Goodbye!

[Robert Soames Wetmore]

After exactly three years on this list, I just want to say goodbye as I will be leaving the list for quite some time, and indeed perhaps permanently. Finances aren�t the best at the moment � in fact they�ve taken a significant turn for the worse. Though I�m by no means destitute, I am even considering selling my '75 Dodge Dart since I mainly take the bus anyway. And I�m trying to scale back on the non-essentials and hobbies (of which photography is one of the most expensive). My favorite hobby anyway is reading and I will concentrate a lot on that since it is pretty much free. I also mean to concentrate on getting my jazz radio show off the ground at a local community station as well as to work on a few other mainly volunteer things so that I�m not just taking up space on the planet.

This list is just too darned good at enabling! What little money I do have for photography I am going to try to spend on Sensia slides and Fuji mailers...and I�ll try to forget about all that equipment I just "need" to have! (How funny it would be to me now if Pentax finally announces a new film flagship - a true PZ-1p successor or perhaps a limited LXAF sort of SLR - at PMA!) Any extra equipment bucks I have (though I can foresee precious little) will probably go towards the occasional new Hexanon � the Konica AR kit is so much less expensive and yet very much to my liking. (I�ll also be using my Yashica Flex TLR which fortunately for my finances doesn�t accommodate interchangeable lenses or many useful accessories! And I�m falling in love with the ground glass lately.) At least I don�t anticipate having to sell any Pentax lenses.

This list also takes so darned much time! I�ve never been much of a "money" person but I�ve figured out that to get my life above a subsistence level I have to start working brutally hard (and I should probably get a bit better at kissing ass and self-promoting and all that nonsense, though I don�t know whether I can stomach that sort of thing). The internet in general is such a distraction from productivity; this list in particular is so high-volume and time-consuming.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for all you�ve taught me! I�ve taken so much more than I�ve given. Though I�ve never been popular or good at making friends, I met a few here and I do feel there is a certain sense of community and good will on this list, of which I feel I was occasionally a part, and which I will certainly miss.

Good luck to everyone throughout the world in any difficult times ahead.

Rob






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