Tuesday - December 23, 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND BE OF GOOD CHEER … FROM ACROSS THE BIG POND TO BMEWS.

Christmas 2008

As the year comes to it’s close I want to wish a very Merry Christmas to all of you wherever you are.  Most especially however my thoughts are home and with my compatriots so a special Merry Christmas to you in the USA.
My Home Sweet Home.

I cannot post this and end the year without singling out two really special people here at BMEWS.  Now unless you’re a kitten or a puppy or maybe my wife, I am not a touchy-feely person at all.  However, I have to single out Mr. Christian and Drew.

I was fairly new to BMEWS a year ago and certainly very new to the blogging world.
I have a computer, a keyboard and an opinion or two and Mr. Christian emailed me and invited me to join the BMEWS team.  That was a shock of the first order.  I was flattered and would be less then honest if I didn’t own up to that.  I was not sure I was up to it.  Mr. C. must have thought I was, and told me I’d do fine and if I had any questions I could always ask. 

I had never before had to cope with things too technical and if I did, I didn’t.
That is, I turned my back on things tech because I have a hard time grasping the idea. It’s all-new to me.  And it is true that it’s near impossible to teach an old dog new tricks.  It has been like returning to school and I didn’t care much for school.  I was mostly bored.  Well that sure isn’t the case here.  I was literally handed another life, in a manner of speaking.  And it began with that invitation from Mr. C.

And so it started.  With emails from me to him.  Hey Mr. Christian, how do I do this?
What happens if?  Where do I find?  How do I go about? Yadda,Yadda? 

I could just see and hear him after awhile saying,
“Oh Lord. What have I done?  Why me Lord?”

I have discovered how rewarding BMEWS is and also just how time consuming it can be.  Especially when you barely know what you’re doing and still learning the tech ropes. 

There are some very smart and very articulate people here and I do not kid myself that any one of them could easily replace me and BMEWS might be the better for it.

If any of you people think I take you for granted, think again.  No way.  I have the greatest respect for the people who populate this site with their insights and comments.  Even where I might question some comments, you folks have the knack to make me stop and question my own position and take a second look.  I might stick to my original thought but you made me dig a little more and forced me think more.
I cannot thank you all enough.

Ah … so now we come to the second troublemaker.  DREW!  He can write on any subject and really does know what he’s talking about.  The problem is, sometimes I don’t. LOL.  I’m pretty sure it was one of our two Christophers who once said it wasn’t a good idea to have anything liquid near a keyboard when reading Drew because often, out of the blue he will say something on some subject and in a way that starts unexpected laughter.  Usually while holding a cup of coffee or worse, a mouthful.  Drew is the chief engineer at BMEWS, the tech guy who keeps it up and running.  When Mr. Christian more or less withdrew to the background to tend to things like family and personal life, and also to escape my endless questions, guess who took his place?

He (Drew) is very tech savvy.  He’s even taken courses in things tech.  I could do that too.  Except I wouldn’t understand any of it.  From my years as a disk jockey at many radio stations in my working youth, I came to know a few chief engineers.  These are the guys who can read a schematic, know how everything is wired and are in fact so knowledgeable they could if they wanted to or had the money it takes, and some actually did, build their own radio stations.

Drew falls into that wizard category and here’s an example.  I once told Drew this after he answered one of my questions. I now share it with you.

If you were to ask a chief engineer what the time of day was, he’d tell you how to make the damn watch instead! So when I started to pepper Drew with questions, he started teaching me HTML.  Or tried to anyway.  Our emails went flying back and forth, I’m a first grader, no. Make that kindergarten, and he’s speaking Latin or maybe it was Greek, in replies. ??  Well it certainly was all Greek to me.  He finally got me books.  Thought he’d get rid of me that way.  Ha.  Boy have I got a surprise for him.  I have all these notes see, and a stack of questions just waiting for after the first of the year.

So Mr. Christian and Drew,
My special wishes to you and to your families for a Very Merry Christmas and my thanks as well for your continued patience.  I hope your holiday will be restful cause I’m gonna need that patience extended for another … oh … lifetime?

Finally, I can’t quit just yet because there are two others that I must thank.  One not with us and of course that is The Skipper. 

The other is a friend and he is Vilmar.  He too has answered questions I’ve struggled with, and done so with patience.  So, I thank him here publicly and wish he and his a wonderful Christmas.

It is amazing that so many people who are total strangers come together for no other reason then the desire to be helpful to one another.

So thanks to all of you, and to all I hope the New Year will be more then happy.  I hope it will be healthy as well.  Oh yeah. And safe.

Posted by peiper     on 12/23/2008 at 03:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Blog Stuff • Cyberspace-Internet •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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