[Leica] Birthdays and friends.

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Of Birthdays and list friends who celebrate them. :-) :-) Add the sharing of
many Leica moments not possible on screen. ;-)

One of many wonderful things on the LUG are the people you "screen meet and
chat with like long lost brothers or sisters." And through that online
friendship we eventually have face to face warm meet and greet's. Which
surprise of surprises, evolves to  warm personal friendships.

Last evening we, my wife Irene and myself had an absolutely wonderful time
celebrating our 75th birthday's, her's yesterday and mine to-morrow with
folks, if not for Brian Reid and his LUG we'd have never met. And what a
loss not to have met!

We began celebrating this wonderful age we've reached late afternoon with
Tom & Tullikki Abrahamson, David & Rose Young, Dr.Joseph Yao from Hong Kong,
Jim & Arlene Baker from Scottsdale.  Who arrived at our home for a Happy
Birthday get to-gether, then we retired to a Japanese restaurant for a Happy
Birthday dinner.

It was wild, Leica's of vintage to latest Digilux II's were clicking or
silently snapping away in every direction, best Happy Birthday celebration I
can recall! :-) And all Leica recorded! :-)

And it's Brian Reid's LUG, for all it's good, bad and ugly moments at times
when the inmates run the place, this wonderful celebratory moment in time
would not have happened. So Brian, although you didn't attend I want to
thank you for making it possible for so many others to gain such wonderful
friendships as these folks.

And so many others who've touched my life over the past 1/2 dozen years.

Heck reaching 75 is a wonderful time to realize, "Damn I made it this far
with so many incredible moments and it's only 3/4's of a century! :-) Man
the last 1/4 is going to be a mind blower if the first part is any
indication! :-)

The goal now is to make it to the really, really "big 100!" That my friends
isn't much time with so many things to do while still clicking away! Damn
don't you just love it when a life has evolved so wonderfully you want more
of the same? :-) Bring it on!

To make 100 is going to be monumental, but staying cool, keeping busy and
doing many of the things I didn't have time for getting to this point! :-)
Why it'll be a piece of cake :-)

So we're both looking forward to making it to the 100 percent century! :-)

Just thought you folks might like to know of a nice moment shared with
friends in our Leica lives. :-)
ted