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12/20/2007: "Eight Years ago tonight..."

I began the first serious steps to creating an on-line presence for my spiritual journey. With a bottle of scotch, an old Pentium I Compaq desktop, Windows 98 and a small CRT monitor, I went to the ONElist home page, an old mailing list website started by Mark Fletcher in 1997, and started laying out

the configuration for my first online email group called Celtic Nation USA. In about an hour, it was up and running, with 6 new members from the local Pensacola area who were also interested in Celtic polytheism.

Bringing up my AOL home page, I created my first website, Celtic Nation USA, uploading a hand-drawn pic of Cernnunos, a short paragraph introducing the ONElist group, and my contact information. I joined a half a dozen other Celtic interest groups, resigned from 3-4 other Pagan ones and as the sun rose over Pensacola Bay on the winter solstice, my work was done.

Within a month, ONElist was sold to eGroup. Michael Klein, the president and CEO of ONElist became the same for eGroup. The merger was a great thing, adding features that enhanced the group networking ability. I secured the celticnationusa.com domain and moved my site, expanding it with more Celtic interest pages and a dedicated eGroups page to direct traffic to the group.

My group started to grow and within a year had over 500 members. I dropped the "USA" off the group name because so many members were coming in from Europe, Canada, and Australia. I couldn't, however, secure the Celtic Nation domain, so the USA had to stay.

In December 2000, Yahoo purchased eGroups for over 400 million dollars in a stock deal, making Klein (and company) a very rich man. The service has never quite been the same, but the Celtic Nation group grew over the next four years to over 1500 members, making it the largest Celtic interest discussion group on Yahoo. In January 2005, after 5 years, I said farewell to Yahoo and shut the list down to concentrate on my website. Starting a blog and a discussion list, I spent time communing with web surfers Googling Celtic polytheism and reconstructionism. Later that September, I reopened the Yahoo group as an announcement list for the website.

Pursuing a desire to move the web presence to a more spiritual slant, in November 2006, we changed the name to Deiuokara.com (Reverence of the Divine). The old celticnationusa.com domain still points to the site, but that is about all that remains except for the Discuss forum and the blog. With Deiuokara, we began outlining our practices and observances.

So tonight, eight years to the evening, as I finish reminiscing, I find myself giving thanks to all of those who have helped me along my path. I no longer drink Scotch, so I raise a glass of Cruzan Rum and toast all of you who have shared the time with me, on-line and in person, and thank you for the memories.

In a couple of days, I'll be shutting down the website for an upgrade that should take about a month. Upgrading to Flash, upgrading the blog, as well as the content, who knows? Maybe we'll open the old Yahoo group back up to posting...it would be great to commune with some old friends. Here's hoping the new year is good to all of you!

Update 12/31/07: On December 23, 2007 the former CEO and president of ONElist (and eGroups after the merger), Michael Klein, was killed when his airplane crashed in Panama while vacationing with his daughter and his daughter's friend. He was 37 years old. His 13 year old daughter and the plane's pilot were also killed. His daughter's 12 year old friend survived. The moral: make the most of every day. "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back". TRL
http://www.wingedpig.com/archives/2007/12/reports_that_michael_klein_was_271.html