I am very happy to announce that darryl and Konrad have accepted the role of forum moderator.
With Roxanne in Asia and me on the west coast we now have much better coverage around the clock.

If you have been on the forum for any length of time I am sure you are familiar with their contributions and I think they will make additions to our staff.

Welcome to the team guys!

Dave

I don't know darryl really at all, but I think Konrad is an obvious and perfect choice!

Good choices. Thanks for your contribution guys!

While his post count is not massive his member number (#8!) is lower than both katsmom and Sandy and so one can say he's been around for quite some time and well known to the members of the forum staff (Sandy, sausage, Jin, Rox and myself).

Dave

Congratulations Guys! I know you'll do a fantastic job while Dave and I sleep.

You guys sleep?

Konradulations!

Thanks for the warm welcome to the new job!
I'll see if there is a reason to congratulate me

I was quite surprised, felt honoured and a bit frightened, when Sandy contacted me yesterday.
I'm by no means an "old hands" in the forum, I'm on board just a little bit longer than three years .
I recognize this forum as a great place and I appreciate the tone and style, how members communicate here, well for the most time, forget the few exceptions

One reason that I was hesitating first to accept Sandy's offer, is the language problem. I'll do my best, but you'll recognize quite often that English is not my mother tongue. It happened to me many times during the three years on the forum that I read new words or phrases and I couldn't understand anything.
Especially the more subtle aspects of English language can escape me sometimes.

For those who do not know me so far, here is a bit of personal background:
I'm a retired manager for computer developments, 66 years old and live with my wife in a little village in Upper Bavaria (Oberbayern), Germany.
Three adult kids are spread over the world. Two little granddaughters require much of the time of my wife and me.
The father of the grandchilds works in the U.S. and the mother has a full time job as a medical doctor in Munich.
This makes the current life of the family a bit complicated and that's why we help so often.
Naturally, our daughter will go the U.S. as well somewhen in the future and our life will become quieter again. We are not really looking forward to this quiet time, though.

I got hooked to the Rubik's Cube in the old ages, when it was called "Zauberwürfel" (Magic Cube) in Germany.
I never lost contact to twisty puzzles, but I was really astonished what developments had taken place, when I found this forum in 2008. I was a regular guest for a year or so and joined in September 2009.
The forum had half the number of members as of today.
My collection has exploded since as well. OK, it is still small compared with others, but my wife has little understanding for the fact that puzzlers need always "just one more puzzle".

Happy puzzling!

EDIT: As you could see, darryl felt honored and I felt honoured So, yes, my orthography is British English by intention. I learned old Greek and Latin at school and the litle bit English was BE.

Additional remark to our common hobby: I'm not a builder at all, I have only assembled and stickered DIY kits.
I had once the idea to look into 3D design, but I gave up when I recognized that Solidworks is so expensive for private use. Is this different in other countries?
I guess most designers here get access to Solidworks via university or school, right?
So I'm just a collecting solver or solving collector. My golden rule is: I'll buy a new puzzle only, if I have solved all I have got.
My puzzle count is 436 as of today and a few are on the way. (I used the Black Friday discount on Shapeways!)

EDIT2: I just looked up my member number (1401). It's only a bit higher than darryl's

I was typing BTW, the sidebar contains a lot of green right now

Great choices.
Where does Darryl live? What time zone is he covering?

-Doug

Thank you for the welcome! Like Konrad, when I was first asked, I was surprised, honored and frightened as well. I know I don't post here too often, but I do read the forum just about every day.

Since most people don't know me too well, I'll tell you a bit about myself. I was a forum member back when Wayne was running the Twisty Megasite forum way back before 3D printing was ever considered for puzzles. I started seriously collecting puzzles back in college (mid to late 90's). I was more into wire disentanglement puzzles and actually ordered the entire catalog from http://www.puzzles.ca. Then in my quest for new puzzles, I stumbled upon the Twisty Megasite which was really just a few people that would discuss modifying existing puzzles. I was completely blown away by that. Looking back though, I it should have seemed obvious that you could modify puzzles. I actually did this back in the 80's - my grandparents had a pocket Rubik's cube, I found it too hard to solve, so I took it apart and removed the corners and put it back together. If I turned it carefully, it would still function. To this day, that is just about my extend of modifying puzzles.

Really, I am more of a collector. In fact I would venture to say I have the largest amount of puzzles on this forum... if measuring by volume that is. In my avatar, you can see one of my cats peeking into the partially taken apart 8 cubic foot Rubik's cube. By number I would say I have about 1000 puzzles about which maybe 1/3 or so are twisty puzzles.

Aside from puzzles, I'm a food scientist by day. I develop soups, sauce and gravy mixes for restaurants. I live in the Chicago area, so I'm on the CST (GMT-6). I have a wife and four cats (she had two, I had two so now we have four), no kids, she isn't as into puzzles, but does enjoy playing with the new puzzles at the IPP's.

Also I am not afraid to use my new weapon called THE BAN HAMMER!!! Seriously though, I will strive to do my best and even if you don't see many posts from me, know that I am still lurking in the background helping to keep the site running smooth.

-d