I’m Michael Newman. I live in Topeka, KS. At the time of this writing, I’m weeks away from my 60th birthday. I’m married and have no children to speak of. I’m a prematurely-retired IT guy. Last year my university gig got off-shored and I decided to see if I could make a go of it without a new one. So far, so good. The opportunity to do what I wish with my time has been good.

I have a number of pursuits that you might find interesting. One of them is photography. That’s handy, since it’s visual, and the reason I built this site. It’s primarily a repository for my images. It’s been a long time since making photographs was a component of my professional life, and for quite a few years, my images have languished on computer drives.

I’ve had the domain name “stylesdeluxe.com” for some time. It was chosen casually, as I get a hosted domain as part of the service I pay Bluehost for. I wasn’t using it. It comes with WordPress as a publishing platform, so I thought, sure…it doesn’t matter that the name has nothing to do with the content.

One day it might be important to recall that this site was built during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. So, duly noted. It’s not that being a shut-in has me bored. But it does give me the time to add this endeavor to my activities. The other motivating factor (besides good photos going to waste) is the intersection of the incredible amount of wildlife activity in the yard here in the spring of 2020, and the presence of some nice, new gear acquired over the winter.

My other interests include cooking (witness the “The Kitchen” gallery), and producing and presenting a weekly radio program called Hinky Dinky Time, streamed globally by Give the Drummer Radio, one of the fine alternate streams offered by the world’s greatest and oldest freeform radio station, WFMU, based in Jersey City, New Jersey. Music is important to me. It turns out that radio is important to me…and apparently to other people as well. I’ve been presenting my show for seven years and would be lost without it. It gives my week something that passes for structure. My show is on every Friday from noon til 3:00 PM Eastern Time. Stop by some time. They call me Uncle Michael over there.

I’m undecided about actually blogging on this site. On the one hand, I’d like to talk about the photographs and receive feedback. On the other hand, I have a bad habit of not sticking with things like that. There’s also the question of whether or not the world needs another vanity blog, and how I’d feel experiencing an object lesson in indifference. We’ll see…

-M