> (snip)
>>I'll never forget the first time you helped me. A bunch of other very prominent guys were shooting from the hip and just didn't seem to get what I was driving at. Only you stuck with it until I was satisfied, and it wasn't a trivial problem. Thanks, for that too.
>>
>Hey, I do what I can to help. A lot of people did the same for me when I was just getting started. When asked how I could re-pay them, they uniformly said, "Do the same for someone else".

Well, you've certainly lived up to that advice, George, and we are very fortunate for that. I wish I could say the same for myself, but I find it difficult to make the time to be so helpful, not to mention that I have nowhere near your level of expertise. Still, I'm conscious of the issue, and I try to do at least this much: think about how to incorporate some generally useful content in my questions. A good piece of discussion becomes a valuable resource. Also, I'm more inclined to help when I think that a question to which I happen to know the answer is likely to go unanswered, e.g. because the usual bevy of experts is not around.

We're lucky to have guys like you, and the unbelievable Sergey B., and untold others watching out for us and giving help so freely. I don't know how you do it, but for me the challenge is to avoid getting too involved in such diversions. There must be a lot of very talented people we hardly ever hear from, who would like to be more helpful, but are struggling from day to day with their own problems, just trying to survive. Who knows, maybe the biggest expert of them all is someone we've never heard of, yet.

It's important to be able to keep an open mind, read people's messages carefully, and to make judgments for yourself, without relying on prior knowledge or other people's opinions. Especially, we native English speakers need to be careful not to be misled by the semi-literate utterances of those who barely speak English as a second language. I know you are aware of this. It amazes me how the masters can figure out exactly what someone was asking, when I can't even begin to decipher the question.

Mike