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Shameless
About This Website
In 1999, nine months after moving to San Francisco with my first boyfriend, our six-year relationship suddenly ended, and I found myself single in a city where I knew almost nobody. I happened to have a lot of free time on my hands, and with idle hands being the devil's workshop and all, I thought it a good idea to keep myself busy, so I decided to build a website. This may not seem like a big deal, but keep in mind it was a much different Internet back then. Few people owned computers, and most of those who did connected to the Internet using a dial up modem because DSL was either too expensive or not available and cable Internet was still a few years away from mainstream use. For many people, the 1999 Internet was little more than a way to communicate with people they didn't see very often. Although some businesses had websites (mostly large companies with the financial resources to invest in Internet marketing), e-commerce was in its infancy. Amazon was a brand new company, Google was in its Beta phase, Facebook didn't even exist, and most of the conveniences we associate with the Internet today were at least a decade away from being developed. (For an idea of what the Internet looked like back then, click on the Google image link below.) In 1999, personal websites containing only non-adult content were almost nonexistent. However, a few daring individuals had published websites containing information that was all and only about themselves, and many of those personal websites were as much inspired as they were inspiring. So, by deciding to build a website in which I rambled on and on about myself and only myself, I was quite literally ahead of my time.
The Devil's Workshop
That I could be ahead of my time was remarkable in and of itself, but the thing that was really remarkable about my decision to build a website in 1999 was that I had no idea how to do it. I didn't even know the first step. I had just purchased the first computer I ever owned, and I barely knew how to use it. I knew nothing about HTML. I didn't even know the language I would need to learn to build a website was called HTML. Today, free resources to help anyone build a website are everywhere, from step-by-step instructions to ultimate guides to WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors, if you want to build a website, there are plenty of resources to help you build it for free. WYSIWYG Editors are point and click programs that allow someone to create webpages visually without having to deal with or even know the underlying code, and they are everywhere today. Microsoft Expression Web and Adobe Dreamweaver are two of the most well-known proprietary WYSIWYG editors, but this type of program is built into most website domain control panels, enabling anyone to build and publish a website. But in 1999, there were no step-by-steps, no ultimate guides, and no WYSIWYGs, and I was stuck before I even got started. But I was determined, so I bought a book and used it to teach myself what I needed to know.
A few weeks later, I had created a simple website. It wasn't much, a few pages I used to describe myself (a regular guy) and my worldview (his irregular thoughts).
That website was the original version of this one.
About This Website
This website improves upon the original in several ways. I have expanded on my original talking points and have added many more, providing much more of the personal details about me, my life, and my thoughts that will keep you interested enough to read my entire story and become my bigggest fan. This website's look and feel are similar to the original, but its appearance and functionality are completely different. Design elements new to this website include a personalized logo, effective navigation, cross links, shortcuts, sitemaps, and search capability. The small E-Mail and GaySite images that appear at the bottom of every page and the grey chain that appears in the header of every page and throughout the website I kept from the original website. All other design elements are new. I created the original website from scratch. To create a webpage, I opened a text editor and typed code. Later in the process, a few years after the original website was published, I redesigned it using Microsoft Frontpage, the WYSIWYG editor that was the predecessor to Expression Web, which enabled me to improve its look and feel. For this version of the website, I used a template, a pre-designed set of webpages created using HTML and CSS, to which I added my content and images. Perhaps the most important difference between this website and the original is its name and corresponding url. Although the original website eventually incorporated the story of the Hundredth Monkey, that didn't happen until several years after the initial publication. The title of that website referred, instead, to one of its major themes, a theme that is still present in this website, only not so prominent.
The purpose of this website is the same as the original, to tell my story. My intention is the same as it was when I built the original website in 1999, to introduce myself, to allow you to get to know me, to learn what kind of person I am, how I think, and what I think about how I think. I'm very candid in the telling of my story, and if you read it through til the end, you will learn quite a lot about me, undoubtedly more than you think you will and probably more than you want to. You'll read about many of my life experiences and what I learned from them. In particular, you'll read about an experience that changed my life forever, the night I learned a new definition to an old word.
