Kimler Adventure Pages (http://randsco.com)

On October 26, 2009, Yahoo pulled the plug on millions of websites hosted on GeoCities web servers. It marks the end of an early Internet Era and one that affects no less than five of our early adventure journals. Restoration efforts are taking place. Learn more (including why the Internet is a house of cards)

26-Oct Yahoo-GeoCities Shut Down
Randsco Adventures Rescued from Ashes

GeoCities Closes: In a cost-savings move, Yahoo shut-down the GeoCities free online hosting servers on 26-Oct-2009. The move marks the end of an early Internet Era, where millions of users created personal websites (web1.0 animated GIF-land).

On October 26, 2009, Yahoo-GeoCities shut-down their servers and immediately obliterated 15 years-worth of personal websites, made by millions of people across the world.

We rescued our early adventure journals off of GeoCities, reposting them on the Randsco domain, including: Scott's Big Ride, Rachel's 1999 Big Ride, our Oregon Cycle Tour and Wonderland Trail backpacking trip.

Begun in 1994, GeoCities spawned "neighborhoods" and by 1997, there were over a million "homesteaders" that had created personal websites. In 1999, Yahoo! bought GeoCities for $2.87 billion dollars.

GeoCities floundered under Yahoo's leadership. Terms of service changes, monthly data transfer limits, eliminating FTP access and changing advertising strategies drove users away. (We moved our home page off of GeoCities in 2003, because advertising changes interfered with visitor experience - and shared server costs were becoming affordable).

To learn more about the GeoCities shut-down, what's being done to preserve this bit of Internet history and the pitfalls of 3rd-party servers ... carry on.

GeoCities Restoration?

I recently published an article about cross-browser font embedding, using the @font-face CSS selector. It turns out that the code I put forth causes a 404 look-up in Internet Explorer. A reader has suggested some superior code, which I put to the test

Paul Irish Sets My Morning Schedule

Geeky @font-face Newz: It's a thumbs up for Paul's "Bulletproof @font-face Syntax"! (Do geeks really look like this?)

Funny how a single comment can change the direction of my day!

Paul proposes two concepts - new to me - in his recent article, "Bulletproof Font Face Implementation":

• Internet Explorer tries and fails to download the TTF file (with 2-selector syntax) even though the 2nd @font-face selector includes a "format" declaration.
• He proposes a single @font-face selector, which satisfies all browsers (obviating the need for two selectors), searches the local computer for the font first and eliminates the Internet Explorer "file not found" problem.

Okay ... this is techie, geeky cool and - for sure - not everyone is going to want to read about this, so here is where you should get off the geek train (if you haven't already).

If you're all aboard, heading for geekdom and want to be cool, then read on brave web-font enthusiasts ...

I'm a Geek, I want More

We just got back from our first-ever sea kayaking adventure, spending 6 days exploring the Canadian southern Gulf Islands. We had a great time and are slowly getting our journal online. We thought we'd post what we have, as family and friends might like to read about the adventure, as it unfolded. Cheers! (Busily working away at spell-checking and such)

First-Ever Kayaking Trip: Canadian Southern Gulf Islands

Descriptive and entertaining entry about how lucky we are to have such a wonderfully diverse, rich and popular sea kayaking destination right in our own backyard. Till such time as I cobble all that together, just pop on in and read about our recent 6-day kayaking trip.

Though we're no strangers to camping, backpacking, cycle-touring and other outdoor adventure ... this was our first time traveling by sea kayak. We can laugh now at some of our mistakes, preconceptions and landlubbing ways, but make no mistake - we had a great time and we're hooked! There will be many more sea kayaking adventures in our future (and Alex's too, though she missed this one, away with her maternal grandparents and having her own summer adventure at Watch Lake).

Route Map: We drove to nearby Saltspring Island without an itinerary in mind. Because it was our first kayaking adventure, we had no idea how far we might travel in a day. We ended up averaging about 15 miles per day, which allowed us to visit the outermost of the Gulf Islands (Saturna Island) and nearly took us into U.S. waters.

Note: The text is a bit raw, at this point, as I've only run it through the spell-checker - still need to go through and finalize it. (Three cheers to Rachel for all her hard work writing the journal!! Yippee! Yippee! Yippee!)

