Frog's intro

Following Mike's polite lead and having received the official appointment, I guess need to give an intro for myself.
I'm one of the very earliest baby boomers. I didn't recognize my penchant for capturing moments for a long time but remember always having a fascination of the old photo albums we had and when I got my first little kodak box camera,(which I still have), taking pics of everything.
Then came my quest for life's meaning(continuing), marriage and kids and work and not recognizing that my fascination with good photography was a call to just do it.
Then in the early '80s, something bugged me...probably wanting more pics of my 3 sons and I bought a Chinon 35 and a couple of lenses and read a bit and started shooting.
Still have some of that early work and some of my best stuff is on film but all the negatives are gone.
Then the Chinon died,(great camera for options but not reliability) and I sort of gave it up again until I had to retire for medical reasons and I started researching digital. I was quite surprised to find out there were actually digital slr cameras and that they held their own against 35mm so I started researching and started with a nikon 8700 but soon became impatient and after much research and saving slowly for a D200, the D80 came out and I bought one and have been shooting and hopefully improving since.
I live in a small town at the foot of Mt. Rainier,(Wilkeson), in Washington state with my wife and cat.
Have 3 grandkids now with a 4th due in June.

Congrats to Mike and yourself... I am sure that with the ideals and pictures that I have seen from the both of you it is going to be some interesting months ahead of us.

BTW, I was out in Washington in '07 to visit my brother in Tacoma, WOW what a beautiful state. So much I almost crashed a few times looking at the scenery driving up to Canada and down to Portland. I am trying to get back out and take more in, I hope to make it to Mt. Rainier this time.

James

Congrats to both of you. I look forward to your leadership on this forum, challenging us to produce the best we can when we can. Cheers, Shootme