User:Asturnut

For the duration of my adult life I have been accused of being a wealth of useless knowledge. Wikipedia is a fascinating vehicle for information exchange. One of my hobbies is digital photography. If I ever get motivated, I intend to edit and upload more of my photos to Wikipedia. My Wikipedia gallery currently has a strange hodge-podge of a few photos in it: User:Asturnut/gallery.

I am also a moderately articulate writer and have studied Spanish, and dabbled in French, German, Italian and Korean. I would like to help translate pages into English, particularly those in Spanish. At the very least, after pages have been translated, I can assist in grammatical editing and clarifiying the finer points of English.

I have been part of the Wikipedia community for a few years, but my knowledge of correct Wikipedia formatting is still limited. At the moment, I am struggling to understand the numerous idiosyncracies of the wiki world: protocol, do's and don'ts, and particularly formatting issues. Your comments and assistance are appreciated. With that in mind, consider this:

"Don't bite, do what's right. Being a friend is all right." A must-read for all Wikipedia contributors- Please do not bite the newcomers

Gingerbread
I have been working photo documentary of Victorian gingerbread in the Southern New Jersey area for the past few years. I would like to eventually create a Wikipedia page devoted to gingerbread. I have created a group on Flickr with a collection of photos from multiple users focusing for the purpose of documenting historic woodwork around the world.

Gingerbread dating from the Victorian era was generally made from wood. Now 100 years old, this ornate wooden decoration is often dry rotted and decaying. There are several reasons why this is happening. The primary reason is it is extremely labor intensive to maintain. Homeowners of Victorian homes often find themselves overwhelmed by the task of stripping, repainting, restoring and maintaining the original gingerbread. Well-meaning owners often begin the task only to find themselves unable to complete it, and are forced to leave the task incomplete; higher a professional to do it, which is cost-prohibitive; or remove it altogether. Also of consideration is that large Victorian homes are frequently located in the town center where the problem of urban flight has caused many homeowners to sell off these high maintenance homes to slum lords. In many cases landlords are unable or unwilling to preserve the original architectural features of these homes. As a result, these grand old homes become only a shadow of their former glory. As a result of these problems, original Victorian gingerbread is rapidly disappearing from the American residential architectural landscape. I have made it my goal to document as much of this disappearing beauty before it is gone entirely. I would encourage others with similar interest to contribute to this effort by documenting and/or preserving what you can. Some examples are found in my wikipedia user gallery: User:Asturnut/gallery