One of the most improved upon elements of this website is its navigation. There are two navigational menus. The top navigational menu will take you to every page in the website, although it may take a couple of clicks to get to some of them. The Home button returns you to the home page, the first page you encountered after the Hundredth Monkey story. About Me is a menu that links to several pages of information that provide a great deal of information about me, particularly focusing on my personal beliefs on various topics. The Personal menu links to pages that provide a great deal more personal information about me. Make sure you are ready to read what these pages have for you to read because I hold nothing back. The various links in the Rants menu provide my beliefs and opinions on a variety of diverse topics. Finally, sitemaps to all individual pages and the informational pages of their titles are provided at the end of the top navigational menu. The side navigational menu contains shortcuts to pages from each section of the top navigational menu. These vary from page to page. The last section of the side navigational menu contains links to various outside resources. These links are the same on every page.
There are three things that might aid in your understanding of the complexities involved in the telling of my story.
1. This website is my slice of cyberspace, my home on the Internet. In my home, I'm always the king. What I say goes. With this in mind, I present my story my way. Some visitors might find me entertaining, maybe even funny. Other visitors will find me a little strange, probably even offensive. Enter at your own risk. If you love what you see, please feel free to send me an email using the link at the bottom of each page. If you don't like what you see here, fuck off. When you have put as much effort into developing a personal website in which you put as much of yourself out there as I have in this website, you'll understand just how meaningless other people's criticism is.
2. I tell my story from a male perspective. I often refer to third parties as if they are male, sometimes even when I know they're female. The primary reason for employing this technique is that it avoids the grammatically correct yet always awkward "he or she" and "him or her" while also enabling me to present my story from a decidedly male perspective, which I hope will allow you to gain a better understanding of how I view the world.
3. I state many things as fact throughout this website. Sometimes I provide a credible source to back up my statement. Sometimes I provide a questionable source. Sometimes I don't bother to provide a source. Just because I don't cite a source doesn't mean it isn't factual, but I sometimes state my opinion as if it's a fact. This may confuse some of you. It has definitely confused me. Pay attention!
What to Expect
Within the pages of this website, I discuss a wide range of topics, from my experiences growing up in a small country town to my views on organized religion to my insights into bullying and my observations on the use of umbrellas on a rainy day. All personal websites like this are one-of-a-kind creations. After all, the particular set of topics discussed here are unique to me, each chosen because it relates to my life in some way. So, I can guarantee, this website is like no other. I just can't promise you'll find any of it interesting. What I can promise is that the unique range of topics discussed makes this website unique in its own right.
This website is many things at once:
A Random website about a random guy. To a computer, there's no such thing as random. There are algorythmns that simulate randomness, but they all involve some sort of calculation based on a finite number. The same is true of the world wide web. There's nothing random about the order of the links produced by a search engine. Ultimately, the randomness of any website depends upon how the rest of the Internet links to it. When setup correctly, a website's backlinks can drive visitors to the site, increasing the size of its audience and its popularity. Search engine optimization, the process of increasing the quality and quantity of a website's traffic by increasing its visibility in unpaid search engine results (Beel, Gipp, & Wilde, 2010), is an important consideration for business websites where increased traffic often leads to increased revenue. For a personal website like this one, it's not so important. It's too soon to know where search engines will place this website in their lists, but I do know it is more likely than not that you found a link to it on some other site, which makes it not so random at all.
A way to connect with an Internet audience. This website allows me to communicate with you via webpages and you to communicate with me via the email link at the bottom of every page. This communication forges a connection between us. When I published the original version of this website in 1999, I received very engaging responses from men all over the world. I put my thoughts into the Internet consciousness and received the thoughts of other men as a reward. That's the way it's supposoed to work, and for me, that's what it's all about.
