About this web site...

Well, I've had several re-incarnations of web sites, they grow and evolve as you learn more and develop your own style. Some pages you carry with you, some you drop. I've been doing this about four years and have finally settled on a black/white/gray motif that I hope is easy on the eyes, legible, and still enticing to some degree. Yes I made that background myself, it is two twisted S's as in Saint Sandroux.

Why a Shrine of Saint Sandroux? Well, when I first started learning VRML, I learned how to make a cylinder and a cube. I flattened several cubes into slabs and then made something like a Greek Temple. Pretty cool, I thought. Later I learned how to wrap a texture around a sphere. The texture I used was a transparent GIF image of my face. I put this ball in the center of the shrine... the rest is history.

I got a ISP and a browser and I hit the internet. I learned that I could get a free homepage and then I learned how to make time sensitive messages via JavaScript, I learned how to change text color via mouseover commands, create animated gifs, and program generated music. I learned about hit counters, guestbooks, background images, cascading style sheets, dynamic html, and interactive forms.

I sought out some vrml building tools and build some simple but cryptic ruin type drawings which I extruded into 3D objects. I learned a trick that makes drawing the interlocking knot easy back when I was in the 9th grade. I don't know why I made the 3 rusty crosses, but I did. The knot and the doublemint twist have cruciform origins so I was thinking along those lines evidently. I learned how to animate these things later.

My homepage space provider (GeoCities) has a number of requirements, the page can not be commercial, it can't have dirty pictures etc..., it should have something to do with the neighborhood you are located in. This last one was tough for me. I picked BourbonStreet because I live in New Orleans, but I am not the archtypical New Orleanian. I am not a Y'at, I don't cook Cajun food, and I didn't want to make another Mardi Gras site. Well, there are many weird things in the French Quarter off the beaten path. This town does have a strong but somewhat twisted religious outlook. Hmmmm, maybe I could make a storefront church, a sidestreet shrine to something....

Back when I was in college we joked about forming our own religion. We thought that carbon would be the holy element and that tithes should be paid in the purest and most compact form of carbon (the diamond). Everyone should have their own chapter or book, like the book of Christophalees, and words according to Sandroux. If nothing else, this should be good for tax purposes.This page is sorta an extension of some of those thoughts.

My middle name is Sand, I was called Sandy by many people during the first part of my life. One of my buddies was from Acadiana and he Cajunized my name into Sandrew or Sandroux. I thought it had a nice ring to it.

Use any internet search engine and look for the topic "Shrine". You will find that there are hundreds of shrines. Shrines to Barbie, shrines to Madonna, shrines to a 100 different movie stars, and shrines to every other big time celebrity you can think of. I thought, why build one to someone else?

Well, somewhere in here I got some other tools and made a vrml model of the Parthenon, the Athena Nike, the Pantheon, and the Julii family mausoleum. These are other big time shrines that are considerably more detailed than my initial vrml musings.

OK, what about the religious aspects? Let me assure you that I am not trying to offend anyone and I am not making fun of God. I also know that if God doesn't have a sense of humor that he wouldn't have put me here. The supreme being can take a joke even if you can't, so don't give me no guff. Try to see it from my side, you will see that I am quite serious in my beliefs. It is true that I might be taking a stab or two at religion in general. Most religions agree that there is  a God, then they all promptly disagree as to what to call him or how to honor her. Then war breaks out.... sheesh.

My God is one of those which is in anything and in all things. You are God, I am God, and that rock is God. My God has plenty of room for physics, chemistry, and evolution. Look at your hand, count the bones and muscles, flex those phalange's. To me this is proof that God exists, and that God is a good thing.

I believe in the tenants of Christianity, but I also believe in the fundamentals of Buddhism and the knowledge of the Celts. When God is so wonderful, why limit yourself to one perspective? At the same time, I have a hard time telling the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Episcopalians apart; I guess you can tell by the singing maybe.