Hello!  My name is Edwin Alexander and I must have created and recreated this website at least a dozen times over the years, always thinking I knew what I wanted to say and what I wanted to do.  At first, back in 1993, it was simply a lot of pictures and hyperlinks with absolutely nothing of merit.  Then, after slowly coming to the realization that people will visit only if there's some kind of content, it became a way for my students to keep track of things in the classes I taught.  At least I could ensure a certain readership, if only a forced one.  For a while, it became a vehicle for keeping my employers informed about my activities, none of whom ever bothered to check.  Then, thinking that everyone would want to benefit from my sardonic wit, it became a site for downloading humorous pictures and sound clips and a place for oddball stories from my past and those of my friends.  So this website is really the fifth generation of an evolving idea -- from spastic hyperlinking, to student information, to useless content, to bad humor, to this.  Well, we live, we learn, and we hopefully benefit from our mistakes and grow.  I've gotten to the point where I realize that I'm not nearly as funny as Dave Barry, I've got nothing really important to say, and my life is only marginally more interesting than reading a book on 17th century Scandinavian poets.  Unless, of course, you like 17th century Scandinavian poetry, in which case I profusely apologize and attest to the stature and genius of the Scandinavian literary giants.  Both of them.  As you can tell, I'm still working on the sardonic wit. 

In the end, it's the height of unmitigated hubris for anyone to actually put up a personal website, especially if he or she actually anticipates that people will come visit and read the contents.  Not wanting to shy away from a challenge, my battered ego managed to force forth enough hubris to give this new iteration of my website a try.  The challenge was not to just put up content, but the right kind of content.  Therein lied my dilemma.  And then it hit me out of the blue -- create a website for me, not for an anticipated readership.  So I've got my hobbies and interests posted, mainly to attract others who might want to trade stamps and such with me.

Thanks for visiting my website and please drop me a line if you feel like it.  I always like hearing from people.  I'm also on ICQ as 19524329.  Happy surfing!

By the way, I've become a strong advocate of the open source applications Firefox and Thunderbird.  I switched to Firefox back in mid-2004 when Microsoft had more-serious-than-usual problems with the gaping security holes in Internet Explorer.  I love Firefox as a browser, especially the tabbed browsing ability.  Given my good experience with Firefox, I decided to try out Thunderbird, the companion e-mail application.  It's a great application, both versatile and stable.  The Mozilla Organization did a great job at creating what I think is a superior browser as well as an e-mail client that rivals Outlook in power while not having the bloat.  If you're ready for a refreshing change, try them out -- they're free and they're better.