About This Site
I've been on the 'net since some time late in 1995, when my family bought a computer and signed up to Compuserve. Back then, the web was pretty much unheard of; most communication took place in newsgroups and bulliten boards, even the most profesional websites were composed of very simple HTML with minimalist design, and advertising on websites was virtually non-existent. Some time around '97 or '98, I made a very crude page and uplaoded it to our web space on Compuserve as a repository for various files and information about myself.In 2001, I put together a real site, which contained a selection of my nature photography, a hobby I picked up toward the end of high school. The site sat on Earthlink for three years, until I got bored one day and decided to redesign it in October 2004. After spending a few days teaching myself CSS, I threw together several ideas for a design which just didn't work due to my bad coding. After working out all the bugs, I finally have a site that hopefully renders correctly in most browsers and doesn't look half bad, either.
in 2004, I got swept up in the blogging craze. I added a blog from Google's Blogger service to the main page and continue to post to it somewhat less often then regularly. In March, 2005, I moved the page to the shared hosting service PowWeb to give myself more space and a real domain name, gsmhiker.net. I've also posted some of the nature photogryphy I've taken over the last few years, and have many pictures availible for use as high-quality scenic desktop backgrounds. The site has been sporadically updated ever since but went through a major redesign in the spring of 2009.
About Me
I graduated from Maryville College in 2005 with a degree in Biology. My undergraduate work focused on plant ecology and pathology. From there, I moved to Mississippi in order to pursue graduate studies in Plant Pathology. I finished a Master's degree in December 2008 and have stayed on for a Ph.D. which I began in early 2009. One of my hobbies is nature photography, and sharing and preserving my pictures is one of my main purposes behind this site. I love to travel, and taking photographs is a great way to remember the experience, much more so than a plastic souvenir. I also enjoy hiking, camping, and geocaching. When I'm indoors, I enjoy working with computers, but I'm not quite proficient enough to create any useful software beyond the occasional script or bookmarklet.