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Greetings… It is I… “Painshill”. Some of you will (unfortunately) know me already, but for others it will be a new acquaintance. Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. I’m both alive and well. I just wanted to let you know that I am returning to the fold and wondering if the fatted calf can be brought out? Or the goat (insider joke).
The truth of the matter is this. When I was lucky enough to be able to retire from the rat-race of employment, I made several promises to myself. I would spend more time with my beautiful wife, I would travel more in pursuit of my archaeological and geological interests, I would make my excursions impulsively without the constraints of calendar planning, and I would not be enslaved to the computer or the cell-phone.
Somehow, I got trapped… and this fine forum trapped me more than anything. I never intended to end up spending so much time in front of a screen trying to put errors and glitches to rights or helping you to build a comprehensive information resource for future reference. Neither did I expect to be doing so with one hand tied behind my back, using software that most usually didn’t want to play ball. I was spending more time doing that than in exploring the world of artefacts and this wasn’t the only forum absorbing my time either.
Ultimately, I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. No-one made me do it... I drove myself, but in the wrong direction. Enough. So, for the last few years I have been doing what I originally intended. There were dozens of boxes of accumulated items deserving of further research and study that I have been gradually working my way through and I’ve added to the pile during my travels with my wife. The other advantage of retirement, apart from the ability to just up and go on a whim, is that we’ve been able to make longer trips. So, we’ve had an extended trip to Alaska and Western Canada as well as a some of extended trips touring the southern parts of Africa among others. We’re recently back from the Kalahari. That pattern of travel is not conducive to forum participation since my other rule has always been that computer interaction with the outside world stops when we are on vacation.
As a consequence, that kind of travel pattern has meant I failed to respond to some of you in email communications and also meant that I missed the immediate opportunity to respond in kind to a very generous surprise parcel containing gifts from some of you. My sincere apologies. That package arrived safely (in my absence) and I fully intend to contact those who generously sent things to me and obtain addresses such that I can provide you with some interesting items by way of thanks.
In the meantime, my good Swiss friend Mario has set up a domain and a website for me from which I intend to sell surplus artefacts and such. I’m in the process of populating it with pictures and details of suitable items. Life is good, we have no immediate far-flung travel plans and I’m now ready to return to the forum to pick up on old friendships. Normal service will be resumed shortly and I will be pouring cold water on your geofacts, mocking your eppigees and misidentifying your brachiopods in the customary manner once I get back into the swing of things.
Very best wishes to you all and I look forward to re-establishing old friendships.
The truth of the matter is this. When I was lucky enough to be able to retire from the rat-race of employment, I made several promises to myself. I would spend more time with my beautiful wife, I would travel more in pursuit of my archaeological and geological interests, I would make my excursions impulsively without the constraints of calendar planning, and I would not be enslaved to the computer or the cell-phone.
Somehow, I got trapped… and this fine forum trapped me more than anything. I never intended to end up spending so much time in front of a screen trying to put errors and glitches to rights or helping you to build a comprehensive information resource for future reference. Neither did I expect to be doing so with one hand tied behind my back, using software that most usually didn’t want to play ball. I was spending more time doing that than in exploring the world of artefacts and this wasn’t the only forum absorbing my time either.
Ultimately, I decided that wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. No-one made me do it... I drove myself, but in the wrong direction. Enough. So, for the last few years I have been doing what I originally intended. There were dozens of boxes of accumulated items deserving of further research and study that I have been gradually working my way through and I’ve added to the pile during my travels with my wife. The other advantage of retirement, apart from the ability to just up and go on a whim, is that we’ve been able to make longer trips. So, we’ve had an extended trip to Alaska and Western Canada as well as a some of extended trips touring the southern parts of Africa among others. We’re recently back from the Kalahari. That pattern of travel is not conducive to forum participation since my other rule has always been that computer interaction with the outside world stops when we are on vacation.
As a consequence, that kind of travel pattern has meant I failed to respond to some of you in email communications and also meant that I missed the immediate opportunity to respond in kind to a very generous surprise parcel containing gifts from some of you. My sincere apologies. That package arrived safely (in my absence) and I fully intend to contact those who generously sent things to me and obtain addresses such that I can provide you with some interesting items by way of thanks.
In the meantime, my good Swiss friend Mario has set up a domain and a website for me from which I intend to sell surplus artefacts and such. I’m in the process of populating it with pictures and details of suitable items. Life is good, we have no immediate far-flung travel plans and I’m now ready to return to the forum to pick up on old friendships. Normal service will be resumed shortly and I will be pouring cold water on your geofacts, mocking your eppigees and misidentifying your brachiopods in the customary manner once I get back into the swing of things.
Very best wishes to you all and I look forward to re-establishing old friendships.
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