HI Kathy....so good to hear from you...sorry to hear your husband isn't doing real good. I think it is a smart move to be by your kids...but I'll bet it's hard to leave that place. Our place gets harder and harder for Denny to take care of. We have a young man at church who comes out all the time to help Denny. They've become good friends.. They come out and play card games or dice games with us quite often. They are much younger than us but I've never fit with my own age group...I'm too imature...hehe I sure hope when things slow down you will come here more often...we miss you. patti

Well ... I guess we can shut off the lights and close and lock the door of this thread: I'm to fly out of Detroit early evening Fri. Jan. 23 - fly out of Phoenix morn. Mon. Feb 2 ... just under $250. For folks who might be in or able to come to Phoenix, my email address is available here, and I can send daughter's address - don't remember the suburb - and phone. Got a card in mail Fri. Nov. 28 saying item to pick up at P.O., picked up passport Monday ... postmistress says it somewhat resembles me. She's supposed to have identif'n., but not too concerned ... I got out photo driver's licence ... she said she doubted that she'd let me into States on that - look too much like terrorist. Application went in Nov. 21, it was issued Nov. 26 - really quick service. I am disappointed that I'll not get to visit folks along the route ... but hope that I can meet several of you some time in the future: maybe a spring or fall trip (summer too hot). I hope also that you have the start of a fine week under your belt. ole joyful

I had more blood tests this year than usual - about 4 vials. The one showed high prostate numbers, at 18.9, and they tend to get nervous at 20 or so. That brought on the biopsy, and when they found cancer in half of the dozen cores (only a tiny amount in the quadrant that had cancer in only one of three cores), they calculate me to be at intermediate risk and wanted to know whether it had established outposts in other locations, so sent me for bone scan, involving them taking shots of my body at about 10:00 a.m., shooting some stuff into me via intravenous and having me come back upwards of 4 hours later to see whether some parts of my bones lit up like a Christmas tree. Then had a CT scan a week or so later, and visited the urologist's office on the same day, to hear that they hadn't found any cancer in other locations. They figure to keep an eye on the PSA number every three to six months, and start looking if the numbers start rising rather quickly. Didn't make any noises about sending me to the cancer clinic. Did some stool samples, as well ... answer came back that the colon seems unjeopardized. Part of the trouble with a good many cancers is that they operate so silently ... until it gets late in the game, often too late to do much to counteract it. ole joyfuelled

rgreen, I'm a CPA and I have a degree in Economics. I recognize some of the words you've used but how you've used them isn't quite right. As an example, what you describe as "price point" is called equilibrium or market equilibrium. It's the intersection of supply and demand curves, where the quantity of goods supplied equals the quality of goods demanded. It says nothing about profit or revenue maximization. Profit (and revenue) can be higher at points other than the equilibrium point. Let's make you Emperor for a moment. You own the company that makes the product for which costs have increased and need the profits to pay for the spending of your Empire. You can increase the price, decrease the quantity in the package, or do nothing. Which do you choose to do? Now, you're in charge of the marketing department for the Emperor's company. You've done market research and it tells you that your customers don't want to be informed of price increases or quantity decreases (this is true). The Emperor has told you either price or quantity will change. What do you do about communicating it or not?