A New Beginning (after the end)

PACSman: I was doing a Google search for songs that have the lyrics “All Good Things Must Come to an End” in them and only two songs came up from people I never heard of — a country singer named Joe Nichols who has a song titled, “All Good Things” and Nelly Furtado’s “All Good Things (come to an end).”

My sons and I don’t live in Texas, so Joe Nichols isn’t exactly a household name here, even though I have one friend who does live in Texas and knows the lyrics to every yippee-kai-yeah song known to man — those “I Want a Beer as Cold as My Ex-Wife’s Heart” genre-type songs. I also have another good friend who has a horse farm here with ten horses, five of her own, who should know all these songs but, thankfully, has a much more balanced and well rounded musical taste than my Texas friend…But Nelly?

“God, Dad you never heard of Nelly Furtado? You embarrass me sometimes.” OK, so what else is new?….

Then I broadened my search to just the words “The End” and got to a few groups I had heard of, although most of the songs weren’t always familiar. These included The Doors and Black Eyed Peas, both with songs titled, “The End” (although BEP I know more for the controversies they cause than their music — people after my own heart), U2, Norah Jones (the romantic still in me lives), Linkin Park and 2PAC (heard of them, don’t listen to their music, though, although anyone who has PAC in his name can’t be all that bad), Traveling Wilburys, Breaking Benjamin and Smashing Pumpkins, and a few others.

I stopped at Boyz II Men to listen to their tearjerker song, “End of the Road” that I haven’t heard in years. I am a sucker for intricate a capella harmonies and these guys have it for sure…until my manhood was called into question by my sons as I sang along with Wanya, Nathan, and Shawn “… Although we’ve come to the end of the road. Still I can’t let you go. It’s unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you….”

“God, you are sooooooooo gay dad!!!” OK so I’m gay and an embarrassment, while they invoked God’s name twice no less. Have I missed anything? I should have stuck with David Bowie’s “Changes” instead…”Time may change me. But I can't trace time”…

If you’ve read PACS-aholic with any regularity over the past several years, you have realized that Cristen and I had an interaction between us that was just like a married couple. Most times we loved each other — okay, we liked each other. Sometimes we hated each other, sometimes we did things without the other person knowing or even liking what we were doing and we never made whoopee, either. In the end, though, we still respected each other in the morning, even before that first morning cuppa Joe. So when Cristen unexpectedly elected to move beyond the great white world of publishing, it left me with a chasm to fill the size of the Grand Canyon relating to the PACS-aholic blog. Do I keep the blog or….

The answer was easy. I am not the PACS-aholic nor was Cristen. We together were the PACS-aholics, and so since there is no official “we” any more, Joe and Nelly both sang it right “….all good things must come to an end.”

And so it will right here, right now – with apologies to Jesus Jones as well. (Fuji used the band’s “Right Here, Right Now” song as its CR theme several years back, when John Strauss was the head of marketing there and Fuji allowed John’s creativity to flow unimpeded. He unquestionably had some of the best marketing ideas I’ve ever seen in this industry.)

Know though that just as God shuts one door, another one opens. Instead of watching what I say and how I say it, lest I offend a potential group as I have done more than once, requiring me to “set the record straight,” I have elected to start my own blog — The PACSMan Pontificates. You can visit it here — http://thepacsmanpontificates.blogspot.com/.

I’m going to try to have at least 4-5 blog posts up per week — not as many as Dr. Grumpy does by any means (one of the funniest blogs I’ve read in ages by the way, http://drgrumpyinthehouse.blogspot.com/). But probably close to the amount of postings my good friend the Dalai does (http://doctordalai.blogspot.com/) when he is in his blogging mood and doesn’t have to work for a living, which lately has been more often than we both like it. Dalai is also helping me get this blog in order, so please be patient with us both. It, like me, is a work-in-progress.

The blog will be 80% about my life and 20% about PACS, or as I promote it, “The trials and tribulations of a middle-aged PACS consultant, father and garage sale junkie as he engages in his never-ending search for sanity in an insane world.” I’ve been having a lot of fun doing my own thing over the past few decades in the PACS arena and for the past nine years as a single dad to two teen sons. Many people who have read my private musings have said I should share it — and so I will. Should be interesting to see where it goes.

As for Cristen, we’re still friends — and always will be — that is, until she gets “involved” with someone and forgets her true friends, which happens all too often with women. That said, though I don’t think that will happen any time soon. She’s not quite as cynical as I am — hell, no one on this planet is. But she’s been on the Love Train often enough to know it’s not nearly as much fun as riding the El late at night like Tom Cruise and Rebecca de Mornay did in the movie Risky Business either. ”Joel, have you ever….” Someone cue Tangerine Dream please….”My name is Joel Goodson. I deal in human fulfillment. I grossed over eight thousand dollars in one night. Time of your life, huh kid?”

So, bookmark the site http://thepacsmanpontificates.blogspot.com/ and get ready for the ride of your life! Topical? Of course! Informed? I wouldn’t have it any other way! Opinionated? Moi? Please, bite your tongue! Censored? Nope. Irreverent? Well cointenly!! Politically correct? Well cointenly not!!

So this isn’t goodbye but rather “until we meet again,” which I’m sure we will. I’ll still be involved with ITN by being on its Advisory Board, doing the PACS, RIS and CR charts and maybe even a new category this year on storage options, which will include VNAs, Clouds, MSPs and others, if I can convince the new leadership to do this.

So I leave you with the immortal words from Risky Business, when Joel is being interviewed by the recruiter for his Princeton admission in the middle of his “party.” It reminds me so much of the times we had here on PACS-aholic and how it will be even more so on my own as well…

Recruiter: “Your stats are very respectable. You’ve done some solid work here. But it’s not quite Ivy League now is it?”

Joel puts his hand on the recruiter’s knee and says, “You know Bill, there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years. Sometimes you gotta say what the…. Make your move.”

Cruise lights a cigarette.

Recruiter: “I beg your pardon?”

Lana: “So how we doing?”

Joel: “Looks like University of Illinois!!!!”

A li’l up-tempo music by Prince – D.M.S.R., if you please, as the curtain slowly closes on the PACS-aholics. I’m making my move to The PACSMan Pontificates…. Hope to see you all there!!

NOTE: The ITN staff expresses its thanks to the PACSman, aka Michael Cannavo, founder and President of IMC, for sharing his opinions and insights with the PACS-aholic world for the past few years. We look forward to reading more from him in his new blog, The PACSMan Pontificates. http://thepacsmanpontificates.blogspot.com/