I tried to write about something else but what use is it to even try to pretend the economy, whether US, or global, isn't on most people's minds?

So let's dive in and get it over with, shall we? I've been glued to my radio, listening to NPR and hearing about injecting capital, derivatives, toxic debt, and complicated financial instruments for a couple of weeks now, for most of my work day. I'm not making light of the seriousness of it all, when I say the only way I can make sense of it is to make light of it. Or should I say make lighting? Yesterday I drove around Washington D.C. and instead of going to visit Freddie Mac (an Enttec installation is controlling lighting in the cafeteria of one of their main buildings, by the way) I got to take a tour of Strathmore Performing Arts Center , and their head lighting technician Lyle Jaeger showed me around, including a lot of Enttec stuff he's using to control their lighting. He even plugged in a power injector to show me one trick they can do there, and that was close enough to the woes of our economy for me.

While taking that road-trip to New York and back, I got to drive a lot of highway miles, and see a fair number of construction projects. Making the old infrastructure work better, or opening it up to accomodate new traffic patterns, that puts me to thinking about the new plugins we're announcing for the ODE .

Speaking of teaching an old dog new tricks, we're continuing in this issue to talk about Enttec's new headquarters facility in Knoxfield. We'll start by showing you where the R&D happens and introduce you to a couple of key players on our team who help to make that happen.

If you can't come to visit us in Australia, come by LDI, where Enttec will be in October. We'll review where to find us .

Back to the financial metaphor some more, I spoke of derivatives before, and right now I'm deriving no greater pleasure as the editor of this rag, than what I get by announcing some winning teeshirt designs . Read about who won, and see their fantastic concepts and executions .

It's the PID, not the Economy, Stu.

Then the green-initiative I heard someone talking about on the phone recently, where they wanted to finance their purchase of more energy efficient lighting instruments by saving money on their board. That's where we come in. It doesn't take a Greenspan to think that one up, even. So I came to the conclusion, and I've tried this out on a few others with pretty good approval so far, that maybe Enttec's products are a good hedge against a recession. I say that because entertainment traditionally does well when people need distractions from their hardships, and then if belts do get tightened we present a lot of lower cost options to traditional expensive methods of controlling light.

Jeremy Kumin , Editor and Marketing Manager