pawtucket

One of the funniest episodes happened when pamsandiego called and said that she was at Wierwille Rd. We had heard that chat and the forums were being monitored by the WayGB. It was late at night and snowing in New Knoxville. And we decided to see if they really did monitor things

I announced in the chat room that I had pam on the phone and where she was. Less than a minute later, pam saw headlights turn on and a car come down the road. Maybe she will come on and give some of the details. The way cop got out of the car and went over to her asking if she needed any help.

It was very funny and proved that they were indeed lurking in the chat room.

I will keep it open as a static site. This week, I have gotten enough to keep it open for another month. I am not very good at soliciting money. I thought that maybe the Google ads would do that, but very few ever clicked on the ads, so the revenue wasnt' that much, about 20.00 month I think is the average.

I have not solicited for one simple reason, I don't want anyone to feel that they have to pay to take advantage of what is here. For a number of years, at events like the Texas get together, some folks gave me money to pay for things, of which I am greatly appreciative. I have gotten some wonderful gifts, Rascal gave me a beautiful handmade blanket and herbaljuan gave me a few handmade wooden bowls.

So that is why I don't do any overt requests for donations.

As for the anguish part, knowing that the site has helped people, makes it worth it.

I have never regretted starting this site. One of the nice things about the way it is set up, I really have never any understanding of how it helped folks. Poster A may need help and Poster C and D contact poster A and work through things that help, but it never seen by me. We are like Dead Heads trading concert tapes. No one has any idea how many copies are out there or who has them. My hope is that any one that needed answers got some here.

I suppose the only thing that is disappointing is not being able to be myself at times. It seemed that when I posted something on a thread, that was a thread ender or some just have to snipe at me. I don't think that that is something that could be changed. A few have suggested that I take on another screenname to post my thoughts, but I just didn't feel right doing that.

When I was in CA, I would fly down to visit pamsandiego so that she could talk me off the cliff of closing GS up. It wasn't until I was able to let go and trust the moderators that I felt comfortable.

I think the original chat room on here or on Waydale was where the first birth happened live. I think we can claim it was the first ever on the internet, that was Rascal's youngest.

Shellon wasn't the only mod that used his/her real name. The first 4 years or so all of them did, but there was no "edited by...." inserted. So the mod name just didn't show up.

We will remain open until at least the end of January.

In fact, Shellon was the one that called me now that I think about it. I was sound asleep. Getting to the phone, i was mumbling, "this better be good"

I'll send you an email.

I will keep GS open at least until the end of January. The 12/31 deadline was very shortsighted on my part.

Forums may not be the way to go. There are so many ways to communicate. The GSC group on Facebook has had a very steady stream of chatting this week. You may want to just start a chat room. GT set up the IRC server for me, which was the in thing in 2000, but now people find it obtuse. I think it is fascinating. You can set up all sorts of bots and filtering and rules; just great stuff. But I think the GS Chatroom heydays Jumped the Shark during the Great Cheesecake Wars a few years back. A chat room may be the first thing that you do. I did the same thing months before Waydale shut down. It was slow up until Waydale shut down and then it filled up quickly.

Actually quite a few people left the night a teen was in there, although not explicitly said, the chat room was designed for adults. Someone started talking about genitalia and I booted the guy out. Everyone got ticked at that one.

Anyway, see what's out there in chat software. I used a service, parachat, it was about 15-20 a month. But I know that there are a number of open source packages to use.so that may be a place to start. I have a few domain names that I could point to your server until you decide upon a name.

As I said earlier, more and more people want social type sites. More interaction and more immediacy. Heck, I think if you set up some blog software and a chat room, you may have all that you need. One of the downfalls of a forum, when someone is telling their story is getting those individuals that want to throw the first stone. Blogs can limit who say what in comments or no comments at all.

When Waydale was alive and well and the lawsuit was underway, Extwi wouldn't let us discuss the lawsuit to any extent on his site. At the time, LarryP, who was a lawyer, had much to say. So he started emailing a few of the Waydale folks with his opinions. I was fairly new to Waydale and found out about it somehow, can't remember exactly. I was put on the mailing list. Well emailing opinions back and forth was cumbersome, so I started my very first forum and invited everyone from the mailing list to join.

