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