Greetings Voignier,

Since our last transmission, Sister Ruth showed up to visit with Dr. Emily and her brother who have been hard at work setting up a our latest marketing study. It has caused a bit of a delay, as Ruth, Dr. Emily and out Big Brotha, if you will, have spent a lot of time catching up, and sorting out family business. Ruth, it appears has just returned from a retreat, which was intended to provide her with rest, and relaxation. Rest and relaxation appear to have fled Ruth from the first day of her arrival, when she was reunited with her siblings, who where nonetheless happy to see her, in spite of her sharp words.

Mike, for his part, had been training our staff to generate samples of ambient and spontaneous declarations by our subjects toward the products that we are offering for sample. Many of our best staff researchers have been taking to his training like ducks in water.

Much of the training amounts to placing microphones in the right places, and imparting to the staff the importance of directing their subjects to speak toward the devices, in ways that are not too obvious. Mike has not spoken with his sister Ruth, since his last post overseas, as a private contractor, working as a communications consultant to certain governmental and non-governmental agencies in Middle eastern countries, where conflict makes getting the messages right means the difference between life and death.

Dr. Emily, for her part, has been writing grant proposals for our studies of boxed wine market forces and the impact of certain stimuli on motivation and the mind of the consumer. She has also been meeting with certain university administrators to discuss our work in what's left of The Big Easy. Colleges appear less eager than ever to support the kind of product we are studying in boxed blends, which has made her job more difficult than we anticipated. Convincing officials that in vino es ver etas, where wine is not necessarily viewed as just the right medicine to heal the gulf coast's maladies. Ruth's arrival was quite a suprise to both Mike and Dr. Emily, but in Emily's case, perhaps more. It was Emily's impression that Sister Ruth was to spend several more months on retreat, if you will. It appears that in all his complicated travels, Mike had missed a few payments to Ruth's hosts, which cut short her retreat by several months.

Ruth, for her part, was accompanied by an older gent, who we were introduced as friends from a new organization she had joined since leaving the host organization Mike had been paying as regularly as sunshine, since leaving the US. The organization of course was a popular quasi-religious organization known for merchandizing books on psychology, written by it's founder, a highly successful Science fiction writer.