I learned domains were relatively inexpensive to register, I decided I wanted one. But which one? I mean, all the good ones were taken. Right?

about what people liked, what was popular these days, what was politically correct. I Decided upon dolphins. Naturally Dolphins.com was taken, and dolphins this and dolphins that. I tried DolphinLand, DolphinWorld, DolphinIsland, DolphinKey... "Congratulations - That domain is available," the message on the screen read.

Was it a good name? Who knew, but I rather liked it. So, after saying it over and over in my mind, out loud, writing it down a few times, playing with logos and the likes, I bought it.

But what about a website?

was to take it rather literally: Dolphin Key, somewhere in the tropics, beachfront property with a scattering of thatch-roofed shops offering a variety of goods. Did I have a variety of goods to offer? No. DolphinKey.com languished...

I was hanging out at the local marina--naturally not actually out in my boat--when I noticed there was no longer a Tide Tables display on the counter. I was told the provider had split town. Blown the clambake. Left the country. I got to thinking...I was a programmer, after all.

of tide data, parsed it, began writing my own tide table generator, the format based loosely on the tide table mine would be replacing. Naturally, I made certain changes, added this, left out that, and voila! I had become the Tide Table provider for that marina.

"connect-the-dots looking"--and the data limited to our local zone. I went onto the web, spent a few minutes in the search engines, and finally found N.O.A.A.!!

and spoke with one of their programmers, who told me, and I nearly quote, "From the sound of what you are writing, you might as well just get the data off of our website." I quickly through together a Java program, then another, then another... Before too long, I had a collection of routines capable of web-walking and data-parsing, which created flat files on my disk. A few changes to the existing Tide Table image generator to handle this new deluge of data...

capable of producing Tide Tables for over THREE THOUSAND (3000) locations along the U.S. coasts and around some of its holdings.

with the Tide Table looking quite good, if I do say so myself, I figured it was time to make DolphinKey real. SO, I got an occupational license, tax id, et cetera, and was in business as a Desktop Publisher.

in my Tide Table brochure, which I named "High Tides & Good Times," and requests for smaller versions for those who were aware of another Tide Table company in the local area. I had never heard of this other company, nor had I seen their version of a tide table. When I was shown an example, I was shocked. It was just a card with columns of times and tide levels, tough to read, without curves to show tide directions and speeds. I figured the card size was ok--I made mine slightly smaller for production reasons--so, I wrote some more Java code, and voila (again). I had a new product to offer: Tide Table Leaflets (now known as Tide Table Cards).

is future history, yet to be written. I am now in my second year licensed, my third calendar year making tide tables...