Good luck, come back fast.

Nice pics

Unacceptable! Get back to work!

Only kidding. You have already made a fantastic contribution to our community, a community that will miss you, but we will wait patiently. Enjoy.

Hey, long time reader, new poster. Sorry JS, but I just can't get behind you on this. Jobs are great - don't get me wrong. We need to live, and unfortunately in the modern world, specifically the USA, that means you need money no matter where you are and therefore a job of some kind. It's the cold, hard reality.

But... I did a little researching on who ADM could be. Google made it quite obvious to who the biggest possible candidate is -

http://www.google.com/search?q=adm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Archer Daniels Midland - a fortune-500 cereal grain processing company. Wikipedia tells us, as well as the sources linked to the article, that this conglomerate has a record of lobbying for grain subsidies and various scandals regarding price-fixing and a spotty environmental record. JS, I do imagine you realize who this, but just for anyone and everyone else who may not have it 100% yet:

ADM is a Big Bad among Big Bads. They are, basically a major cog in the wheel of the food processing industry. They are among the people who are destroying our environment, our food economy, and our federal budget here in the USA. J, I know that people must sometimes do dire things that grind against them for money. For example, there is an individual out there who is regarded as the philosophical leader of a movement of futurists vying for a more horizontal society. This same individual works in marketing for a large corporation, an act that grates against his moral fiber on a daily basis. I liken his situation very much to yours, and in some ways, I fear for you.

The rules of morality, if this were my own situation, that I would not take a job that goes so much against my own personal views. I cannot speak for you, so I can only believe that in taking this job, you've done so only for purely pragmatic, fiscal reasons. No matter what you type or say on this site, though, I will never be able to know for sure myself. In my mind, this is paramount to moral self-mutilation. My only hope is that this ordeal does not consume your soul, as similar have consumed the souls of countless people so far.

Stay strong.

Have a great Hiatus, JS! (Is that something like Festivus?) You'll be missed but I, for one, will look forward to re-reading -- well -- everything, as well as to your next contributions, of course! All the best in your endeavours.

@John, if you look again, you'll see that JS specifically is NOT taking a job with that evil twin of Monsanto, AMD

Juan

Good for you! Enjoy, rest, rejuvenate. We all need a vacation sometimes.

Beautiful leaves in Tahoe! We still have yellow leaves here in Denver but they are weighed down with snow at the moment! Whoo hoo! Snowboarding starts next weekend. I'm hoping to make it out to Sierra sometime this year.

I know how if feels to want to walk away from the blog sometimes. It's a lot of work and there are so many cool things to do in the world. What is the average life span of a blog anyway?

photos of the aspens make me miss Utah [sigh] -- but Missouri is becoming stunning right now, too! 🙂 enjoy your vacation, J!

have a good break, you deserve it following the last series of articles as they've been very complex and very well explained and detailed.

John was joking, right?