I have two ultimate loves in my life, my family and computing. The past year saw the demands of my family overwhelm any time to enjoy my second passion.

A year ago this month my wife, pregnant with our 7th child, began to hemorrhage and was airlifted from our little hamlet to Toronto where it would take 30 surgeons and nurses 14 1/2 hours to save her life and the life our newest little boy Kevin Scott.

My wife would spend next 7 weeks recovering from her ordeal while I stayed with Kevin helping him fight the fight of a 9.5 week premature child. Little did we know that Kevin's problems and need for hospital care would continue from Sept 2000, until well into May 2001.

During this period I spent what time I could trying to hold my consulting company together, taking care of our other 6 kids and traveling back and forth to numerous hospitals spread across southern Ontario.

Finally in late May a healthy Mum and Kevin returned home and things began to return to normal. I was able to land a large 'Surgical Strike Force' rescue type project to help get the finances back to normal (god bless those Yankee $$$). Come July, the project was running itself and I began to have some time on my hands. It was then that it hit me the stress, depression, whatever. The thought of sitting in front of my box , doing something creative, inventing a new thingie or doing anything became impossible. I could not focus, could not think. My passion of 30 years seemed to have just disappeared.

Then one night in late July I was Gnumeric'ing around a company balance sheet when I accidentally clicked on my TK/Monkchat icon. Up it popped and I almost closed it right down but decided to leave it, watching the conversation out of the corner of my eye, thinking to myself that there sure seemed to alot more folks in user list then there used to be. (I am one of the first 50 users to join PM).

Then I noticed a remark roll by, I don't remember what it said, from one the T-men ( tilly, tye, tadman ) if I recall. I remember thinking hey that's a croak of sh*t and jumping into CB to impart some good old fashion 'old fart' wisdom. I remember having to apologize to someone and laughing at some of Zaxo's humour, the details are not important. What was important that the next night I was right back in there, this time clicking away at node links throwing around some votes and generally being amazed at the breadth and depth of Perl wisdom the Monastery had accumulated in my absence.

I started reading code, responding to nodes, and yes even enjoying some new found XP's and the odd trip to Best Nodes list. I started writing some code inspired by posted problems. Well after a few weeks I realized I was back in the game. My vocation once again filled me with energy.

I thank 'the gods' for giving me back the life of my wife and the new life of my son.

But I thank PM for, the Monks that make me think, the Monks that slap me in the ego, the Monks that I sometimes wanna slap upside the head , the Monks that make me laugh and especially the Monks that gave me, through their words and code a piece of their passion when I could not find my own.

Respectfully,

Peter G. Marshall mitd