Just over nine months ago I started working at Stardock and I was introduced to this great community of our. This is my way of saying "Thanks!" to everyone I have met on this long strange trip.
I was first introduced to skinning with WinAmp. I remember looking at my buddy Lewis Colon's (hey, a shout out to Mr. Fix-It!) WinAmp and wondering why it looked different than mine. He explained. That night I fired up the old 33.6 and started in a-downloadin'.

Sometime later, I tried WindowBlinds 1.x and thought it was cool, but not compelling. The truth was I couldn't find that many skins, and the proggie had, shall we say issues. For a variety of reasons, the time was not right.

Then I met Frogboy and KarmaGirl. I started working at Stardock. Brad sent me on a quest for skins. The first foray that I made into the skinning community was to Skinz.org. Man, what a strange and wonderful world! I was hooked!
It was the answer to the unasked question, "What do you get if you cross a geek and an artist, through in a dose of social anarchist and add politics? You get a skin author." How cool!
Then came eFront and the drop in banner ads. The Dot Coms bombed. It looked for a while like the community would go under.
But you know what? We are stronger now than ever before. Wincustomize, DeviantArt, all are getting all the traffic they can handle and yet are, somehow, handling it.
The message boards are full and the community is getting stronger. New problems arise, issues that need to be dealt with, but we are coping.
I do worry that it may not last. There are people who seem dedicated to creating dissent and who can't see beyond the economics. That is unfortunate. My life has been enriched by the beauty and the friendship that I have found here.
That is why I say to you that these are the best of times.
I want to thank the many wonderful people, here and at the other sites who give of their time and efforts to make something worthwhile.
To all the Admins who work so hard.
To the moderators, who keep it clean.
To all the people (like you T-Man) who do all the dirty work behind the scenes.
And most of all , to the artists. To the people who create beauty where there was none.
Thanks.