TED LEAVES AIRGUN NATION FOREVER!!! Under new ownership.

Hi Guys,

I bet you’re wondering why I up and disappeared a month or so ago? Okay. I’ll tell you. But, if I’m going to tell you, then dammit, I’m going to TELL you. Short answer: owning a forum sucks. Well, at least for me.

From beginning to end, it taxed me and [consequently] my family in a way I will never allow again. I’m not going to tear into the gritty details. I don’t want to relive that crap. And, I neither ask for, nor expect, your understanding. You can think I am a complete twit for cutting bait. I can live with that. What I cannot live with is my little girl telling me that she doesn’t want to “bother me” to play with her because she can tell from my lousy mood that I had been doing “gunforum stuff”. In that moment, my eyes welled up with tears; followed by an instant smile on my face. I knew instantly what needed to be done. I asked her what she would think if I stopped doing forum stuff forever. She smiled and nodded. That was it. I made her a promise.

So, AGN is 100% in Michael’s hands now (and has been since that day). You can thank him exclusively for its continuation, because without him AGN would be gone. Yep, I was fully prepared to shut it down. I would rather see this forum deleted before allowing it to become something ugly. You can pound your chest for the first amendment all you want, but the truth is that without fair and sensible moderation forums decay. Bullies and profiteers roll in. Constructive conversations turn to pissing matches, and in no time a source of information and camaraderie turns into just another Internet crap-hole. The good folks will simply move on.

So, this brings me to the future of AGN, and with that I should tell you what I think of Michael. He’s a good man – the right man for this job – level, honest, fair. He stuck to our vision of what AGN should be, even when my frustration got the better of me. In my mind, he is the person who should own AGN. And, now he does. 100%. I am not a silent partner. Airgun Nation belongs to Michael Wendt.

Now, at this point, I wouldn’t blame you if you were considerably soured by what I’ve written. But, if this blunt letter has convinced you of at least one thing, it should be that I am being 100% honest with you. So, here’s a little more honesty for ya….

I truly did value EVERY SINGLE PERSON who contributed positively to AGN. I still do…. and will. If you see me in public, please introduce yourself so I can thank you in person.

In the end, I wasn’t the guy to carry this torch. But, that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the prosperity of this place. I wish you all many years of happy and constructive airgun chatter. And, in my horribly biased opinion, AGN’s layout and management is unmatched.

It simply came down to time and strength. I did not have enough of either to run this forum and live the life I wanted. My little girl; my family won this race.

Best Regards Gentlemen,
ted

P.S. As you can see, Michael has shared this letter rather than me posting it myself. A promise is a promise.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

From Michael

So there you have it. Ted has decided that forums are not his cup of tea (he prefers green tea, no milk, no drama), and he is stepping away to focus on his family & hopefully some more videos.

Airgun Nation is now its own entity and is no longer under the Tedsholdover umbrella. Ted has entrusted me with continuing his vision for this forum. For those of you that are unaware, I have been administering this forum since inception. More recently I have started working with a new developer to fix some of the bugs, and add even more powerful features.

For better or worse: I do not carry Ted’s burden, his reputation, his relationships, or his popularity. Nor am I bound to the history he has written (although I am very aware of most EVERYTHING that has happened within the industry). Nevertheless my goals remains the same; “to use the “Aloha Spirit”, a few simple rules, and some choice moderators, to facilitate forward thinking that will help take our sport to the next level.