Me. Greetings, fellow list members. My name is Michael Kwan (Mike) and I joined this list last weekend. I have been lurking in the background for the past few days to get a sense of who the list members are, the list etiquette and the current discussion topics. After reading the many and varied posts, I am struck with two impressions: 1) Holy Cr*p! How am I going to keep up with all of these email messages! (As I turn ON daily digest mode) 2) I'm clearly in over my head . . . I have been interested in "Space" since I was a child. Please do not take this as an assertion that I know anything about astronomy. My level of expertise in this field seems to extend to the fact that if I'm looking and see my feet, I know I'm not looking in the right direction. Nonetheless, I am committed to learning more about the universe for several reasons. First, I know that my religious faith, while comforting at times, does not provide satisfactory answers to some big, important questions in life. Second, I KNOW there must be intelligent life "out there" somewhere because, as Mr. Idle would say, there's very little of it here on Earth (the present list members excepted). Lastly, what we know about the universe is miniscule, what we know we don't know about the universe is vast, and what we don't know we don't know about the universe is, well, nearly infinite. It seems like a pastime that will keep me occupied for a long time. (Of course, time is relative . . .) As to current discussions on the list: Tempel 1 - Despite all of the hype, it was cool. The temerity to imagine that we could find, let alone hit something so far away makes that (faked) LeBron James commercial seem like a walk in the park. Maybe it wasn't as spectacular as some had been led to believe, but the technical achievement of colliding with the comet is remarkable. In addition, I understand that the "science" of analyzing the debris and impact crater may provide us with additional insights about the origins of our universe. "Siegfried" - I missed the prior thread that may or may not have caused the bad feelings. I gather that he is the current President of SLAS and I assume would be in a position to offer valuable information. Relativity - okay, really, . . . is this any kind of topic to spring on a new member? Talk about DEEP thinking! My brain hurts! I will offer this small bit of evidence that Einstein was right about time being relative: The phrase "I'll be ready in a minute" means entirely different things to me, my wife and my kids! I will endeavor to keep up with frantic pace of posting that goes on here. I can obviously learn a lot about this topic from you folks. Mike