Due to an unforunate accident, I had to recreate our home page but it needed replacing. So I found all of my previous web pages, ordered them and assembled them into this new home page.

Enjoy!

Introduction

We live in a Southwest Huntsville home. Not the biggest, it is ours and the bank's until 2008.

Unitarians

Bob is a Unitarian and likes to help the local congregation with directions and some ideas.

Good Places To Eat

A five star restaurant, the Villa Fiore is family owned and doesn't advertise ... it is known by word of mouth. Located two hours away in Nashville is the Stockyard a remarkably fine steakhouse. Then before it burned, Zestos was a well known eaterie at fivepoints. They have reopened in the renovated building.

Places that are missed

The first dedicated Vietnamese restaurant in Huntsville was the Siagon. They were on off-shoot of the Joy Luck on University and eventually merged back into their University facility. The first five star restaurant my wife and I enjoyed in Huntsville was the former Green Bottle Grill on Airport Road.

When I worked in DC, a favorite microbrewery was Brardo's Rodeo where I frequently enjoyed their fine beverages. I also enjoyed the hospitality of friends and coworkers during the holidays. This included my Vietnamese landlord and lady with family.

The Curse of SPAM

My e-mail account costs $240 per year and not here to be an informericial, frauds, theives and pornographer's channel. Yet the SPAM appologists continue to claim a non-existent right of for commercial speech. If my account were free, they would be right but as long as I pay, it is mine and not the property to be abused by others.

At one time, I tried to design systems that would allow my e-mail account to be known publicly yet keep SPAM isolated. I even started prototyping systems to make this work. But these designs led to some form of web-based, mail reader with a "white list" that had to be maintained. The only alternative is to adopt the 'unlisted phone' number and an unattended answering machine which is what I use today.

Today, I use use a disposable bwilson4use@hotmail.com account for my USENET and Web MAILTO tags. It would fill with SPAM and I would clean it out every two or three weeks. I enjoyed the poetic justice of a Microsoft system paying the price. However, Microsoft has improved the hotmail reader with better SPAM filtering (still not enough) and it now offers a "white list" capability. Although 'less bad', it is still inadequate for a primary e-mail account.

Bob's Work

I've been blessed to be employeed on some of the most enjoyable tasks available ... my work is my hobby. So when I'm spending uncompensated time on work or work-like tasks, I'm just indulging my hobby ... I'm 'playing.'

Password protecting web pages

I recently wrote instructions on how to password protect web pages at HiWAAY. Unlike many excellent web pages that discuss how to do this, I took more of a cookbook approach written for inexperienced unix users. The test username is 'demo' and the password is 'haha': I've also written some simplified instructions for unix backup and restore.

Hardware stuff

My first love is working with hardware, directly with chips and parts including:

Networking

I had the honor and pleasure of working with a great team at NASA HQ and made this Quicktime movie showing my office. There have been experiments with CGI programs such as an IP management system with some backend code. My first and longest running CGI efforts is a network test page. Then there is testing some IP telephones and becoming the secretary for NANPRO.

Other interests

Recently, we got a nice digital camera Fuji 4700 and tried to get some moon shots. Hypertension should be a joint patient and doctor effort. Repairing an espresso machine is easier if documented by digital photos. Art, especially dynamic works, are best shown in motion. We also enjoy fishing and head boat trips. Over time, I figured out how to brew beer and save labor.

There was one effort, forming a Huntsville Narcolepsy Group that didn't work out. All I know is the other two narcoleptics I thought I was working with went "schitzoid" on me. I did some research on a European narcolepsy drug, Adrafinil, which is part of the Provigil family.

Programming is easy once you've seen the pattern and this is the start of a tutorial on C. However, things got busy and I got to come back to Huntsville.

Former Square Dancer

Until Holly's knees went bad, we used to square dance with Brindlee, Rotary Spinners and Motivators.

Partisan Democrat, Fiscal Conservative

In November 1972, I voted in my first presidential election, a Marine stationed in Okinawa Japan, I voted my concience and self-interest for George McGovern. But I never felt a need to be political until the 2000 election when the wrong man thwarted democracy and took office. Since then, I've enjoyed teasing Republican partisans with contributions in their name and the occasional Republican Party fund raising letter. The lies of gun nuts remains a problem because they ignore the 'beams' of bodies for the 'motes' of all but invisible crime prevention. The worst has been the irresponsible Republican fiscal policies that are driving us to a terrible day of reconning. Elizaeth Warren who speaks the truth to power.

Family Pages

My family and relatives:

hsv.generals

For quite some time, I've enjoyed the company of 'hsv.general' posters with whom we joke and enjoy eating lunches: