And So I Say My Farewells....

Hey guys, it's me... that guy. I know it's been a while. I've literally abandoned the forums over the past year, not out of spite or anything of course.

Here's my non-chronological story:

Back (oh, man, what was it...?) a good three years ago come this January / Febuary I stumbled upon PortableApps.com. Just like many of you, I grew up running Windows machines. I was just an average kid who spent too much time on the computer.
One day, my brother had gone out and bought a flash drive and he showed me this cool 'U3' stuff that came on it, and to be honest, I was amazed. Having a flash drive myself (good ol' Kingston) I wanted this U3 thing too, but the software wasn't on my device and I learned there was no way to get it without buying a whole new drive. I spent countless hours scavenging Wikipedia articles and the internets to find something comparable that I could load on my own drive. Finally, the first option I actually found and used was PortableApps.com. Starting as an average forum user asking *questions that had already been asked* under the handle 'Have Some Patience' I quickly became a part of the PortableApps.com community. The PortableApps.com community is an amazing one. I've become parts of other online communities of course, but nothing compares to my experience here. It's always a delight to see a PortableApps.com user old or new.
Anyways... I was always the one requesting apps until one day nobody seemed to like my idea so I figured, "Hell, I'll try it myself." After spending countless afternoons, evenings, and late nights toying with various issues in my initial 'A Note Portable', I finally produced something that sucked a little less than the rest (seriously, there was *sooo* many obvious issues). From there things just spawned out and I began to eagerly pick up more and more PortableApps.com projects.
When John emailed my at the beginning of one boring August and asked my if I'd like to join the development team I was blown away. It honestly felt unreal... I was blown away, amazed, ecstatic. From their on I went on to become a moderator in the forums here, and quickly pushed out more and more official and beta applications.
Thanks to John and the fantastic community here at PortableApps.com I began getting more and more involved in the fantastic thing that is open source. I began maintaining OpenSourceWindows.org and responding to email (which is honestly a joy, BTW), I began active with The OpenDisc project, etc, etc.

Anyways, back last October I purchased an iPhone. There's no specific reason why, besides the fact that I was always an iPod kid and the iPhone had just launcher in Canada and looked uber-cool. Either way it was a massive upgrade from my Sony Ericsson and I fell in love with it. This is exactly around the time my PortableApps.com involvement began declining as I discovered great interest in iPhone and Mac development. My interest grew so much so that last Febuary I bought an iMac. Of course the first thing I did was loaded it up with all the Mac open source I knew.
I'm still on my Windows / Linux machine most of the time (and to be honest, I will *never* leave them completely, I love them both for very different reasons. However, I think I've found my niche in the indie Mac and iPhone development world as I head my life down this road.

Unfortunately, as a result of my skewed involvement in so many different areas right now, I've decided I'll have to drop PortableApps.com. I plan to stick with some other Windows projects I'm in simply because I love it and I love helping the community.

Ever since SourceForge turned off notification emails for releases I've been lazy and haven't followed RSS. I've tried to keep on top of my app updates, but I caught seldom and luckily John's been doing a fantastic job keeping on top of them. If anyone would like to pick up one of my applications, it's all yours. I'm sure John could use the hand. I apologize for taking the role in the release team that never moved, but I simply can't find the time anymore and it seems wasteful to try and back and forth so many things.

In conclusion: Thank you all *so very much* for being the AMAZING (seriously) community you have been, I'll miss you all very much.

John: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're the reason I got into anything programming-related. You're the reason I discovered the awesomeness that is open source. These are things that have shaped my life and will most definitely stick with my on my career path and throughout my life. You helped me tremendously, and it's amazing work you do here (and an incredible amount for just one man). Thank you again, it's been great, and I'm sorry to have to leave.

Everyone: Please pitch in where you can. John's still running quite the one man show for the most part, so I'm sure any support you can give him will help quite a bit.

If you're ever frantic and need some Patience in your life, hit me up on the Twitters: http://twitter.com/PatrickPatience - Beyond that, most of you know me email *cough*userpage*cough* so hit me up for whatever reason.

I'll also make an effort to drop my IRC frequently to chat. I know my visits in past months haven't lasted any more than 18 seconds.

On that note: The logs will continue to run, and anyone hosting on my server can most definitely continue to use it for PortableApps.com related purposes (if your using it for other projects, just give me a heads up). I'll also see what I can do in terms of statistics for all of you (seriously).

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH. I'LL MISS YOU.