A Little Background When I first designed a website, I was very naïve. I hadn’t realized you couldn’t use just any photos on the internet and I got a lot of complaints. I apologized and took down that site. I waited a while then put up About Facts, which now belongs to someone else, and was very careful about the pictures I used. One tiny photo of the Golden Gate Bridge was supposed to be in the public domain, I had gotten it off of a government website, but wouldn’t you know it, it was copyrighted and a lawyer contacted me and wanted to sue. I explained what happened, but the lawyer would have none of it. It cost me $750 for that mistake which wasn’t even my fault. I was forced to buy a license to use the photo or be sued. Now I usually only use my photos if I use any for my columns, but occasionally you might see a NASA photo. It is not easy running a website. The worst part is if I have to pay for my mistakes it comes out of my own pocket because the site is free to anyone who wants to go on it. There is no advertising to detract from reading any articles. I was trying to think about when the very first website went up which I had and as hard as it was for me to believe, it must have been about 30 years ago. I have learned a lot about running a website since those days. The equipment I use has gotten so much better and the internet is much more reliable. I have very little down time on the site compared to those early days. I was trying to think what was the article I believed to be of the most interest to me. Maybe it was about the great pyramid. That structure has always fascinated me. When I thought I had solved one of the riddles about it, I had contacted someone who was a member of the Great Pyramid Society with the solution and they never got back to me. The problem everyone was trying to solve was how paintings got onto the inside walls of the pyramid and there was no trace of smoke from torches. This riddle hadn’t been solved. Scientists tried to use mirrors made of materials which would have been available at the time to direct sunlight into the pyramid but it never reached where some of the paintings were. My solution was a simple one, I looked the situation over and decided they must have painted the wall before the next layer was put on. This meant that floor of the pyramid would been in the sunlight. If they repeated this process where ever they wanted to paint, they would have had no trouble painting. Instead investigators came to the conclusion the ancient Egyptians may have had electricity because there was a drawing which showed something which was interpreted as being a giant light bulb. Nothing like taking a simple explanation, and disregarding it for a way out one. I enjoyed doing interviews, but as I got older it was just too much to prepare for them. I didn’t just interview people much as is done most of the time. I prepared questions for a couple of days ahead of time which I thought people would be interested in. I was always courteous to the people I interviewed and NEVER gave them “got you” questions as happens so much today with reporters. Two of my favorite people to interview were Timothy Good and Bruce Macabee. Timothy Good is an author of many UFO books. He has connections with both our government and the British government and interestingly is a member of the London Philharmonic. He had information on some very interesting UFO events. It was amazing to me so many people gave me interviews when I wasn’t very well known. Bruce Macabee had been involved with weapon’s programs for the US Navy and was one of the early members of MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network. He became the preeminent video and photographic examiner for MUFON and was not only very interesting when he spoke about the criteria for examining photos and videos to determine if they were genuine. He was also very gracious when I would send him a photo for examination a few times. There were so many interesting people. Running a website can be expensive and I usually have to shell out about somewhere around $450 to $500 a year for hosting the site and them more for whatever new equipment I might need. I have certain equipment needs most people don’t have. I needed a computer which could backup the site in a reasonable amount of time because I back it up onto three different drives every day. This is why I had to purchase a 16 core computer, because I needed the power. This machine makes backups so much easier and less time consuming. It blew out on me during a lightning storm and I had to have it repaired and that set me back over $400. I can fix things myself but don’t have the equipment to test a motherboard or central processing unit. Recently I thought it might be interesting to post UFO photos from a sky camera I had set up, but when the computer went down I fell behind and there are so many photos for me to examine along with short videos, I just haven’t had a chance to examine them. Last time I did something like this I found some photos over time which had UFOs in them. When I went to examine the photos when the computer was fixed, I found out the hard drive the photos were on had also blown out during the storm. I purchased a new one, yeah more money spent, and started over. Hopefully I will get to the photos soon. I like what I do, and since my wife died it gives me something to keep me busy. I am very lucky because my children drop by, some call every day and I see my daughter several times a week and talk with her every day. It is hard during this Coronavirus period of time for everyone, but especially for those old people who are alone and have no one and can’t even get out of the house if they are able. We all have to count our blessings.
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