No, this is not a political rant about the scoundrels on Capitol Hill. I'll rant about that elsewhere, probably the prattle forum on the Team.Net forums. For the moment, though, consider this my annual State of Team.Net speech. It is getting sent out on All Fool's Day. More on that in a bit.
Back in April of 1991 the domain team.net was registered. We are 19 years old this month. Of course there were a few years before then that email was just sent to various places as the lists were in their infancy. The patriarch of the family was SOL, the Scions of Lucas, thanks to Dale Cook and Jim Muller. Now there are over 60 Team.Net email lists, and about 14,000 subscribers scattered about the planet. And 19 years old describes my age when I moved to Salt Lake City, a young lad looking for adventure in the mountains through climbing and skiing. And many an adventure was to be had. The biggest was no doubt the Weird Winter Wall trip of 1977. I really need to write that up, get a bunch of the slides digitized to share with others. The short version is that I am amazingly lucky to still be alive. It was April 1st, 1977 when the four of us, hungry and exhausted, demoralized and chilled to the bone sat on a mountainside in the Wind Rivers and watched the sun come up. Sunrises are always beautiful, but to this day those first faintly glowing streaks of red, orange and gold have never looked so welcome as on that morning. We knew we'd make it, we'd see more sunrises. It seems appropriate that we returned to civilization on April Fool's day. A winter ascent of the North Face of Mt. Hooker seems a fool's errand in hindsight. But I survived. And Team.Net has survived. There have certainly been many times over the years when I've felt the fool for putting in the effort to keep it going. Just hitting the off switch and walking away would have been so easy. But far more prominent are the occasions where a well crafted message, an unsolicited thank you or donation, a T shirt or some trinket unexpectedly showing up at my doorstep makes me realize what a treasure Team.Net has been over the years. There are untold old classics out there still on the road, thanks to you folks. Sure, you may have never turned a wrench on them, or pushed them in or out of the garage, but the technical support provided, along with the email equivalent of a friendly smile and a heartfelt pat on the back has kept folks going. They've taken that fool's errand of a hopeless restoration and brought it back from near death to see another sunrise. If you see fit, please make use of the information provided at http://www.team.net/donate.html mjb. "But look, the morn in russet mantle clad walks o'er the dew of yon high eastward hill" Hamlet, Wm. Shakespeare _______________________________________________ [email protected] Donate: http://www.team.net/donate.html Suggested annual donation $11.47 Archive: http://www.team.net/archive Forums: http://www.team.net/forums Unsubscribe/Manage: http://autox.team.net/mailman/options/spitfires/[email protected]
