Hey you filthy, amazing, brilliant, pain in the ass, wonderful group of people, friends, and truly a chosen family. It's been a long time. Here comes a fairly typical unvarnished and unprepared stream of consciousness, with too many words and a gluttony of unnecessary descriptiveness, all wrapped around chaotic syntax and grammar. Strap in.
This is, unquestionably, the most difficult post I've ever written on BP, outside of speaking to the loss of some of our members and closest friends. Which is odd, because it's good news. It's not an end to anything, but a process of breathing life into my first child (I say with all the love and respect to my amazing daughter).
Over 21 years ago, 21 and some months, I sat seething being freshly banned (temp banned) from Bucknuts for speaking to truth. Not damning truth, not vulgar truth, just truth that didn't fit the narrative that they (Kirk and Mr.B) wanted to fit. Don't misunderstand the context here, that water was under the bridge in a matter of hours as they reversed the ban, apologized, and we continued to have a really wonderful relationship with the site and staff where most of us first came together. Indeed, BP sort of grew up in those first few years; from a scrappy new "rogue gallery" site existing in defiance of "the man", to a leader and developer of larger community talent that inspired the creation of other sites. It was an interesting time in the Buckeye part of the inter-webs... But, to get back on track, as I sat there seething I decided to download a fresh copy of vBulletin. I registered the first domain that came to mind (BuckeyePlanet), I set up a basic forum, posted something utterly inane like "yo, first real post" after an exhausted overnight of setting it all up, and then had the audacity to reach out to a half dozen people on BN to say "looksee what I did!"
21 years later, here we are. Here we sit. There was a glorious post LJB made earlier this year, maybe last year, it all bleeds together for me now, that stood BP up against the age of other major sites in and outside the Buckeyeverse.
We're older than my employer, AWS. We're older than Twitter, older than Youtube, older than Facebook. And in terms of culture, wealthier than any of them. (Would someone please tell me where I can spend culture? We should have made a Buckcoin when new crypto was the thing (no, we should not have)).
The site is 21 years old, and I bled into it, SO hard, for 18 of those. Willfully, gleefully, even when it was sort of killing me (lol); that's where it gave purpose. Those of you who know my health backstory know that the site gave me a purpose, and a community -- a reason that I was otherwise lacking. It's been a journey, this life experience and the consequences of being born at Camp Lejeune; but it's been a good one and I am very, very lucky. Literally, things would have been, would be right now, different if not for you, and this. Which, counterintuitively, is also the reason I've been absent the last few years. I found a gap the size of the eye of a needle to try and stand up and be as much a normie as possible. I took a really awful low level job with AWS; entry level, beyond entry level, in the hope that they would sponsor me to get back my TS/SCI security clearance, which would open the door to better opportunities and the promise of being, finally, self sufficient.
God I love you guys and girls for the drives, and your donations, and support, and getting me in touch with doctors, I love you for the love you gave us. I have a daughter because of you. I'm alive because of you. I'm self sufficient and approaching thriving because of you.
That shitty job at AWS was a lot for me to handle physically. I struggled, but I made it work despite having to go on short term leave twice in that first 12-18 months. I wasn't a stranger to the hospital, and various specialists, but fuck if I wasn't going to fight back on my feet. When they presented me the opportunity to launch Reverse Supply Chain as the Security Manager, I took them up on it. I arrived in Florence, KY; freshly divorced (very amicably, Jo and I are still close friends and really positive+healthy coparents to Elise) in Feb 2020; and then ... well, 2020 happened. Alone save a dog, unable to see Elise as often as we planned, struggling hard with my health and not drowning, I threw myself into work. Too hard, candidly. But that period allowed me to get stronger; both in terms of my (ultimately losing) battle with the health stuff, but also in terms of my career.
