Updated Jan 2, 2003. View what's new.
Over 195,000 visitors and counting!

Welcome to page one of the Cartania Website. Please take off your shoes and pour yourself a drink. Unravel your obligations. Become idle, then curious, then child-like. Relax.

I love nothing better than a good, deep, meandering conversation. On a web page, I must let my words and images speak for me, so perhaps the best place to begin is with a small collection of essays...


Visit beautiful Cartania! Learn about PONARVs and marvel at the tallest tower in Cyberspace!


Investigate the 20 most strange and wonderful books in my library.


Travel along to the Emerald Isle with photos and impressions from a Journey To Ireland.


Embark on a spectacular search for the fabled Northwest Passage.


Explore the photos, genealogies, and stories from my Family History.


Consider the eulogy I delivered for My Father.


Take to the air and study the third dimension in a Flying Lesson.


Examine a collection of photos now on display in my Digital Camera Gallery.


Personalize your desktop by downloading one of my Desktop Images.


Experience the kind of bouyancy which may come at 36.


Suffer the torments of a Mid-life Crisis. If you thought 36 was bad, wait till you see 40!


Ponder an odd question: Who Do We Dream Against?


Follow along on a cyberspace expedition as we try Mapping Montana.


Descend into the underworld to buy A Table And Four Chairs.


Celebrate my most eccentric friend, a cat named Aristippus.


Imagine Gilligan's first sexual experience, Gilligan Unbound.


I am a writer/interface designer and I live with my wife Betsy, daughter Sarah, and two cats, in a charming old Edwardian on the Isle of Alameda in the San Francisco Bay. I am crazy enough to take this new art form seriously and I hope you will enjoy looking through a few of my essays, photographs, and dabblings. This site is dedicated to Ralph. Alice doesn't live here anymore.

When you are done touring Cartania, please visit our newly refurbished visitor's lounge. Here you can read comments from past visitors, marvel at the world map of visitors, and become an official visitor yourself by signing the guestbook.

For those who find their stay in Cartania all too brief and crave even more Cartan trivia, here are a few links to distant corners of the web:

My Courtship. The unusual and romantic way I met my wife landed us on CNN (literally 15 seconds of fame) and the front page of the Houston Chronicle. Check out Dwight Silverman's series, Digital Nation.

My Hometown. I grew up in a windy town in the Idaho desert where half the inhabitants were nuclear scientists and the other half were Mormon potato farmers. Find out more about Idaho Falls in this wickedly accurate article from the online edition of Outside Magazine.

The Birdhouse. Some of my essays are also on display at The Birdhouse, a gathering place on the web for artists and writers.

Creating Cool Web Pages. This humble website is featured in a recently published book by Edward Willett. Order your copy today!

About.Com. On March 14, 2000, Cartania was named "Site of the Day." They also interviewed me and wrote a profile about me and why I do this stuff.

Holly Lisle. Dozens of other sites now link to Cartania, but this link by fantasy writer Holly Lisle meant so much to me I kept a copy of it. Check out her excellent site.

Bean Omelette. My father's much maligned recipe is preserved for the ages at Recumbo, the elegant website of my friend, Maggie Law.

Sarah and the Sealion. My daughter has made her first appearance outside of Cartania in a stunning Alaska Photography website.

I also have some interesting neighbors. Geourl.org puts Cartania and many other sites on the map.