While the opening scene of my new blog didn't evoke applause with the deafening sound of waterfalls, I was deeply gratified with the comments from a few of my fans. Speaking of waterfalls, I have a story to tell you...

Long ago in a country far, far away, there lived a woman adventurer named Eva Kaneeva. One day she was strolling through the forest and heard a faint roaring sound. She walked towards the sound and it grew louder with each step until, suddenly, she came into a clearing where she had the most breathtaking view of a huge waterfalls. She continued towards the falls and the cool mist felt refreshing on her face. She turned back to see that the clearing she had traversed was a small pocket of an area surrounded by the thick forest. She wondered how that area was a field of grass while everything else was forest. She turned again to face the falls and looked up to its source. She had to strain her neck as it was a very tall waterfall. Then she got an idea...

Scene 1

I love opening scenes. They're my favorite part of the movie. Like this one...

A low dull din of sound fills the expanse. An occasional whistle here, there, nearby again, distant again. Small firelights flickering near and far. Suddenly a shadow glides across the stage. The crowd erupts into a deafening waterfall of applause. The atmosphere is full of electricity. He steps up to the microphone and says...I always wanted to be a rock star...

Joni setup this blog site for me. She also chose the photos. She picked the blog site name and she helped me log on. Now that I have your confidence in my computer abilities, let me share a few thoughts on technology...

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider) is a huge, approximately 17 mile long, circular tunnel. It accelerates two partical beams inside the tunnel in opposing directions and steers them into each other to create a collision of the two beams (actually four collisions from four intersecting points). This way scientists can study the collisions in hopes of proving the Big Bang theory (more on that later). The LHC cost about $10 Billion dollars. The average cost to feed a hungry person is about 25 cents a day. There are probably about 11 million child starvation deaths every year. We could prevent all of those deaths for almost 10 years with what was spent on the LHC.

First, a thank you to my beautiful wife, Joni. Thank you.

Don't get me wrong. I'm a huge fan of technology. I love my new flat screen. The old technicolor movies (like Singing In the Rain) really come to life on that thing, even though one of my daughters swears there's no difference in the color. It's the arguing about it that I really like. I'm a huge fan.

The blog photo - A young me on the bow of the Martha Ann just weeks before we were to launch her from a long, upstate New York winter, dry-dock period of maritime refurbishing, back in, umm, 1975 ??? There I am, playing star again... This was definitely just prior to the days when I stood against the wind...OK, I'll stop. This photo would have been much more dramatic had the Martha Ann actually been in the water. But I took her for all she was worth while I had the chance by golly!

The blog name - Questrist - I like it. Sort of Shakespearean sounding, don't you think?