Focus shifting away from RTMM

[Bradallen43]

To all of you that have taken part in RTMM, I apologize. I need to re-focus all of my energy and attentions to personal matters that will take me away from my hobby here at RTMM. In what I'm hoping will only be a brief time away, I ask all of you to assist Doug with our little home away from home here.

There will be a future if all of you stay together and keep the fires burning here. Send out new scenery creations, make this place keep growing and enjoy everything that we've put out so far and allow each of you to take part in.

Real world concerns are taking my time and energy away, but I assure you that even if I am unable to return for the long term or the immediate future, I hope that RTMM will live on in my absence. There are great people here in this community and each of you share my passion for this. I know that.

Even if it stops here, which I seriously doubt, we've put together a pretty good body of work in a short time frame and I'm proud of that accomplishment. But it will take the people who want to help those in need of help to step in and answer those questions that new fans have about setting up scenery in our forums, help with other files, etc. I know that people will step in and help out. This is what we do in our community and I'm certain that tradition will be carried on here.

So, I ask for your understanding and again say I'm sorry. Hopefully being away for a short period of time will allow me to return with a renewed vigor and ability to give RTMM the attention it deserves.

Keep the faith,
Brad

[Dan]

If there's one thing that I've learned over the course of my online gaming/sim'ing "career" ... Real Life (tm) always comes first.     I'm sorry to hear that you've got some RL concerns happening, and I wish you the best of luck that they all work out well in the end.

Thanks for your contributions around here, great stuff, and it will continue to be enjoyed by many.

It won't stop here, we'll keep the lights burnin' around Misty's, don't worry about that.      Hope to see you around again soon.

Take care.

[Dragnhorn]

I'm with Dan on that score Brad.  We'll keep yr chair polished and a couple bottlesof Ol Moose Drool on ice for ya.  Thanks for everything and hope to see you back sooner rather than later.

Cheers,  Rob

[GrahamP]

I wish you all the best getting your real life matters sorted, Brad.

Many thanks for all you have done and I look forward to having you back here again.

[Doug]

Brad,

Well to say you'll be missed is the biggest understatement we've yet made on a thread here.  And this is the place to remind everyone that this whole site was Brad's idea.  He was the one who contacted me and said "lets do it."  It took some convincing  ... but he succeeded. Then he followed through.

To date we are one scenery location short of 50!  And that one is in the "final touches" stage. Xavier is working on it and you'll have it soon.  What we have so far is simply a legacy to Brad's hard work and dedication to not just this site, but to the whole FlightSim world.  We crossed 25,000 hits this week, and we have had over 7,500 DIFFERENT (uniques) people visit the site. And this is in just 2 months of being on line and one month of nurturing. The site now hosts over 10,000 individual files ... almost every one of them "touched" by Brad, Kim and Chris as they created what you enjoy so much at this site.

Something else Brad has left us as a legacy, and that is the "simple is good" concept. Yes, we have some incredibly complex sceneries like Herring Bay and Hunter Bay Cannery, Misty's Place, Nina's.  Just so much virtual real estate until Brad's artistry and Kim's locational ideas went to work on it and created these. But the real magic for me is in the simple ones.  I'll always say, one of my favorites is the 2 tents and a campfire.  A 30 minute flight through beautiful country, dangerous flying ... and at the end .. just 2 tents and a campfire. Why was there no outcry of disappointment for such a simple ending?  What Brad taught us with this one is that having a scenery location on the other end is important, but the focus should also be on the journey.  When we "fly" a scenery ... 95% of the time is spent "getting from here to there" (our original theme). Brad and Kim have given us the "there" that makes the 95% of our time happen.  Chris has given us a way to "get there in style" with the beautiful Misty Moorings repaints. 

So for this part of what we have at RTTM, and at this 25,000/7,500 milestone, we have to plant a marker that recognizes the hard work and tiring hours given by Brad, Kim and Chris ... the developers of what all of you enjoy so much every day.  All three are taking leave of absence for their own personal reasons ... they will be missed during their "leave of absence" ... but their legacy will live on.  RTMM is going forward only because of the fantastic foundation these three gave us. From their legacy we'll launch new ideas and directions. It is a solid foundation for the future of RTTM. Our thanks to them, and we're going to spend the money keeping the lights on waiting for them to return.  Like Don Henley with the Eagles still sings ..."

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
’relax,’ said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave! 

So our guys will take the LOA ... and they are "trying" to check out ... but with a legacy like this, I say to them here: "you can never leave!"  We expect them to pop up here in the threads, maybe a repaint will suddenly show up from Eagle Skinner, a new idea or input from Kim and who knows ... maybe a secret cabin or two from Brad.  We wish them luck in their personal endeavors ... and as Dan said, "gaming" is a hobby ... real life comes first.  As members of the RTMM team, they'll retain their "team member" signature blocks so when they post here, you'll know who they are.  Their "about" information will stay on the "About" page ... people need to know and remember who the people are that got us to this point.

