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- I've taken an extended vacation from Wikipedia for a while. I will be checking in occasionally still.
I'm a forty-something computer programmer, living approximately six miles west of downtown Ogden, Utah, three miles east of the Great Salt Lake and 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.. I graduated from Weber State College (now a university) with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science in 1989. I had enough credits that I could have chosen a Bachelor of Arts degree, but I figured that the science degree would work better with my chosen career path. (I still lean more to the artistic side than others in my field.)
I accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I served a mission in the Argentina, Buenos Aires South Mission, in the cities of Los Hornos, Chivilcoy and La Plata (in that order). I spoke Castilian Spanish fluently, but with an accent. I can still speak passable Spanish, and still with an accent.
Politically, I am both a fiscal and social conservative. There should be as little government as necessary and no more. On the World's Smallest Political Quiz, I score in the libertarian region, close to the conservative region. But I do not affiliate with any political party, especially not the two major political parties in the United States.
No human can be truly unbiased. However, I do truly strive for the Wikipedia NPOV. Other useful Wikipedia knowledge is found here.
Avocations edit
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I'm an active geocacher with 545 caches found as of October 8, 2007.
I enjoy playing board games. I used to go to the monthly meeting of a board game group in West Valley City, Utah (next to Salt Lake City about four to six times a year. I'd go more often, but it is about an hour away from my house. There is now a board game group forming in Ogden, Utah. Join us.
I hold an active Amateur radio license, technician class.
Major Wikipedia Edits edit
I've made some major edits to some topics of which I have personal knowledge. Most have been rewording while adding some additional information. I worry more about editing than keeping this list up to date, so I've missed some major edits. Rather than try to maintain chronology, I have grouped them by topic.
Religion edit
- Anti-Mormonism: Addressed false Mormon "doctrine".
- Opposition to Mormonism: Above category renamed to this. (Major contributor)
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Minor contributor. (It was already pretty good.)
- Agency (Mormonism): Major restructuring
- Blacks and Mormonism
- Book of Mormon
- Jaredite: Relatively minor edits, but I expect to do more
- Mahonri Moriancumer: Major expansion (from Ether 1-6) with scriptural references
- Moroni
- Mormon (prophet)
- Omer (Book of Mormon): Greatly-expanded article
- Plates of Nephi: Re-organized then added the Caretakers section
- Three Nephites: Rewrote from a stub article to a full article
- Zarahemla
- Extermination Order: Added date and governer (Kit Bond) when it was rescinded, and other links to this article.
- Fireside (Mormonism): Created article (as a stub)
- LDS movies: Created this article. I've been meaning to do it for a few months, but the article in the Deseret News today about Man's Search for Happiness spurred me on.
- Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration: Added story that was presented in the movie. (It was stilted, but now present.)
- Legacy: A Mormon Journey: Created this article stub and the Legacy (movie) redirect.
- People who are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
- Neleh Dennis: Created a stub (which was soon deleted). But someone else created a better article later.
- Henry Eyring: (m) Corrected category listing
- Jon Heder: (m) Corrected category listing
- Glen A. Larson: Producer of Battlestar Galactica
- Hugh Nibley: (m) Added him to Category:Latter Day Saints
- Quorum: Created the article
- Stake: Revised a lot
- Ward: Revised a lot
- WikiProject: Latter Day Saint Movement: Self-added participant
- Word of Wisdom: Minor edits now, but I expect to do more later
- Zion
- Creationism and Creation belief: Tried to help without getting stuck in the muck, but was chased off by those who made it into an anti-creationism article.
- Presiding Bishop: Though the article is mostly about Latter Day Saint Presiding Bishops, Alai and I have added some to the Episcopalian section of the article.
- Restorationism: Various edits to make it read better
Geography edit
- Salt Lake City, Utah: I live about thirty miles north of this city.
- Ogden, Utah: I live about six miles west of this city.
- Fort Buenaventura: Created this article.
- Great Salt Lake: I live about three miles east of this lake.
- Extremes on Earth: Created this page because I'm interested in this type of information.
- Extremos en la Tierra: Translated my page to Spanish. It was corrected with the comment (translated), "This translation appears to be a mix of frightful Spanish and Esperanto to Spanish."
- WikiProject: Utah: Self-added participant
Politics and History edit
- Legacy Highway: I'm for the Legacy Highway. As a computer programmer and former ISP worker, I recognize the logic of redundancy in network paths. But I stuck to a NPOV.
- Eddie Aikau: Created this entry because a guy at work has a T-shirt with the phrase "Eddie would go" and some vague recollection of Eddie's story. I decided to look it up and create a Wikipedia stub.
