>So....
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>I was determined to be at SW Fox this year, hellbent because I knew Alan would be there and maybe Randy and it would have been nice to have a partial Fox Team reunion. But it was not to be. Having two kids in college and another post-college but on economic life support kind of throws wrenches into your best-laid plans.
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>As for me I'm currently architecting the next generation of testing tools for the platform-independent services environment. I can't really describe it because I'd be violating confidentiality but perhaps I'll be back on the speaking circuit with something cool pretty soon.
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>It's soon gonna be 7 years since the last major release of VFP; it's already 16 years since the 1st VFP, and Fox itself has been around for 26 years give or take. Wow. What a long trip.
>
>Well...that is all....just wanted to tell everyone I was still alive, kicking, and coding. Party on, Wayne!

Hey, John! It's good to see you post. I will give you a call someday soon. I am working in St. Louis and don't have all my phone numbers here but will call the next time I am home, which is for Thanksgiving week.

Two kids in college, yeah, I can relate to that. No question kids are expensive. To me they are definitely not wrenches in my plans, though (and I know they aren't really wrenches in yours). We all know going in they are going to cost a lot of money, or at least we should. But there is nothing else like them in life.

"Architecting the next generation of testing tools" -- I like that. Think big! As it happens I am reading the new biography of Steve Jobs, who was the quintessential big thinker. I doubt he ever had a small ambition in his life. The early part of the book -- I am up to the development of the Mac -- gives me chills. The founding of Apple, for instance. Jobs had to work hard to talk Woz into leaving his safe job at HP and starting a company with him. Woz said no. In a lifelong pattern, Jobs prevailed on Woz's family and everyone else he could think of to help talk him into it. They started the company with something like $5000 and lived hand to mouth for a while, building the first Apple I models at Jobs's parents house and struggling to buy parts. Initially they had a third partner with a 10% stake whose main role was to arbitrate between Woz's caution and Jobs's grand visions. The guy had owned a small company before which went bust. He got cold feet after signing the legal papers and backed out. They paid him something like $2300. His 10% of Apple would have been worth $2.6 billion at the end of last year. He professes to have no regrets about it. He told Walter Isaacson (the biographer) he knew he didn't have the stomach for such a risky venture.

Sorry for the interlude. Good luck with the tools!!!!