the BAT Palace: "bat's abbey"
..........................batsabbey.zipweb.net:9999 (vist via Palace client!)

Bat's Abbey is best viewed via The Palace client.
To download ThePalace client...click here!

"<!--the BAT-->"
(the BAT's famous signature -- none genuine without)

BAT'S Belfry....snapshots from "the BAT's" personal photo albums

Coming Soon:
BAT TOURS PRESENTS...
"Voyages Of The Damned"!!!
Take the BIG BLACK BAT BUS to such scenic destinations as:

• ...the LIZZIE BORDEN HOUSE B&B!
• ...sail across the the ATLANTIC on a full scale reproduction of THE TITANIC!
• ...visit the ancestral PALACE & HOME of VLAD THE IMPALER!
• ...sail beneath THE POLAR ICE CAP on a leaky decommissioned RUSSIAN SUBMARINE!
• ...spend a night at THE BATES MOTEL
• ...AND MORE!!!

(ALL Tour clients receive the Official "BAT TOURS -VOYAGES OF THE DAMNED" t-shirt...GROUP RATES AVAILABLE!!!...Ask about our Senior Citizen discounts)!.

Tour Info coming soon! Trips, schedules, and availability will be posted in the "ante chamber" at The BAT CAVE

ANNOUNCING "The BAT BizOp Fwd:"...

"Widely known as an astute business guru, I frequently receive e.mails summarizing many astonishing & remarkably lucrative new business opportunities. In some cases, it appears to be possible to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars in as little as 60 to 90 days!" -- <!--the BAT-->

While we would like to share this valuable information with all of our readers, gratis, we recognize the inherent value. You don't get on the kind of mailing and contact lists we're on overnight, you know. This is achieved only by having one's e.mail address on hundreds (thousands, even) of web pages as well as having posted messages on numerous BBS and Usenet groups. Therefore we have established a nominal monthly charge for "The BAT BizOp Fwd:". For a nominal fee of just $500.00 per month, we will forward all e.mail we receive pertaining to these many outstanding business opportunities. Many of these are enterprises that can be operated from home wearing your bathrobe and slippers...or...even just your underwear!. Often these informative e.mails will be identified by the code "Fwd:", "ADV:" and "re:" in the subject and can easily be missed by busy executives and professionals. Subscribe to "The BAT BizOp Fwd:" and be sure you don't miss out on that next great million dollar opportunity! Sign up today for "The BAT BizOp Fwd:" !

NOW AVAILABLE ON A 12 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION PLAN!

"The BAT BizOp Fwd:" ...Only $500 per month, or sign up for a full year at $5,400 & save 10%!
(All Sales Are Final -- May cancel at any time, but since Information is non-returnable...No Refunds!)

 

Note: Those of you who would like to send us information on your own business opportunity for inclusion on the list, may do so. For just $1,000 per month we will forward your information about your biz op to subscribers of " "The BAT BizOp Fwd:". In many cases these will be entrepreneurs just like yourself who are constantly sending us information about theirastounding new business opportunities. Many of these are "not MLM" & can be worked from your kitchen table in your underwear with just an e.mail account and a PO Box....just click here! to sign up TODAY! (All Sales Are Final -- No Refunds! --Following successful clearance of your payment -- allow 30 days -- we will send you a special e.mail address to send your information to.)

 

 

Welcome to this...a small personal page of "the BAT"

From time to time, people will write wanting to know more about "the BAT".

We regularly get inquiries from nice folks wanting to know our credit card numbers, social security number, mother's maiden name, and other such tidbits of miscellaneous errata. We assume this is either so they can send presents, or to verify that "the BAT" really does, in fact, exist and is not just a figment of an overwrought and feverish imagination. For many out there, this vague hope may be all they have left to hang on to.

In actuality, "the BAT" is pretty much an extraordinary sort of fellow, except smarter... he also does a lot of stuff at night, and tends to sleep during the day. This is a habit he got into years ago when he owned the internationally recognized (especially on the Mexican border) "Bat's Midnight Auto Salvage & Building Materials". At one time, he also ran a small pool hall, beer bar, and tattoo parlor (known as "The BatPub")...and that, too, was open nights... mostly.

