Yes, you can be a dreamer and a doer too, if you will remove one word from your vocabulary: impossible. -H. Robert Schuller

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. -Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)

Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. -H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

My name is Gaelyne R. Gasson. (Gaelyne is pronounced as “Gay-LINN”). My husband Rod and I live in Reynella, South Australia, near the state’s capital city of Adelaide.

A lifetime ago, I grew up and resided in Saginaw, Michigan USA and my kids and other family still live there, so I keep tabs on what’s happening there as much as I can.

I have three terrific grown kids, and two grandkids – a boy and a girl.  Someday I hope to be able to see and hug them as they are far away in the USA.

I love creating and designing web sites, and have lately been exploring Drupal and WordPress, which are blog and content management systems for the web. I’ve developed online shopping carts, database software for various websites, and am proficient in using LAMP systems (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP).

Rod and I met on the CBM Fidonet echo in June, 1992 when he introduced his QWK format offline mail reader, QWKRR128 for the C128.

Our personal relationship began on February 9, 1994 when I teasingly “proposed” to him in the CBM128 echo because he said he much preferred “nice” over something that is merely adequate. Our lives haven’t been “merely adequate” since!

We spent from February 1994 until April 1995 sharing private mail, usually using Rod’s QWKRR program. I ventured to visit Rod in April 1995 and stayed for a year that felt like barely a week. Due to immigration laws, I was required to return to the USA before we could apply for a permanent resident visa which would allow us to continue our life together. This was a very difficult time, but I returned to Rod on 13 December 1996 after nearly 8 months apart.

Over the course of our long distance relationship, Rod and I shared mail almost daily when apart (about 21 months all together). I’ve saved this mail, and it accounts for about 10-15 meg of disk space, if not more. We’re both very private people when it comes to our personal mail, but it’s possible we may decide our story is worth sharing with others in a possibly edited or fictionalised format. Time will tell.

I’m the author of The Internet for Commodore C64/128 Users, the only reference manual of it’s type for the Commodore C64/128. I’ve also written for Linux Journal, Commodore World magazine, and had a regular column in BBS Magazine, Commodore World and GO64!.

Some of my favourite books include anything by Anne McCaffrey, but especially her Dragon Riders of Pern series, Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and other works by him. I’m also rather fond of Tom Robbins and Robert Heinlein.

As far as TV shows goes, a few of my favourites are: Buffy, Angel, Star Trek, Dr. Who, Augh, It’s the Mr. Hell Show, Red Dwarf, MST3k (Mystery Science 3000), and pretty much any kind of sketch show. I’m not a big movie watcher, but two that stand out for me are ‘The Color Purple’ and ‘Princess Bride’. I prefer comedies and science fiction. I set aside my own fantasy adventure novel while writing The Internet For Commodore C64/128 Users, but someday in the future I may return to it. It’ll be quite a change from working with “reality” to switch to something where I’m in charge and make the rules.

Musically, I like a real mix. This includes Yes, Genesis, Marillion (particularly with Fish), Alan Parsons Project, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Sting, Meatloaf, Fish and some of the more mellow rock music as well. I also like the blues, some jazz, The Mills Brothers, Glen Miller and a bit of classical music too. Over time, Rod and I have found that we really enjoy some of the shows that the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra put on and have probably been to about three shows each year.  Especially when they do special things like have the orchestra playing to Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin and Queen. It’s an awesome mix.

My original web site started out (in 1995) as an experiment to show how the Web could be used to support Commodore computing. Since then, the Web has grown and the Commodore support web pages needed their own site, which is now known as C= Homestead.

Several years back I discovered Linux and Open Source. Linux is a terrific Unix-like operating system and Open Source allows us to use and modify (if need be) many high quality programs that make computer using enjoyable. I was very familiar with UNIX as most of my book is about using shell accounts online, so it didn’t take very long at all to get comfortable with our Linux system.

I currently use Ubuntu as my operating system, but through the magic of VMWare, I also have a virtual Windows operating system I use for those things that don’t yet have an equivalent to use in Linux, or those rare occasions when I have to use a specific software package that’s not available for any operating system.

Yes, I’m very much a geek.  I feel blessed to have been born in this time. It’s hard to comprehend a life without electricity, computers, the Internet or phones.  Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me in such a world!