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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:

I will be taking a year hiatus from this website. You can still e_mail me and I will respond in a timely fashion.

Why?

Several reasons, actually. The first is easy: I'm getting married in April (yay!!!).

The other resons are:

_ My time has been severly limited between work, my fiance, my daughter, my church life and home. This means one of them suffers at some point and I can't afford to let any of them suffer. This has been compounded recently by Motorola laying off a good percentage of their contract help (me included), starting a new job, wedding plans, seeing my daughter, wedding classes, a small accident doing about $2000 damage to my car, studying for more computer certifications ...

_ There are now an awful lot of new saxophone_related websites out there that do approximately what this website became: provide a gallery of pics with a bit of explanation. I can argue loudly and accurately that I was one of the first, but because I'm an army of one, I've fallen behind quite considerably in the technology and some information presented, and gotten ahead in dead links (sorry!) and NBCi server problems (not my fault).

_ There are many pictures I haven't posted yet. While this 'site still has the most pics of any 'site I've seen, I have TWICE that many archived on my hard drive. There are also pages I haven't updated in YEARS while I've been concentrating on the more popular models.

_ I'm really interested in concentrating on research. I've uncovered a lot of interesting stuff about SML, the King Super 20, the Conn F saxophones, the Slide Saxophones, etc. and there's stuff I haven't had time to post, like some of the interesting saxophone offshoots that were created around the invention of Sax's instrument and shortly thereafter. I want to post that.

_ I'm getting a bit tired of people complaining that I haven't updated x page in Y weeks or that I haven't fixed a dead link for someone (especially if it's to a 'site I don't own that doesn't exist anymore). I'm just one person! I need a vacation.

So, what this means is that I may post an update or two to the SML page and I have a long list of horns that I am selling for a friend (and I have a couple of my own) that I will post, but I'm not gonna do much more here until 2002.

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What'll it be in 2002?

Suggestions are always encouraged, but I have a rough outline of something that I may turn into a book (Paul Lindemeyer, eat your heart out!) with a web outreach. I'm supposed to be published soon in Warman's Collector's Magazine, so that and a suggestion from my fiance gave me an idea: write something that would appeal more to the collector.

I'm envisioning something like this 'site, but with VALUES for horns, ideas about collecting, what makes a collector's horn as opposed to a players one, etc. I also will include a large section on the various types of saxophone, platings, key ranges, etc. and a large section on the original point of this 'site: the beauty of the saxophone as an instrument.

So, a goodly amount of research, with contributions from some of the folks already featured on this 'site, bunches of good pictures and hopefully a lot less stress.

I WILL NOT focus on players. Paul Lindemeyer has already done that. I also am not going to do full company bios, like Margaret Downie_Banks' Conn page. I want to focus on the INSTRUMENT.

I might post a preview page or two in a couple months.

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What can you do?

I have considered trying to sell this 'site. I still will, and all of my other materials at home, if the price is right (I'm thinking $4000. A bargain, considering all the time I've spent -- and I get $50 an hour doing consulting work), but I think a year break and a total overhaul might encourage me a bit.

The other alternative is for some rich entrepeneur to give me $40,000 a year for the next TWO years and I'll sit at home and just research and improve this 'site (and probably actually get a dedicated webhost/server and a cable modem).

So, if you have money, suggestions, pics I could use, questions about your horn or information that's not included on this 'site yet, please send me an e_mail at saxpics@gmail.com

Please DO NOT write in and say that there's a dead link. You're probably right that there is and I'll send you a copy of this letter to tell you why it's dead :)

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FINAL NOTES

_ I will be taking my wife's last name when we're married in April, so don't be suprised if "PJT" becomes "PJH" or "PH"
_ I will still be combing the web and eBay weekly to look for pics and new saxophone 'sites.
_ I will still hang around Sax_on_the_Web and other discussion groups every now and then.
_ I will still be available via e_mail.
_ I will still send wedding invites to some of the folks I correspond with -- invites to the World's Largest Small Wedding :)

Ta!
PJT