These days, "the BAT" lives with the lovely "Mrs. Bats" and the two "bat pups" in a 100 year old monstrosity of a house in a somnambulant little town out in the Iowa countryside surrounded by pig lots, turkey ranchs, and cornfields. Being a "noteworthy local celebrity" , "the BAT" occasionally holds late night soirees for the local villagers who congregate out in the yard with torches, pitchforks, and shovels, quoffing buckets of beer, and yelling, whooping, and hollering often into the wee hours until the town constable is forced to come up and send them home, either to their wives, or their mothers.

Otherwise, "the BAT" lives quietly, seldom going out , adroitly plying his trade and craft as a designer, developer, maintainer, and conspirator of fine, tasty, low-fat web applications and content to various clients from countries as far away as China.

Originally educated and trained as a physical anthropologist and archaeologist, "the BAT" was well on his way to a career as a world famous archaeologist and anthropologist when he made the mistake of taking a course in philosophy. Discovering that it was a lot easier to sit around and think about stuff than to go out into sweltering, snake and mosquito infested swamps or desert mesas populated mainly by tarantulas and scorpions, the freezing sub-arctic tundra with it's clouds of man eating flys and voracious bears, for the purpose of digging up old skulls, pots, and baskets, he switched majors to philosophy. Since there were few jobs for either archaelogists, or philosophers, back in those days, he decided it would be better to not get paid for a less uncomfortable non-existent job.

After a brief stint working for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois State Museum and following an early abortive experiment in matrimony, "the BAT" decided to expriment with camping out for a year. Actually, he didn't quite camp out... he lived in a tipi. Having long been interested in native American aboriginal culture and crafts, he decided that he would let the "ex" have the trailer house and the Chevy on blocks and he moved into a 16 foot tipi on the banks of the Sangamon River, in central Illinois. Actually, this was really wig-wam country (wig-wams being a type of bark house buit by most of the native aborigines in that part of the midwest) however the tipi worked pretty good. When he didn't freeze to death that winter... he was impressed.

Following this period, where he mostly sustained himself with various odd jobs combined with a little (horrors!) fur trapping, he became the sales, marketing, business manager, PR hack and "enforcer" for an enterprise then known as, "The Possibles Poke". This was named for the generally shapeless hide or cloth sacks in which early days hunters and trappers carried the sundry tools of their trade; the things they might "possibly" need at some time or another. "The Poke" (as it was mostly known) bacame a well known source for stuff like brain-tanned leather, muzzleloading gun kits and parts, handmade "cut" rifle barrels, and authentic period clothes for historical re-enactment buffs and "primitive" shooters all over the world. It was a fun period.

In the matter of just a year or so, "The Poke" became widely known a as a leading "purveyors of proper period possibles" in a peculiar niche market. We produced an outstanding example of a "homemade" (all hand lettered & cut & paste without benefit of computers) mailorder catalog and sent it off on it's own, worldwide, by what has since become almost an anachronism; the U.S. Mail. This catalog, besides winning recognition and gaining kudos for its design & illustration, was what put us on a map or two.

As time went by, "The Poke" and it's staff found itself being called upon by different organizations such as the U.S. Park Service, the Canadian Government, and various Hollywood film companies for their knowledge of the arms & accoutrements of the bygone era. They became one of several consultants for the initial historic reconstruction & outfitting of Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site, near La Junta, Colorado.

Bent"s Old Fort is still, today, the only adobe reconstruction of an historic adobe trading post in the National Park Service. The reconstruction was so painstakingly accurate that the directors of the project even went so far as insisting on the importation of wool from a certain variety of Mexican sheep to mix with the adobe as binder in handbuilt forms used to make the blocks.

Other parks and "living history" projects we provided input and consulting for included the National Park Service's Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site, located between present day Sidney, Montana, and Williston, North Dakota, as well as Old Fort William, an historic fur trade post near Thunder Bay, Ontario, operated by the Ontario Ministry of Tourism.

Today, these sites and others are now regular hosts for different re-enactments as well as ongoing research programs related to early American and Canadian history.

