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Dear Members, December 12, 2009 CAMERON:    roses, roses2, shj, slamb, snow, snowmob, spinbait                        B i l l 's  Work :  57cc2, amish2, ang152a, ang152a1, ang152a2, ang152a3                             ang152c, ang152c1 November 22, 2009 M Y  W O R K:   accord, acostic, acostic2, atrumpet,     CAMERON:      chat, nra, pcrest, pigeon, pigeon2, pbadge, ptable, pheart, quilt, ship                             B i l l 's  Work :  10ave, 57cab, bcabin, bchevy, lv, lv2, lv3, lv4, lv5, pbirds, roborder                              softee, treesmts Nov. 9, 2009 Can anyone help out a fellow member .. he's in the fabrication trade. Joe, Our charity for organ donation, OPEN (organ procurement education network) hit another roadblock in our quest to get off the ground. A CAD artist my associate, John Deegan, and I were working with died suddenly due to complications from a simple clot! We had just started experimenting with an idea to take "pet pictures" (dog & cat only to start) and translate the image into a metallic form of keepsake. John and I felt that this may be a project that would enable us to work with your entire braintrust on perfecting. (Instead of searching out another individual artist) Could you please give us a call at your convenience to discuss the possibilities? Thanks Stan Valinski Multi-Media Solutions Group, LLC 860-673-8900 fax: 860-675-7309 October 12, 2009 M Y  W O R K:  Cleaned up 43 pages of the Google stuff,   Got a lot more to go.   CAMERON:    cornero, full, grass, masonic, modelt, mormon,                           motorcy, mouse, scene, treeleft, treer    B i l l 's  Work : 3cans, bushel, glove, gloves, jalapen3, jalapeno                             shovels, spade, tomates, toplant, September 18, 2009 M Y  W O R K   bananas, coconut, pineappl, potato, redpot, sweet ,     CAMERON:     carmel, deerlook, fatima, geese, lovebird    B i l l 's  Work : cam2. cam5, canelia1, veg1, veg2, veg3, veg4, veg5, veg6    August 18, 2009 No news is good news. M Y  W O R K        keelcorn, uro, uroborus, world, spider, spider2, liz,                                duckrun, boyd CAMERON:          drafter, eyeglass, flyfishr, gardenin,                                  hallcab, harmonic, shepherd, softtail B i l l 's  Work :      amxp, beach, billh, billh2, billh3, billh4, cnlily,                                 cnrose, jbillh, lakeland, saves, saves2, saves3                                  weep Kenny Dyal:            ivymo July 21, 2009 "It's like trying to tell a stranger about Rock'N'Roll."  John Sebastian Took some members leaving us. Took Cathy and I working endless hours to dance to Greg's tune. Took a rift between James and I. Took both Greg and I to realize that he's all about making bucks and we're all about serious vector design. The difference between an old stone cutter and some young hot-shot who thinks monuments are a path to hitting the jackpot. Nothing wrong with that, but that's not what we're all about - and I should had been wise enough to spot it from the get-go. Then two very close friends came down with cancer and life changed for Cathy and I, suddenly.  On one trip back home from hospital James had asked if after all our work had Greg produced any new members. I said no but you gotta believe.  James smiled and asked if I knew the lyric to the Loving Spoonful's DO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? Man, he said a mouthful. MY WORK: All that Greg stuff, redraw of 10, 10a, 10b, CAMERON's Work: chapman, chev1957, codance, cuscar, dar, dmercy,                                      dodgeram, dog, dog2, dog3. dog4, dog5, dogs, towtr, wheatx B i l l 's  Work :  bell5, bikemark, boat3a, boat3b, boat3c, boat4a, gullsb, sails MAY 1, 2009 On the same day that Greg joined our service and started a ruckus around here, a monument builder named CAMERON also joined. With just as much fanfare, however, all the celebration was up here in your central office. Cameron's last name is Moore.  Remember ShelbyM - M for Moore.  That's right, Shelby's kid brother!  Turns out he's an excellent artist. I posted some of his work today. They'll be lots moore. Stay tuned.    And what about Greg? No one actually said not to work with him and his tool. Many of those who replied agree with James, more than I, that our formatted drawings should not leave our site. So that's the way it will be. To get a DXF or other vector formats anyone using his tool must link to here to get it - and have a full access account. We have also created a new type of account called a GIF account. It will be for $20 per month. That member will be like a half member - like a browser. They can see and even copy our GIF images ONLY. If nothing comes of all this effort and concessions in a year or two, we will  cancel any further cooperation with Greg - but we have a good feeling about  his idea.   