Ten years was just about enough. For ten years I had been living in the middle of 80 wooded acres in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. It was wonderful. The last five years I had been living as a virtual hermit-in-the-woods. It is a lovely way to live. I have had bunnies, bobcats and deer as my neighbors. In the Spring evenings I was serenaded by the sweet songs of the tree frogs. Summer nights provided the black backdrop for the light shows of the different species of fireflies. It is a lovely way to live but at some point I realized I wanted human company again. I wanted to be able to watch someone's face as they spoke. A circle of friends and acquaintances again would be nice.

Life offers us many opportunities, some of these are in disguise. From this menu we make our choices and our life plays out. 10 years ago I chose to live out in the middle of nowhere. It was the right decision then. Now it was time to choose something else. I would move out of nowhere and to a city somewhere. But where would that be? Part of the answer to that question is what this trip is about. My stuff is in storage and I'm driving around the country to see it, discover it and choose where to live for the next bit of my life.

How long will this trip last? I really don't know. In the meantime I will see a lot of the country, take a lot of pictures and talk to a lot of people. I will report my discoveries right here on this site

About the Site (geekish stuff)

This is a duel-database driven site. It is organized on my Apple Powerbook laptop using unix underpinnings of OS X amended by php, mySQL and imagemagick. All I do is present the system with the text of the pages and the images. There are settings for the locations of the images on the pages. When the page and images are set the system creates the relationship of the page to the rest of the site and then it takes the large photoshop files of the images and reduces and brands the images in five different sizes.

When I get to a location where I have an internet connection. I tell the database on my Mac to update my Linux web server. Any page that has had alterations made is updated in the server's database. Any new images are uploaded and then all new and altered pages are generated in static html code.

Why static html when I have all of the fancy php stuff to use? Actually I am using all of the fancy php stuff, but only when I need it. Most "dynamic" websites regenerate a web page every time someone views it, even if nothing has changed. This uses up the processing resources of the server, making it run hotter and wear out faster. By using php to generate the pages once. I get the flexibility of a dynamic site with the serving speed of a static site.

About the Person

Grant Groberg is a designer, writer and photographer. For the last 10 years he has been living in the Missouri Ozarks. While on the road for this trip he continues to work. He can be contacted through this web site or by calling 417-268-8789.