posted 12-24-2001 02:52 AM               

I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to my collector friends on collectSPACE. It has been over a year since I discovered this web page, have learned a LOT from here, increased my collection from sellers in the forums, stood back and watched arguments, observed Robert break up fights over Neil Armstrong childhood books (ha!), drooled over other people's collections, started a "Tranquility base fund" so I could get a bit of moondust (the fund is at $0.00 still!), chatted with many who suffer from the same addiction, and lost many, many, many hours at work surfing the site while I should actually be working!

2001 is a year that started out great, turned really ugly, and got a bit better for me. I went to Kennedy Space Center *finally!* tried to see STS-98 fly and missed the launch. Lost my job TWICE, survived the Feb. 28 Seattle Earthquake, watched in horror as the WTC was destroyed, lost my Reno Air Race vacation, and was unemployed for 2 months. Things got better a month ago when I found a new job, and realize that things could have been much worse, but was fortunate that things all worked out in the end.