Jim Mecklenburger

Research
Newspaper editor
Asst. Exec
Special Projects
1972-1991

I live in a 55+ (hard to believe, somehow) community in Clearwater called Raintree Village where I am the editor of a 12-page monthly newsletter, a member of the social committee, and run a weekly film series.

For most of the past decade, my time has otherwise been full with a hobbyist approach to buying things at auction for resale and selling LP records, LaserDiscs and DVDs on eBay where I'm jmsrecords.

Kathy and I travel whenever we can; she is the executive director of a national association called CAAHEP, the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs; my eBay work is run out of an office in the CAAHEP building. I am now the spouse when I travel to CAAHEP's quarterly meetings, and to FSAE events (Florida Society of Association Executives) quite the obverse from years at NSBA.

We're also addicted to cruise ships and in May of this year did our first Atlantic crossing on a 16-day excursion to Spain. Jody and the grandchildren joined us last February for a Caribbean cruise and will do so again this November.

And among the most exciting elements of current life, we are Tampa Bay Rays fans. We got to this part of the world when the team had the worst record in baseball. Three years later, we attended division championship and World Series games... And with any luck, will do so again this year.

I've grown weary of the very notion of retirement, and am in the throes of turning a hobbyist's approach to eBay into a true e-commerce small business that might one day grow into something substantial and remunerative. It's all about movies; I've registered the domain names allthegreatestmovies.com and .org, and am still noodling over the merits and demerits of for-profit or not-for-profit structure.

Four years ago (coinciding with the launch of my weekly movie series), I decided to build a collection of the world's great movies. That required a definition -- which movies are they? So I have spent part of the past 4 years building the collection (more than 4000 titles, mostly on DVD and LaserDisc, some few on VHS, a hundred or so on Blu-Ray) but, more important ultimately, I have compiled a database of all the movies recommended by all the authorities on the subject. It turns out that, among the hundreds of thousands of movies made over more than a century, there are about 7500 that show up on at least one authority's list of recommended titles.

So, allthegreatestestmovies will feature only those 7500 titles as well as books, posters and other memorabilia about them, plus some of the interactive kinds of opportunities that are feasible on the Internet.

One of the counter-intuitive phenomena of our day is that businesses such as Amazon.com invite "affiliates" to sell their merchandise at their prices and receive a commission on sales. That means, for my endeavor, that when my doors, so to speak, open next year, I can not only offer for sale whatever I may have in inventory but can offer virtually every film, book, poster and other pertinent item. Very cool.

I'd been pretty much out of touch with schools and educational technology for a decade, so NSBA and Federation folks slipped out of view. Last year I attended the Technology+Learning conference and became re-acquainted with Don Blom, Sue Merry, and Ann Flynn.

One of my frequent colleagues in my NSBA years was Hal Gardner who, among other accomplishments, started the Missouri Education Satellite Network years ago as part of the Missouri School Boards Association. Hal is executive director of a small foundation in Kansas City and, as life turns full circle, is an elected school board member. Kathy and I, Hal and Jean have travelled together a few times and stay in e-mail contact.