My account has been around long enough to be proof that this isn't just someone else grabbing the name and posting as me.... that aside...
I've never gone to court for anything so my advice is to check with the people supposedly involved with something before spreading rumors.
Simply put, as I state on the site, I started the site as just a winter sports site - yes - but over time, because of the size and success in the winter, I expanded to include summer sports as well. I shut it down because the happy-go-lucky me that everybody thinks I am is not the real me. Believe me, it's not "he went all emo and skitzo" - that's not true. When you've got someone pushing you to expand the site but at the same time preventing it from happening, it's a double standard. I got tired of the headaches and even though right now I've got the headache of being pushed to "bring it back"... I won't let it happen till I can run it the way I want to.
04-05 brought 15,000 new photos. That was more than enough to occupy my spare time. 05-06 is another story. At 60,000 photos, that was overkill; there was no way humanly possible to keep up with photos and be able to work at the same time. I asked to slow down but it only went faster. The glitch in January with the site, at the end of the month... that was no glitch; it was me deleting the site from the server, being forced to put the site back up, and waiting for the many gigabytes of data to go back up to the server. I've never in the history of the site been more than two weeks behind with anything but Tony Seyffer can verify that I've got his vid cam - why? ... because transferring footage to computer wasn't kept up with during season because I was too pre-occupied keeping up with photos. Three months after season and I was still working on getting everything transferred (about 96gb of footage when it's done - which it still isn't but it doesn't really matter anymore now).
The final straw happened then in May. Some knew of the article in the paper about me and yes, the death of the site is directly tied to that article. Some who know me personally know that I'm very hard on myself if I fail. Well, not only did I let down those involved in winter sports by not completing the video transfers on time but the sports of the warmer months were completely neglected. I did finally have an awsome computer job lined up but because it included some weekends, I wasn't allowed to have it (I wanted it but I was told I couldn't have it). Okay, so that's frustrating but no biggy... at least I can fall back on my site... right? Nope! My summer has been planned for me and includes being gone and unable to run the site on any of the three biggest weekends - Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day. Cool... so, I'm forced to turn down a great job offer and now I'm forced to neglect my site on the biggest weekends of the year. Because of preparation work that had to be done for the events over Memorial Day, I hadn't been out to the skate parks even a single day since the article was posted. That was the final straw.
The day I can run the site the way I want it to run - full but not controlling my life plus being able to run it for all of the sports involved - that will be the day it returns. Honestly, I don't see that in the future for even this year. No doubt the winter sports were my favorite (afterall, that's why I started the site) but I had since added summer sports and I refuse to let the site be counter-productive and go back to winter only.
I realize many are disappointed and I've read some rather angry messages as well on various sites about my choice but don't think it's something I enjoy having done. The happy-go-lucky me is the fake me but momentarily it was reality when I was out with the camera and interacting with everybody. The smiles, the letters of appreciation, the compliments, the thanks... it really did make my day and was more than any money could ever buy. Considering I have however seen a few not-so-friendly messages, I most likely won't even exist as a casual rider in the area anymore.
Be mad if you wish but don't think I'm not disappointed in myself. Two-million+ pageviews per month having never paid for advertisement or asked for link exchanges... the success doesn't happen overnight. With the change in the attitude of society, having the ability to truthfully say the site had been around for ten years also spoke volume not only showing that I didn't run a "here today gone tomorrow" type site but also that I was a "safe" individual. Over six-hundred names were on the site when I counted in late December or early January and by the end of season somewhere around another two-hundred more had been added. It never would've been the success it was without the support of everybody over the years.
So now I've got the knowledge of webwork from the past ten years, the love of photography, and nowhere to use either. To bring back the site would be ideal (I wish I never would've taken it down) but I will stand firm in my action and would consider bringing it back ONLY if I can run it the way it should be ran - to where it is enjoyable.
I guess it's only fitting that I blew the sidewall out of one pair of boards and broke a strap on the other pair. So far, the sidewall pair could be exchanged but I've not sent it in and I'm not going to fix the Line's. Funny how things happen like that.
Now that you've wasted your time reading everything, I'll close in saying thank you for everything especially this past year and no matter how much or how little I knew you, everybody made a difference.