Thank you guys ... what a pleasure working with you ... here is to looking forward to doing it again soon when your LOA is finished.

Doug

[One-Eye]

Still watching and all I can say is hospital pre-op visit on Monday. The boresope inspection in a couple of weeks and the repair work (which depends on the shuftiscope) will be in late May ish - followed by around 6 to 8 weeks full cast and another 6 weeks therapy. Of course, I shall be home most of the time.

Still thinking of ways to make sceneries without the need for complications like SBuilder...

[Avian]

I'm not actually on an LOA, it's just coming up to spring and summer and I am more in the garden and on the golf course than I am in front of the monitor, but I intend to continue with the projects I have got running already and will be in here checking for any questions I can help out with, I just FSX much less from now till autumn. At least that's the current sit with me anyway.

[Doug]

OK Kim ... I'll change that status to "I'd rather be gardening!"  I can handle that ... I intend to do a whole lot more fishing in the time coming up for sure.  Thanks to you and Chris for "being there" if the wheels come off. 

I think the reduced activity has been earned. You guys really had to work hard to get it up and running ... and you did that with excellence.  Time to take a break ... get your breath.   (And I'm taking your advice!)

D

[corbu1]

I wish both of you all the good luck and energy for your personal reasons for a time-out.

I believe Doug`s words said it all!! Due to my poor english, sorry for that, I wouldn`t be able to add something which wasn´t expressed before. So it`s better I do not try it.

But there`s one thing I wish to add........
When thinking about writing this reply I realized that since the RTMM Site came up I didn`t fly in any other sim-locations than the Misty`s Region. You showed me this beautifull place and also that your sceneries even filled it with live. I also realized that my sim-flying time heavy in the last weeks.

All I want to say is Thank you!!!

I`m waiting for your return with new energy and strength! But first deal with your personal matters!!

Greetings from good old germany

[Bradallen43]

Well maybe some good news. Still in limbo but things might not turn out so bad. My wife and I tried to sort through all the things I thought I might have been brought up to the company's compliance investigation about and the thing that everyone at work came up with, as well as Nina and I was that last week, I brought in a baseball movie that has some adult situations and language in it. "Bull Durham".

There was a less than a month "newbie" sitting there with us watching it and he'd never seen the movie before. What I remembered that day was his reaction to the one scene where Tim Robbins is having a dream that he's pitching naked. This guy says, "What the?? Interesting movie you're watching here"

Since he's new, he may have been made to feel a little too uncomfortable with the subject matter in that film and he probably let a manager know that. New employees have compliance training in their orientation classes these days, and they also want to make a good impression.

So, we're hoping that's it. While that could get me a reprimand for bad judgment, hopefully it's not a shove out the door. After 22 years of zero discipline on my record before this for anything, I think they'll take all of that into account and say, use better judgment next time with anything like that at work.

I'm feeling a little better today. I haven't slept but for 5 hours in total since I woke up on Wednesday morning, went to work, got pulled aside, told I was on suspension with pay pending the investigation, asked to hand over my ID and then got escorted to the gate. I have some Tylenol PM that hopefully will knock me out tonight for a good nights sleep. I can't wrack my brain anymore. It's not healthy.

I need some sleep and good news on Tuesday at the meeting.

Wish me luck.

Brad

[Leorstef]

You gotta be kiddin', "Bull Durham"?
Geesh it's over 20 years old.
Whole lot worse movies for content these days out there than that one. 
Ridiculous.

Instead of wishing you luck, I'll say a prayer for sanity for your management team and co-worker. 

[GrahamP]

Geez, according to Wikipedia that movie is a "romantic comedy" for God's sake.  It might be worth mentioning that in your defence.  Is watching a romantic comedy such poor judgement?  Some people are just troublemakers. Best of luck and hope it goes well for you on Tuesday, Brad.

[spud]

Geez, according to Wikipedia that movie is a "romantic comedy" for God's sake.  It might be worth mentioning that in your defence.  Is watching a romantic comedy such poor judgement?  Some people are just troublemakers. Best of luck and hope it goes well for you on Tuesday, Brad.

With a very few people the personal offense is real but over the past 8 decades I have been around most of them are just "Back stabbing bas*ards" that are trying to climb over people for their own financial gain.  Hey, look at me I'm the company's man, dump this offender and move me into his position.
I retired in late Dec. 2007 after 37 years with the City of Pensacola and have never been back in my old work place since.  I remember others who retired and showed up about once a week to chat etc.  I decided not to do that so I would avoid kneecapping some of the a**holes I worked with.