website.
For a long time, I used to post my photographs on the web, using two neat applications: iPhoto to edit them and iWeb to post them. It was easy and seamless, and I loved the way the photos looked on the web, where family and friends could look at them and, if they wanted, download them. So far, so good.
Then the folks at Apple started messing with me. In one of their many changes, designed to keep us all on our toes—and to increase their profits—they made the iWeb route impossible. That application still existed on my computer, but Apple no longer provided the space in the cosmos for those photos to live. So I had to look around for a web hosting company. That didn't work out as well as I had hoped. Then I stumbled across Weebly, which made it pretty easy even for a dolt like me to create a website.
In fact, Weebly made it so easy that it seemed a shame to pay them just for a place to post my photos. So I decided to use it for other purposes as well:
Paragraphs
During my decades in the paragraph factory, I wrote hundreds of thousands of words, on subjects ranging from school board and town board meetings to presidential elections, papal visits, and serial killers. Thanks to my compulsions, I saved them all, though I have no idea why. They sit in chronological order in a file cabinet in a closet. Once in a while, when I'm looking for a specific piece among that yellowing pile of clips, I read some of the more obscure articles, and I think: "Oy! This is a cure for insomnia." But there are other pieces that I'm happy to acknowledge as my own. So I thought I'd put a few of them on the website for friends and family—from my final two decades at Newsday, on the religion beat, and then the editorial board. If you pull down the Paragraphs menu, you'll see sub-menus for articles and columns, with further sub-menus, by broad subject area. The Paragraphs menu also has a sub-menu called Books, where you can read about my three worst-sellers.
Videos
Some of these are family videos. Others come from various corners of the web, covering subjects such as baseball, criminal justice, war and peace, and politics—the stuff that dominates my conversation. If you're looking for YouTube videos of playful cats or reality TV, you'll have to try another website.