Editor's Note: The Last RCPU of the Year
Since we're feeling nostalgic this time of year, let's set the mood with some old, grainy credits from the
Carol Burnett show. It's this time every year when I -- yes, you're getting first person in this entry -- take the opportunity to thank everybody who helps keep this newsletter running. I really am so glad we had this time together.
To Gladys Rama, who somehow hacks though my nonsensical ramblings and manages not only to make them sound mostly rational but to make them look good online and in the e-mail newsletter, I offer my heartfelt thanks. To Michael Domingo and Becky Nagel, who keep our Web operations running and somehow manage to find spare bandwidth even after posting 2,000-word RCPU rants, thank you so much for your time and effort.
To Doug Barney, my boss at Redmond magazine, who helped me immensely when I started writing this newsletter almost four years ago, thank you for your continued support and suggestions. I hope someday that RCPU will drive the kind of feedback that your Redmond Report newsletter gets week after week.
To RCP Editor in Chief Scott Bekker, the Earl Morrall (or maybe Jeff Hostetler) of RCPU -- in other words, the greatest "back-up" of all time other than maybe Tom Brady, thank you for filling in at the very last minute so many times when you're so overworked yourself. You are a lifesaver. You're also the voice of calm and reason during chaos, something I find myself needing to hear more and more often.
To Jeff Schwartz, thanks for all the links and news stories and great suggestions you've given me. To Kurt Mackie, thanks for your continued fantastic work writing news online. And to "Kathleen" (she's Kate to us here) Richards, Scott Shultz, Matt Morollo, Brad Zerbel and David Ramel, thanks for being great office mates here in Framingham during what we might call a turbulent year. You've been a lot of fun to hang around, despite the fact that sometimes it feels as though we've been through battle together. We make for a great group.
Most of all, though, thanks to you, the reader, for continuing to pay attention to our little enterprise here, and for delivering remarkable feedback again and again. There would be no RCPU without you, and I'll try to keep you as entertained, informed, engaged and enraged as I can in 2010. You are the best.
I've probably left a lot of people out here (sorry about that), but believe me when I say that RCPU goes way beyond one crazed commentator pounding away at a keyboard in Framingham, Mass. The "we" I always use in RCPU really does represent a whole team of people who keep this newsletter going.
This is, of course, the last RCPU of 2009. I'm not going to sugar-coat anything here -- this has been a rough year on a lot of levels. (Derek Torres, I and all of your friends miss you immensely and will for a long time to come.) But there's hope that 2010 will be better, and there's comfort for me in knowing that the best team in the business will be with me all the way.
I'm taking off the first week of January to see the undefeated TCU Horned Frogs (yes...finally) play in the Fiesta Bowl in Arizona. As always, Scott Bekker will fill in for me while I'm gone. But I'll be back in mid-January with more rants, raves and ramblings. Until then, happy holidays, and enjoy this time of year. Oh, and GO FROGS!
-- Lee
Posted by Lee Pender on December 21, 2009