Movie gigs followed, as a result of our recognized expertise, with the most notable being"The Mountain Men" (click here to order VHS from amazon.com). This was a feature film starring Charlton Heston & Brian Keith and was filmed on location in "Jackson's Hole" Wyoming in 1979. Released in 1980, the movie was largely panned by critics, but who cares. We had a lot of fun doing it. Besides the fact that he could be seen flitting around in the background in one or two scenes as well as performing some astounding feats of horsemanship, "the BAT" got to pal around with Charlton Heston and Brian Keith. In fact, he gave Charlton Heston pointers on how to mount and dismount from a horse while carrying a muzzleloading rifle. Unfortunately, his best scene (from a mountain rendezvous reenactment) where he chased around a bush with a lovely raven-haired young Shoshone female type person (clad only in a knee-length buckskin skirt) until she was able to catch him, never make it into the final cut. Like a lot of Hollywood productions, we may suspect that there was a much more interesting movie that ended up on the cutting room floor.

That was the year "the BAT" also moved to Wyoming, landing in what was then a raucus little boom town known as LaBarge.

That first year in Wyoming, the BAT hunted elk with a muzzleloader, in broad daylight, and nabbed his first Wyoming beaver from a trap set on the Green River (in the middle of the night). The beaver was caught not more than a hundred yards from "Name's Hill" which is noted for the fact that James Bridger had carved his name in the rock, some time around 1830. Students of early western history will recongnize the name "James Bridger" as one of the leading early explorers of the West. As an early days hunter & trapper, Bridger went up the Missouri with General Ashley's first fur brigade in 1822 and become one of the legends of the era. He was one of the most prominant of a string of legendary frontiersmen which included Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Joe Meek, Moses "Black" Harris (whose life was the inspiration for "A Man Called Horse") and many others who were privileged to be among the first "crooked feet" to explore what we know now as "the Rocky Mountains".

Bridger later founded Fort Bridger, Wyoming, which became a main layover and outfitting point for both Mormon and Oregon Trail pioneers. Widely known and respected by both Indians and whites, he lived to a ripe old age of 80, or so, which was a remarkable achievement itself in those days. In his final years, he retired to a farm near present day Independence, Missouri, where stricken and blinded by the ravages of syphilis he would still, nevertheless, saddle his old horse and go riding about the countryside at every opportunity. This, it is said, he did right up to the day he died.

In the mid 80's, "the BAT" came back to Iowa where, for a while, he did design/build type things consisting of decks and kitchens and staircases. It was during this period that I became a sort of inhouse remodeler for Robert & Georgia Waller who seemed, at the time, to be engaged in a permanent and ongoing remodeling project. Robert Waller, later went on to achieve world fame and fortune as the author of "Bridges of Madison County".

Other careers, over the years, have included on-again-off again stints as a professional sports photographer covering motor racing and football, baseball, and hockey for regional and national publications. When not shooting photos of linebackers and 700 horsepower Winston Cup cars, "the BAT" has occasionally been known to do an occasional lingerie/glamor type assignment or wedding. Doing wedding photography sometimes bears a lot more resemblance to covering an NFL game than a lot of people might realize.

During this period he started "Cornpatch Photo" which exists today as a stock repository of approximately 15,000 miscellaneous motor racing, football, baseball, high speed power boat, hot air balloon, and regional scenes. Currently, there is an ongoing project to catalog and eventually put a comprehensive selection of these images on the web.

"the BAT's" main objective in life has largely been to have fun, seek adventure, keep busy, and stay out of jail. For the most part, he thinks he's been successful.

the bat has many domains online, but the main ones are...
zipweb.net
parsonsnet.com
the bat report

 

 

 

bats on your mind?....

fans of bats be sure to visit...
Bat Conservation International, Inc.
www.batcon.org

" Many things people think they know about bats aren't even true. Bats aren't blind, they're not rodents, and they won't get tangled in your hair. The truth is that bats are among the most gentle, beneficial, and necessary animals on earth. But because of centuries of myth and superstition, they are also among the world's least appreciated and most endangered animals."

imprimatur of the bat