25 Years of UF

On February 26, 2001, I stepped into my office at 3219A Weimer Hall in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida as the College’s first full-time Web Administrator. 25 years later, I’m still the primary Web Developer in the College. The job has grown and taken me along for the ride, or vice-versa.

Looking back on some things:

  • My cell phone was a Nokia 5120.
  • I didn’t personally own a digital camera. That happened later that year.
  • My home computer was a Power Mac 8500.
  • My home Internet service was dial-up.
  • My personal website was a /~username account at my ISP.
  • Similarly, my personal email address was with my ISP.
  • 9/11 hadn’t happened yet.

Some milestones:

  • My first refresh of the College site launched for Fall 2001.
  • 2003 – Met Jeffrey Zeldman for the first time at a work conference at Indiana University.
  • 2004 – First live video webcast of a conference.
  • 2005 – First trip to SXSWi and first WordPress sites (this is one of them).
  • 2009 – Added WUFT.org to my work responsibilities.
  • 2011 – Shifted from being a “gang of one plus student assistants” to the newly-formed communications group.

Check back, I may add some more memoirs and milestones.

Books I Read in 2025

I read 21 books in 2025. Here’s a list, some more information about them, and links to more information.

I started tracking my book reading on BookWyrm in late 2024. The end of 2025 brought a “wrapped”-style stats page, but I’ll save you a click by putting the list here with some comments. Thanks to the Clay County (Fla.) Library, the Libby app/service, and my Amazon Fire tablets for helping me read all of these.

In chronological order:

  • Spook Street by Mick Herron. Book/Season 4 in the Slough House series on which the Apple TV show “Slow Horses” is based. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Wool by Hugh Howey. Book 1/Seasons 1-2 in the “Silo” series on Apple TV. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • One Deadly Eye by Randy Wayne White. The latest in the Doc Ford series that I’ve read every book of. Fictionalized story based largely on the impact of 2022’s Hurricane Ian. Another, actually part two of this story, has published since this one. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • London Rules by Mick Herron. Book/Season 5 in the Slough House/”Slow Horses” series. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. The longest book I read in 2025. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olson. The book that Season 1 of Department Q on Netflix is based on. I read it before the TV show premiered. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Shift by Hugh Howey. Book 2 in the “Silo” series. Chonologically a prequel to “Wool.” We’ll see how they deal with the timeline in Season 3. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Dust by Hugh Howey. Book 3 (the finale) of the “Silo” series. I couldn’t wait to see how the story ended. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The Secret Hours by Mick Herron. A Slough House/”Slow Horses” back story about Jackson Lamb and some familiar others in Berlin around the time that the Wall fell. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The List by Mick Herron. A novella in the Slough House/”Slow Horses” universe set between books two and three in the timeline. Shortest book I read in 2025—started and finished the same day. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The Night Agent by Matthew Quirk. Enjoyed the TV show on Netflix and thought I’d give the book a look. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Fever Beach by Carl Hiaasen. The latest absurd tale of Florida Men by the master of the genre. Unrelated to Bad Monkey except for Florida. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The Last Templar by Raymond Khoury. Picked up at an estate sale because the jacket notes sounded pretty good. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Countdown by Frank G. Slaughter. Another estate sale pickup because I believe I remember seeing it in my parents’ bookcase as a kid. A late 1960s space program drama. BookWyrm
  • Code to Zero by Ken Follett. Another drama surrounding the early space program. A good follow-up to Countdown. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. I heard about it on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast—probably a “thing that made one of them happy that week.” I was wait listed about nine weeks at the library to get it. Probably my favorite book of the year. Definitely need to try another book by her in the future. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • The Key to Rebecca by Ken Follett. More period espionage drama by a master—this time Brits vs. Germans in World War II north Africa. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Joe Country by Mick Herron. Book 6 and probably Season 6 of Slough House/”Slow Horses.” I think I read this shortly after watching Season 5. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Slough House by Mick Herron. Joe Country had some compelling loose ends so I dove right into Book 7 on the e-reader. I’ve read somewhere that Season 6 of the TV show may break form and go part way into this book. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Bad Actors by Mick Herron. Book 8 of the Slough House series and the last published as of this writing. Slough House had loose ends, this story follows almost immediately, and it was conveniently available. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org
  • Jackdaws by Ken Follett. Back to World War II espionage—this time in Britain and France—with Follett. BookWyrm | Bookshop.org

Photos of the Year 2025

2025 was not an extremely productive year behind the camera and lenses. The best places to see what I’ve been up to closer to realtime are pixelfed and Flickr.

The Popular

Tiger Swallowtail on Mexican Sunflower, III

#MyFlickrYear25 says this was my most-popular photo this year. The interesting thing about this photo is it was taken while testing out a ca. 1970s screw-mount Soligor 80-200 zoom via a mount adapter on my E-M5ii. The lens was in the bag with a Pentax Spotmatic acquired in an estate sale.

The Favorites

Diana of the Hunt

2024-25 had some dabbling with film photography with estate sale cameras. “Diana of the Hunt” is in the gardens at the Cummer Museum in Jacksonville, Fla. Photo from my little Olympus Pen-EE that is about the same age as I am.

