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The Ideas Behind this Website

This website has rattled around in my head for years. In 1994 a newspaper reporter asked me if I had a "personal" website. I had no idea what he expected a personal website to be. But I thank him now for the nudge. I still don't know what a personal website should be in any generic sense, but now I do know what mine should be.

It's an oxymoron, "personal website". What is less personal than a website? The idea gets right into the concepts and concerns about the Internet and privacy. I said, probably in 1996, "The Internet was the end of privacy." It is. So let's celebrate it.

We Americans live in an urban-dominated culture. To urban Americans privacy is critical. Without some they do not feel safe. Yet among nearly all Americans there is a fantasy about the "simple" places. At the holidays we exchange greeting cards with pictures of small snow-covered white churches set at the edges of village greens. Many Americans cling to this image and some even cling to the idea that one day they will leave the metro and live in such a place.

I do live in such a place - have for much of my life. There is no privacy here. We celebrate knowing about each other. Some might deny it, but everyone expects everyone to know something about most everyone else. Visual reprimands are shot at those who do not know that so-and-so died or the middle school principal retired.

An early idealistic concept on the Web was "global village". Yeah, it is a global village and in the village, everyone may know anyone.

Development of the Website

The website went live without much note - no party - in mid- 2005. There are no doubt some huge gaps, but then, "Life is uncertain. Eat desert first."

If the content is a little disjoint, you will have to forgive me. I build websites professionally. If this website was to be built at all it had to be fun even after spending fifty and sixty hours per week building other websites.

This website project was begun on December 31, 2000. Five years later I am still poking at it - a new picture here and an update there. The poems have become the busy part. I would like to get back to the essays.

Home Page Photo

Here is a photo of me at Taughannock Falls, a high, 215 foot waterfall, in my neighborhood. Dolores took this one in 2005.

I took the photo on the home page at a time when the amount of falling water was exceptional. My second most favorite photo shows the falls as a mere trickle with children directly under it. That photo is not on the website - can't find it.

The home page photo represents me well because I grew up adventuring in gorges and streams here in the Finger Lakes. I went far away for a long time and have returned to stay.

Tell me what you think about these photos. Tell me what you think about the "place" where you are.

If you have a favorite waterfall picture please send it to me and I will start a gallery of waterfall pictures. don@thisdonellis .com