My contribution to the World Wide Web. My original plan was for a blog section, but I scrapped that plan when I realized all I was doing on the blog pages was ranting. The original blog section is the current Rants section. This is a personal website, and it is connected to other personal websites, all of which are connected to more personal websites. People publish personal websites for a variety of reasons, such as enhancing their career, adverstising their skills or services, showcasing their work, or expressing their opinions. For me, it's shameless self-promotion.
A way to attract others with similar interests. One of the benefits of building a personal website like this one is that I can make the website whatever I want it to be. For instance, I can create strategic backlinks on variously themed gay websites to attract other gay men with interests similar to my own, sexual or otherwise, a useful benefit anyway you look at it. I would like to point out the difference between self-adulation and self-promotion (shameless or not). Self-adulation focuses on one's accomplishments, and it involves bragging about things that have already been done. Self-promotion focuses on sharing thoughts, ideas, concepts, and perhaps a greater vision, and it invovles giving other people something to think about, which with any luck might inspire hope, thought, or action. I say self-promotion is always shameless because it assumes one's thoughts and ideas will inspire others, but then again, good ideas always inspire something. I don't know what, if anything, in this website could inspire anything in anyone, but it is my hope that something here will help you view the world in a new way.
Homage to my favorite musical artists: I am a huge fan of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, otherwise known as the Pet Shop Boys. I've been a huge fan of the band since the first time I heard "West End Girls". That was 1985, and I was sixteen at the time. Since then, I have grown and matured as their music has grown and matured. The intensity of their lyrics and insidious rhythm of their music calms and excites me at the same time. For the last thirty-five years, their songs have provided me with entertainment while also providing inspiration when I've needed it. Many times when I've felt challenged by a problem, one of their songs have hit home and helped me see the problem from a different perspective. Their songs have helped me through grief, paranoia, bad presidents, and many other challenges I've experienced as an adult. I've woven my admiration of their music into the very fabric of this website by employing two website design characteristics. The title of every page in this website (except the index page and home page) is the name of a Pet Shop Boys song. I've tried to choose song titles that are appropriate to the page content, but I admit my success in this endeavor is not as great as I'd like it to be. Also on every page is a link to information about the song.
I have put together a website that is like no other. That is not to say I think it's the most enjoyable, most interesting, or most anything. I'm only saying I think it is unique. Some of the things that add to its supposed uniqueness include the two design elements mentioned above. To my knowledge, no other website ever created employs either of these design characteristics. Another unique quality is the websites's tone and structure. I discuss an immense amount of personal information in this website, things that I've only ever shared with my closest friends. I do this because I believe I have a unique perspective on life that someone out there somewhere might relate to, and it's important to get that perspective to him. Let me be clear, I believe everyone has a unique perspective on life, and I also believe everyone should share that perspective with as many people as possible. Remember, this is the website of the hundredth human, who represents the idea of sharing information to bring about new awareness.
It is my hope that, as you read the pages of this website, you will connect with the things I say and the ideas I express. If you find something particularily interesting and would like to discuss it with me further or have positive thoughts you'd like to share with me, please feel free to use the email link at the bottom of each page. I am always realistic, and I'm sure there will be some who disagree disagree with some of the things I say or find me offensive and want to tell me about it. To those people, I suggest you build a website, invest the time and energy that I have to build this one, and share as much of yourself as I have here, then buzz the fuck off. Once you've gone through the trouble to put your life and your thoughts into the Internet sphere for anyone and everyone to see, you'll realize just how meaningless the opinions of negative nellies are.
Beel, J., Gipp, B., & Wilde, E. (2010). Academic Search Engine Optimization (ASEO). Journal of Scholarly Publishing, 41(2), 176-190. doi: 10.3138/jsp.41.2.176
The design of this webpage is based on a template by Alpha Studio