What's Completed:

• Intro Text | Pictures
• Day 0 Text | Pictures
• Day 1 Text | Pictures
• Day 2 Text | Pictures
• Day 3 Text | Pictures
• Day 4 Text | Pictures
• Day 5 Text | Pictures
• Day 6 Text | Pictures
• Slide Show
• Resources & Planning

Scott's application for the Tourism Queensland "Island Caretaker" position has been approved and is available for viewing. He's made a quick, holding post on the main blog, with the link. Check it out, if you haven't already. Check it out AGAIN ... if you have!

Queensland Tourism Seeks "Island Caretaker"

You probably heard about this amazing offer during the weather segment of your local news. The weatherman said something like, "How would you like a 'dream job'? Tourism Queensland, is hiring a 'caretaker' for the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. It's billed as 'The Best Job in the World'. The successful candidate will live on Hamilton Island for six-months and must be willing to explore the other Great Barrier Reef Islands. The only catch: you must report back on your adventures to a global audience (via weekly blog updates, photo diaries and video snippets).

For consideration of their duties, the successful job applicant is paid $150K (AUS) for their six-months of work, provided with airfare and travel insurance, and will live in a 3-bedroom, ocean-view home (complete with swimming pool, golf cart and a computer with the latest video equipment).

Wow!

Scott's "Island Caretaker" Video Approved

Best Candidate! Cycling across the U.S. twice, raising $7,500 for the American Lung Association, backpacking across the U.S. following the PCT, more adventures than you can shake a stick at and blogging about it for the past 10 years. All that could land Scott - & family - the Aussie "Island Caretaker" gig.

It took Rachel thirty minutes to convince Scott that he should apply for the position. After that, it's been "Island Caretaker" nearly 24/7, as he drafted a storyboard for his 60-second video application, re-drafted it, watched competing videos and then finally taped his own, which he uploaded on February 7th. Approximately five days later, he received word that his application had been accepted and was "live" on the IslandReefJob.com website.

Watch the Video!

Scott then told as many friends, family, acquaintences and - embarrassingly enough - complete strangers about his quest to win the job. He'd tell people to, "View my video every day, vote for it twice a day and spread the link around - like you would spread manure!"

Kind of a crappy analogy, don't you think? We did.

Use the mini-menu below to read through a variety of front-page topics about Scott's "Island Caretaker" application. Head to the "latest news" section, to see all the gory detail. (We did warn you that Scott has been living 'down under', from 'way up top' - which has been, for the rest of the family - a little 'over the top'!)

I've been so busy with my application for "The Best Job in the World" that I never posted my original article on it. Well ... now that my application video is submitted, I finally got around to finishing the article. Good background information, but old-hat to anyone already following along

"Caretaker" of the Australian Great Barrier Reef Islands

Best Candidate? Scott's already photo-shopped his way to Australia! He figures that 10-years of adventure blogging, his outgoing nature, easy writing style and love of water (and the outdoors) makes him a shoe-in for "The Best Job in the World". Follow his application!

Tourism Queensland, in Australia, has hit a gold mine with their recent "Best Job in the World" campaign.

Timing for the campaign, which aims to promote Queensland's Great Barrier Reef Islands, couldn't be better. It was launched on Jan 12th, in the dead of winter for the northern hemisphere and on the heels of a tremendous downturn in the global economy.

If you haven't heard about it on your local news (weather segment, most likely), Tourism Queensland is looking to hire someone to be "caretaker" of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. It's billed as "The Best Job in the World". The successful candidate will live on Hamilton Island for six-months and must be willing to explore the other Great Barrier Reef Islands. The only catch: you must report back on your adventures to a global audience (via weekly blog updates, photo diaries and video snippets).

"They'll also have to talk to the media from time to time about what they're doing," says Anthony Hayes, CEO of Tourism Queensland.

Upping the ante even more, the successful job applicant is paid $150k for their six-month job and is provided a 3-bedroom, ocean-view home (which comes with some other perks, such as a golf cart, computer and video equipment).

(Ewe ... sounds rough, doesn't it?)

If you think you're up to the task, just head to www.islandreefjob.com and submit your application. They must include a 60-second video (saying why your the best candidate), photo and contact details. The application deadline is currently February 22, 2009, but Tourism Queensland reserves the right to move it forward, once 30,000 applications have been received.

That may happen, as the promotional campaign has been very successful. Interest in the job overwhelmed the site's servers, shortly after the job was announced and Tourism Queensland had to scramble and add additional equipment to handle the web traffic.

I estimate that about 3,500 applications have been received, thus far.

Of course, this begs the question: "Will Scott or Rachel throw their name into the hat?"

Chucking a Canadian Snowball into the Australian Sun