My name is my name.
Back in the mid ninities, I was teaching myself Microsoft Access and Visual Basic. I needed a test database, and I liked steam engines, so I imported a list of steam locomotives for North America into an Access database, and wrote a front end in Visual Basic.
I thought others might enjoying using my new program, but there was already that list out there for North America. So, I decided to make it worldwide, thus the beginnings of the
Surviving World Steam Project. It grew to over 38,000 steam engines of all kinds and over 6,000 photographs in 160 countries.
For several reasons, I let the project lapse a couple of years ago. I then took up my other interest, and bought a copy of
Microsoft Flight Simulator. I then learned how to make aircraft for Flight Simulator, my first project was a trio of steam powered aircraft that were built and made brief hops before the Wright Brothers in the 1800s.
Then, I restored my Viscount Aerospace G.P.; and got back into cycling again. So, my avatar is titled
1875, the only year everything in my avatar existed:
In the center is a high wheel bicycle superimposed on my Flight Simulator model of duTemple's steam powered monoplane of 1875. Clockwise from upper left is the front wheel from a traction engine (ploughing engine), a wheel from a steam locomotive, a flywheel from a stationary steam engine, a smokestack, and the paddle wheel from a steamboat.
One of the reasons I let my project lapse is that I thought it would not work on Windows 7, especially the 64-bit version. I found out that is not true, it can be made to work fine, so I am thinking of re-releasing it. Here is the locomotive and steam vehicle databases running under Windows XP.
My title quote is the reference for my favorite scripture.
-James