From The Chief Editor's Desk

This month's magazine cover, designed by Assistant Editor and graphics guru extraordinaire Meemaw, celebrates some of the "firsts" that occurred in the month of June. Depicted are: the First US Space walk by Edward White on June 3, 1965, Henry Ford's first operational car in 1896, the first drive-in movie theater in 1933, baseball's invention in 1839, the patenting of the bicycle in 1819, and the invention of the first "modern day" toothbrush in 1498 (although some contend that it goes all the way back to 609 A.D.).

I honestly feel like I must give a shout out to Meemaw. Without her, I'm sure I'd have given up long ago. When we need a cover for the magazine, we toss about some ideas and then a day or two later, there's an image in my Dropbox folder. Sometimes, we kick around some ideas for changes and improvements, but often times, her first draft is what we end up going with. She does this, month after month after month. Sure, I sometimes design an occasional cover, but I don't have nothing near the graphics prowess that she has. Some of it is that I don't have time. Another part of it is that I don't possess the skillset that she does. And that is because I don't have the patience for learning it.

She helps proofread the magazine's article every month. She helps with the layout of the articles. Every other month, we alternate the task of assembling the magazine PDF in Scribus. She does the odd number months, while I layout the even number month issues. She writes articles every month for the magazine. She creates the magazine's monthly puzzles. She sends out the monthly release notices to the Linux media outlets. She maintains contact with our regular columnists to get an idea of what articles we will have coming in each month. Those are just the things I can think of off of the top of my head. There are other things that she does that I have left out.

She takes a LOT of stuff off of my plate, and very reliably and dependably. Which is a good thing, because with two young kids to help raise, I'm finding I don't have as much time as I used to. Already, several things we like to do, such as bicycle riding (we haven't been on a bike ride in almost three years ... our bikes have sat mostly untouched during that time) and visiting family as often as we'd like, have been placed on an indefinite hold, thanks to our work schedules (mostly) and other demands on our time. Couple that with maintaining a full time job at the hospital, trying to fit in "family time" whenever and wherever possible, gardening, lawn care (more like lawn neglect lately), and everything else I've got going on, Meemaw makes it possible for me to keep going in my position as the magazine's chief editor. Without her, all of those other tasks she takes care of would be back on my task list, and would quickly become overwhelming. I simply wouldn't have sufficient time to carry on my chief editor duties AND all the things she takes care of.

So, I tip my hat to Meemaw, with unfulfillable and undying gratitude for all that you do!

Until next month, I bid you peace, happiness, serenity and prosperity.