Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. It was on this day 10 years ago that Heidi joined the staff of KarateForums.com. 8 years, 1 month and 2 days of this she has spent as a Sensei. To put this in perspective, KarateForums.com itself has been online for 12 years, 3 weeks and 6 days. We have had many great staff members over the years here, but none who have been involved with our team for this long. It is a very rare circumstance, not just for our community, not just for online communities have I have managed, but for any online community period. Very rare. It is a testament to Heidi's dedicated service to this community and her efforts in holding up the standards that we have. You don't remain on board for as long as Heidi has without quality, consistency, strength of character, humility, humor and determination and that is what Heidi has demonstrated over the past 10 years. There is a lot of things that any member can see. Her posts, both the number of them (5,543 - fourth among all members), and what she contributes through them. But what you may not see is what I've seen over the past 10 years, the things that happen behind the scenes. Heidi has been a great supporter of this community and of me and I am grateful for that. You don't build something like this, you don't create an atmosphere like this, without people like Heidi, great team players who can help with the things that must be done to make it so. It doesn't just happen by itself. Through her contributions here, I feel confident in saying that Heidi has helped thousands and thousands of people (maybe more). Directly with her posts, indirectly with her efforts in helping to foster a community where they would be welcome. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you for being a great member of my team for so long, for supporting me and for being a friend. I appreciate you. Everyone, please join me in congratulating Heidi and offering any thoughts that you may have regarding her, your interactions with her and her posts on this community. Thank you for reading. Sincerely, Patrick

Just in case anyone is curious what the actual of number of events for different sports is at the Summer Olympics, check out the list of current programs. For example: Athletics (including running, but other things, as well, like the pole vault, shot put, etc.): 47 Swimming: 34 Wrestling: 18 Judo: 14 Boxing: 13 Fencing: 10 Taekwondo: 8 Diving: 8 Equestrian: 6 Table tennis: 5 Badminton: 5 Water polo: 2 Synchronized swimming: 2

I hope that all of the fathers in our community had a nice day, yesterday. Patrick

Hello and welcome, Hawkmoon. Glad to have you. Patrick

I don't follow water polo, either, RW. But I guess it depends on who you ask. Check out this article by Jim Caple.

That's awesome.

Good luck, Bob.

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. Unfortunately, we experienced some downtime here due to a technical issue with our server, primarily from June 12 (possibly very late on June 11) through June 13. This issue just made the website inaccessible and did not affect the database in any way. No content was lost. Thank you to David for reporting it to me via email. Shortly after he reported it, we were able to correct the issue. I apologize for the inconvenience and welcome back. Sincerely, Patrick

Hello, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. We recognize one member every month as the KarateForums.com Member of the Month for their positive contributions to this community. The June 2013 selection is... Tzu-Logic. Congratulations! Thank you for all of your great contributions to our community. Sincerely, Patrick

That's pretty interesting. Patrick

One thing that comes to mind, for me when I read this thread, is that we are discussing this on a martial arts community where you are preaching to the choir in large part, regarding the Olympics and martial arts. What is said in this thread likely does not represent the way the majority of people who watch the Olympics think. Many, many people would consider tennis, ping pong, badminton, cycling, volleyball, water polo, soccer/football, basketball, hockey, etc. to be sports, more so than karate. Weird is an interesting word. Sometimes I find that people often use it for things they don't personally like, have experience with, care about or are simply different from what they know. There are a lot of "sports" in the world and everyone wants to see their "sport" represented, but that isn't how it'll end up working out. It's easy to dismiss it as politics, it's harder to accept that there is more out there. Just a thought. Thanks, Patrick

Nice. Congrats!

I've been playing some Portal 2 co-op with my little brother.

Was happy to see the picture on your Facebook. Looked like you were getting work in. Thanks for sharing it with us. Patrick

Welcome to KF, Benjamin!

Good luck, Gareth. Patrick

Welcome aboard, Hendrik.

Hey Mehh. Welcome aboard. Thank you for your kind words about the book. It means a lot. Patrick

Thank you. That is very kind. I appreciate the kind words, Devin, ps1 and Brian.

Hey Mark. Glad to have you. Patrick

Welcome aboard, kindj.

Hey all, Thank you for visiting KarateForums.com. It was 12 years ago today that KarateForums.com launched! Every year we note this milestone and every year the passage of time becomes more and more crazy. I'm tremendously grateful for the longevity that we have been able to achieve and it is because of a community that has met a consistent standard of being helpful, friendly and respectful. Even when contentious subjects are discussed, even when we disagree, we can do so with courtesy. I find that, more and more, that is harder to achieve online, but that is what we offer here. It starts with creating a foundation and maintaining it and vital to that persistent maintenance is a dedicated team of people that helps to make it happen. I have had many great people over the years and the team has never been stronger. Thank you to Heidi (ninjanurse), Brian (bushido_man96), Danielle (DWX), Alex (tallgeese), Bob (sensei8), Gareth (Harkon72), Noah (Wastelander) and Devin (Lupin1) for your efforts and support. I am very proud of what we produce on a daily basis. Thank you to everyone who has positively contributed to this community and all of the members that visit regularly and derive enjoyment from it and simultaneously create enjoyment for others. It's impossible to list them all, but people it's like mal103, ShoriKid, JusticeZero, xo-karate, MasterPain, ps1, FangPwnsAll7 and brickshooter, just to name a few of many, many people. Thank you all! To that end, I wanted to take this as an opportunity to note that we have a major milestone approaching: 500,000 posts as a community. As I write this post, we are sitting at 493,991. Before long, we'll reach 500,000. We've got some plans in the mix, but I wanted to ask you if you had any ideas for how we could celebrate. Specifically things that we can host here on the site, retrospective information we can provide, etc. I'd love to hear your ideas, either on this thread or via private message. Thank you for reading and, once again, thank you for being a part of this community. Sincerely, Patrick

Hey Angel Ariz. Welcome.

Good luck, FangPwnsAll7.

Congrats.