Opinions may be mistaken; love never is.

—Harry Emerson Fosdick, 1922

Welcome to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago, a diverse collection of information, opinion, fiction, poetry, and trivia—what you might expect from a farrago, which, according to the dictionary, is a medley, conglomeration, or mixture.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago reflects most of my passions. I am now retired, but I have been a computer consultant and computer science professor. I have always been a generalist, however. I am interested in science and mathematics, in technology, history, and politics. I am a musician, photographer, writer, and railfan. (Sadly, there isn’t much railroad material here.) I am a Christian who, attracted by its music, liturgy, and tolerance, discovered the Episcopal Church long past my adolescence. I have been a church activist, defending my church against the forces of reaction.

More specifically, I am an essayist and poet, a clarinetist and singer, a steam locomotive enthusiast, a cat lover, a liberal Democrat and liberal Christian. My varied interests are responsible for this eclectic site, which offers material that should be of interest to a variety of visitors.

Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is organized into sections to help you find items of interest and avoid everything else. The sections are accessible through navigation buttons at the top left of this and other introductory pages. The sections of my Web site are described below:

	Home (this page)
	Biography offers professional, rather than personal information. Here you will find pre-retirement résumé and publication list.about me. It contains my résumé and publication list.
	Church Resources is a collection of the spiritual, liturgical, and the pragmatic, including commentary on Episcopal and Anglican disputes. Cross-listings are provided here to original poetry and hymns in the Poetry section, as well as some material in the Commentary area. Much of this material is of interest to non-Episcopalians. My Web Log also contains a good deal of commentary on the Episcopal Church and Anglican Communion.
	Commentary is a miscellaneous collection of personal and political essays. Additional essays, generally shorter ones and ones of more transitory interest, can be found on my Web Log.
	Computer Science contains a somewhat arbitrary selection of papers and reports I’ve published. Of special interest (because it hasn’t been published elsewhere) is brief paper that attempts to demystify radix conversion.
	Contact Information tells how to contact me.
	Farrago Gift Shop offers merchandise sporting some of my designs.
	Fiction contains stories. I don’t write much fiction, and I don’t claim to be good at it. This section is small.
	Language Notes is about—in H. L. Mencken’s words—the American language. Other essays on language can be found in my Web Log.
	Poetry, of course, contains my poetry. I am a down-to-earth, unsentimental poet whose work is quite diverse. This section contains both serious and humorous verse. It includes several hymn texts.
	Recreational Math contains sections on digital invariants and curve stitching.
	Search allows visitors to search Lionel Deimel’s Farrago and Lionel Deimel’s Web Log.
	Site Map lists pages on this site and describes newly added material. It also contains a complete table of contents for my Web Log.
	Web Log is not your typical blog. It is neither a diary nor a running commentary on some particular topic. Rather, it is a vehicle for posting (usually) modest essays that could, in principle, go elsewhere on this site. Blog pages include a search box at the upper left. In the right column is a listing of all posts by date and title but without the brief descriptions found on the Site Map page.

Be sure to notice the navigation links at the top and bottom of most pages. These allow you to do such things as read poems one after another without returning to the introductory poetry page. Lionel Deimel’s Farrago is largely organized hierarchically, and, after moving around the site, navigation should become pretty intuitive.

You will notice that pages have wide margins. Although this is, in part, a holdover from the days before higher screen resolutions became common, the narrow format generally allows for pages to be printed on letter-size paper in portrait mode without truncation or scaling. I hope that this will be appreciated by those who like to read from paper or who want to share my work with others. On mobile devices, pages can be enlarged as necessary. On mobile devices, you may prefer to read my blog using the desktop version rather than the mobile version.

Comments and suggestions, as well as requests for permission to use anything I have written, are always welcome. Use the Contact page to contact me, or click on my e-mail address, found at the bottom of most pages. Please write to me if you discover any broken links or encounter any other technical problems with the site.

You may also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy your visit to Lionel Deimel’s Farrago. If you like the site, be sure to tell your friends about it.

Thanks for dropping by. 

— LED, 4/26/2023