Totally OT, but observation about list members...

I just read the recent post from Los about combat pistol shooting, in
which
he identified himself as a Special Forces Close Quarter Battle team
leader,
and a couple of observations about this list and it's membership struck
me:

We have a really interesting group of people here - a quick sample shows
all kinds of professions and specialties:  Los is a spec ops operator
(and
certainly knows, as do the other professional soldiers on the list, what
the shooty stuff is *really* all about), Nyrath is a
physicist/astronomer
and really knows the star stuff, Ken W. is a physical anthropologist who
has done a pile of forensic work (and really knows what he's talking
about
when it comes to stuff like shotgun ballistics and wound damage), and so
on
and so on.

It isn't just these people with some kind of "special" qualification
that
make valuable contributions to the list - certainly I think basically
everybody has added value to the experience for me.  What strikes me is
that the "gee-whiz" factor of computers/email/the web for adding value
to
our lives isn't really with things like doing spreadsheets fast and
organizing data - though certainly those are valuable - but rather in
bringing such a diverse group of people from all over the world together
to
share a common interest.  Same with gaming - the gaming community really
brings together a WIDE group of people - it is very cross-cultural in a
way. 

Anyway - just a thought :)

On that thought, I'm going to be, in a day or two, signing off the list
for
a while (heading out west - western Canada that is - for vacation time
with
the family).  So we'll see you in the funny pages...

Adrian

Adrian Johnson
ajohnson@idirect.com