From The Desk Of The Editor's Wife

Many years ago I saw a trivet that said; "The opinions expressed by the husband of the house are not necessarily those of the management." In our house that verse has been carved in stone. It’s needed to be because my husband Alan would constantly come up with these crazy money making schemes. You know the ones... we’ll buy 1000 batteries of varying sizes, then put an ad in the paper on Christmas Eve. Since all of the stores would be closed, anyone in the area needing batteries that night could come over to our house to buy them. The 6000% markup would more than pay for our cruise! Believe it or not, that idea was one of the better ones.

About ten years ago, Alan asked me what I thought about him writing a TPF technical newsletter. I couldn’t believe my ears; finally, a great idea. More importantly, he couldn’t believe his ears when I told him I would support him 100%. Giving my support was easy because I never thought he would go through with this. Alan is a great one to start projects. He just has trouble finishing them (except at the office). He once started painting a closet door in our house. Unfortunately, he never got around to painting the bottom 4 inches. The door stayed that way for 3 years, until I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and called in a professional painter to finish the job. So even thought this newsletter idea was a good one, to be perfectly honest, I never thought it would come to pass. Boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

When I saw the first issue of ACP· TPF Today, I must admit I still didn’t fully understand the significance of what had just been accomplished. Shortly after putting it in the mail, we sat back waiting for the fallout. Surprisingly, it never really came. The feed back was remarkably positive, and Alan’s career as a publisher and Editor-in-Chief was off and running. The great thing about the newsletter is how portable it is. We started publishing in Dallas, then moved to Memphis, and now we're in Massachusetts, but ACP/TPF Today has never missed its distribution date. Our family vacations are worked around deadlines and we have told our daughters that their weddings cannot take place in January, March, May, July, September or November.

The only problem the newsletter has ever caused me personally, is that it reminds me of how computer illiterate I am. I still don’t have a full grasp of using Word, so learning TPF would be completely out of the question. For those of you who have called asking a technical question, you know how quickly I stop you from talking. It’s all Greek to me. I even have trouble writing the questions down for Alan. Thank goodness email has come along. Now you can just write him directly. Alan always tells me that after all the years he has spent in TPF, I should know something about the business, but I truly don’t have a very technical mind. I am however one step ahead of the woman on TV who is concerned that she won’t do the home pregnancy test right. Honey, you pee on a stick... how complicated is that? Now that woman has some real learning problems. No one is more surprised than I am by the success of ACP· TPF Today. A 10^th anniversary issue is a major milestone for us. Perhaps I shouldn’t say us since all I've learned technically these past ten years is how to spell TPF. I am however very good at making bank deposits!

Alan has kept his commitment to the newsletter for one very simple reason - he loves doing it! This newsletter allows him to combine his two passions, TPF and writing. As it may have been with most of you, he got into TPF quite by accident. Once he was in, it was clear he had found his niche. It is his love of TPF that has caused quite a few of you to squirm in your seats as you read his editorials, imploring IBM to be more aggressive in their marketing of this product. No one has been a bigger booster of TPF than Alan. He couldn’t have done it without all of you wonderful people and his firm belief that this newsletter could benefit the TPF community.

Now after ten years, TPF is going strong and so is this newsletter! I personally want to thank each and every one of you for your support of ACP· TPF Today and my husband. God bless each and every one of you! Let’s go for another ten years. I don’t ever want that battery idea to rear its ugly head again.

Ronda Sadowsky