About Us

On June 17, 1999, Pat, Erik, and Jim brought a few of their computers outside into the gazebo at Jim's house.  We thought it would be kind of fun to do something with them and soon realized that the gazebo wasn't a good long-term place to keep the computers.  So they were moved into an old school bus that was painted white, so we are now called Whitebus.  The bus contained no seats and used to be used for storing wood during the winters.  A few chairs, tables, and even an old car seat were set up in the bus and a phone cord was run out across the driveway to the bus.  We experimented with a BBS for a while and it worked well but we were the only ones to use it.  Pat and Erik could dial up from home but it wasn't particularly useful and nobody else seemed interested in us.  During the winter, the computers were moved inside and nothing was really accomplished during that time.

After some more time in the bus, Jim's father's garage was cleaned out and everything was moved in there because we hoped that we would be able to stay running through the winter.  A new window was put in and we had small heaters for the winter.  We slowly grew during the summer, getting more used computer equipment from almost everywhere, and some of it even worked.  We tried becoming a dial-up service but that didn't work too well.  The garage wasn't insulated so we still needed to come in for the winter.  Fortunately Jim's house was being rearranged anyway, so we were able to move into what used to be his parents' bedroom before it got too cold.  That is where the working computers are now kept.

On January 3, 2001, Erik reconfigured most of the computers and we were able to dial up to our network from anywhere else.  We still have the same basic setup with only a few minor changes since then.  We have gained a few members to Whitebus over the past year and we are grateful to them.  Our web page continues to grow and we are still looking out for better equipment and better services to offer.

Below are some pictures of Whitebus and Jim's house:

These are the people who keep Whitebus up and running:

Erik Halbrend

Jim Carignan

Pat Clas