i think this show of support is very nice and bravo to all you computer whizzes who help make these pesky problems right again.

But what is missing in this thread is some perspective. Leaving the forum because you can't log on as your old name? Come on!

Mike, you sound like a smart guy; is this really worth your getting in a huff about? Clearly people value your word and want you to stay. Me, too. Especially if your only reason for leaving has to do with some silly computer glitsch which is, admittedly, frustrating, but certainly not the end of the world...

my response would be to simply choose a new name and move on...I know you are frustrated but this is not worth your leaving forever.

This is just the latest of what will surely be a never-ending stream of little problems that will afflict our Forum as we jettison forward ever more fleetly into the Computer Age...

Let us all reflect upon our lives...and remember those days before the Internet; when we stayed in touch by telephone or, gasp! by letter!!!

when cookies were delightful homemade concoctions containing lots of butter, brown sugar and vanilla, or, if store-bought, plenty of partially-hydrogenated oils and corn syrup...

when we searched long and hard to connect with those of like mind, at festivals or concerts or conventions or pubs or dances...when finding lyrics to an obscure Scottish song was like diving for needles in a peat bog...when jumping on a soapbox or indulging in a good-natured rant on a topic we felt passionately (like, say, folk music)about could only be done in front of our partners or, maybe, our cats...

The Internet is a great gift and a wonder...it has brought us all together. We mustn't let its flaws drive us apart.

Remember how mail used to be delivered by guys on horseback? They'd make mail runs several times per day, such that in Victorian times many of the well-to-do could exchange 3 or 4 letters per day, or more? Now we are submerged in junk mail and advertising such that our important correspondence takes days to reach us, even though we have replaced horses with planes...

same with the Internet; it is glutted with garbage; this is bound to have some effect on its more noble uses.

Let us praise the ease of communication it has brought us; and not get too bent out of shape when it throws us a curve ball once in a while...

peg