[Raion]

I didn't have time to post this on the 21st because I was actually at a wedding the week prior and at a graduation for a friend of mine the week of the 21st. 

As a result I missed the deadline and I apologize. I was busy a lot during May and the result I was not up to my normal standards. 

Let me discuss with you today; that I want the theme for this next 12 months before the 5th anniversary to be about moving on from what you cannot change. 

None of us could have prevented this. But we rose from the ashes and did the best we could to be stronger because of it. I would like to think that as a site we have grown a little bit more resilient and less shut down prone, and that I've done a lot to secure the future of the community. 

Not everybody survived the transition and I can think of A few friends that really didn't ever come here. ClassicHasClass is still around but when he was posting over at that site he was the life of the party and always very helpful not only to me but everybody else who had questions that he was within the realm of expertise to answer. Vince725 never really seemed to rejoin our community and I was sad about that because it was nice to have somebody around my age who I could chat with about things. And countless veterans who I guess just saw the site as the reason to move on. 

At the same time we have gained a lot of new friends and I wanted to thank some of them today. Kaigan, who has not only quickly grown into an expert on the systems but has become one of my best friends here, Lucanis, an early supporter and a very friend. Weblacky, what would we ever do without your endlessly helpful dissections of power supplies? And I wanted to most of all thank DefaultRouteUK. Not only did he join up and try as best to cheer me up when I was not doing the best emotionally, he quickly stood up to the plate and offered to help support our infrastructure. I am endlessly grateful for his continued support of our website and I encourage anybody who might need colocation services in Europe to talk to him because he has the connections to help you out. 

I also want to say that we have another staff member. Shiunbird was approached after a unanimous decision by all of the staff to extended offer to add him. He is not only another member who we can have covering our European time zones but also an incredibly helpful system administrator who is going to be doing a lot to improve our backups and also help audit and go through my infrastructure that is probably in major need of some love. 

Thank you everybody for continuing to be a supporter here and in general I am grateful to everybody, even my critics, for continuing to give me a drive to stay here. I have no problem thinking my critics because at the end of the day even though sometimes I think that a lot of things levied at me are unfair that kind of ignites my competitive spirit to the point that I want to prove them wrong and be a better contributor to the community that I started.

Let's focus on the future guys. And I'll be right behind every single one of you.