About The Website and its Author









No one ever reads this page, but it is here to help out the few that do come by.  Excuse the style of writing.  I see this page as an opportunity to be a little more casual.  Below you will find the basics on the site and its author (me).  The site is meant as an aid and by no means is it complete or should serve as text to start a new religion or modify the one you have.  More than anything else, I hope that this site gets people thinking, talking, and taking action.  

The huge trains I watched every day from my front yard on Cemetery St in Hopedale are long gone.  The path I used to take to cut from Green(e) St to the Sacred Heart Church Youth Group (CYC) or to "Cumbies" is now well overgrown.  The "dangerous" parts of Draper Mill have been recently razed.  Now it's time to build again. 
Let's build our communities.

THE GURT:
The name is a simple acronym for the proposed project name: The Grafton & Upton Rail-Trail. Every cause needs a launching point, and it usually starts with a name.  GURT is as good as anything I have seen for other trails, and speaks to the heritage of this linear park - the G&U Railroad.  Sorry Hopedale.  The logo is also just a simple design.  Before we get to making t-shirts, we should make sure we include a horseshoe or hoof print before we go to press.  Horseback riders are just as much a part of this project as cyclists, walkers, and runners.  

SCOTT BASICS:
Age: 29 and holding.
Marital Status: Very Happy (sorry ladies - but my brother is available).
Connections: Hopedale Native, Hopedale High School graduate- 1992 (outdoor graduation founder),
     Father lives in Hopedale (David Conlin), Mother still teaches Kindergarten (Pam Moloney), former 
     Bancroft Memorial Library employee, Grandmother lives in Upton (Phyllis Conlin), Relatives live in 
     Grafton (Ted, Michelle, and Patrick Conlin).
Employer: MicroPhage, Inc (A start-up biotech diagnostics firm) - Marketing Manager.  

SITE BASICS:
All contents, including layout and logos are copyright 2002-2003 (MMII) Scott Conlin and GURT.org.
Outside information is used where noted.  Thank you for sharing.
Constructed and first published August 2002.
Revision dates: November/December 2003, 

SCREEN SIZE:
Optimum viewing resolution is 800x600 pixels.  I chose this for the lowest common denominator argument:  Construct a website to the specifications of the lowest 25% technically advanced viewer.  Given data from the 2000 US Census and a number of discussions throughout the web, I decided on this resolution thinking there are are probably a good deal of people still using 15" monitors and 100MHz Pentium PCs out there.  If you have a small monitor, you may need to scroll more back and forth than other visitors.  If you have a huge 19" screen, a real kick-butt graphics card or a real new computer, don't worry.  There will just be a little extra space here and there for you.

FONT (TEXT) SIZE:
All text is set to a moderate 10pt size using the universally accepted Arial font.  If you think the site has letters too big or too small, don't go crazy sitting far away from your screen or squinting:  If you are using Internet Explorer (there is a globe in the top right corner), follow these steps: Click on 'View' at the top of your screen.  When the menu drops down, choose 'Text Size'. The little arrow next to it will show you that there are 5 sizes for your text, from smallest to LARGEST.  It should usually be set to Medium, but adjust it as you see fit (Choose one).  Changes automatically occur and will occur on every page you view, no matter the website.

BROWSER TYPE:
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher (recommended)
Netscape Navigator 5.0 or higher
AOL: I have no clue.  But then again, you should switch to a "real" browser and use NetZero or Juno for your ISP.

SPEED:
This site has been built with the 56k dial up modem user in mind.  Best performance is on a DSL, cable, or other high speed connection.  There are 4-5 slow pages, and if you routinely connect at slow speeds, I apologize, but this is a graphical medium, a graphical site, and some sort of speed is needed.  Those who have cable modems, DSL, or are using a work or school computer with T1 or T3, don't worry about any of this. 

SIZE:
Pages: About 30
Space: About 22 MB (Megabytes)
Images:  More than 250, many repeat.

SOFTWARE:
Basic Layout and Page Construction: Microsoft FrontPage 2000
Added information, etc.: HTML 4.x straight coding
Images: Photoshop, Microsoft Image Composer, and  a shareware GIF animator
Other: JavaScript, cgi coding.

SITE MAP: