That's really something. I must say, as years pass, I'm looking more like that jolly old fellow.

Just so everyone knows, I've recently taken a new position with an Italian manufacturer of metal fabricating equipment, whose American headquarters is located in Rockford, IL. In another life, from 1984 till 1993, I was a National Sales Manager and President of the subsidiary of a Swedish machine tool builder. In '93, I made a decision to go into distributor sales, rather than working for a manufacturer, so I could spend more time at home and with my family. The owner of my company in Texas is slowing down the distribution business and going more into importing. About the middle of last year, I made the decision to cleanup my resume' and go looking for gainful employment.

I'm really excited about my new job, but it will require more of my time and energy. This does not threaten the message boards, but it will mean that I'll need to reduce my load for monitoring and managing the message boards. I believe it should be possible to recruit "volunteers" to help with the monitoring and reporting misuse. We also have three (3) moderators who have administrative capabilities to delete and maintain the message boards.

I will continue to be here and my email will work, if you need to contact me directly. I may not be as quick to respond or as wordy, but I'll be here.

Please help me keep an eye out for commercial, off-topic or abusive postings. Just send me an email and try to identify the offending posting by message board name, subject line, date or if you're a little more computer savvy, just cut and paste the URL of the message in your email to me, and one of our moderators or I will review and remove the offending posting/thread.

Though I can't respond or participate in many of the discussions, as much as I would like, I do check in on each of the message boards, at least daily, and I specifically look for our "regular's" postings, so I can keep up with your discussions, but also, to know how you're doing and to reassure myself that "everyone" is all right.

I do consider many of you my online friends and though my current personal situation will make me somewhat less active with the message boards, I promise that I will continue to build the sites and encourage more participation, not less. The central message I'm attempting to convey in this posting is that I care a great deal about this site and its participants, but I can use some help in monitoring them and keeping them healthy.

I hope everyone has the happiest and safest Holiday Season, possible.

Ho! Ho! Ho!,

Jim