Hi, I’m Steve. Welcome to my personal website. I’m 35 and live in Santa Barbara, California with my wife and two sons. I’ve worked in website design and development since 1999 and enjoy a range of hobbies, most of which can be found chronicled throughout the pages of this site.
In addition to stevelange.net I maintain a handful of other sites devoted to various passions. They include:
- SurfImplement.com, dedicated to Santa Barbara surfing
- SBslopers.org, dedicated to Santa Barbara radio controlled glider flying
- SlopeAerobatics.com, dedicated to radio controlled glider aerobatics
As that introduction might allude to, I guess I’m something of a geek. The funny thing is, I never intended this to happen. In my college days at UCSB (1993-1998), I was an extremely avid surfer and skateboarder. In high school, I’d used my archaic Gateway 2000 486/66 to dial into BBSes and participate in MUDs, but by college my interests were centered mainly on surfing, girls and schoolwork, and I really only used the computer to write term papers and play California Games (ancient even then) on occassion. Ah, the good old days… 
In mid-1998 I finally got a new computer and my first reliable internet connection. I found myself captivated by the “new” online world and all it had to offer. In short order I began actively participating in Usenet, particularly alt.surfing and alt.surfing.longboard. A friend from alt.surfing named “NeoN” (you know who you are!) turned me on to HTML and the rest, as they say, is history…
Today I enjoy the ongoing challenge of learning new and exciting things in web design and development. So much has changed, and yet the fundamentals of a good, useful site remain. Good content, intuitive navigation, and a design well-suited to the site’s intended audience will always be a winning combo. That said, new sites launch daily, often with plenty of money backing them, which fail to adhere to this simple formula. The poor outcomes resulting are entirely predictable.
Besides web development, my interests include an array of mostly outdoor activities, including surfing, paddleboarding, bicycling, astronomy and designing and flying radio controlled model aircraft (especially slope soaring gliders). As of this writing (March 2010), I’m riding a bicycle for about 99% of my personal transportation needs, and have recently started participating in long distance cycling events known as brevets.
Cycling has proven to be the most successful means for me to control my weight, and through daily cycling (mainly for transportation, but also just for fun), I’ve managed to lose about 40lbs in the past two years, and am keeping it off effortlessly and comfortably. Life is good!
I hope you enjoy visiting this site and thank you for your visit.
Steve Lange
September, 2010
About this Site
I finally sold out and switched to WordPress as my blog platform. Previously, this site ran on a hacked together proto-blog engine I created 100% from scratch. It had been a sort of sandbox for me in terms of learning new techniques. The switch to WordPress is nice… I don’t have quite the time available these days to go on reinventing the wheel, so I finally just got with the times and don’t regret it (too much)
Various and sundry links
Over the years, I’ve created a few pages and mini-sites targeted to specific interests. These pages have
been popular over the years, so I will continue to link to them here.
