On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:53:19 -0800, Winston
wrote:

CaveLamb wrote:
Winston wrote:

I swapped eMail with Ed a few days ago.
He told me that all is well.
He became frustrated with the amount of
off topic traffic and decided his time was
better spent doing other things.

--Winston



That's funny!
Ed FED most of the off-topic traffic.
He just couldn't take what he was dishing out.

I shouldn't have spoken for Ed, because
generic 'off topic' traffic wasn't ever
a problem. It was the incessant political
and religious blather that he found tiresome.
As do I.

--Winston

He didn't find said blather so tiresome that he wouldn't pursue at
great length, with increasing vigor and even resort to namecalling if
a thread was prolonged by an impudent poster who persisted in refuting
his arguments with logic, usually respectful humor and cites.

The thread that seems to have torn it for Ed was the long one last
September about building a mosque near ground zero. He disappeared
after being confronted with a bullseye-relevant quote of a
Pulitzer-winning author. RCM became no longer worth his time.
He's outta here, plonked us all!

Ed deservedly got a lot of respect around here, mine included, but
perhaps not enough deference to suit him. Or perhaps he just decided
to use his time more productively than messing with us usenet cretins.
He certainly isn't the first to bail out.

There are days when I read what has been posted that day and think how
things have progressed since the metal-relevant days of Fitch,
Albrecht, TeeNut, Stephenson, Gary whatshisname, Swinney, and even
Altovoz.

I'm still making stuff out of metal. Made something useful today to
help a senior lady, a helpful device for a right-seat passenger. A
crafted solution, not a half-assed kludge. Silly stuff, piddly
projects. Bit of lathe work, bit of silver-brazing, torch-bending,
plating, coupla press fits, work that could be done by a competent
craftsman of any political or religious persuasion. It works. She's
grinning.

A political post can generate a thread with well over 100 hits while
none of my past several metalworking posts (and very few other
metal-relevant posts) have produced more than a few responses, fewer
than 10 in most cases. With Iggy, Karl T. and Gunner now and then as
notable exceptions, this group doesn't seem to be much about
metalworking these days.

All respect to Ed, I don't recall ever seeing a photo of or report
about anything he machined, welded or otherwise crafted in metal.

I haven't heard from Dr. Ted (Edwards) in quite a while. His wife was
in ill health some time ago, and I fear that Ted may also be failing,
or perhaps just checked out if he lost his wife. **** happens.

We visited Mayo today. We'll henceforth be visiting weekly rather
than monthly as we segue from pills to IV chemo for Mary. That's
actually good news: the pill chemo is working so the risk equation
tilts in favor of more aggressive treatment. The more aggressive chemo
is toxic but the disease is too, so progress with chemo does indicate
more aggressive chemo.

Also some very nice accomodations and really good meals in restaurants
fit for visiting Arabs. Ya only live once, and we're not leaving it
to my daughter that'd give it to the goddamned democrats!

It's an easy ride back and forth if weather is decent. It was a bit
dicey going down this trip with blowing snow making the road about
invisible, but the return run was easy peasey.

I walked my quicktime (as in Army, not Apple: 120 steps per minute
per FM 22-5) hour today in the skyways and subways of the Mayo
complex. That was easy: there are still parts of that system I've not
explored and I was walking briskly. Only two others were walking more
briskly, both fatassed babes pumping arms and doing their best, give
'em credit.