A Special Message

One of the Fanfest SwagPacks I gave out
What a ride these past (insert any amount of time you'd like) have been. Our lives have been turned upside down, and incarcerated - but never defeated. In large part thanks to you dear reader and the generosity of the Eve Community. Despite what any of the haters out there might say, this great community of ours, my fans, and my readers (and listeners!), saved my family from homelessness. Not to pay legal fees, or imaginary child support, or anything nefarious like that. Simply to help us keep our home at a critical moment in time. And it worked. And we have been able to re-build our lives, put the legal troubles to rest (finally!) and move on. All thanks to you.

And there is no one more grateful and appreciative of that than I am. A lot of my most recent projects came about because of that gratitude and more are coming in the future. But one thing my wife and I both wanted more than anything was a chance to say thank you IN PERSON to as many Eve players as possible. And where else can you do that better than at Fanfest? We both worked very hard and sacrificed a lot to make this trip happen and to also put together some special items as a way of saying thank you.

You can see the full range of swag in the image above. I created four special Eve Postcards, front and back and we had 100 of each printed. Then we created several stickers and had 250 (or more) printed of each. Then Mom Bellicose sent us some of her o7 Tattos to include. And my wife made a bunch of special holders with paper cut out Tristans on them for a dozen or so extra special supporters. Like Norbert above, who makes me the most incredible books! Thanks my friend, the books are among my most prized possessions.

I personally handed every single piece out to as many people as possible at Fanfest. In my mind that was my primary reason for being there, so it was our highest priority. And while circumstances did not always allow for a verbal "thank you", I hope that the sentiment was implicit every single time. For that was always my intention.

As I've said before, I couldn't care less about what anyone thinks. I'm grateful and I always will be. I'm not embarrassed or ashamed of what happened. I needed help and a bunch of people practically demanded I allow them to help, which then snowballed into a much larger effort that really had very little to do with me driving it, and everything to do with how amazing you all are. It is an enduring testament to this great group of players and something I will never forget.

If I missed you or if you read this blog and were not able to attend Fanfest, let me say Thank You. I hope that in lew of swag you will take this blog, After Hours, and all my other ongoing projects as my way of continuing to say thanks.

Fanfest also represented the last time I'm going to specifically bring this up. All of these events happened well over a year ago and in my mind they are ancient history now. I'm not commenting on any more comment threads about them, or responding to haters on Reddit, or anywhere else. Any more negative comments here on Eveoganda will be dealt with the same way they were before, by being deleted. I didn't do that for the last year, I allowed those that wanted to be negative their chance to say what they wanted to say. But I'm done.

Now is the time to move on. I need to start playing Eve again and hang out in-game with my Alliance and Stay Frosty. I feel the need to Pew Pew and practice for the AT.

Time for more Eve.