As I type this, I own global security for AWS Supply Chain. All phases of the DC hardware lifecycle; forward and reverse logistics, decom, forensic labs, transportation, warehousing, and special projects. I have a growing team across the globe, some 40 sites and 20k operations vendors and 100s of AWS employees occupying them; handling more than $8bn in hardware at any given time, while protecting customer data and Amazon IP against threats that range from the mundane, to nation states adulterating hardware. I haven't been here (on BP), because in 2020 and 2021 I was working 80-90 hours a week, drinking bourbon and coffee (often together), and trying not to implode from feeling isolated and missing Elise. I did see her, of course, it was just harder because of the pandemic.
Look at me, all; wearing big boy pants and getting out of bed! It wasn't (and isn't) easy.
During that time I discovered new illnesses to add to the list. My favorite is something called Pyoderma Gangrenosum. Ultra rare (because I'm a pretentious shit like that), it's as close to a human zombie disease as you can get. A minor bruise can and will turn necrotic. I had a great stay in a hospital before Kentucky in which it had spiraled out of control, MRSA had taken root, and i had full Sepsis. All the antibiotics had failed, and they put me on a heavy IV course of Vancomycin (I'm not going to spell check that). I remember going "okay, what's the next step if this one doesn't work," to which the doctor LITERALLY SHRUGGED and said "honestly, the next step would be sending your samples off to the labs to get a treatment tailored just to you; it would take three days -- you don't have three days." I laughed. I mean, it's just one of those moments we all have or will face.
I've moved back to Columbus. Bought a house in Westerville near New Albany. I'm still working too hard, but for the first time since 1998, I'm independent and self sufficient and have degrees of control over my life (as much as anyone really can have). I've got wonderful relationships with Jo and Elise, and I've been carrying this heavy guilt about BP. It was always "I just have to carve out enough time to upgrade, post, etc. etc. etc." It wasn't for a lack of love that I didn't, candidly I'm just hanging on by my fingernails. And isn't that just part of adulting, even under the best circumstances.
I offered to give the site to those few who have bled into as or more deeply than I. There were conversations about selling it externally. Ultimately, I just wanted someone to support it since I couldn't. Update it. Improve it. Create ever better experiences for the community, the way I always worked so hard to for those first 18 years.
@heisman is the new owner of BP. I feel a little like the father of the bride watching the newly wed couple drive away after the reception. A sense of keen loss, but the knowledge that getting her off and into the world was only part of the experience, that I wasn't losing her at all.
What I hope this means for the site is that it will be updated, upgraded, and taken to new heights while maintaining the amazing culture we all worked so hard to develop and protect here.
What I hope this means for the community is a better experience.
What I hope this means for me is I can rejoin it, and let go of the guilt I have felt letting the community down that literally saved me and gave me purpose.
21 years. Just... Had I known, I would have written something more profound than "Yo, first real post."
I hope to be chatting more with you all soon. I want to be here, and lifting the responsibility (to which I wasn't sufficient) opens that door for it to be fun.
And who knows. Maybe I'll be an ass at some point, get temp banned, and start a new site. Lol, no to the no. This was a once-in-a-lifetime win; this community. Not the site, but the community.
Thank you all, for everything. All the things. Including those of you not here to read this anymore.
I really look forward to what's next. I also sort of want to know if Steve still "takes UMBRAGE" with ... just my existence. Hah. We're still ever so slightly a rogue's gallery. Sorry not sorry.
I won't even try to directly thank everyone who should be called out and celebrated; the way you truly deserve. The very real fear that I would miss someone because of time and space is just too much. Not one effort to better the site, donation, suggestion, argument, or change driven by each of you ever went unnoticed. And you all could call out, just as easily as I, those who have continued to bleed into the site even when I could not. Those who did in the past and then moved on (21 years is a long ass time!). Just know, for whatever it's worth, each of you has an unconditional place of love and respect in my heart. I know, I know -- this is a football (mostly) forum, and I sound like I'm trying to script The Notebook 2. Suck it up, old men get to be wistful and emotionally extravagant.
Forward. Here we go. Ever forward.
