Skip this dumb story. Take me to the table of contents.

Where the Rocks Are . . .

There's an old joke about three very devout men who were fishing from a small boat in the middle of a lake. The first man, responding to an urgent call of nature, bowed his head briefly, stepped out of the boat, walked across the surface of the lake and disappeared into the trees on shore, returning a few minutes later. After an hour or so, the second man needed to relieve himself. He stood, engaged in a brief moment of contemplation and walked serenely over the water to a nearby clump of bushes. Following a short absence, he returned to the boat by the same route.

The third man was amazed and a bit disturbed by what seemed to him to be a challenge to his faith. He was also becoming desperately uncomfortable from the amount of coffee he had consumed that morning. He stood, said a brief but fervent prayer, stepped out of the boat…and went straight to the bottom of the lake. His companions fished him out without comment. The second attempt was no more successful than the first and another, more prayerful try also ended in disaster. As he was being hauled, barely conscious, back into the boat for the third time, the first man said to the second, "Do you think we ought to tell him where the rocks are?"

OK, OK, I said it was an old joke. But this story has a couple of things going for it. First off, it's a "drummer joke." If you tell it in mixed company (the definition of "mixed" is left as an exercise to the reader), no one will get mad at you. It doesn't offend anyone. Second, it's a nice little parable about the power of knowledge, particularly those useful but obscure bits of lore that seem to get handed around in an awfully informal fashion.

As a consultant, I spend a lot of time telling people "where the rocks are." Thus, the WhertRA site. It's a central place for me to dump those little essays I need to write from time to time. It also saves me the trouble of rewriting the little beggars the next time someone asks me the same question.

So, keep an eye on this page (or register for automatic update notification). Items will appear in no particular order on no predictable schedule. Most, but not all, will probably have something to do with Windows 95 or Windows NT. The ALK page will continue to accumulate more complete, formal articles on basic subjects; WhertRA will be a grab bag for shorter, more technical obscurities.