They say if you don't try something you won't know if it works for you.  So here I am, wriing my first blog.  Never considered it before, but then read an article in one of the U of Rochester magizines on the uses of blogs.  Apparently one of the English writing classes advocated blogs as good for several things - not only self expression, but also as a good means to practice writing.  Well, I write a lot, but primarily technical stuff, which is really boring at the best of times.  And I am not as good as I could be at writing emails to my friends, so if all else fails, perhaps they can read this site from time to time (if it works and I keep it up) to see what is happening with me.

In keeping with good etiquette (yikes - no spell checker on this thing!), I am not really going to use names here, but here is a "pseudo-glossary" => G is my wife, Anya is my dog, Kv is my sailing partner, Ky his SO, NS, TV, TC and J are several good Russian student friends (Hi guys!).  There are many other wonderful people that I will struggle with how to list as times goes on.