Folks,

OT but of personal concern:

Our thoughts are with our relatives and all the others down in the Gulf states who are looking down the barrel of hurricane Gustav. We had a brief flirtation with Faye here last week and trust me, it was nothing compared to this massive storm.

My wife has a first cousin who lives just a couple of miles from the ocean at Gulfport Mississippi. Three years ago when hurricane Catrina came calling there was much destruction around his home. Thankfully, his property was mostly unscathed in comparison to some.

He (we'll call him Doctor Dee)is the pastor of a very large church down there. The church sustained minor damage during Catrina but overall his area was lucky. The storm surge did not quite reach that far inland and no lives were lost. We just saw on TV some current video of Gulfport. The wind and rain seem to be horrific. When last contacted by cell phone, everyone in the family was safe and dry.

In other, less important news, I must report that even with a supreme effort by Jens and a good many others, I cannot get SDOE to run smoothly on my system. We have tried all suggestions including those offered by the SimHQ SDOE forum to no avail. Although my system is well above the recommended requirements for this classic game, even with all features turned down to pitifully puny I still have stuttering, hesitation and freeze-ups that make the game almost unplayable. Tis a pity. Mainly, having no luck with FCG after installing the Radeon, I wanted to enjoy the WW1 add-on for SDOE. No need to install that unless SDOE is running well. Thank you all for your help.

An acquaintance of Lady T's has just returned from an expedition with her husband to the quaint little desert town of Las Vegas...or as we affectionately refer to it, 'Loss Vegas'. They were lucky, they came home $20 richer, provided you do not count the travel expense. We were delighted and slightly surprised that they did so well. After all, they do not call it "Win Vegas".