The QDP, or "Quentin's Documentation Project", is based around one single goal: halt memory loss immediately. Simply put, the QDP is a retro-diary of Quentin Baker; memoirs, if you will. The fact is that often when I talk to friends and family about days gone past, I'm amazed at the stories they tell me about me. Too much of my life has slipped away to the dark recesses of bygones, and frankly, I want them back. Because when you think about it, if parts of your life did not directly effect someone or something, then it only exists in your memories. And if those memories are forgotten, then the experience might as well have not happened. Something along the lines of the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it. The more you forget, the more trees fall, and the less anyone notices.

Well, since I've obviously dragged that out entirely too far, I'll move on. The articles that I add here will be personal recounts of my life, both far and near past. I don't intend to offend anyone, but I probably will, so here's my apologies in advance: This is entirely the World According to Quentin, and since I hold honesty as the most important virtue, I won't hold back. If you're offended at what I write, take comfort in the fact that I'm providing you the truth, which is a form of respect that few honor these days.

Why name it "Quentin's Documentation Project"? It's quite apt, actually. You see, in the open-source community (web developers, network engineers, and other various computer geeks), when an application is designed, the developers don't put as much effort into documentation as they do the actual development. Oddly enough, that's a task that's often left up to the end-users. So what happens is that hundreds of people who are very familiar with the application will write bits and pieces of its documentation, and contribute their knowledge of the subject. In this way, you get many perspectives and approaches to a single subject, considerably more than if just one person had written the documentation. In a sense, that's what I plan to accomplish here. Not only will I write (literally) as many memories as I can, but I will provide a mechanism for others to contribute, and comment on or add their views to what I recall. In this way, my friends and family will be able to give other perspectives to my life. After all, my view of the world is fairly biased and one-sided! Who better to round things out than the other people who shared my life with me?

So I'll bring to close this gargantuan intro, and invite you into my world, through my eyes.

April 14, 2001
Quentin W. Baker