Paraaaaaade Of Shooooooes!

The Derek G. Bacon Memorial Web Site

Derek G. Bacon
26 June 1971 - 15 December 1996

This World Wide Web page is dedicated to the memory of Derek "Gadaiyio Takeimienei", "Sublieutenant Toozday" Bacon, once lightnin@gweep.net (and lightnin@wpi.edu before that). I'll leave the biographical details to Derek himself; he had a page at his last employer, UltraNet Communications, which is more detailed than I could be anyway. Instead of my eulogizing at length about my lost friend, I decided that much of this page would let Derek speak for himself, through his old WWW pages and his creative works (with the exception of the top two things on the list, which are memoria of a sort by a co-worker of Derek's). The place for my (and others') reminiscences of Derek will be the Anecdote Archive.

My own eulogy of a sort for Derek came a few days after his death, anyway, and took the form of a story. If you're interested, it's Stolen Time, an Undocumented Features Golden Age story.

So, browse around. Here's a list of what I have so far (and I'll be compiling and revising this site for some time, so I imagine this list will get longer and more diverse as I collect more stuff.

• UltraNet's memorial
  This memorial page was written by Jonathan Sheen, a co-worker of Derek's there. I've reproduced it here with his permission, since UltraNet will eventually take it down.
• The Trickster
  This is a story by Jonathan Sheen. Some people like it, some people don't, and I'm of mixed mind about it myself, but it's a memorial to Derek nevertheless, and as such, it belongs here. You can reach your own conclusions.
• The Image Gallery
  Various images of Derek and things relevant to him.
• The Anecdote Archive
  The repository for anecdotes about the adventures of Derek, compiled from retellings by his friends; a sort of electronic oral history. Under construction; keep checking.
• A Short, Short Story
  This tale was found in his room by Shawn Zimmerman, who mailed it to me for markup and inclusion.
• Derek's UltraNet pages
  This leads to what was once the top-level index for Derek's web site at work.
• Derek's GweepNet pages
  Derek's personal page, once to be found on www.gweep.net.
• An alternate page
  This unfinished page was in Derek's GweepNet public_html directory. It seems he was planning on replacing his toplevel page with it sometime.
• Derek's JuraiNet pages
  Derek had begun a WWW page at jurai.net as well.
• Ingolstadt, New Hampshire
  A page Derek wrote for the setting of his Teenagers from Outer Space campaign. (It's unfinished.)
• Application for Sainthood
  Derek wrote the official Church of the New Paganism application for sainthood.
• The Universal Science Fiction Parody
  This is Derek's biggest and probably his best-known work, begun long before Eyrie Productions came to WPI with me in 1991. It's unfinished, since one of the things Derek was best at was putting things off, but that doesn't diminish its charm.
• The Neverending Saga
  This is a collaborative story written by various members of the GweepNet IV BBS (it was added to by successive posts to the newsgroup gweepnet.saga). Derek's efforts feature heavily in it. Observe the internal politics of the GweepCo pseudorganization! Watch as Derek and Josh Brandt try to contradict and outmaneuver each other! (Well, to be fair, everyone tried to contradict and outmaneuver Josh.)
• The Yarn
  The Yarn is the successor to the Neverending Saga, which, contrary to its name, did end eventually. It has the same basic concept behind it as the Saga (create a newsgroup on GweepNet News, everybody tries to contain the madness that is Josh), but this time we had trn to play with, and that meant that MULTIPLE THREADS soon sprung up, rendering the Yarn almost impossible to read conventionally.

Coming Soon-Type Stuff

Here's a list of some stuff I don't have here yet, but hope to add:

• Derek's world.std.com pages
  World wouldn't let me have these, because I'm not related to Derek. I was in contact with his parents at one point about getting these, but we fell out of touch, so I don't know what, if anything, became of this material now.
• Derek's other dramatic(?) works
  Derek wrote or cowrote several plays for WPI's New Voices festivals. I'm attempting to locate electronic versions of them.

All that and much, much more, as it crops up.

That's all there is to see, so far. Be sure to check back regularly, since this site is going to be under construction for quite a while.

NOTE (12/15/98): Yow, I haven't updated this page in ages, and today is the second anniversary of Derek's death. I sure don't miss him any less.

                       ----------
                      /          \
                     /    REST    \
                    /      IN      \
                   /     PEACE      \
                  /                  \
                  |     lightnin     |
                  |       0 Au       |
                  |                  |
                  |     Ascended     |
                  |                  |
                  |   15 December,   |
                  |       1996       |
                 *|     *  *  *      | *
        _________)/\\_//(\/(/\)/\//\/|_)_______


Goodbye lightnin the Wizard...

You ascended with incalculable points and 0 pieces of gold, after
innumerable moves.
You were level 25 when you ascended.