This page is devoted to people---they might be old friends that I've finally caught up with after many years, people I've admired and/or chased after from afar (heh), or just someone who smiled at me somewhere along the way and left their footprints for me to follow. (Hey--you make new friends every day; here's as good a place as any to do it.)
This young lady has, admittedly, one of the most complicated sites I've yet seen, so it'll take a little while to load completely....but let me say that it is more than worth the wait. She (I haven't learned her true identity, but then that's none of my damn business anyway) has quite a lot to say on many subjects, including something I had not run into until now. I refer to a way of life known as "Straight Edge", or [sXe] for short. From what I've gathered, it sounds rather straight-laced at first---no drugs, no booze, no loose sex, etc.---but if you look further into it, I think you'll find that there's a surprisingly free-living aspect to it that most similar viewpoints don't take into account. (There's an engaging sense of humor about it, too.) Check this out---an interesting account of the life and times of a fascinating and intelligent woman.
This particular site is an excellent example of what can happen when an orchestral musician has a little too much free time on her hands, and starts noodling around with HTML. I give you Liza (no, not that Liza)---an accomplished classical cellist currently studying at the Glenn Gould Professional School of Music in Ontario, Canada, so you know she takes her music seriously. But not too seriously---she also plays jazz bass on the side, and enjoys a good drunken jam session as much as the next man. At least, she would be, if she weren't online all the time---her little chunk of Webspace is chock-full of entertaining tidbits, to include (but certainly not limited to): personal photos and stories, quotes from British sitcoms, Scottish ancestry, a pit's-eye view of life in the orchestra, and---oh, yes---a walking box of Rice Krispies. (Beware of the dancing bananas, however---they've been known to attack on sight.)
This charming lass is the boss of a fine family of 3 sons, an unknown number of animals, and a Web-site that simply glows with beauty and class. Denise obviously has her hands full, running a household as happily boisterous as hers appears to be, but she plainly spares no expense in the construction of this site---It's one of the easiest-on-the-eyes that I have yet seen, and it has a sort of gently off-center sense of humor that appeals to one as gently off-center as myself. Her many talents include gardening and bird-watching as well---oh, and if you should ever actually find a "DDByrd" somewhere out in the great wide yonder, let her know, won't you?
By the way, she was also once a member of the U.S. Air Force, and has a very special place in her heart, and her site, for all veterans. If you happen to be one, sir or madam, then you have a friend herein.
