Tracy, I met Tom and his wife in San Fran at the end of June. He's just as great a guy in person as he is online. As you note, he's taken a sort of sabbatical but I feel sure he'll be back!
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