Technology edit
- Amiga Corporation: Created article for the company that created the Amiga computer.
- Geocaching: This is a hobby of mine.
Entertainment edit
- Cinema
- Back to the Future trilogy: links to and from
- Clockstoppers: Started article
- Down and Derby: Wrote article the same day after watching the DVD.
- The Gods Must Be Crazy: Several minor changes that look like more because of the way differences are generated.
- Grand Tour: Disaster in Time: Created a stub article, hoping to fill in more later.
- The Philadelphia Experiment: Added infobox.
- LDS cinema
- The Best Two Years: Wrote a complete (new) article
- Brigham City: Started article stub
- Mobsters and Mormons: Wrote a complete (new) article
- Out of Step (film): Wrote a complete (new) article
- Saints and Soldiers: Significantly expanded article with "Plot Summary" and "Commentary" sections, and added categories.
- Motion Picture Association of America: A minor edit, but adding an external link was my first Wikipedia edit.
- Small Soldiers: Added story.
- Take A Chance''Take A Chance'' (2006): Created article. (It has since been merged into another article about the movie.)
- Time Machine (2002): Started article.
- The Time Tunnel: Created episode table, placed existing episode names in it and populated the rest of the table (February 19 through March 1 2007).
- Games
- Bridges (puzzle): Created article.
- Crayon Rails: Recreated article.
- Category:Rail Games: Created category that is now named Category:Railroad games.
- Reversi diagram template: Created the template by modifying the Chess diagram template.
- Rivers, Roads & Rails: Created article.
- Square Mile: Created article, disambiguation page and a new board game category to put it in.
- Tracks to Telluride: Created article.
- TransAmerica (board game): Created article.
- Television
- Battlestar Galactica: Some rework (understatement)
- Triad (Battlestar Galactica): Started article
- Viper (disambiguation): Worked on page
- Bordertown: Created article
- The Muppet Show: I like this show so much. It is intelligent humor in a silly way.
- The Prisoner: Added episode of The Invisible Man that bears a striking resemblance to The Village, and re-arranged References section.
- Quark: Added infobox. (Also, some prior and following edits.)
- Salvage 1: Added episode list (w/air dates) and restructured article.
- Star Trek
- Cyrano Jones: Started article (Lasted a while before it was deleted on the second attempt to delete it.)
- Teen Angel: Added infobox and episode list.
- Battlestar Galactica: Some rework (understatement)
- Music
- Convoy: Added a lot more detail to the article about this song by C.W. McCall.
- Robert Lund: Created this article complete with discography. It was speedily deleted the next day.
- The Royal Guardsmen: Created this because I like their music, even the ones not about Snoopy and the Red Baron.
- Category:Fictional technology: Combined Category:Fictional devices and Category:Science fiction technology in to this category.
Miscellaneous edit
- Continuous flow intersection: Created article.
- Template:Infobox RareCurrencies: Created template for use on Inverted Jenny article, etc.
To Do edit
This is my own personal list of things to do, when I get time:
- Add pictures of internal workings of
- Pocket Cube (2x2x2) (Can this be disassembled?)
Rubik's Cube (3x3x3)Done (by someone else)!- Rubik's Revenge (4x4x4)
- Professor's Cube (5x5x5)
Bookmarks edit
Articles I want to bookmark for future reference:
- Ray tracing:
- Wikipedia:Errors in the Encyclopædia Britannica that have been corrected in Wikipedia
- Computing
- Portal:Free software
- Haiku (web site), the current open-source successor to BeOS
- D which was deleted.
- Stratagus, open source game engine.
- Miscellaneous
- Agloe, New York, a paper town that became real.
- The Ciphers of the Monks, describes a numeral system that was used by the Cistercian order of monks.
- Agloe, New York, a paper town that became real.
Opinions to be considered edit
- Don't Destroy
- Constructive Criticism on current Wiki Deletion Policy
- After an article was nominated for the third time for deletion within a few months, I developed a personal policy to automatically vote against deletion unless it had been at least six months since the previous nomination. This went over like a lead balloon when I used it in a recent deletion review, so much so that those desiring deletion didn't read the other reasons I'd given to keep the article. However, in a recent discussion, someone brought up the Wikipedia policy on renominations, so I will now use this with a "six month" limit for "reasonable amount of time".
Problem editors/edits edit
- Avoid Three revert rule electric fence
- Administrator intervention against vandalism
- For other problem
These are the voyages... edit
...of the user Val42...
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