Finding a PMUG Writer

You’ve found this blog and are informed and entertained by reading it. You’ve noticed quotes from De Prez Allen Laudenslager and others. In fact, you just read something sent to us from John Carter yesterday. You can find all the other information a particular person has sent. Go to the top of this Home page, fill in the little search box with a name and let the Blogspot do the finding for you. Other contributors include Art Gorski, David Passell, Roger Lakner, De Former Prez Jim Hamm and Bill Williamson.  

If you subscribe to Google Alert you can also be notified when one of your favorite writers has something posted here or elsewhere on the Internet. Go to Google Home Page, under More, and then Even More.  Click on Alerts and sign up for the person or topic of your choice.  You'll get notified by email. Nifty!

Happy New Year!

Secretary Bobbie Pastor sends PMUG members and friends a cheery greeting and a wish for a Blessed New Year.

 She says, "The Prescott Mac User Group Board wants to take this opportunity to express their appreciation for your membership and acknowledge those of you who were our guests throughout the year.  We hope that our efforts have made a difference in your Mac experience. We are going to continue the SIG classes as long as there is an interest. We want to make our monthly meetings as interesting as possible. Allen is working hard to bring informative speakers to the group. If you have good ideas for speakers, please let him know."

"We wish you a very Happy and Prosperous New Year. We look forward to seeing our friends again in 2010."  Your PMUG Board,
Allen Laudenslager,  Bill Williamson,  Bobbie Pastor,  David Passell,  Jim Hamm,   Elaine Hardt,   John Carter,   Roger Lakner,  Art Gorski

Mac Guys Play Music, Too

Here's PMUG Vice President Bill Williamson and Previous Prez Jim Hamm, playing with the "Monday Night Bluegrass Band" at Acker Night in Prescott.
The group raised $75 for the Acker Scholarship Fund from their gig at Ogg's Hogan.

Double click to enlarge.

PMUG's New Officers

Congratulations to these esteemed PMUG members who've agreed to serve as our new officers. Here is a very brief introduction. Obviously, each has more of a story to tell, but we've limited them to only 100 words! Introduce yourself, ask questions, and you'll be pleased with their backgrounds, Mac experience, hobbies, travels, and all-around personalities.

PRESIDENT ALLEN LAUDENSLAGER: Allen is a semi-retired technical writer who switched to a Mac from PCs just about 2 years ago. His background with computers began in 1963 with a room sized Univac III. The first computer he owned was built from a kit in 1979 his experience spans operating systems including CPM, DOS, and Unix. In addition to starting his year as the PMUG president, Allen is the outgoing president of the Ponderosa Park Association (a neighborhood lead here in the Prescott area) and is on the Prescott Sailing Club safety committee. Allen is currently building a 16-foot wooden sailboat.

VICE PRESIDENT BILL WILLIAMSON: Bill has used an impressive variety of computers throughout his career: a CDC mainframe in 1957, followed by 10 different IBM models, on to Cray supercomputers, then in the late 70’s to PC’s and finally Macs. With a Ph.D. in theoretical physics, he taught graduate courses, wrote for 100 - 200 professional publications and gave presentations, and also directed research, garnering Fulbright, Outstanding Research, etc. awards. He was consultant to Sandia Labs for about 10 years. Retired in 1997, Bill moved to Prescott where he’s been president of Archaeology Society, Prescott Outings Club, and active in Monday Night Bluegrass.

SECRETARY BOBBIE PASTOR: After earning her Secretarial major in college Bobbie started at UniRoyal Rubber Company in Santa Ana, California where she did clerical work. From there she worked for Laura Scudders, then Kimberly Clark, retiring thirty-three years later. In 2003, Bobbie retired at 58 ½, sold her house in Placentia and headed to Prescott, AZ. Here she found the Mac User Group, and was “roped into being Secretary” in 2006. She keeps the books, sends out notices, takes minutes, keeps attendance and has possession of the PMUG computer, projector and files for the club. Now she also holds SIGs for beginners.

TREASURER DAVID PASSELL: David’s degree is from USC in Telecommunications (TV and Radio production) W56 as broadcast engineer/DJ for KUTE in Glendale, CA, then Chief Engineer for FM station WNCN in NYC. In 1961 he was Telecommunications Engineer at JPL (analyzing spacecraft data, writing reports, and writing FORTRAN programs). He did Technical Writing (IBM, Litton, Associated Writers, Conrac) retiring in 1996 from Ameritec, Duarte, CA.
Betty and David came to Prescott in 1996. His Mac history: Apple II - 1978, MAC portable - 1991, Mac TV - 1995. Currently he has MINI, iMAC, and a G3. In PMUG since 1997, he’s been President twice and continues as Treasurer.

See what I mean? You'll need to get acquainted with each of these nice people.

Thanks to John

This PMUG blog has added John Carter to author and admin status to provide continuity for this newsletter. Thanks, John, for volunteering to fill in when needed; Elaine appreciates your assistance for this project.

With Deep Regret

Just received from De Prez, Jim Hamm a message of deep regret that Dan and Erica Simpson are asking to be relieved from PMUG responsibilities. Dan's job will involve travel in the new year and he writes that he will not be able to give the attention PMUG needs. They will not be able to continue hosting the SIG, nor serving as Webmaster and Ambassador.

We have certainly enjoyed having Dan and Erica so active in our group.  We will miss their cheerful participation and very helpful contributions, and we hope they will come as often as they can.

Any PMUG members who wish to help out in these areas please contact Jim at mailto:machamm@gmail.com 

More Music

In case you missed seeing and hearing this musical group, De Prez Jim Hamm sends us this:
"Here's a picture of most of the Monday Night Bluegrass Band playing at the Acker Musical Showcase this past Friday, December 12, in downtown Prescott. From the left: Charlie, Jim, Bill, David, Elaine. Missing is our fiddle player, Carl. Bill's wife took the picture to send to their children and apparently Carl was too far to the right to be included, or maybe he had just stepped away. We had a good time pickin' and had a nice crowd that evening."

From Roger & Mary Beth

Click on this letter to enlarge it.  Roger & Mary Beth Lakner sent it via email this afternoon as a PDF but it needed to be a JPG in order to get it into the blog.  Here's how to do that: Drag the PDF out of the email to the desktop.  Go to Applications and then open Preview, choose the document, then under File choose Save As. This is where you select under Format to save it as JPG.  Thanks to Roger & Mary Beth for sharing their newsy holiday greeting.

A Cool Meeting

Yesterday's June PMUG meeting was a cool meeting on a very warm day. Twenty-three members attended. Katie Baird, our featured guest speaker, related some of her experiences at the January MacWorld in San Francisco, then spoke about blogging. Already today she's posted about PMUG on her About Prescott blog, http://aboutprescottarizona.com/blog/community/pmug-prescott-mac-user-group/ She links to the PMUG website, noting both our calendar and library parking. She mentions the helpfulness of Jim Hamm, David Passell, and Dan Simpson. To check out her biz site go to www.LooseEnds.net

Newly elected officers were announced by Bobbie Pastor. She continues as Secretary. David Passell moves to Treasurer, Roger Lakner is now Vice President, and Jim Hamm becomes "De Prez."

Check back here soon for more info. And, while you're at it . . . consider dropping me a few lines about what YOU are doing this summer with your Mac.