I was "across the street".. you know the old place? and read a post last night that Robert (wa5cab) was mia. It's been a few months since anyone heard or seen any posts from him. I found it odd since quite some time has gone by and things were quiet, I thought. Shame really imho as he was really knowledgeable in all things Atlas. No one over there is talking, months have gone by and they, (admins), are still quiet. And that's fine if that's what they want. Just a shame to lose all that knowledge imo. And I only mention this, 'cause I am sure some of you might remember working with him over there.
I remember Robert very well. He was something of a no-nonsense kind of guy, and he did a great job of uploading and organizing all of the digital manuals, pdfs, plans, documents, etc., that are available in the downloads section over there.
They still have a strange way of dealing with things over there. Everything is a big secret all the time. Not a good way to be when you ask for money for memberships and claim to be a non-profit organization.
Thus breeds the question: What happened to Robert?? Sadly, I have no idea. He had no interest in communicating with the rest of us when things went south, and as he put it, he didn't want to be next. I get it, and that was okay with us, it was his choice to remain there. He was not elderly by any means, but he was retired at the time if I recall correctly. So, time may be catching up with him and he is enduring some sort of illness. Or, maybe there was a falling out between staff members and he has chosen to leave, or maybe is just turning his back on the whole mess. Who knows. I doubt that he passed away, because in most cases where a member passed on, it was freely shared with the membership, no matter the membership status at the time.
I hope he is okay and is maybe just taking a little break.
What I do know is that Robert could get cranky like all of us. He did share a peek behind the curtain a couple times and there were "bumps" that caused him some .. agitation" . He normally kept these to himself and tried to concern himself with his little corner of the site. There is a member of that site that did go visit and Robert is fine, he wasn't willing to share his feelings so all that is known for fact is he just wanted out. I figured that a few of you knew, or knew of him.
Thanks for sharing that, it's good to hear that he is okay.
I can understand the 'wanting out' feelings especially if a forum starts to take up too much of one's time. When I was a board member over there I started to feel that way and spoke up that I wanted out of that role. It was just too much.
Luckily this place is small enough that it can be managed easily by one person, but I still have to set up a second admin here just in case something happens to me. I hope to get that done before spring.
Had a conversation with Robert way back at the other place. He lived on the west side of Houston, not too far from one of my old long time customers I used to do business with. Sadly, his phone number got left behind back then.
I'm not fan of Atlas stuff, but I should have downloaded every thing he had uploaded over there. Never thought of it, he may have all of his stuff over in the Groups.io. I get a chance I may try to join the Atlas group provided there is one.
Update.
I tried to join the Atlas Lathe group.io. You have to wait until the group owner approves you. So far, no response.