All, Just for a brief introduction, Janice Langland and I live in Granger, Indiana, a suburb of South Bend, which is Notre Dame country. We are both 70, and I am a retired professor of sculpture and art history (39 years) and am a sculptor, an honest to gosh full time professional sculptor, who makes life size and larger bronze sculptures of figures, often portraits of people, such as the Mayo Brothers of the Mayo Clinic, placed before the main hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, plus many many more. I'm currently working on a slightly over life sized Jack Nicklaus with three children for a huge Nicklaus designed golf course near here. We have lived in England four years (I was teaching at English art colleges), plus at least another year accumulated travels to the UK over the last 50 years. I can safely say that, like so many visitors to a place, we have seen more of the UK than most natives, and one example is Orkney. Brits don't often go to Orkney, but usually head south to the sun come holiday time.We first went to Orkney about 20 years ago just to get a quick three day look at the prehistoric sites.We were smitten. We have since returned four more times, each time renting a house and spending two or three weeks. Janice came last year for her sixth visit while I was singing with a group in Worcester and Gloucester cathedrals, and we are planning 2011 for another couple of weeks. What draws us there? It's hard to say, but there does seem to be a real magic to the place, and I'm not much of a believer in magic. But we have now visited all the inhabited islands - except Flotta - plus Shetland and the outer Hebrides (and Janice had a great trip to the Inner Hebrides just one week after the 9/11 attacks. And our first year of living in England (1964/5) was in Carlisle, where our house was only about 6 miles from Scotland, so many an evening's bike ride took me over the border. We have both traveled extensively, all 50 states, plus Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina (we're going again in the fall) Chile, Uruguay, just about every country in Western Europe, Russia (camping, in 1966 at the height of the cold war!!!) Scandinavia, Africa, India (two extensive trips) Korea, Thailand, and Cambodia. But Orkney is the place to which we return over and over. So I am, like many on this site, drawn to a place where I do not live - and I'm not sure I would want to move there permanently, at least until the sculpture career was over and I had only sitting time until the end. But that's a ways off. And I must be off. We're heading to Stratford, Ontario in a few minutes to see some plays and eat some fine food. Tuck On Jun 20, 2010, at 9:38 PM, stephen davie wrote: > OK...so lets see if I have this right. This site we enjoy, is a > creation under the auspices of rootsweb, tangleweb or websites > organization who's primary interest is genealogical research, and yet > as was accurately pointed out by a couple of posters, from the > getgo, all were pulled into check and muted when anyone asked about a > specific family or members or information thereof. Haha. I too miss > the Orkney-in-a-jar (apodo) website, and I often use it for reference > to assist/direct others in my family who might ask something of our > heritage or history. Still haven't figured out though, how this sort > of thing can have a tenth or twentieth anniversary without someone > passing the hat for donations. Somewhere somebody has launched a > server etc. > > Thus, according to roots web home page, we are I suppose the unique > non genealogical chapter of that genealogical website organization, > with an Orkney-only focus and a legacy of long naps and occasional > "scraps" of interesting Orcadiana memorabilia and tourismo. hmm. > > Cheers....headed north for awhile. Days are long now up there, and > the air easier to breathe. Only 46 degrees north as opposed to > Kirkwall @ a whisker under 59 degrees. Or one sixth closer to the > equator than Kirkwall. Nice on the water this time of year in both > places. > > Steve > > On Jun 20, 2010, at 6:44 PM, Dennice G wrote: > >> Take a look at the tail-end of each and every post -- this is a >> rootsweb hosted mailing list. All lists morph and change in a >> manner where different moderators choose to run a list in a way >> that makes sense to them. >> >> Persons will always find a way to seek the level which suits their >> requirements. >> >> Regards, >> Dennice [demonstrating a concrete example of editing down a reply >> to include only that which I am referring to. :) and also misses >> Sigurd Towrie's input. I'll be using this as a reminder to check >> out the orkneyjar site >> >> >> . What I >>> don't >>> understand, is how it evolves that the site is not "owned" >>> by >>> someone? >> >> >> >> You may contact your list admin at any time at ORCADIA- >> ADMIN@ROOTSWEB.COM. >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ORCADIA- >> request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes >> in the subject and the body of the message >> > > You may contact your list admin at any time at ORCADIA-ADMIN@ROOTSWEB.COM > . > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ORCADIA-request@rootsweb.com > with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and > the body of the message