LakeMonsterCulture.com might appear simple on the surface. That is my hope. But there is a lot of complexity lying underneath. For the curious, I'd like to give you some of the details. For those who already know I'm a geek, this will be mere confirmation. For those who had no idea, well, I'm not ashamed, but I hope it's not too shocking. :)

Although what you're reading is a standard web page, in HTML, I did not actually code this specific page. It was generated.

This is a bit of a mind-shift from writing each page separately. Using an open-source utility called Movable Type, I design the structure of this site by pieces. For instance, the yellow notes on the right are each individual "modules" that are tacked onto appropriate pages. In this way, I design the presentation of the site by making a series of templates which are then wrapped around the content of the site (journal entries, photos, etc.) which Movable Type carefully organizes into a database. In the language of the mathematician, it's like solving by induction rather than solving case by case. It's really flexible, too, if you want to implement your own database calls with PHP.

Why would I bury myself in such a mess? Well, the separation of style from content is the direction web design has been heading ever since the Internet began. Several things become easier when this separation is done correctly. Since style is separated from content in this site, I can easily introduce new content, say a journal entry. The site then "wraps" the style around the content, adds the HTML page to the site, and builds appropriate links within all of the other pages to reflect the new content. It can recognize if I'm adding a journal entry, a photo, or a video, and correspondingly present the new entry like all the others of its ilk. So, updating my site is as easy as logging in, writing a new message, and hitting 'Save'.

This is a significant benefit, because while I'm abroad, I'll want to remain as culturally immersed as possible. Spending hours updating the virtual world of a web site is contrary to the spirit of my project. This way, I can keep you relatively updated by typing for a few spare minutes on a PDA keyboard, and then spend only a couple minutes sending the new content in an Internet cafe. Done.

"What is wrong with the pencil?" you might ask. Perhaps there is nothing wrong with it - and I will certainly keep handwritten notes while abroad. However, it is important not to have a single concept of the wise traveler, a heated and many-sided debate, particularly for Paul Fussell and Pico Iyer. There really is no single traveling mantra. Traveling is much more rewarding if we discover this for ourselves as we go along.

In many cases, heavy use of technologies abroad is a common escape back to the Old World for a distressed traveler, or even for a distressed non-traveler, as seen in the propagation of cell-phones, portable cd-players, and even earplugs. One of the most common such escapes is spending hours in an Internet cafe. The design of this website is one piece of my theory on how to stay convivial, and to keep technology from diluting my wanderjahr. While a very technologically-dependent theory, I believe that it matches both me and the spirit of the Watson Fellowship.

P.S. - If you're interested, try Movable Type yourself. I'm really happy with it, and it's free for non-commercial use. Keep in mind that you'll need a web server that allows you to do Perl/CGI scripting.