Hey John,

Thanks! I'm settled down now.
pat

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Friday, October 15, 1999 9:33 PM
Subject: [M]: Self-described LX200 owner


In a message dated 10/15/99 9:45:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time,

<< Since Meade
does not have an e-mail address I guess I'm flaming them here.

pat, an obsessive compulsive, data-junkie, nit picker, new owner of a LX200

>>

Pat,

Your self-description puts you around the median in this crowd, as will your

(present or future?) love/hate feelings toward Meade. So....welcome to
MAPUG!

Imagine if every original purchaser of a Ford Model T had been given instant

access to communicate with every other purchaser of the same. That would
have been one BUSY mailing list if we heard any time a part on a car was
imperfect. There would have been those who would defend Henry Ford no
matter
what, and those who would complain about him and his cars no matter what.
Seven decades later, there are still families who will NEVER AGAIN buy a
Ford, and other families which will buy NOTHING ELSE.

But few would claim that Ford didn't change the way the world thinks of and
uses cars. Meade has done and is still doing nothing less than that for
telescopes, and we're in the middle of this revolution.

Eventually I hope the car/telescope mass production analogy plays out to the

point where anyone who has the money and wants a Ferrari of a telescope can
choose it from a catalog or ad rather, and have it ship from stock. Compare
this to today, when getting something really great requires either the
skills
and money more appropriate for a defense contractor....and/or infinite
patience regarding long delivery times.

I also hope that those who can only afford the telescope equivalent of a
used
Toyota can also find in the future that their scope is just like these
inexpensive vehicles which are more advanced in many ways than ANY vehicle
of
a generation or two earlier, albeit with some compromises including the fact

than people who don't even care about them have two.

Someday, depending upon how bad things like light pollution,
bright-satellite
pollution, and World War III (hopefully not!) turn out, we may look back on
these days of finicky LX200s, newbie ETX/EC users, and Meade with a "no
email" policy as being the "good old days" of observing and camaraderie
before everyone owned a decent scope but had nothing good left to look at.

John Hopper
MAPUG administrator

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