The first thing that I would like to do is to take this opportunity to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. It is important to remember that even in these troubled times that we all have a lot to be thankful to the Almighty for. This was brought home to me a couple of weeks ago when I sent a message to the various mailing lists that I am on describing some of the problems that I had been having lately and asking for advice. I was pleasantly surprised by the large number of responses that I got back from people all over the country who offered me advice, moral support, and even places to stay temporarily while I got things sorted out. For all that, I am very thankful. I especially appreciated the offers of places to stay, the majority of which came from people who I have only known from e-mail and other correspondence over the net. So, if somebody tries to tell you that the internet is a bad place where you will meet the dregs of society I can tell you based on my personal experiences that they are wrong. This is not to say that there aren't any bad people on the net, just that there are good people there in abundance and the bad people are a minority.

    Now that I have had some time to reflect on the advice that I got from talking to people both face to face locally and on the net, I have decided what I'm going to do to try to solve some of my problems. I will be relocating in the next couple of days or so. The place I have decided to try first is a little town in southern Indiana. I was able to get back in touch with a friend of mine who I had lost contact with. The information that I got from him was that the job situation up there was favorable. That also tended to agree with information that I had got from other people dealing with that general area of the country. So, at least for now, that's where I'm headed.

      As a result of the move and the fact that I am going to have to return the computer system that I'm currently borrowing to the person who loaned it to me I will be offline starting tomorrow. I don't know right now when I will be able to get back online, but I will do so as soon as I am able to. As the current account that I have is with a free net it doesn't cost anything to maintain, I just have to log on once every couple of months or so and get my mail. Unfortunately, however, the mailbox associated with the account is rather small and it will rapidly overflow with list messages and create various problems for the people running the mailing lists. Therefore, I will shortly be unsubscribing from the various mailing lists that I am on. That shouldn't be taken as an indication that I am dissatisfied with them. I'm just trying to save the people running them the invariable headaches they'd have that would be caused by all the messages sent to my account being bounced back at them.

      So, in closing, I encourage everybody to take the time to thoroughly enjoy the Holiday. Spend time with friends and family, and thank the Almighty that there are still so many things that are right with the country.

Last Revision: January 25, 1998