The World Wide Web was created at CERN (the European nuclear research particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland), invented by Physiciast Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 and made accessible publicly on August 6, 1991. On April 30, 1993, the underlying technology was made available to everyone on a ROYALTY-FREE basis, giving us the basis for today's free and open web.
Here's the Ars Technica article announcing today's birthday and giving the full history of this event. There are some interesting photos of code and equipment from that day in this article.
Interesting also -- the first computer/server for the web was a NeXT computer from the company Steve Jobs started after being fired by Apple Computer, and that computer still exists and was recently tune-up and fired up again.
CERN has resurrected that first web page here, and below is a screenshot of that page (click to enlarge)
George Beverly Shea died last night at the age of 104.
When a mere tyke, I would hear a booming bass voice on my mom's favorite radio station, and I puzzled over how such a manly voice could come from someone named "Beverly."
George Beverly Shea, or "Bev" to his friends, quickly became my favorite singer. Shea teamed up with Billy Graham and toured the world for nearly 50 years until retiring. He has been deemed "America's Beloved Gospel Singer" and considered the first international star of the gospel world. According to the Guinness Book of Records, Shea holds the world record for singing in person to the most people ever, with an estimated cumulative live audience of 220 million people. Born in 1909, this Grammy-winning Canadian is now a centenarian and still going strong!
Here is a photo from early in his radio career...
... and here is a photo from his 100th birthday party a few months back, singing of course to all his assembled friends, while seated alongside his long-time friend and mission-partner, Dr. Billy Graham...
Shea's father was a Methodist minister and his mother a piano/organ teacher, so his ultimate career should not be considered surprising, although he arrived at it circuitously. You see, he attended college in New York, but after financial concerns forced him to end college after a year, he worked 9 years as a clerk for Mutual of New York Insurance, taking voice lessons on the side. His break occurred after appearing on Fred Allen's amateur hour program. Though coming in second behind a yodeler, he still earned a spot singing popular music on Allen's radio program. In 1933, a network radio director heard Shea sing and was sufficiently impressed to arrange an audition to sing popular secular songs for Your Hit Parade, a national program broadcast on NBC. But Shea turned down the position because he didn’t feel right about performing secular music.
In 1939, the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago (MBI) offered Shea a staff position with "duties that included emceeing, interviewing, news-casting, continuity writing, programming, administration, auditioning, and singing" on radio station WMBI, the first non-commercial Christian radio station in America. Eventually he was heard on 187 different stations in 45 states, as well as in Canada, Latin America and China.
In 1944, Shea began his 50 year association with Rev. Billy Graham, beginning on Graham's "Songs in the Night" weekly radio program from the basement of his suburban Chicago church. It was Shea's popularity that helped Graham's previously financially struggling program become self-sustaining within weeks. Shea then teamed with Graham as featured singer with the Billy Graham Crusades which began in 1947.
Shea recalls how he first met Billy Graham in these words:
"One morning, there was a rap on my office door. I looked out and there was a tall young man with blond hair and we shook hands. He was 21 and I was 31. It was Billy Graham and he had traveled in from Wheaton College on a train just to say 'hello.' He said he listened to my morning hymn show called 'Hymns From The Chapel.' That's how we first got acquainted. "I came into this (Crusades) work with Mr. Graham in 1947 after we had exchanged letters and talked on the phone. He said he wanted me to be his gospel singer. I thanked him, but told him the only gospel singers I've ever heard about would sing a verse or two and stop and talk awhile. 'Would I have to do that?' I asked him. He chuckled and said, 'I hope not.' With that, I said, 'Well, I'd like to come with you. That was in November of 1947 and I've been with him ever since."
Shea has recorded approximately 500 vocal solos on more than seventy albums.
In 1932, Shea composed the tune to "I'd Rather Have Jesus", the words of which were written in a poem by Rhea F. Miller. In his book, How Sweet the Sound, Shea tells the story of his role in "I'd Rather Have Jesus":
"At the age of twenty-three, I was living at home with my parents, continuing to work at Mutual Life Insurance and studying voice. Going to the piano one Sunday morning, I found a poem waiting for me there. I recognized my mother's handwriting. She had copied the words of a poem by Mrs. Rhea F. Miller, knowing that I would read the beautiful message, which speaks of choice. As I read those precious words, I found myself singing the words in a melody that expressed the feelings of my heart."
