This month marks CadetStuff's 2nd anniversary. Two whole years. It seems like just a couple months ago I was writing the one year retrospective, and now I'm looking back at two years of work. Man, where does the time go, when the waves turn the minutes to hours? Oh, wait, sorry. Gordon Lightfoot on the radio.

Before I go any farther, and before you hit the 'Back' button to find something more interesting to read, I'd like to take some time to thank CadetStuff Staffers who make this happen, but rarely come up for air:

• Dan Routier: Dano provides the core infrastructure that CadetStuff lives on. That's the servers and the connection to the internet. Without Dano CadetStuff simply wouldn't happen because you guys eat bandwidth like a S'member at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Thanks, Dano!
• Derrell Lipman: Derrell provides the URL, DNS and mail services we rely on to make sure you can get where we want you to go. Always ready to jump through a hoop at a moment's notice: thanks, Derrell!
• Christopher Kovacs: "Toph" has been the deep technical consultant for this mess. Whenever we've painted ourselves into a technical corner, Toph has arrived like Wu Ping with a wire-fighting system to lift us over and get us out while the paint dried (or something like that). Thanks, Toph!

So, there, in no particular order are the behind-the-scenes heros that make CadetStuff live, breath and jump. It's just like the army: for every guy at the pointy-end of the spear getting the all the press, there are a bunch of guys quietly making sure he has the support he needs to get the job done. Thanks again for keeping us at the pointy-end, guys! Ouch! Watch where you're pointin' that thing!

Now, I won't bore you with a rehashing of the last two years here on the site. You can go here and read all about the first year. That's already on record and I'm far too lazy to retype it.

Over the last year, however, we've seen some significant changes to our site, even if outwardly it doesn't appear so (hence the need to thank our behind-the-scenes tech folk profusely).

In August, we made a transition from our original Front Page-based website to a web-based package called "Movable Type." The net effect of this transition was to allow us to concentrate more on the content of the site, the words you read on these pages, and less on the mechanics of getting that content actually onto the pages. Our readers would have seen little difference (apart from a significantly more obtuse URL, of course -Editor) to the overall site, but behind the scenes it certainly streamlines our production process from an "author, create, deploy, check, deploy" process requiring multiple applications (FrontPage, a shell connection, etc) to an "author, create, check, deploy" method via a strictly web interface. Much, much easier to deal with.

In September, one of our original staffers, tech lead Matt Johnson, left us for other opportunities. Never ones to miss a beat, however, we jumped right into a transition to the database-based version of MovableType and a titantic upgrade to the immensely popular CadetStuff Forums. Both of these efforts consumed dozens of hours between myself and others like CadetLife Editor (and pseudo tech-geek) Jerry Horn and Features Editor/Occasional Programmer Shawn Stanford. Next up after the forums upgrade came the introduction of the newly revamped CadetLife photo gallery, including a nice tight integration with the CadetStuff forums user database. After that, we were forced to eat Robin's minstrels, and there was much rejoicing! Yay!

In the interim, the popularity of CadetStuff has climbed significantly. Alexa, the internet's largest web indexing engine, currently ranks CadetStuff as the 60,280th most popular site on the internet, ahead of even National Headquarters (80,532) or FL Wing's popular CAPBoard (79,028). Whoo hoo! We're hip, we're cool, we're popular!

And after two years, we're still here!

So the question remains: where do we go from here?

As part of our original "charter," CadetStuff was intended to encompass all things "cadet," not just Civil Air Patrol cadets. JROTC, military schools, Naval Sea Cadets, that sort of thing. We've not really gotten off the CAP dime as far as that goes. We do frequently get questions and in for "Doctor Drill" from our sister services and cadet programs, but by and large, we're still a CAP show. And that needs to change.

We're also currently looking at launching a sister site, SARStuff.org, to encompass SAR-related articles and forums, much like Scott Lanis' CAP-ES.net, and including many of Scott's outstanding resources. That effort is ongoing, and as soon as we work out some technical issues, our sister site will be up and running.

However, its important to note that, as our Features Editor Shawn Stanford has been rather fond of saying all along: "Content is King, baby!" (I honestly thought he was saying "Hail to the King, baby!" and I kept looking around for Bruce Campbell. -Editor) And in the long run, that's what CadetStuff is about: providing you with the tools, ideas, techniques, and resources to accomplish your cadet program goals.

So our challenge to you, dear readers, is to write for CadetStuff. Put pen to paper. Fingers to keyboard. Nose to grindstone. Oh, wait, that's reminder for me. Help create some of that content you like to read. This stuff doesn't drop out of the sky like the blue ice from a jet liner, you know. Someone has to create it. And that someone could be you!

Pick a subject and write us an article. We'll even help you! Send us your articles (via e-mail is much, much preferable) and we'll go over them with a fine tooth comb. Our semi-skilled, barely-literate, knuckle-dragging editors will look at your grammar, punctuation, sentence structure and composition, and proceed to tell you that your parents are wasting their tax dollars on your public school education. Oh, OK, maybe not quite that thorough of an analysis.

Afraid to write for publication? Don't worry, we're not going to grade you. Mark a big "F" on your paper, and a big "L" on your forehead? No, that's just not our style. But we will help you write in a way that gets your message across in the most effective manner.

Trust us, you're not going to walk down the street in your town and have cars slow down and point, or hear whispers at the malt shoppe like "Hey, that's the guy who wrote that article for CadetStuff!" But you could become a world-renowned author, on par with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway, or Danielle Steele, even, all because of us. Then again, maybe not.

The last two years have been a wild ride, indeed. Lets see what we come up with next!