Off topic: Microsoft spam

In article <3F8CBB9E.9F48BEA7@seatraveler.com>, Steve Kramer
<steve@seatraveler.com> wrote:

€Alan Street wrote:
€>
€> In article <3F8B896F.76B1AA7A@photoenvisions.com>, sales@photoenvisions.com
€> says...
€> >
€> >Alan Street wrote:
€> >>
€> >> In article <3F8B5864.D4CF25C0@photoenvisions.com>, Steve Kramer
€> >> <sales@photoenvisions.com> wrote:
€
€> >> I thought you were more invincible than this <g>.
€> >
€> >Totally invincible. (though Kryptonite 'might' get through...) Not a
€> >single one got through to my own computer! Everything was stopped at the
€> >server level.
€
€> Dan will be proud of you.
€
€He put a gold star next to my name on the blackboard.
€
€> I already had the spam block in place on my server before
€> >the worm hit. It was just a matter of annotating a couple of filter
€> >rules. There is a secondary fire wall as well as a daily updated
€> >anti-virus program on my computers as well. I can't afford any computer
€> >down time. I have too many deadlines to meet each month these days.
€
€
€> Deadlines? That sounds like work - real work. I thought you had reached that
€> coveted state of existance where "work" is for fun.
€
€That is it's only redeeming grace. I love it! Here's 'work' for me;
€a client calls me up and says 'I want to send you down to a beautiful
€island for a week to take some beach bunny photos and some underwater
€pics. I'll pay all expenses plus your daily rates for you and your
€assistant (read as: wife.) But you have to have the finished, processed
€images on a CD 8 days from today. Will you take the job?' Work plus
€deadlines.
€
€That was last month. This month it was a client calling to say;
€"Steve, I just bought a new tour company that runs 4x4 adventure
€off-road jeep tours along the mountains and jungles on the Burmese
€border. I need photos of the tour for a new brochure. Can you leave
€tomorrow and have the photos for me two days after you return?" Work
€plus deadlines.
€
€Not only did I get my regular fee for the shooting, a delightful free
€adventure tour, but I was able to sell the same photos to two other
€clients since then, and a two-part feature magazine story, including
€cover photo that begins next month, also paid in full. You have to love
€a job where 3-4 people all pay you for doing the same work. Just as long
€as no one asks for an exclusivity clause (which is ridiculously
€expensive) I'm free to sell the same photos over and over again! And
€shooting digitally, I can process the photos each night on my lap top,
€so there is virtually no lag time from the finish time of the shooting
€assignment to delivery of a CD of images to the client.
€
€This sort of thing plus I now have a regular monthly magazine column on
€photography. More deadlines. Have to get to the printer on time. Plus my
€wife has been writing articles in Japanese for some magazines, and I've
€been supplying the photos and English translations for these. More
€deadlines, but we do it together so it's more play than work! Plus with
€seven different tourist magazines here in northern Thailand, as well as
€international magazines, I get calls all the time.
€
€> Please don't tell me you've
€> let the rat race find you in paradise. That would shatter my dreams of how
€> retirement is supposed to be .
€
€It's not a rat race if you can pick and chose the events you want to run
€in. If I tried the 'sitting in a rocking chair' type of retirement, I'd
€be dead in 6 months. I need the adrenaline rush of adventure travel and
€photography. I even turn down most of the requests I get for studio
€shooting because that's too sedentary. I live in DisneyLand. I want to
€enjoy it.
€
€I want to be out in the boonies, humping 15 kilo of camera equipment up
€a jungle trail into some Karen village, (actually, I want someone ELSE
€to carry the load,) spend a day and a night there interacting with the
€people and getting some pictures. I don't want to grow old sitting on my
€butt. I spent some time with a Long Neck Karen tribe last week and
€besides getting some great photos, I meet some new additions to the
€tribe! Babies born since I was there last. They had some hand forged
€knives for me that I had wanted the last time I was there, so I came
€home with memories, new toys, new photos to sell, and a large smile on
€my face. If THAT isn't what retirement is supposed to be all about, I
€don't know what is!
€
€Keep the faith. Retirement is only about changing lives, not ending
€them. And if you are the lead Rat, the rat race is fun!


My faith is restored. Thanks, Steve (although that monthly column
sounds like it might turn into a bit of a chore .


Alan

Alan Street wrote:

> My faith is restored. Thanks, Steve (although that monthly column
> sounds like it might turn into a bit of a chore .

Challenge.
I keep telling myself.
It's a challenge. A challenge. No, really, it's a challenge...

Steve Kramer
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Five years, one month, three weeks, four days, 17 hours, 56 minutes and
50 seconds. 56482 cigarettes not smoked, saving $14,120.60. Life used
for a better purpose: 28 weeks, 2 hours, 50 minutes.

--
"The voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new horizons,
but in seeing with new eyes." - Marcel Proust