We discussed all sorts of angles about the lawsuit. It was all guys, so naturally we started farting and telling dirty jokes. When GS started, we kept the site going. I had an outlet to talk about GS and other things. They were very helpful in the first few years. There was about 6-8 of us. We would nominate potential members and invite them in. The reason I thought about this, is that at the Weenie Roast, one member and myself were going to invite another person that was at the Roast.

When I switched to the current software, I added this forum to the existing forums on here. I've been able to go in and talk about the state of things ad nauseum and they would always give me some great feedback, farts and dirty jokes or tell me to pound sand. Along with the Moderators, these guys have helped in a unique way keep GS going.

About four years ago, or maybe more, I was seeing an awful lot of male posters, diminishing the abuse that women had had at the hands of the leadership. So I decided to start another forum that would be by invitation for women only. If it seemed successful, I would set up an independent site for them, which I did set up for them and then removed the forum from here.

And we have a Moderators forum. Where we discuss problems, solutions and pulling people back from jumping off the ship. I have use the names of some posters in vain a few times.

As they said in a Monty Python film, whose name escapes me, "I'm not dead, yet"

as well as one of the most respected.

While the cop was there, mission number one was to protect the pear juice at all costs.

And Rascal had the attention of the cop while all the shuffling went on.

I'm going to try to find the actual video. I know that I have Sudo's jokes on an audio clip somewhere in this mess.

Was that the year that we lost one of Rascal's kids on a snipe hunt? The look in her eyes!!!

Are you going to leave us hanging?

Ducttape,

What happened is this. Pat Roberge had the ExCult Magazine site. He also had a site called something like, The Way of Christ... The Way, I believe sent him a cease and desist order about using "The Way" in his website name. Pat had registered and was using another name with a similar name. He did not cease or desist. So they took him to court in NH and won. TWI has managed to trademark a term in the Bible so that no one else can use it in their name. Whoever did their trademark paperwork were able to trademark, The Way.

TWI has successfully sued a number of churches that use "The Way" in their title. My understanding is that one could use, "Way" as long as "The" is not in front of it. I also believe that that is why we were never sued for the "THE" thread

It isn't so much that I want my life back, as it is time for a fresh look at what the ex-way community is. I put the blog section up, hoping more would utilize it. Blogs are much better for sharing your experience than a thread, I think anyway.

And I am finally setting out on my spiritual journey, no offshoots thank you very much, I haven't done that since starting GS. I didn't want my viewpoint to skew things here and they would have done that. The position that I am in, almost requires "religious neutrality" Over the years, I have spoken with Dr. Juedes about this matter, I just wasn't drawn to anything. And the Way teachings had soured my outlook on traditional religions.

I may have mentioned this elsewhere, but I will share it again. I had something from my past that needed resolution, being molested as a teen by a priest. That had filtered the way I looked at just about everything in life. I have let it sit in the back of my mind for decades. About a year ago, I got in contact with a local journalist that followed the Catholic priest molestations for years. I asked him if he had heard of this priest, he hadn't. He did say that the Diocese had set up an independent office to investigate the crimes and he kept the bishop up to date, but it would first be reported to the authorities, (Police or Sheriff) And he would not let the Diocese interfer in any way.

I contacted the office, reported the crime, was deposed. I got to find out what happened to the priest. While he had died many years ago and the statute of limitations had long expired, I had finally reported the crime. It lifted quite a load from my shoulders and cleared the way for getting on with my journey.

This year has been challenging. With all the good, much turmoil has happened.

There have been many that have moderated over the years. It's not a fun job much of the time, but it has to be done. I started identifying moderators with the "mod" prefix to give the mods a chance to be a poster and a moderator. In the beginning, they did it with their normal screen name, and could not post without getting hounded for their moderator duties.

Here are the "mod" names, not all were used

Modaustin

modwaiter

Mod Kirk

modpsycho

modcat5

Modbot

ModDog

modduck

modrabbit

modrobin

modmalibu386

mod45rpm

modchef

modbaker

mdousop

modwildcat

Modgellan

ModRocker

modelvis

I have a number of other domain names already registered, I snagged extwi.com when it became available.

