On January 19, 2010 I sat down in the morning before work and began writing with a purpose. My goal was a simple one, to document my continuing journey in a video game universe that I had started playing two years previously. Primarily I also wanted a place to share the Eve based artwork that I had started making. It was a very humble beginning. But I was encouraged by my fellow bloggers CrazyKinux, Roc Wieler, and Kirith Kodichi, whom I had been reading (among others) since I had started playing Eve back in 2008.
What I didn't know at the time was how big of a step of faith writing this blog would turn out to be. And the depths of the incredible journey that I had taken the first step into. So much has changed since that day in 2010. Ten years is a long time. I've written 2,352 posts since then, millions of words, thousands of images, comics, humor, controversy, advocacy, anger, frustration, depression, horror, and all the other emotions. I started the blog as a soldier in Null Sec and transformed over the coming years into the Pirate Lord of Low Sec. When I started writing at 4:30 am that morning I was the owner of my own creative agency that employed 42 people. The value of that company was in the millions. Over the next few years I would lose all of it. I would lose friends. People that were supposed to be friends would turn their backs on me. And I would balance all those years of incredible success with incredible valleys of sorrow. To say it has been an amazing journey is to say nothing of value. Words cannot express the sheer power of what has transpired.
What is missing from that last paragraph is what I gained in return. I will soon be making my fourth trip to Iceland with my lovely wife, whom I married in January 2010. Together we've been to Iceland, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Toronto, Alaska, and beyond. Soon we will be joining other Eve friends on a Cruise in the Baltic Sea. I once sat in Harpa in the city named after my Eve character and signed autographs on posters of illustrations that I drew myself. I stood on top of a volcano. And we replaced all of those so-called friends with a hundred times more of true friends from around the world. And for the last four years we've hosted many of them at our own home for Steel City Eve.
Over the years these pages have been the base around which I advocated for many things in the Eve Community. From events, to changes in the game, to the on-going battle with CCP over the use of their IP (Limited Licensing Agreements!!), and the banning of WCS. This blog has often been a battleground, a haven for haters, for those that know better, or for those who are suffering. It has started wars, advanced agendas, and been the base of operations for some of the most amazing META gaming the world will never know about. But all of which is true.
At the moment of my deepest despair this great community stepped forward on their own and worked together to help. It was a deeply humbling and incredibly powerful moment that many people still refuse to understand. But one which I will never, ever forget. What I didn't know on that day in January 2010 was just how much I would grow to love the people in this stupid game. How much I have come to rely upon each of you, every single day. Just how much I look forward to reading about your own adventures, your own journeys, challenges, victories, and defeats. And how much missing out on every player gathering we can't join, truly hurts. You are all important to me.
Will I be writing in these pages another ten years? Who knows. Stranger things have happened.
Thank you to all my readers, past, present, and future.
Keep the courage.