Re: Once Upon A Time ...

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: Hiya, Ilse & Chris!

: Thank you ~ I sure do appreciate your comments. It almost makes me want to .... :) Thanks for suffering through an UNEDITED, UNAPPROVED, ill-begotten read! So nice to be missed, miss(es).

: {Rich, been snooping around my princess diary again, huh? Huh, huh? Can't a girl have any privacy on the internet anymore!}

: Lainey- still TGAT twisted sister of Lady Ann & Doc M.

: 
: : An unedited excerpt from the once-to-be, maybe-still-will-be, forthcoming(?) ... "On The Trail ... The Companion Guide":

: : _________________________________________________________________

: :       Virtual Community Or Virtually A Nightmare

: :       
: :         The age of exploration revisited during the sunset of the 20th century as a new
: : frontier opened itself with explosive possibilities. Previous eras had their Marco Polo�s
: : and Prince Henry�s; we had our Bill Gates. Thanks to Bill, trailblazing was chic again.
: : History was alive! Explorers. Discoverers. Exploiters. Expansionists. They were now in
: : vogue and we were to become a bit of them all as we staked a claim in the vast, uncharted
: : internet territory, pitching a tent called mohicanpress.com. With a photographic guide
: : book to sell, we mapped out the quickest spice route and set out for the market, slowly
: : building what was to become a virtual community, though we hadn�t the slightest clue
: : what that was. In ignorant bliss, we had thought of ourselves as mere carpetbaggers only
: : to discover imperialistic colonialism could still thrive in cyberspace.
: :           
: :          As explained in �From Mohican Land To Mohicanland,� our cyber-odyssey began
: : before we knew we were traveling it. Moving south from New York�s historic Hudson
: : Valley to western North Carolina, we found ourselves in the heart of the film locale for
: : Michael Mann�s �The Last of the Mohicans.� We remained accidental tourists for awhile.
: : We�d read about the filming and looked forward to its release, but there was no plot to
: : take up a LOTM connection or track down film sites. We were focused on other joys of
: : southern living like how to plant vegetables in red cement, how to summer in a sauna
: : without melting, and acquainting ourselves with millions of species of garden-eating
: : insects not yet discovered beyond the Carolinas. We were in pre-LOTM mode. Rich was
: : learning the art of Kudzu wrestling, and I, the art of southern hospitality, courtesy of the
: : local Welcoming Committee president. �I�ve always said it would be nice to have more
: : Med-eye-terranean people in the area.� Our Eye-talian family was among the fastest
: : growing groups of foreigners in the county, second only to the Japanese Kudzu. It wasn�t
: : long before we started bagging those carpets.

: :         In 1993, Rich discovered he had an obsession. In 1993, I discovered VCRs had
: : faulty rewind mechanisms. About that same time, our children discovered family outings
: : were something to dread. The Film Site Scouting and Mission Impossible phases are
: : recounted elsewhere so I�ll jump ahead to the Personal Computer phase, but before I do, I
: : should note signs of addiction were evident in these early days. When one person
: : single-handedly raises the price of stock for Mystic Color Lab you�ve got a potential
: : problem. When that person decides mail order film developing no longer �does it� for him
: : and moves to the hard stuff  like One Hour Photo, you�ve got a crisis. Millions of
: : photographs later, we embarked upon the computer scene.
: :           I admit I was apprehensive about this new turn of events. Computer? I was opposed
: : to computers. They were so ... twenty-first century. So weird. So incomprehensible. I was
: : against them. I was still grappling with the wonders of radio, television, and telephones
: : and wasn�t eager to embrace sci-fi reality. Nonetheless, the computer age had arrived and
: : we were swept up in its path. Applying the old �if you can�t beat them, join them�
: : philosophy, I was going to give the PC its chance. As long as I didn�t actually have to
: : touch it, I reasoned, it could stay.
: :           There were logistics to work out, of course. I had to really think about this
: : remodeling project. Where does one put a Star Wars radar appliance in a home? Not the
: : kitchen. The food might get contaminated. Dining room? The nuke look wasn�t quite
: : right. The living room already had a radiation device and who knew what crossfire might
: : start up. Bedrooms ... bathroom ... barn? The excessive wires needed their own outlet.
: : That left the school room. It was going to have to share. The PC arrived and was pried
: : out of its Styrofoam fitting. I understood then that we were going for the pathology lab
: : look. Hmmmm. Not quite Art Noveau, not quite Art Deco. Just a drab lab look. There
: : wasn�t much to work with here so I just shoved everything to one side of the room and let
: : the radiation appliance have its space. I looked it over and thought, I could live with this.
: :             I adapted. It didn�t really seem too bad as long as we didn�t sit too close. Rich had
: : no misgivings. It was a new toy and he was going to have fun. Fine. Whatever. And then
: : he turned it on. And connected. Now I understood the lab look. In those early days of
: : home PC�s, the pre-Pentium device connected to the super-highway sound waves via a
: : five minute rocket launch. The screeching was awful. 

: : ________________________________________________________________

: : So true, so true ... Seems like eons ago! Whodda thunk!? Good job, Lainey! Brought ME back!        


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