ATPM milestones

This month has seen a couple of milestones reached by yours truly, regarding my work with About This Particular Macintosh. First, the current issue, 9.07, marks the end of my 5th year involved with the publication. This is a longer period of time than I have been with any paying employer.
I have worn many hats for ATPM. I started as a Copy Editor; at the time, the Copy Editor. I’ve been the Publicity Manager (we could use one! Let us know if you’re interested!). I’ve been the Help guy. I’ve been a Contributing Editor (we need some of those, too!), though I’m not sure if I really contributed more than headaches for Michael.
Now I’m the Managing Editor, Numero Two-o, Almost-The-Big-Cheese, the Publisher’s Right-Hand Man. I strike fear in the hearts of our writers with cries of “Deadline! Deadline! Deadline!” and “What is this *&#@!% drivel?!?!?” and…oh, sorry, got a little carried away there. 🙂
The second milestone, well, technically, I reached it before today, but due to the way I’ve got email organized….well, you’ll see.
I have now archived over 10,000 messages to my ATPM account. This doesn’t include whatever is sitting in Claris Emailer on my Cube that didn’t get exported to Mailsmith eons ago. Nor does it include items sent to the ATPM help, editor, submissions, and other internal addresses that all end up in my box, since I keep those items sorted to separate mailboxes.
If I were to include all of those, I’m probably looking at well over 13,000 messages, by far the most I’ve accumulated with any one email address since I’ve gone online.
Outside of a friend who’s local, but I met online, and a certain font guy, I would have to say my closest online friendships have come out of ATPM. It’s been a blast working on something that interests me personally, even if it doesn’t pay a dime. We don’t produce ATPM to make a buck; we do it because we care about the Mac platform and we have something to share with the Mac-using community.
Here’s to the next five years, and 20,000 messages!