Welcome to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago, a diverse collection of information, opinion, fiction, poetry, and trivia—what you might expect from a farrago, which, according to the dictionary, is a medley, conglomeration, or mixture.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago reflects most of my passions. I am a computer consultant and former computer science professor, but I have always been a generalist. I am interested in science and mathematics, in technology, history, and politics. I am a musician, photographer, writer, and railfan. I am a Christian who, attracted by its music, liturgy, and tolerance, discovered The Episcopal Church long past my adolescence. To my astonishment, I have become an activist within my adopted church home.

More specifically, I am a trainer, a database and Web site designer, an essayist and poet, a clarinetist and singer, a steam locomotive enthusiast, a cat lover, a liberal Democrat—I began as a conservative Republican—and a liberal Christian. Never having become much of a celebrity, most visitors here really aren’t seeking to discover me. Because of my diverse interests, however, many can at least find something of interest on these pages.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is organized into sections to help you find items of interest and avoid everything else. The sections are accessible through navigation buttons at the top left of this and other introductory pages. The sections of my Web site are described below:

	Biography is about me. It contains my résumé and publication list. Should you be considering engaging me to provide training, database or Web site design, or other services, you can also find a description of what I do (or click here to go there directly to that page).
	Church Resources is a collection of the spiritual, liturgical, and the pragmatic, including commentary on current Episcopal and Anglican disputes. Cross-listings are provided here to original poetry and hymns in the Poetry section. Much of this material is of interest to non-Episcopalians. My Web Log
	Commentary is a collection of personal and political essays. Additional essays, generally shorter ones, can be found in my Web Log.
	Computer Science contains a somewhat arbitrary selection of papers and reports I’ve published. Of special interest (because it hasn’t been published elsewhere) is brief paper that attempts to demystify radix conversion.
	Contact Information tells how to contact me.
	Fiction contains stories. I don’t write much fiction, so this section is small.
	Language Notes is about—in H. L. Mencken’s words—the American language. Other essays on language can be found in my Web Log.
	Poetry, of course, contains my poetry. I am a down-to-earth, unsentimental poet whose work is quite diverse. This section contains both serious and humorous verse.
	Recreation Math contains sections on digital invariants and curve stitching. I enjoy recreational math, but I don’t often produce results of interest to anyone else.
	Search allows visitors to search Lionel Deimel’s Farrago.
	Site Map lists pages on this site by category and show recently added pages. It also contains a complete index of essays in my Web log.
	Web Log is not your typical blog. It is neither a diary nor a running commentary on some particular topic. Rather, it is a vehicle for posting modest essays that could, in principle, go elsewhere, particularly in Language Notes, Commentary, or Church Resources. A complete table of contents for my Web Log is on the Site Map page. The Search page can also be used to find something specific. Over time, I have tried to make my Web Log more user-friendly. Although I have provided no facility for adding user comments, feedback is always appreciated. (See Contact Information.)
Silent Ls The lead story on the news on 2/15/2008 was the shooting spree at Northern Illinois University, in DeKalb, Illinois. The story reminded me that, although this DeKalb is pronounced with a voiced L, DeKalb County in Georgia is not. This led me to add an entry to my essay on words with silent Ls. Click here to read the updated essay. Be sure to notice the navigation links at the top and bottom of most pages. These allow you to do such things as read poems one after another without returning to the introductory poetry page. Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is largely organized hierarchically, and, after moving around the site, navigation should become pretty intuitive. You will notice that pages are generally restricted in width. Although this is, in part, a holdover from the days before higher screen resolutions became common, the narrow format generally allows for pages to be printed on letter-size paper in portrait mode without truncation for size reduction. I hope that this will be appreciated by those who like to read from paper or who want to share my work with others.

Comments and suggestions, as well as requests for permission to use anything I have written, are always welcome. Use the Contact Information page to contact me, or click on my e-mail address, found at the bottom of most pages. Please write to me if you discover any broken links or encounter any other technical problems with the site.

Some visitors may know about me through my work with Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh or Via Media USA. You should know that I have resisted the temptation to write about my work with those organizations here. Much of what I have written on behalf of Episcopal Church unity, some of it anonymously, is available elsewhere and is not to be found here. My involvement with PEP left me little time to write much of anything for my own site, although I have been writing more of late. Also, more material on the current church struggles is showing up here. I am not quite ready to join the ranks of the regular Episcopal bloggers, however.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your visit to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. If you like the site, be sure to tell your friends about it.

Thanks for dropping by. 

— LED, 10/17/2006

Page last modified October 05, 2008