On Apr 27, 2009, at 2:16 PM, Holly Shaltz wrote: > Ron, I don't think you ever explained what got you > starting Fibernet. Care to share?
You may laugh at the background tale. I was attending a National Wool Growers meeting in Sun Valley, ID, and took my teenaged son along so he could see some country. I picked him up at a language camp (Russian) in MN where he had been for several weeks. Like many teens, he had paid minimal attention to washing clothes and his hag was more than a bit stinky. When we got to a motel in Ketchum, ID, a laundromat was needed ungently. While he did laundry I wandered outside and watched a man in an adjacent office using a computer. I found he was setting up a network connecting some banks in the region. I saw test, try, and get responses. I was hooked. I had to set up some computer communication network. We raised sheep, sold premium wool. A network dealing with woo, fibers, fiber crafts, etc. was the natural choice. That was it. There were no internet sort of services available, especially in rural MN, so a dial-up BBS was the solution. The rest is history. As more access became available in our area, the original BBS evolved to an Internet mailing list, which moved around as circumstances changed. So that's it > I know you > sold wool way back then, but I've never heard that > you yourself were a spinner or knitter? You're right, I'm not, but it interests me, so that's enough. > > Thanks for starting Fibernet! It seems like the > late, lamented Fibernet at this point, but I > learned so much from this list after joining in > early 98! I wish it were more active these > days--being on painfully slow dialup limits my > internet options to mailing lists of this type, > and I've never found another all-purpose fiber > list I liked well enough to stay with. Computer communication has changed and many new fiber-related options are available, so users are dispersed to many venues. It's normal change and growth Ron Parker - Fibernet list mom with Susanne [email protected]
