Want more info?

About Us

Gunilla Leavitt • Thomas Leavitt • Andrew Edelstein • Sam the Goldfish

Gunilla "Godmoma" Leavitt

Gunilla can be reached at webmistress@godmomasforge.com

So what's this "Godmoma" thing anyway?

Long story, but here's the short version: way back, when I was still a young thing, I was a DJ. I played funk and 60's soul and early hip-hop, and I needed a DJ name (you can't be a DJ without a moniker, it's against the DJ Code™). Given the music I played, given the fact that once existed a girl funk band called Godmoma, given that I was present at my friend's baby's delivery and was his Godmother, and given that my name already started with a G, the whole thing was pretty, well... given.

Fast forward 1992 to when I first needed a name for my online persona (a character on a MUD), and once again it was pretty... given. Godmoma it was, and Godmoma it still is.

Ok, we get that. But why a forge?

Well, in addition to being a DJ (which was not quite my career, more what I did for fun and marveled at getting paid for), I was (still am) a goldsmith. 4th generation goldsmith in my family, to be precise :) When I became a webdesigner (due to a desire to not be around quite so much cyanide and sulfuric acid while being pregnant and nursing, etc), I was bemused by the fact that some people referred to webdesigners as "websmiths". (Some called us webmonkeys, but I digress...) At any rate, the smith -> smithy -> forge connection came pretty early on, and I like the idea that I could ostensibly sell both webdesign and custom made jewelry under that name :)

You talk about "way back", etc. When did you get into this?

Heh, I started back in 1994 some time, when my first husband came running to me and started telling me about this thing the sysadmin had showed him, called "the World Wide Web, where you can have your own homepage, and anyone in the world could come see it!!!" I couldn't for the life of me understand why anyone would want this, but I took a look at the page he had made for us, and immediately thought "I can do better than that..."

Because HTML actually made sense to me (probably because it was version 1.0 at this point) and didn't seem like "coding", I wasn't intimidated by it. I printed out the NCSA HTML Primer, and went to town. At one point, a third of the traffic to one department webserver at Chalmers University of Technology was due to the pages my then husband and I had on it. We got a stern lecture by the sysadmin on why "graphics shouldn't be used for lines and bullets, when <HR> and <LI> give perfectly adequate results!"...

So what are your particular strengths?

I have a great sense of design, and a relentless eye for detail. Sometimes I take it just a little too far, and edit an image for hours, pixel by pixel. I love what I do, especially when I get in a groove like that.

I also am a total stickler for spelling and grammar, which has come in very handy on many an occasion. In the typo police, my rank is at least a sergeant! ;)

Thomas Leavitt

At the Forge, what Thomas does is keep Gunilla focused (no small task) and happy (much easier). He researches things like Google and search engine tuning, and builds servers and the likes.

Thomas can be reached at thomas@godmomasforge.com

Andrew Edelstein

Andrew can be reached at andrew@godmomasforge.com

Sam the Goldfish

Sam can be reached at sam@godmomasforge.com