Welcome! Folks have told me for years, “Alan, you need to get a web page.” It sounded so easy. But I soon found out, it was a task far beyond my limited technological skills and knowledge. Questions like where to host; who should I get a domain from; who has idiot proof web page tools as part of the deal; who might be patient enough to talk a neophyte through this process? All these questions left me feeling like Matthew Arnold’s Empdeocles on Etna. I was frozen, unable to make a decision, from either too much or too little information. At one point in the quest, I thought my daughter might have saved me by marrying a web engineer. But, for newlyweds who moved from Dallas to Chicago and then Berlin in little over a year, an extra web project was easily lost in the bustle of a new life and jobs. Not wanting to seem a complete schmuck, I let the project go to a back burner until I figured the pilot light went out. But now what? I figured I’d ask my friends one last time to try and find some answers. Friends with web sites actually didn’t seem to know much more than I did. Many had received pages from friends, family or fans. But then I asked Steven Schroeder, the Renaissance Man of Chicago and VAC Poetry,whom he would suggest. Steve told me who he used to post VAC’s excellent site vacpoetry.org. But then he said he was willing to hire on as a web master, taking care of design and domains all for a reasonable fee. I signed on in a heartbeat. In about two months, the site is up and running. Steve has endured an onslaught of questions, mainly me asking how I screwed things up and if he could fix it. For years, I’ve been awed by Steve’s poetry, intelligence and zeal for life. Now, I need to add his technological savvy and patience to the list. My gratitude to him for doing this is boundless. The picture above was snapped at The Scissortail Festival in Ada, Oklahoma in 2008. The caption is supposed to say, A wise man suffers a wise ass, but it didn’t quite work; maybe someday Steve will fix that too.