This Website is Ghetto
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Yeah, I know.
It doesn't do much to show that I'm actually a great Web developer, does
it? Well, manushand.com just hasn't made it to the top
of my to-do list (yes, that's right; not since 1995 or so). I have so many
more important Websites than this one to keep updated (and no, they're
not the ones linked to from here). Anyway, don't take my ghetto homepage
as in any way representative of my mad skillz.
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If you're into dead presidents, you came to the right place. By simply
clicking your mouse button, you can see pictures of me visiting the
final resting places of every one of them (save three -- I'm still working
on it). It's one of the most useless sites on the Net, and I'm not
just saying so myself.
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You're invited to rifle through the pages of The Diplomatic Pouch, the
official home page for Hasbro's game of
Diplomacy and its
many variants, a site (including an online magazine,
and my labor of
love, the Web/E-mail based DPjudge)
that I started way back in 1995, and that I am proud to publish
(and too busy to do so -- thankfully, I have grown helpers over the years).
In addition to Weblishing The Pouch, my
involvement in Diplomacy runs deep, including placing fifth for the world
championship, being a member of the world championship team, winning
the Don Miller Memorial Award for meritorious service to the Diplomacy hobby,
being named an NADF All-Star (the veritable Hall of Fame in North
American Diplomacy),
and authoring a couple chapters for the user manual of Hasbro's CD-ROM release
of the game (which I do not recommend, although a couple chapters of the user
manual seem to be real good).
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Living in the Rockies has its privileges. One of mine is that I was invited to
join the "Into Thick Air" climbing team for the arduous April 2001 ascent to the
top of the highest mountain in the state of Nebraska. This expedition, ably led
by my friend Troy Bettinger, followed the ITA team's historic descent of
Mount Sunflower, highest peak in Kansas. If you missed all the newspaper
coverage (a couple of brave photojournalists from the media accompanied us
on the trek), don't fret: you can read all about both climbs at the Website,
with pictures that, if you believe everything you hear, are worth exactly a
thousand words each.
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I am an active user of the Python programming language (the best language
out there), having presented a paper at the Fourth Python Conference and
contributed to the core source of the language. I am a member of the
Python Software Foundation and one
of the charter crew members on the
Python Starship. More information can
be found at the Python home page and on the
usenet newsgroup comp.lang.python.
The DPjudge and all the CGI scripts used at The Diplomatic Pouch are
 .
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Speaking of cool things you can do quickly with Python, here are some solitaire
playing card games I implemented.
The first one ("Queen's Chaperone") is my father's creation, the only
solitaire for a pinochle deck that we know of -- as I was growing up, my
dad always said someday he'd invent a solitaire for a pinochle deck, and
he finally did (and it's a great game!).
Although dad re-christened it "Queen's Chaperone," I had originally named
it "One-Handed Pinochle"
because my dad has only one "Hand" in his name (as opposed to my two) and
in honor of his penchant (which he passed on to me) for applauding after the
rest of the crowd has stopped, so that everyone in the theater can say
that they've "heard the sound of one Hand clapping."
The second solitaire is my own invention, based in
part on a game whose name I don't know, with some twists in the rules. I call
it "Two-Handed Solitaire" because I like naming
things after myself (my first name means "Hand," and that's my last name, you
know).
The games won't let you cheat (other than that
the Back button is a handy unlimited "undo"!), so you'll play by the rules
whether you like them or not.
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| Firstborn and only son in a family of seven children, I now am king of
a castle in Parker, Colorado. Here, you can see some (very old) pictures of my wife Angela and
my two children (Kayla and Jameson).
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| It's the one thing people put on Websites that basically
no one else really cares about. But who am I to keep you from not caring
about my family tree? So here it is, everything I know (well, everything I
have typed in so far), in a format invented by my father (and computerized
by me).
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What? You don't know what Zorkball is? Well, don't feel special.
But if you want to join the very small minority of people who make
up the Zorkball cognizanti, you've come to the right place. (Actually,
you've come to the only place.)
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With my electronic MIDI keyboard and some software, I while away some of my
free time transcribing music that interests me and even trying to compose
some for myself. If you're interested by this, you can check out my fledgling
collection of MIDI files.
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My family company, The Grail, Inc., founded by my father in the 1970's,
is on-line. The Grail is a
manufacturer of unique puzzles and board games. Take a look at the
product line!
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| Cookie recipes?? What? You make cookies? Well, no, I don't (at least
not very often). But if I did or when I do, here are the cookies I would
make (with the recipes here only because when my wife asks for them I know where
I put them). If you follow these recipes to make any, mail me some. I will eat them for you.
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Neologisms
| Since it's absolutely true and documented, and since tooting
my own horn doesn't seem to be a problem for me, I'll go ahead and take credit
for having invented two words: "emoticon" (now in worldwide use, which is
the term describing those little text smileys like :-) and
frownies like :( that are used in e-mail), and "Weblish" (to
publish on the Web). Yep, those are mine, but you're welcome to use them
free of charge!
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