Here is a video from 1957's New York City Crusade with a very young George Beverly Shea singing his own "I'd Rather Have Jesus"...
Shea also wrote both the lyrics and music of "The Wonder of It All", which was copyrighted in 1956. The inspiration for the song arose from conversation with another passenger who asked, "What goes on at Graham's crusades?" Shea attempted to describe the response that accompanied Graham's nightly invitation to audience members to become a Christian, and then watching people by the hundreds come forward. "Oh, if you could just see the wonder of it all," Shea stated to the stranger, who then wrote on a card and handed it back to Shea: "That sounds like a song to me." Later that night, Shea wrote the lyrics and roughed out a melody to go with them. Here is Shea, at age 97, performing his song, "The Wonder of It All..."
In 1998, North Carolina Public Television produced "The Wonder of It All", a television program on Shea's amazing life story.
Shea was nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning the 1965 Best Gospel for his album "Southland Favorites" and in 1978, he was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame for his lifelong contribution to gospel music.
In 1956 Shea received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts, from Houghton College (NY), and in 1972 received the honorary Doctor of Sacred Music from (now) Trinity International University of Deerfield, Illinois.
Few realize that Shea was the first to popularize what is now a beloved standard hymn, "How Great Thou Art." Here he is, while in his 90s, singing at a Gaither Homecoming concert...
And here he sings the other most popular Christian song, "Amazing Grace"...
The Yarborough Trail follows the Ten Mile Canal on the eastern edge of Ft. Myers, Florida. It is a paved trail and runs 5 miles from Colonial Blvd. to Six Mile Cypress Parkway. It is just west of the busy Metro Parkway (Hwy. 679), which is west of I-75.
You'll find this scenic tree-lined trail a nice getaway from the nearby urban landscape. There are some road crossings, but only Daniels Road is a major hassle. The "official" trail takes you about a half mile west to a traffic signal and then back east on the other side of Daniels. If you are in a hurry like some I saw, they simply cut across Daniels at the trail.
Here's one of the rest areas along the route...
I enjoyed several sightings of gators and many sightings of waterfowl including heron, egrets, muscovy ducks, this moorhen...
... and even this osprey which caught a fish in the canal right in front of me and then re-aligned the fish to aerodynamically carry it to its nest...
The Seminole-Gulf Railway, which hauls freight and has excursion passenger service, including a popular Murder Mystery Trail that includes dinner and a show, runs alongside the trail, and you pass their engine and passenger yard as you bike the trail. And talk about various transportation modes in one area -- besides a bike trail and rail line, across the canal is a Metro bus storage facility and an airport!
Parking is available at the Lee County Sports Complex at the trail's south end. I parked at a gravel lot on Daniels Parkway, just west of Metro Parkway. The lot is not marked as parking so watch for it -- it's just (and I mean just several feet) west of where Daniels crosses the single railroad track.
This is not a hugely inspiring trail as it simply runs alongside the six-lane wide (and very noisy from traffic) Palmetto Park Road in Boca Raton, Florida, but it does provide an 11 mile round trip paved route, with additional miles available if you detour onto the paved trail alongside Boca Rio Road and the canal, both of which also follow the west side of Florida's Turnpike (Highway 91.) Click on this map to enlarge it.
I parked at Veteran's Park just east of Highway 411/University Road. Every mile or so you encounter another major 6 lane road to cross, though traffic signals make the crossings safe after the usual wait times for the next green cycle.
About a mile and a half east, the trail makes an S-curve to the north to cross over the canal and tollway on a high bridge. If you keep going straight, you'll quickly reach the bike path that parallels the canal seen below and be able to add extra miles to your ride.
When you follow the S-curve and cross the bridge to bike the trail east of the tollway, the landscaping to your south improves, but you still have the 6 lane road and traffic noise for the rest of the ride.
