I'm typing this a few days before the set publish date, because that day I'll be busy, but I feel like it would be a good time to take a moment and look back. No, this is not me announcing my departure or anything like that, it's just something I really wanted to take the time to say.

I've met and talked to a lot of people online over the years, and a good deal of that activity has been centered around BZPower and the BIONICLE fandom. I've had other interests, of course, but those have come and gone, and I've never invested as much in anything as I have in my LEGO hobby and the community around it.

I didn't start on BZP. I didn't have my own email address (or any at all) until the beginning of 2008, so I started on wikis like BIONICLEsector01. I had a good run on there and made some friends. Cholie, Exo Malakai, Varaka, The Alchemyst/PoI, Bioran, Lihyahm, and all the rest of those people I can't quite remember because it's been half a decade. It was a great time.

But then I joined BZPower, and I slowly lost interest in the chronicling and got more into the discussing. Here I met others who shared my interests, or shared some interests with people who shared some of my interests, or just happened to be in the same AIM group chat I was in. Really, the people I met through "bzplol" were my friends for the first couple of years here. Teebert, Wrack, Necro, Ran/DX, Taka-Tahu-Nuva, Arch-Angel, Kopakalaka, Lluvio, Disky, and others (I feel really bad that I can't remember everyone). I had so much fun talking about Code Lyoko or politics or whatever else on the spectrum came up. I really miss it a lot.

A lot of you (yes, you, all the people I've just listed, and all the ones I've forgotten) aren't around BZPower anymore, and haven't been for a while. We haven't talked for years, I don't know how to contact you, you've probably changed in that time (and so have I), and you may want nothing to do with me anymore.

However, I have something to say to you.

Thank you.

Middle school and high school are usually marked by obnoxious angst and social awkwardness. But they're also a time when you're really becoming who you will be in life. It's a lie to say that nothing else has affected me the way this community has. I've had pretty major events in my life that will no doubt define me forever. But to say that you've had no effect on me would be as equally wrong.

I feel confident, however, in saying that I wouldn't be who I am or where I am today had I not met you all. You were people I could talk to about my interests, people I could stay up until 2 or 3 AM chatting with about whatever came up, people who were there and put up with me. Those moments were worth falling asleep in school for. I may have never seen some of your faces or heard some of your voices or even may never have known some of you as anything but a screen name, but you were willing to give me a chance.

So to you, the people who in many ways welcomed me to the internet, I say thank you.

Thank you for everything.

(This entry will be published at 7:29 PM Eastern time on March 11, 2014, exactly six years after the first blog entry I ever posted on BZPower.)