TL;DR Is at the bottom:
—> MUST READ:
I always wanted to find myself standing on some dramatic landscape. A vista of foreboding clouds billowing across a distant horizon as a dusky golden sunset beautifully glints off the armor of the vast army behind me waiting for my command as we face our mortal enemy in the final great battle that will see us either victors of the principles we value or smote from the memory of both time and space. Standing before those who have entrusted so much to me I raise my arm to signal our advance, as I utter quietly, to myself:
“And so it begins…”
Welllll now I don’t see that happening anytime soon. So I will take this opportunity as probably the only time I will have the chance to utter those words and actually have some meaning behind them. So here it goes:
And so it begins!
Ohhhh I even used italics AND Underline. Very very ominous.
Unfortunately I am at my desk staring at two computer screens, not some foreign planet's horizon, and the only thing behind me is a table filled with clutter of cables spanning four decades, a 1970’s Leitz transit, plus a steer skull, and an old issue of Weekly World News my son and I bought at a rummage sale a couple of weeks ago. But typing this did inspire me to cue up Ride of the Valkyries, albeit quietly, so I don’t wake my kids. (ROTV always makes me think of ShovelBums founding member Jim Strait, a solid friend and great ear to bend when I need advice).
So what is beginning? Well something big!
And hopefully like a colonoscopy, with anesthesia, something that is a lot more uncomfortable preparing for than experiencing.
ShovelBums Address is changing!
No, the web site is not moving. That is still ShovelBums.org (You know why it’s not ShovelbBums.com? Because some arch who could afford the $70 fee to Network Solutions back in the day squatted on it after I started the mailing list! So I was stuck with the .org! LOL. Though the squatter eventually took down their weird web page of random GI Joe figures and allowed me to take it over I stuck with the .org. Sadly archive.org does not show the original pages they had up on the .com, but trust me, it was weird stuff…the turn of the millennia was a strange time on the internet suffice it to say).
——> The mailing list This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. is moving to a new address. <——
THIS SHOULD BE PAINLESS!
Well that is what they tell me.
YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO ANYTHING!
Except, maybe, yawn and talk amongst yourselves about why is R. Joe being so dramatic?
NO REALLY! NOTHING!
If you were registered on YahooGroups.com your account, as long as it was not bouncing, will be migrated over. And if your account is active that should be the only way you are seeing this message! LOL
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Once the transfer is complete the entire ShovelBums list will receive an email from the new mailing list host, Groups.io, that I suspect maybe 12 of you will read, telling you calmly nothing major has happened all you need to do is alter the email addresses you use to interact with the server.
THE ONLY THING YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW! (<- Look! A Larger Font! This Must be Important! RJOE Even Underlined it!)
If you are sending out jobs AFTER YOU RECEIVE THE MESSAGE FROM GROUPS.IO THAT THE MIGRATION IS COMPLETE you now need to send them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. NOTThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WHEN WILL WE KNOW THE MIGRATION IS COMPLETE?
It could be tonight, it could be in a few days. You will get a message, and probably a few follow up messages from me pointing this out.
WHY IS RJOE TYPING IN ALL CAPS?
Because YahooGroups keeps F’ing up formatting and I think this might actually work to show some emphasis. I could be wrong.
WHY SHOULD I CARE OLD MAN?
ShovelBums has had the same friggin’ email address for sending jobs to since 1999. And it is sobering to realize some of you were not yet conceived when that address was first used!
For the record my 14 year old daughter just walked in and I took the opportunity to explain to her why Ride of the Valkyries is good background music for composing something like this. She suggested I look up dramatic Anime music and that I would really like…I told her to go to bed. Bad dad, but sometimes you have to stick to what you know. This is in italics to make it appear more personal.
WHY ARE YOU MOVING? WE ARE CRMers, ARCHAEOLOGISTS, ANTHROPOLOGISTS, ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS, SEVENTY PALEONTOLOGISTS, ETC! AND WE FEAR CHANGE. LIKE, REALLY, REALLY FEAR CHANGE! I MEAN WORDPERFECT IS STILL USEFUL(*)!
I would have loved it if I never had to move the address. Change is always a PIA for a bit.
I will explain this in greater detail in the forthcoming, reborn, revitalized ShovelBums newsletter. But the short version is the free host I have been using for 19 years which has mostly seamlessly migrated from the original OneList.com to eGroups.com to YahooGroups.com (ok neogroups was a bit of a F’up) has been slowly breaking down over the last few years. There are seemingly well backed 1st hand rumors on forums that with the Verizon acquisition of the Yahoo brand(**) they have completely abandoned the YahooGroups section (and other properties). YahooGroups has been operating in “survival” mode for years and as the systems break down the time to fix them is increasing as they have fewer servers to scavenger functioning contemporary parts from and there have been zero new innovations since MySpace was big and they have even taken away useful tools (like providing an RSS Feed). Props to the staff left at Yahoo who do work to make sure things have continuity. There is a treasure trove of knowledge for the last twenty years on their servers from this pivotal period in the nascent internet history.
The bottom line is that this move is something I have been considering, and dreading, for years. Fortunately the guy who wrote the code for the original OneList.com, the service that ShovelBums first started on in ‘99, has come back to his lifetime love, mailing lists, and in 2014 created Groups.io. I have watched the service grow and become sustainable and I finally decided to make the jump because I feel this is in the best interest of being able to facilitate employers in finding employees and job seekers finding the job that is perfect for them.
(*)WTF? WordPerfect is still out there and still charging money! BTW I just Googled them - and for the record Google was barely a year old when I started ShovelBums AND they contracted Yahoo for search results!. (**)Yahoo.com was the first portal I ever visited, on Mosaic at that. FWIW).
TL;DR The ShovelBums email address you send jobs to is changing in the next few days! You don’t need to do anything much except send jobs to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. AFTER YOU RECEIVE THE NOTICE THAT THE MIGRATION IS COMPLETE, which should be at some point in the next 72 hours (Fingers crossed). If you need a job filled today after receiving this message? Send it to the address you always have This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and it will go out to the 18,500+ members of ShovelBums. After you hear the migration is complete? Send it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and it will go to the same group of people.
IF YOU SCREW UP AND SEND THE JOB TO THE WRONG ADDRESS I WILL WORK TO GET THINGS WHERE THEY SHOULD BE.
Life is good. The next few weeks might have some rough patches, but we will get through it. You will find jobs, and you will find staff. I will make it right for you as much as I have tried for 19 years my friends. ShovelBums only exists because of, and for, you. You are what makes ShovelBums the professional service it is.
Thanks for your patience while I orchestrate this chaos.
My wife and I have three rules in life: Rule I, Rule II and Rule III. Rule III is the only one we share with anyone and it applies here, “Everything Works Out In The End”.
As always.
Best,
R. Joe
