And a huge thank you for taking it on and keeping it going, Doug. Where would we be without you?
John in Brisbane -----Original Message----- From: PDML <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Doug Brewer Sent: Saturday, 2 January 2021 8:26 AM To: [email protected] Subject: It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play sort of. During the Christmas season of 2000, while I worked on a museum project for a local university, I got a call from Don Nelson, a friend and Pentax sales guy some of you will remember from GFM. He told me that Pentax USA, which carried the PAML and PDML on its website, was looking to get out of the email list game because of potential liability issues arising from unsanctioned and borderline dangerously irresponsible technical and repair advice getting posted to the PDML. Don then asked if I knew anyone who could take it over. I thought about a few members I knew at the time, even reached out to one or two, who pretty much laughed, and I reported back to Don that there didn't seem to be much interest. He said ok. A couple days later, a nice woman from the marketing department at Pentax called to tell me she had heard from Don that I would like to be considered for the role of List Guy. After a long pause, followed by some muttering and me repeating "wait, what?" a few times, the nice woman in marketing assured me that Don said I was very interested. That was Don, as those of you who knew him would agree. I told the nice woman that I was not a list guy by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn't a software guy, didn't know anything about how to run an email list, was in all things comprehensively incompetent and liked it that way, and so on. The nice woman in marketing was unimpressed, so it was decided. I begrudgingly agreed that I would download some list software packages and see if I could make any sense of them. After that, I said, I'd get back to her in a week or so with my decision. The nice woman in marketing rang off. That afternoon I found and downloaded some software, installed it, and poked around for a few minutes until I had to do something with my actual job. The only thing I had really discerned from my brief time with the software was that I was out of my depth and needed some serious hours with it before I could even begin to think about whether or not I would take over the PDML. Some time that night the PDML broke. The next day, the nice woman in marketing called to tell me that the guy who worked at the advertising agency that handled the Pentax USA website and was the only one there who knew the list software and how it interfaced with the website was off on Christmas vacation and the server was down and hey, she would email me a list of everyone who was subscribed to the PDML. Good luck and godspeed, it was now my baby. I still can't tell you how I got it going, but here we are, and I'm grateful for it. Happy New Year, kids. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
