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Posted on January 5, 2006

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Posted from Seattle, Washington (USA) at 3:40 PM local time

The Phantom Web Site Lives!

Yessiree. After well over a year of "Coming Soon," I'm finally pushing this thing out! Thus far, I have succeeded in very effectively promoting appreciation of diversity and awareness of our global community to one person: myself. Over the course of the past two years, I have worked on the site in chunks. A week here, a few weeks there. In 2005, I didn't touch it for the better part of five months. Initially anticipating I'd push it out from India, logistics and more important activities prevented me from doing so (along with a slight perfectionist streak perhaps?). At any rate, it's been a long time coming. Now I get to have a bit of fun.

As you will see, I have at times taken this thing a little too seriously (me?). The truth is this site serves several purposes. Yes, it is a site promoting appreciation of diversity and global awareness. I'd like to think visitors will catch a glimpse of other cultures and people - and recognize and appreciate their beauty. I also hope that for at least a few of you, what I have to share will make you think about the world, how our actions (and those of our government) impact the lives of people living outside our borders. At the same time, this is also a personal site, a place where I get to act all self-important and share stories and images from my travels. So far, with everything I've put together to date, the tone has been on the serious side. I felt I needed a foundation supporting the underlying philosophy of the site. With this in place, I can now branch out a bit and make things a little more fun. This will generally be done right here, in the blog.

Although I am pushing this out now, there are several things I'll still be working to get in before too long. Among them:

I spent much of 2005 in India. Apart from a few photos accessible in the Expressions slideshow and via the thumbnails here, India is not represented. This is coming. I won't use the word "soon."
I'm headed to Mexico in January. Since I will be sedentary for the first time in over a year (two months of language study), I should be able to provide a few stories in "real time." I'm excited about being in Mexico. Will be my first visit.
I have several pretty significant topics to cover in the [Composites] section of the site. I don't know when I'll push them out, but I deal with topics of the Vietnam War, Religion, and Politics in America Today. We're talking meaty, difficult subjects - so I'm not pushing them out "half-baked." The Vietnam piece is nearly done. I have only rough notes for the Religion and Politics pieces. The [Composites] section is lighter than I'd have hoped at the time of "go-live," but this is an area that will grow over time.
I've decided not to go back through the entire past 18 months and convert journal entries into blog entries. (Not even my mother would read them.) Still, there are several significant segments I will be adding to the blog after-the-fact. Unlike the items previously listed, these things should be done soon.
You will notice the [Add Comment] links everywhere. I know this is a bit crazy for a site of this nature, but I felt I had to give people a way to dispute what I was saying. I initially built it for the editorial sections but figured since it was built, I'd incorporate it everywhere. At present, you need to provide an email address if you wish to change or delete comments at a later time. I'm considering altering this. Incidentally, email addresses are never displayed on the site, and even I don't see the addresses submitted with comments. They're encrypted. (It would be false to say I couldn't decrypt them if I wanted to, however.) The email is used to "verify" you as the creator of a comment. I'll leave it at that for now. If you submit comments and want to know more, see Tokens: What and Why? in the help/about page. (I know - a help page for a personal site. Overkill?)

I should note that blog entries have been sparse so far. That's due in part to the fact that until now the site existed only on my machine. Blog entries will come with a bit more consistency in the future. Alright. I'm going to keep this to a reasonable length (for once) and cut this thing off here. ONEWORLDIMAGES.COM is live!