That's great news! I'm happy for you and glad you're enjoying the journey. I can't believe how far along you are; it's been a long time since I've had a chat with you, but it doesn't seem that way.
Speaking of 'a long time ago,' I still haven't forgotten those awesome 'Nam pictures. I'd still love to tag along some year.
Yeah, MSN/WLM service was discontinued earlier this year (?) in a move to push users to Skype (which M$ owns). To put it politely, it [expletive] blows.
However, there's a neat little chat program out there called Trillian - it handles the old MSN protocols (Skype as well) and you should be able to find me (and other old buds you've lost touch with) that way if you like. Of course, it's just as easy to reach me right me here too. I keep saying I'm going to retire from this site but the truth is I'll probably be here until the ship sinks or I'm dead... because I'm nuts in the head. Maybe you can fix it, doc?
As I mentioned to EA, Trillian handles the Skype protocol and provides the functionality without all the nonsense and resource hogging. Have a look if you're in the market for a sensible chat program. If you ever used MSN/WLM it's virtually identical (without the suck).