I posted my last post in a few LinkedIn groups. I got a few responses, some of which have led me to more questions. So I may post some follow up questions. Then I will try a few more of the groups.
In one of the groups it got deleted. I have no idea why.
I also got a link from one of my Twitter followers (a lovely young woman in Tunisia) to an article about GPars, an Actor library that can be used from Groovy or Java. I will look into that at some point.