There is a semi-popular cliche that mentions something about some people walking into our lives and then walking right back out, while others leave lasting footprints. Traditions come and go (with the exception of some traditions in my family which nobody wants to bother with anymore but my mother insists on dragging out year after year, but I digress...), but one of our group's more memorable traditions was the weekly "user meetings" held at the North Castle Diner from 1993 through 1997.

In the early days, it was just me, Stu, and Ethan, getting together in the time-honoured nerd tradition to conspire on bizarre and inconceivable networking specifications for our BBS's. Eventually, of course, that particular project reached its maturity, but the diner meets kept on going. Soon, others joined in, and by 1996 we often had ten or more people each week.

Each week, we were greeted by Annette Gall, a truly remarkable waitress and a kind, compassionate human being. Annette put up with our occasionally loud antics, our habit of rearranging the furniture in the diner, our somewhat confusing banter, and all the other idiosyncrasies of the weekly meets. She always managed to get our food orders correct, and she always remained cheerful and friendly. I recall one particular week; it was only the second time Joe had attended, and he ordered "the usual." She got it right, too, remembering exactly what he had ordered the previous week. And, of course, Annette served up countless instances of "The Mighty Dead Dinner" -- soup, burger, fries, Coke (no ice).

One of the events leading to the demise of our weekly meets was Annette's departure from the North Castle Diner in late 1997 due to health problems, and I was deeply saddened to learn that she had passed away last September. More disturbing was the fact that her ex-husband arrived in town only to have her cremated and then immediately left - no funeral, no memorial service. From what I've been told, the staff at the North Castle Diner was very dismayed to not have the opportunity to pay their respects. I feel much the same way, and I suspect others from the group of DinerMeet attendees do as well.

We have monthly meetings now at Applebee's in Mount Kisco (second Thursday of the month, 7:30pm). The food is better and the company is just as plentiful and boisterous, but the DinerMeets of old will always be recalled with fond nostalgia, and with them, the memory of Annette Gall. She will truly be missed.

For several years now I've been intending to start a personal blog. I assured myself that I would begin as soon as I wrote my own blogging software. That's still the plan -- I want to add blogging capabilities into the Citadel system. But those plans are behind schedule, and in the mean time I've missed out on the opportunity to write about various things happening in my life, in the news, in the world, and in general.

Today I had some comments that I posted to my home page, which hasn't yet evolved past the 1990's and is still maintained as static HTML. I was copying those comments to LiveJournal because I have a friend there who I wanted to share them with, and I realized that I had enough bits and pieces sitting around that if I collected them all and back dated them, I'd have a blog that goes back more than a decade. So I did, and here it is. I don't really have a good starting date to associate with this introduction, so I'll simply use the date and time of my birth.

My blog is called "Skeptic Tank" because I have a tendency to mistrust mainstream thinking about most topics unless I can confirm it myself. I find that the accepted wisdom on most topics is simply wrong. More on that later. And rest assured that when I do get my own blogging software running, this blog will move to UNCENSORED! where it belongs. Please go there now, though -- even without the blog it's a wonderful online community with some really cool people to chat with and hang out with.