I had always hoped that someone would do a site for the ex way community, not a site that was elitist in nature.

I think that there are still people out there that don't know some of the things that happened. I've seen a lot of activity coming from children of ex-way folks. The damage IS multi-generational. So there are still people that need to know what happened. I certainly can not turn my back on the folks that haven't yet heard.

I would love to help plan the next site. I would be willing to keep the GS document section open indefinitely.

For me, the biggest "boulder" has been the forums. Someone says something inappropriate and it is removed; followed by a small group that rally to claim we are "oppressing and censoring"; followed by another group that is fine with it; followed by an email that thinks I am satan's stepson; followed by a post by me into the moderator's forum wondering if I should just close this place up; followed by a night's sleep; followed by another post by me apologizing to the mods for my behaviour; followed by some cookies; followed by watching some tv; followed by petting the cats; and finally some sleep.

I know that a number of people don't "get" that they are not responding to some cyber personality, rather a real flesh and bones person. And that people get hurt at the other end of the message. I like to replay and/or read all my email the same day, I had to stop reading GS messages at night as they would keep me up trying to figure it out. One of my cats can sense when I am stressed, she will crawl up on me when I am in bed and lay on my chest. At one point, it was every night!!!

I remember that beastiality night. Someone called me after midnight and said I should go in a fix it. Oaks had it covered.

Nick Danger, Third Eye.

Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers

The only reason that I knew I was in the right place was that the one poster, herbaljuan, that I had met was outside and said howdy.

I've never let Rascal forget it either. I did a video that weekend, wonder where it is. Those were fun times

I've posted and moderated for quite a few years under the moniker "Pawtucket"

I didn't consider that everyone didn't have contacts and all that stuff. I will figure out a way to keep it going for another month or so, so that will give you all time to make plans.

A few have contacted me with some solutions to the site. Maybe another site or something. No details yet.

A few of you have written, so I would like to clarify a few things.

We started off using a company called EZboard early on. It served our needs for a few years. EZboard got complaints and they removed threads without our approval. Then we moved to InfoPop, where we paid for the board and they would not edit the content and not give us any trouble. That worked for a while, but they went into a billing scenario that allowed us a certain number of posts per month. I got a bill one month for going over the allotted posts that was astronomical. If you replied to a post with just a smiley face, ba bing, up went my monthly charges. Then they said that I could only have a certain amount of space on the server.

The forum costs were getting close to $100 a month. I could afford it and all was fine. but the limitations by InfoPop were increasing monthly.

I wanted to have a situation where I would call the shots. No one could limit us or censor us. All of the experts said, get your own server. After a few months, I did that with the tremendous help of GT. (You guys have no idea how much he has done and continues to do) We shopped around for software to run a forum. Invision was the choice. Robust, dynamic, no limitations. Once we licensed the software, content was on our shoulders. But the monthly tab for this liberty was/is about $150.00 a month. I figured if I got a few clients for the site, it would pay for itself. Being the softie that I am, there were dozens of sites and I wasn't charging a dime save two or three. (wasn't a Business Major)

I could move the site to a cheaper place, but then it's owned by someone else and censorship comes up. One person sent me veiled threats of lawsuits and CC:d TWI to boot.

So, that gives you an idea of the financial end of things. For what it is worth.

I may keep it open for part of the first week of January for contact stuff, I didn't think of that.

Greasespot opened over 10 years ago. Lots of people have passed through on their journey. My hope has been that a few have found some answers, maybe some lost friends or new friends.

I've enjoyed most hearing from folks that have found some tidbits of info to help them on their way.

Lots could be said.

But the truth is the way that things are right now in my life, I think that I will have to close the Spot as of December 31st. I don't have the resources mentally or financially to keep this place going. Thanks to the Moderators, they've really kept this site alive for the past few years.

I will miss it, as I am sure some of you will. And the rest just won't have me to kick around anymore.

Give the guy a break. He probably figured if somebody vomitted all over him because of that garbage he spewed out, well in a shirt like that nobody would notice.

SoCrates

The sweaters that he wore were very very expensive

Pic looks like it was drawn during his trip to India