I Quit!

For those of you who don't know, I quit recently. Resigned. Oh, not from TVShowsOnDVD.com. In fact, I quit my old job, in order TO move to TSoD on a full-time basis! Yes, now I'm all yours, all day long. Won't that be fun?

I HAD been working full time as a Business Systems Analyst and Developer at the Memphis, TN location of a global technology-based firm. I had been there for close to 11 years, since just after I got married. In fact, my wife, Stephanie, has worked there as well, for over 8 years (we worked in different areas and departments, though). My co-workers there are more like family to me than mere friends or colleagues, and they are among the most technologically talented people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. I hate to be parted from them, and in fact we're doing lunch together today.

But, as I said, I've left that job to come be with all of you. As long-time readers know, I've been here at TVShowsOnDVD.com in some capacity or another since before the site went live on November 1, 2001, because a month prior to that site founder Gord Lacey asked me to beta test things and give my opinion. From there I went on to being a fan of the site, then to reviewer, to reporter, to Assistant Admin, then finally to the site's News Director. I've been the only other employee of the site besides Webmaster, Gord...but it wasn't for pay. It was a labor of love, so to speak. I REALLY enjoy doing this!

Last February the site was bought by TV Guide, and they hired Gord and myself as contractors, to continue to run TVShowsOnDVD the same way we always have been. That meant Gord continued as full-time Webmaster, and I continued as part-time News Director. That is, I did until a couple of weeks ago. Now they've moved me to full-time, so I have been able to spend more time here at the site! My last day with my old career was two weeks ago today.

Our goals with all this extra time of mine? Well, if you've seen a boost in the news lately, with maybe a few more exlcusives than normal, or breaking news posted faster, then you've begun to see the results of me having time to work on that. Not to mention all of our very cool, very nice friends in the industry, both official and unofficial, who take time out of their busy day to help us bring you all this awesome info! As always, my hats off to those people. I'm glad I have more time in the day to talk with and interact with all of them.

As some of you know who've written in, asking why we don't have release listings up about one thing or another, we've fallen a bit behind in getting those posted. So my next goal is to catch up with that. We've started a bit, but we've got a lot more to do! Another goal would be what you are reading now: the TSoD blog. I won't promise you just yet that I'm going to get this updated regularly, on a particular schedule, but let's start by promising to get it updated at all, from time to time, and then maybe later on we can get it up to, let's say, "weekly". Or something like that. Hey, the last time I updated this was two months ago, on the 4th of July. Let's shoot for something more often than that!

Once we feel the site's pretty well caught up, I'll begin providing content for the TVGuide.com website in some fashion. And who knows? There are other websites that TV Guide owns; maybe there's something I can contribute there as well...if the webmasters of those sites are open to that, of course. I'm a "talker", I like writing. Can you tell?

In the meantime, with this additional time available to me, I can join Gord in participating in interviews whenever someone in the world of newspapers, radio, or TV want our thoughts or opinions on the world of TV-on-DVD, or just simply to know about some of the releases coming down the pike. I bring the entire "interview" thing up for a reason; stick around for more details.

And don't touch that dial! I hope you like the things I can bring to the site with a bit more additional time each week. We've got lots of thoughts about things Gord and I can do here, and we're trying to do good things with those ideas. TV Guide's been wonderful in supporting us, and we can't thank them enough! Don't worry; I stuck around my last job for almost 11 years, and the job before that for over 13 years. I expect to stay at this career for at least that long. Stay tuned!!