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Yesterday was a really nice day.
The temperature was perfect, the sun was out.
I was on the deck of our little summer house working on my computer.
In front of me across an inlet of Puget Sound I can see snow covered Mt
Rainer 40 miles away.
Suddenly my cell phone rings.
Annoyed! I pick it up to look at the screen and it says in all capital
letters:
AUSTRALIA
Underneath that seemingly giant word is a strangely formatted phone number.
That strange format could only belong to an international telephone number.

This is exactly what my brain said to me in the next 2 seconds between the
2nd and the 3rd ring.
"Holy Crap!"
"It's a mistake"
"I don't know anyone in Australia"
"It's a robo-call. It must be"
"Wait a minute, nobody makes robo-calls from Australia"
"The number format means it really might be coming from Australia"
"Why would anyone want to call me from Australia"
"It's a new trick by the robo-callers to get people to answer and listen to
their recordings"
"They must have mis-dialed"
"They accidentally sat on their phone and pressed a bunch of numbers at
random"
"I don't know anyone in Australia" (that was the second time my brain said
this to me to make sure I got the point)

Then my brain shut up for a moment while it waited to see what I would do
next.
I realized someone probably went to a lot of trouble to find me. So I
answered.

ARGH! It was someone from TekScopes who was very concerned that I was OK
because I disappeared about 4 weeks ago without a trace. We had a very long
talk about what was going on. I was in a depression and couldn't get out of
it. I was overwhelmed with all the things going on in my life - most of them
it seemed to me were going badly. I have suffered from depression almost my
entire life. Until I was in my late 40s I had no idea this was the case. By
then I spent several years in therapy with several different therapists and
eventually one Psychiatrist I was seeing worked out the right balance of
medications for me to take for the rest of my life to help me avoid falling
into another depression. Depression is a learned behavior and the real
danger about it is that the more it happens to you the easier it is to
become depressed. Once I am in one it is like a trap and I can't get out.

But the phone call and the conversation I had with the caller - he said his
name so fast I didn't have a chance to get it was wonderful. He understood
completely what I was going through. That call made it possible to spend
most of today catching up on my email and facing the world once again. I'm
still a little shaky (mentally) but I think (I hope) I will be on my feet
again (mentally) in a few days.

In the meantime I would like to thank Michael Dunn for covering for me. He
and I both agree I could use help with TekScopes because it beginning to
take up too much of my time (that was one of the things I was not able to
spend enough time on but I didn't know how to fix it).

Give me a few days to get caught up
Dennis Tillman W7pF
Thank you for your concern!!!
That really means a lot to me.
I'm happy to be back!!!
Who was it that called me all the way from Australia. I need to thank them
personally.