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:
- Picture 1 - a view of Jim's house
from the road
- Picture 2 - the farm down the
road, Amsterdam appears in the distance, and the white bus is at the far right
- Picture 3 - the back of the white
bus
- Picture 4 - the front of the
white bus
- Picture 5 - some of the computers
set up in the house
- Picture 6 - Jim, Rob, Erik,
Pat, and Nathan with bowling trophies, 1994?
These are the people who keep Whitebus up and running:
Erik Halbrend
Jim Carignan
Pat Clas