Hi, James!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

JB>  I *still* need to swap fridges here, but I lost my keys
JB>  while trying to affect that. Now I have something *else*
JB>  to fret about. 

AH>  Hmm.  In that regard, your loss is our gain....  :-Q

JB>  NOT!!! I still need to find my keys! 


          I'm not unsympathetic... but when you can't find your keys, you
have more time to write.  For selfish reasons I enjoy that.  OTOH, I'm just
as slow to answer.  Mea culpa!  If you just put them down somewhere &
forgot where you put them I trust you'll have found them by now.  If the
cat found them first & decided they'd be fun to play with I hope you
have spare keys in reserve.  ;-)



JB>  My aunt who had just retired as a librarian asked me,
JB>  "What IT department?"


          I was teacher-librarian in a small school which couldn't afford
even one computer until the parents had raised the money via bake sales
etc.  There was no chance of getting my hands on it, because classroom
teachers always had first dibs.  But as a volunteer in the library at
Nora's elementary school and as a user of the Vancouver Public Library card
catalogue I must confess that I still prefer the old-fashioned methods of
record keeping in many ways....  :-)



AH>  ... anybody who's interested in finding out more about me
AH>  has to know where & how to look.  :-)

JB>  Like I told an x-fighter jockey for the RCAF, "Take an
JB>  internal modem and network interface card to your corner
JB>  store to ask the first ten people you meet to identify each.


          In my experience, you'd be lucky to find anybody who has a clue
what you mean when you refer to a modem buddy!  Twenty years ago people
were asking me what the Internet was.  Nowadays people don't know what a
modem is....  :-Q



JB>  It's not impossible to get "nasty", just SO much more work
JB>  for the malcontents for so little "gain". 


          Yup....  :-)



JB>  Dad was a GREAT assessor of popular culture and intra-
JB>  personal relations.


          Nature or nurture?  At any rate, I like the way you do it.  :-)



JB>  My Vancouver sister and I just exchanged a volley of
JB>  HILARIOUS reminiscent emails about Dad and our upbringing
JB>  in his honor. He had some bad traits, but MANY more good.


          My father & I didn't always get along, but I'm grateful now
for what he taught me.  I reckon most people are probably a mixture of good
& bad.  :-)



JB>  Knowing what I know about you, I'm secure in calling your
JB>  husband a "keeper".


          In a word... yes.  :-))



JB>  I should toss you [the Vancouver sister's] contact info,
JB>  if I remember to mention you to her in August.


          Sounds to me like a good idea.  It would give us another way to
keep in touch if some disaster occurred computerwise.  Meanwhile, I read my
netmail almost daily.  I read my e-mail when the spirit moves....  :-)




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+