Derek's Site
"wandering the World Wide Web since the mid-Nineties"


(as any "proper" website should perpetually be!)
Welcome
My name is Derek and love the old Web! (I love it so much I coined a word for it!)

- the Web made up of personal sites, static content, Links pages, and web rings
- the Web where fledgling webmasters coded by hand and learned HTML as they went
- the Web where one could surf for hours without ever needing a search engine


Whether you remember those days personally or have only heard about them and wondered what they were like, I have good news...the World Wide Web (WWW) is not dead! Though perhaps overshadowed by the walled gardens and gated communities of social media, or the glitz, glamour and polish of the Commercial Web, the original World Wide Web is still alive and well.
About this site
I created this site with two main purposes:

1. First and foremost, in the spirit of the WWW, this is a personal website!
This site is about me: my hobbies and interests, my favorites, my likes and dislikes. If a resource on the Web is useful to me, you will likely find a link to it here. If I want to write a few paragraphs on something or express an opinion, well, that will be here too!

2. Secondly, this site is intended to help those wanting to discover the real WWW
My goal is to dedicate a portion of this site to online resources and maybe some self-written articles about how to explore and enjoy the Web like we did in the 1990's and early 2000's. Back then, getting online and web-surfing was an adventure! One never knew what was out there, just waiting to be discovered...and you can experience the Web like that today!

Interest Cloud
Past & Present

animals, antiques, archaeology, astronomy, AVIATION, basketball, BIBLE, birds, bikes, blue, books, cars, chickadees, coffee, coin collecting, COMPUTERS, curry, dogs, drawing, driving, French toast, frisbee, hackey-sack, hamburgers, hiking, hot sauce, humor, idioms, jerky, jogging, jokes, languages, Legos, magazines, mid-century modern (MCM), model airplanes, motorcycles, musical instruments, origami, painting, paper airplanes, photography, popcorn, pizza, reading, Reuben sandwiches, seafood, SOFTWARE, soccer, Spam, spicy food, Star Wars, steak, sushi, tacos, traveling, walking, watches, weight-lifting, wood carving, writing, WWW


reveraneum (n.)
(reh-veh-RAY-nee-um) - return to top

"back to the early days of the World Wide Web, the young Web again," 2024, from re- "back, back from, back to the original place; again, anew, once more;" + Latin ver meaning "spring; spring-time of life, youth;" + Latin araneum "a spider web, cobweb, mass of threads resembling a spider web"

etymonline.com, online-latin-dictionary.com, outils.bilissima.fr/en/collatinus-web
AVIATION
One of my main interests for as far back as I can recall - return to top

Links
- Avhome.com: The aviation sales & search directory
- Aviation Links: Ruud Leeuw's aviation links (current)

Misc
- The ORIGINAL Ascii Airplane Collection: Paul Tomblin's collection of ASCII aircraft

Personal Web Sites
- Aerial Visuals: Mike Henniger's site to document preserved aircraft and their histories
- Ken's Aviation: Ken Shanaberger's personal aviation site

Photo Sites
- airliners.net: Aviation Photography
- AirHistory.net: The Aviation History Photo Archive
- JetPhotos.com: aviation photography website
- Kiwi Aircraft Images: Phillip Treweek's New Zealand aviation photos

Reference Sites
- AEROFILES: a century of American aviation
- aerospaceweb.org: an aviation-related site
- FAA Aircraft History Project: Lists of aircraft operated by the FAA and its predecessors
- MILAVIA: Military Aviation

birds
During my growing up years I greatly enjoyed birds, bird watching and even built a bird feeder or two - return to top

Links
- birding.com (Wayback Machine): Internet Resources
- birding.com (Wayback Machine): Top 25 Birding Web Sites
- Thayer Birding (Wayback Machine): archived version of the Thayer Birding links page circa 2001
- wildbirds.com (Wayback Machine):Personal Web Sites

Reference
Cornell Lab of Ornithology: All About Birds

Regional
- utahbirds.org: Birding in the State of Utah

cars - return to top

- Auto-Brochures.com: hundreds of digital car brochures
- CarsfromItaly.net: site covering all Italian developed and built cars
chickadees
The chickadee has been one of my favorite birds for almost as far back as I can remember - return to top

- April 6, 1927: the black-capped chickadee is officially adopted as the state bird of Maine by the Eighty-third Legislature
- March 21, 1941: the black-capped chickadee is officially adopted as the state bird of Massachusetts
- August 13, 1983: the black-capped chickadee is proclaimed as the official bird of the Canadian province of New Brunswick

- Chickadee Web: The Paul family's site on all things chickadee

French toast
One of my favorite breakfast foods! - return to top

- Kneaders Chunky Cinnamon French Toast: a personal all-you-can-eat favorite!!!
languages - return to top

etymology
- etymonline.com: an online etymology dictionary

Latin
- LexiLogos: Latin resources
- Perseus Digital Library: English to Greek, Latin, Arabic, or Old Norse
- Perseus Digital Library: Latin to English
Legos
Many happy hours of my childhood were spent designing and building with Legos - return to top

- 6602 Fire Unit I: (1981)
- 6805 Astro Dasher: (1985)
- 6824 Space Dart I: (1984)
- 6891 Gamma V Laser Craft: (1985)
- 6687 Turbo Prop I: (1987)
magazines - return to top

- Catalogs & Wishbooks: an online archive of Christmas Wish Books and retail department store catalogs
origami - return to top

- Origami in Color: I believe this is the first origami book I ever read
SOFTWARE
My enjoyment of computers is not just connected to the hardware side of the house. From my earliest memories to those extant, software represents the "face" of the computer to me - return to top

WordPerfect
- The Rise, Fall, and Suprising Survival of WordPerfect: an interesting article on the history of WordPerfect
steak - return to top

- The Big Texan: home of the 72-oz steak challenge
sushi
After being introduced to sushi at a local all-you-can-eat restaurant, I was "hooked!" - return to top

- Ginza Japanese Shabu Shabu: my latest favorite local sushi (and shabu shabu) eatery
- Tony's Grill and Sushi Bar: tried this recently and it was quite good! (The Firecracker roll was a favorite)
watches
A more recent hobby for me, but one I have enjoyed since 2020 - return to top

- Digital-Watch: a reference site covering digital watches
- Pulsar Time Blog: one of my watch-related hobbies...learning about Pulsar watches
- Teddy Baldassarre: Teddy Baldassarre's watch store and blog
WWW
Having started surfing the World Wide Web in the 1990's, I am quite nostalgic for the way the Information Super Highway used to be and am an ardent proponent of Web 1.0 - return to top

Hosting
- neocities: similar to the old Geocities, offering free hosting and promoting personal websites

Search Engines
- Old'aVista: a search engine similar to the original Alta Vista
- wiby: a search engine to help find personal webpages amid the commercialized chaos that is today's Internet

Web Archives & History
- 404PageFound: active vintage websites, old webpages, and Web 1.0
- Wayback Machine: access to billions of archived web pages going back to the mid-90s
- Web Design Museum: Screenshots of old websites "from 1990s to mid-00s"

This site lovingly coded by hand (no AI here!) in Notepad ++



Proudly hosted on neocities! This is Penelope the cat!


SITE ESTABLISHED MAY 30, 2024