As posted in Decemeber, 2009 fees have been rasied to $42. CAMERON's Work: 1934coup - also posted here, 55buick, 8ball, airplane, amflag, appletr, angel,                                    balloons, basket, bull, dozer APRIL 15, 2009 VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!  Our Drawing Board - AKA: YOUR Drawing Board - has been approached by a new member named Greg who is an ace IBM program developer to have us team up with a project of his. It is a web tool that will interface your monument business with your cutter and supplier - in short: a modified point of sales program that is web based. Our role is to supply membership and member rights to those who opt for our services when using his tool. That can afford us more members and lower our fees. That's good. It can also spread our designs all over the market...that's OK but could make things a bit tricky on us when it comes to controlling who's using and where our designs run off to - - read that as YOUR DESIGNS. It is a nifty device. Remember our Design a Monument program?  It is exactly like that, with a few less features. However, as I understand it, Greg has networked it in an advanced way. Now, this is very important.  I will not team with Greg without a consensus from you.  Please visit the Message Board and review the GREG'S TOOL forum and think this through. Leave us your ideas as well. The links to Greg's Tool are in the forum. APRIL 13, 2009 Due to an important suggestion from a new member, we are bringing back the MESSGE BOARD and CHAT. Please visit it as we will be having an active discussion about our future in the WHAT WE THINK IS IMPORTANT forum. Click here to visit the MESSAGE BOARDS MARCH 27, 2009 M y   W o r k:   onlimb, onlimb2, diver1, diver2, lineback, linebac2, linebac3, tabset MARCH 3, 2009 Part of the transition we just made requires everyone to change their password. You will be emailed a new password shortly. M y   W o r k:  You have no idea what I've been through............... B i l l 's  Work :   tankers, toydeera, vacman, wingg1a, wiz, wiz2, wiz3,                               wiz4, wiz5, wiz6, wiz7, wiz8, wiz9, wiz9a, wolf1 February 21, 2009 When James goes home, I know we are all fixed.  Now I have to key in all the users and passwords. Remember, I mistype more often than I know. If you cannot log in contact me and I'll fix it. I, Joe, will be in New Orleans from Sunday Feb. 22 until Friday. Mardi Gras and then Biloxi. If you have trouble, contact me and I will get to it. We're pretty sure all is back to normal, thank goodness. A word of Waning: James has tweaked the system so that we can follow leechers. A leech is someone who is using a shared password and user-id.  So if you're the type to loan out your user-id and password, beware, one warning and then you and your leecher friend will be removed from the system forever. Keep the system fair, after all we're all paying for it fair and square. February 20, 2009 We have spent an entire week transferring this domain (website) from our servers in England to a hosting farm here in the USA. We closed our English server down. We shut down our servers in South Carolina and Virginia. And we wholly expected the new domain on the web farm would 1) Save us money, and 2) Work like hi-tech.  James was impressed, Cathy couldn't make heads or tails of it, Mark is still trying to make it work. Me? I think we just wasted our time and money. So we are back up in England. A thousand apologies for the down time. Those of you who pushed for this "Cheaper Way To Go." Sorry it did not work. February 16, 2009 We got problems. Thanks for all the emails and support, but this may take time. at least a few days. In a nutshell: many of you have been pushing for us to host on outside servers to cut fees. I agreed years ago that we ought to do that And last week I succumbed. But it's not all that simple. And now that James and I actually made the move, we find problems on all levels. Not unsurmountable, but plenty enough to cause alarm - and to be down for a spell. Sorry, yet it will likely decrease the fee increase due this May. Very likely. January 12, 2009 M y   W o r k:   angelm10, angelm11, angelm12, angelm13, angelm14, angelm15,                             angelm16, angelm8, angelm9, angelm9a, draco, dragon, scorpiov                             sunv, moved nat, moved nat2, pholy, updated What's New                             calculated 2009 fees, filed 2008 tax forms - early. Had to rework                             entire SAINTS folder. All 24 pages, grrrrrrrrrr! Sincerely Yours, Joe Auricchio - Webmaster / Curator