Sooza Brass Band - Austin, Brian, Bianca, Ryan

Sooza Brass Band on stage at Fanfares & Fireworks 2025. I worked social media and photography for the event via my work affiliation with WUFT.

Most Gruesome

This alligator eating smaller alligator photo won’t embed here because of the safety level I set on Flickr.

Most Unique

Gray Catbird and Black-and-White Warbler

A gray catbird and a black-and-white warbler in a tree next to the deck in the backyard. “Most Unique” because both are fairly camera shy.

Honorable Mentions

Flag and Buckets

Photo from Fanfares & Fireworks 2024 taken on film with the Olympus Pen-EE, but not developed until mid-2025.

Annisquam, Mass. - Winter 1984

I acquired a film scanner in 2025 and one of the first scans was this memorable photo from winter 1984 in Annisquam, Mass.

A slide/film scanner joins my photo gear toolkit

I recently acquired a Magnasonic FS71 film/slide scanner at a local estate sale. It was apparently purchased in early 2021 and never fully unwrapped or used. I paid $22 for it!

I didn’t expect the first in my planned series on “Garage Sale Tech” to be about this.

I recently acquired this Magnasonic FS71 film/slide scanner at a local estate sale. It was apparently purchased in early 2021 and never fully unwrapped or used. I paid $22 for it!

It’s been a fun couple of weeks occasionally grabbing a slide or negative out of cold storage for a trip down memory lane.

Things I like:

  • Convenience. It’s nice to not have to get out the laptop, cable things together, worry about whether the scanning software will “see” it, etc.
  • It’s powered by USB. It’s not new enough to have a type C connector, but it’s nice to know I can grab my phone booster to power it anywhere if I need to.
  • It records to an SD memory card. And it stores the images in a folder structure that photo import software sees as a camera, making super easy image transfers.
  • The quality is very good for the money.

Things I think could be done better.

  • There doesn’t appear to be a way to set the date on it so all the images were “created” on July 1, 2017.
  • I didn’t see in the instructions anywhere that it said “emulsion side down” or “This Side Toward Screen” down. You can flip and rotate with buttons on the front, but the quality should be better if the emulsion does not have film stock between it and the sensor.

And now, some photos:

Sailing - Fall 1975

My brother and I sailing in 1975. Scanned from a 126 “Instamatic” format Ektachrome slide. Must have been my camera because no one else in the family would put slide film in their Instamatic.

At Work - January 1984

Me at work at The Orlando Sentinel in Jan. 1984. Photo by a co-worker with my original Pentax MX. Scanned from black-and-white film–probably FP4, but maybe Tri-X.

Annisquam, Mass. - Winter 1984

A winter scene from Annisquam, Mass. during my spring break of 1984. Photo by me with my uncle’s camera moments after I slipped on the ice, fell, and destroyed my Pentax MX. I actually still have the pieces in a box somewhere. Scanned from color negative film.

Addendum (16 June 2025): I have some previous experience with slide/film scanning using a Nikon Coolscan III LS-30 and an Epson Perfection 1640SU. The Nikon belonged to a lab I once worked in and I regret not grabbing it for my office when the lab director retired. I personally own the Epson and still have it. It’s old and you really need 3rd party software like VueScan to make it work. I have an album on my Flickr called “Scans of old slides and photos” if you’d like to check out scans from all of the above (and possibly others).

Photos of the Year 2024

Some end-of-the-year remarks about my favorite and most-viewed photos of 2024.

The Favorites

Anhinga with fish and sky reflections 1

A “right place at the right time” photo of an anhinga bird with a fish at the Orlando Wetlands Park in November.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS (Oct. 16)

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS in the western sky seen from beach parking at Marineland, Fla. I didn’t know this photo was successful until days later when I happened to open the Camera Raw file in Photoshop on a 32″ 4K monitor.

This comet was an interesting photo challenge to get a picture of something barely (or not even) visible to the unaided eye. The process was (1) use a stargazing app on a phone to find where it should be, (2) take a 15-or-so-second exposure of the area with your phone on a tripod, (3) find the comet in the phone photo and use that to line up a higher-end camera for the shot.

The above photo wasn’t taken that way, though, it was “point-and-pray” with Live View on my Olympus TG-6. It’s also worth noting that this location is regarded as one of the darkest places on the east coast of Florida.

The Popular

Hancock Building

For some reason, Flickr likes to serve this 2006 photo of the Hancock Building in Chicago when viewers search for “building.” It’s been my most-viewed photo in my stats most days this year. It’s currently ranked 21st for all-time views in my photostream on the site.

The Late Night Losers

The Instagram version of this photo from FANFARES & FIREWORKS seems to get a lot of random likes. Maybe because I don’t post there often and it’s currently still my most-recent post there.

Nikon Lens + Fotasy + Olympus E-M5II + Orchid

Honorable Mention – Flickr in its year-in-review of my uploads says this photo taken while testing gear was my most-liked on the platform this year.

Evening commute distraction

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cell911/43897556702/in/dateposted-public/

Spotted it coming in for a landing about 10 minutes from home in a field where a Christmas tree stand resides in that season. Pulled over into the driveway, took a few photos, and then relocated to the spot on a side street where this was taken. A moment later, it took off and landed atop a light pole next to Little Black Creek.