PARTY WITH HCN AND REP. MARK UDALL

If you happen to be in western Colorado Thursday, Aug. 23, please join us for an HCN summer celebration. Our special guest will be Colorado Democratic Congressman and U.S. Senate candidate Mark Udall, who will discuss the key issues facing the region and Congress' role in addressing them. The party starts at 7 p.m. in Snowmass at the home of board member Andy Wiessner and his wife, Patsy Batchelder. To RSVP, or for more details, contact Jason Nicholoff (jcn@hcn.org or 970-527-4898).

VISITORS

Longtime subscribers Burt and June Elisabeth Taylor of Sarasota, Fla., dropped by while on a three-week trip through Arizona, Utah and Colorado. They both work for the Asolo Repertory Theater, Burt as a master carpenter and welder, June as a costume designer/draper.

Lucy and Tom Creighton stopped in and picked up a copy of "High and Dry," our global warming booklet, explaining that the next meeting of their local retirement group in Denver, Colo., will discuss "how to change our ways to live more sustainably and economically." Sounds like a good discussion for all of us. (To order the "High and Dry" booklet, call us at 1-800-905-1155.)

From Albuquerque, N.M., came Gail Baker and her husband, Paul Schmidt. They were on a leisurely summer road trip, headed for Wyoming. Gail, a retired English professor from the University of New Mexico, helped start the Women's Studies program there.

Texans David Venhuizen and Ira Yates dropped by while touring Paonia by bicycle. David, who lives in Austin, is a wastewater engineer who was in the area to work on a wastewater treatment project for Bluff, Utah. Ira and his wife live in Paonia during the summer and retreat to Austin in the winter. Apparently they don't appreciate those occasional sub-zero days in January.

Former intern Jacob Forman (spring 1991), now a screenwriter in Los Angeles, came by while vacationing in the area. His fellow intern, Emily Jackson, was killed in a tragic rock-climbing accident in Moab during their internship, and Jacob paid his respects at the memorial garden behind the office, which is dedicated to Emily. In other intern news, Allison Gerfin (Summer 2006), is now the page designer for the Cortez Journal in Cortez, Colo. Congratulations, Allison.

A CONE BY ANY OTHER NAME

David McIntyre of Crowsnest Pass, Alberta, sent us a note: "While reading 'Weathering the academic storm,' in which you profiled Dan Donato's study of salvage logging, I noted a cryptic photograph, reported to be of a Douglas-fir seedling emerging from a "pinecone" (HCN, 5/28/07). Sadly, larches, junipers, Douglas-firs, hemlocks and a host of other "we're-not-pine" conifers seem to fall victim to society's tendency to call all cones "pinecones." Perhaps you should step up to the plate, apologize to the Douglas-fir, and give the species credit for producing the cone that held the seed that gave rise to your photo-featured seedling." Oh, fir Pete's sake, we're sorry.