Station R: About Us

In the geek speak of rescue agencies, a "Station R" is one's residence. For example, one rescue dude might radio another to "public-service 1582 at your Station R." Why they don't just come out and say, "Use the phone to call Rodger from your house," I don't know--except that it does sound cool to use the lingo.

This website began with a collection of caving trip reports that had been gathering dust in my desk drawers. When I was about 15, I noticed that some of my heroes, people like Bill Torode and Eric Steenburn, kept careful notes and records about their trips. For many years I did them one better, writing a trip report on every cave I visited. Reading those reports now, with so many of my memories hazy or vanished completely, it seems that they must have been written by someone else, some mysterious stranger.

When ordinary people started putting up websites in the mid 1990's, Station R became an obvious if self-indulgent outlet. As time has gone by and that mysterious stranger appears more often in my journals, I find myself wondering what he and his little family will do next.

Until November 2005, I was Director of Technology Support Services for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, with 13 talented people reporting to me. Annie and I had paid off the house and all our vehicles except our 35 foot sailboat. Daughter Laura was five years old and almost ready to start school. But it was time to take a break, so we quit our jobs, sold our house, and started south on the boat for a one to two year cruise in the Bahamas and Caribbean.

I don't think I ever recovered from that sabbatical, that cruising adventure. My daughter is now a grown woman, Annie and I are divorced, but I still spend as much time as I can outdoors.

Ling Family Archives

There was a time (this was before I lived on a sailboat) when I used the web to keep family and friends informed about the events or lack of events in our lives:

Laura's Birth
The Perfect Girl
Christmas Web Page, 2002
Christmas Web Page, 1999
Christmas Web Page, 1998
Christmas Web Page, 1997
Christmas Letter, 1996 (pdf)
Christmas Letter, 1995 (pdf)
Fathers Day, 1986
Gallastar Equine Center (out-dated archive of my sister Lori's site at www.gallastar.org)

Politics

The wise man keeps silent, while the fool...is probably me. I've written my share of angry letters that achieved nothing (although I am a bit proud of the personal note I got from Tennessee Congressman Zack Wamp saying that I disgusted him). Fortunately, if you don't agree with my views, there's no reason we can't be friends. We'll just talk about other things, and eventually one day you'll come to your senses. Update: if you're a Trumper, we won't be friends, so it doesn't matter much, anyway.

Why We're Losing the War: My Core Beliefs (March 2007)
Why Invade Iraq? (January 2003--jeepers, I got that one right.)
Anti-War Blog (Feb 2003 - Dec 2006)
Peach March (February 2003)
Vote Bush? (December 2004)

Flotsam

You could read all kinds of stimulating intellectual essays on a variety of topics here...should I ever come up with any.