Re: A Christmas tome - more than most will care to read.


Hi Jim:

Excellent web site and lots of fun to look at. That white-haired guy doesn't look old to me. In fact, he looks pretty darn good.

Glad that all is a win-win situation for you and your associates. Looks like a very interesting concept and one that should be very popular. Wishing you all the luck in the world with it.

Also, sending you and yours best wishes for a very Blessed Christmas and an exciting New Year.

Ted, in Olalla

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Brick" <jim@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <leica@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 23, 2004 3:46 PM
Subject: A Christmas tome - more than most will care to read.



Hi everyone,

December 25th is a holiday throughout most of the world. It is Christmas day. The majority of us purchase Christmas presents (not holiday presents) to give to our loved ones and colleagues on... Christmas. Hanukkah just past and I wished all of my Jewish friends happy Hanukkah. Actually most of them celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas (lucky stiffs - twice as many presents!) They call it Chrismukkah (coined on the OC!)

Anyway, I am grateful for what this past year has offered me. First, my health, my family's health, and the start-up that we put everything into seems like it is going to survive. Actually, I put the chances of it making it big at 95%. Which means it is nose-to-the-grindstone time... still... in order to insure the outcome. But that's OK. I still cannot believe that at age 66, I risked everything we had (with my wife Jennie's blessing however!!!) plus a lot we didn't have, in a "Silicon Valley" start-up. It was unthinkable when I was younger. It came down to the people involved. In my entire life, I have never ever worked with a greater group of folks. All seventeen of them are stellar individuals with incredible talent, integrity, morals, standards, ethics, etc. I'm very happy to work 16 hours days, seven days a week, when necessary, with these folks. Don't ask me how I got so lucky! Looking back, had I made a different decision in dozens of directional choices, over the years, I would not have ended up a part of Elesys. http://www.elesys.net This is my last hurrah as I am too old to do this with yet other company.

Christmas is a very happy occasion at our house. It is (always has been) the gathering place for our entire family. Jennie and me, our four (grown) kids, their wives, husbands, girl friends, grandparents, aunts, uncles, puppies, etc. The oldest is my mom at 92. The youngest our daughter (Jillian) at 24. No grand kids yet but I've been told that it won't be long. Jillian just graduated from San Jose State College in Creative Arts - Music major, Photography minor. She teaches piano (currently 25 students) from her studio in her house. Her husband Dan works for Philips in their advanced remote medical monitoring design group and he will graduate from Stanford this coming spring with a masters in EE.

Jennie & I and Dan & Jillian got Golden Retriever pups last July. Brother (theirs) and sister (ours) and are a complete joy to have around. They are seven months old now. Dog bodies (60 lbs ea.) with puppy brains. As soon as all college is finished (next June) and the pups are no longer pups (next July) it will be grandchild time - I've been told. If you go here:

http://www.brick.org/jillian/Life.htm

You'll find links to our puppy pictures - for those who are interested. At the bottom of the page you'll find Dan & Jillian's wedding photographs, taken by the one and only... Mark Rabiner ...which is why they are so incredibly good! And for those who are curious, in there, is a picture or two of Jillian's parents. Who is that old white haired guy anyway?

Thank you Roger Beamon, for persisting in holding this group together. I have been on the books as a co-administrator and promised Roger, last April, that I would take over the head administrative duties. I haven't been able to and only get to read bits and pieces of the various lists I am on. One thing I have discovered about "freelists.org" is that it is, for all intent and purposes, trouble free. Because of my experience with the LEG and freelists, I took a wonderful list (pure-silver) that was closing down and, one evening, brought it up on freelists so that everyone could continue their discussions without interruption. It worked, the list is going strong, and I passed the admin duties over to the person who was the list stalwart, Richard Knoppow. As with the LEG, there is basically nothing much to do when a list is hosted on freelists. The occasional subscriber who cannot figure out how to unsubscribe, or vice versa. Again, many thanks to Roger for continuing with the LEG. Like where I work, the LEG is refreshingly ethical. Actually, most of the camera lists that I belong to are ethical. LEG (Leica,) LF (Large Format,) HUG (Hasselblad,) & Pure-Silver (B&W.) But the LUG (used to be Leica, now politics and digital,) which is off the charts much of the time. One needs special filters to ferret out any Leica photographic content.

If you got this far, well... I don't know why I write what I write. Sometimes the words just flow out of my mind. One thought leads to another. I seem to have no control. A lot has no meaning to anyone but me, but I write it anyway. Thanks for reading this far.

:-)

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy and safe New Year celebration.

Jim

PS... if you can handle a Power Point slide file (440k pps file,) let me know and I'll send you the "Irish Rescue Operation" which is incredibly funny! You could not imagine that such a thing could happen!


=========================================================
To Unsubscribe: Send email to leica-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. The acknowledgment that you then receive MUST be replied to per instructions. You may also log in to the Web interface to unsubscribe.



========================================================= To Unsubscribe: Send email to leica-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. The acknowledgment that you then receive MUST be replied to per instructions. You may also log in to the Web interface to unsubscribe.

Other related posts: