It seems inconceivable, but today marks the 10th anniversary of this website. Of course, it looked different back then, and was a silly personal use site hosted on Road Runner, with a tiny little bit of storage and traffic limits. I’d just started using FrontPage to publish websites, and I thought my design was really slick. I was going to post everything I did, including how long it took me. It didn’t quite work out that way, and my posts were weeks or months apart at times, but I did post.

When I think about all of the work we’ve put into the airplane it does feel like we’ve been at it an awfully long time, but in other ways it has gone by in the blink of an eye. When we started my dad was still with us, September 11th hadn’t happened, I’d never been to Oshkosh, and Elizabeth and I had only been dating for about a year. My buddy Andy had his kit just over a year, and we wouldn’t start the Head Start program for another year. When I read those Blog posts, it seems so hopeful, like the natural outcome is that the plane gets built and flies, and the website is still here in 10 years time.

But that’s not always the case. In fact, it’s often not the case. Just last week we visited a kit purchased much earlier and never started. We’ve seen many good websites come and go, or simply go inactive. It is very easy to let that happen. We’re still here, I think, because I was in love with the plane long before we bought a kit, and because Elizabeth shares the dream and joy of flying her. I’m at the airport a lot, and that’s soft-selling it. But she doesn’t complain. She’s quite the trooper, and none of this would have happened without her. Thanks, Sweetie, here’s to 10 more.