Goodbye, Tidepool; Farewell, bilko@

I've been bilko@tidepool.com since I arrived in Arcata almost nine years ago. Tidepool was a couple of rooms in a small Arcata shopping center then. It moved to another shopping center, and then got swallowed by a slightly bigger fish, called Northcoast.com, which was also local, but farther away.

Then a couple of years ago, Northcoast got swallowed by a regional big fish called Inreach. Through both of these changes, the Tidepool name remained an option. I still run across it once in awhile on a local email address.

A combination of uncertain service and a better deal for broadband caused me to change ISPs. But it's a much bigger fish still, and bilko wasn't going to survive without a bunch of numbers attached.

But Captain Future, well there's a name nobody else in the country grabbed first.