On Monday, Victor Rehorst, list-dad for the NewtonTalk mailing list and founder of the United Network of Newton Archives announced that Grant Hutchinson would be taking over the roll of list-dad, ”... very very soon.” While he was at it, Victor stated that “Someone needs to take unna.org, now.”

After a few minutes, when the shock that Victor would be leaving his long-held posts had turned into an understanding that, after all, he’s been doing this for quite a long time and no longer actively uses his Newtons¹, I also came to the realization that I was highly interested in taking over UNNA personally. I took half the day to consider my other personal projects, time, resources, etc., and found myself thinking, “This needs to be done, and if I’m going to do it I need to act fast.” So I bit the bullet and notified Victor of my interest.

After a few days of discussions with other interested parties as well as me, he made his decision and handed the keys over to me. Forty-eight hours later and vermont.unna.org site is up and running on my Xserve, I’m considering where the main site will permanently reside, and am planning to fully migrate the DNS over sometime today. So, it’s official.

Of course, all this has come during some busy times at Small Dog and when I should really be paying my taxes, but it’s more than a worthy task. I still have mirrors.unna.org to get up and running, but I’ll easily beat the hard deadline of April 2nd once I get ahold of the data-set.

After that? I’ve got plans, but it’s too soon to even think about them. In the meantime, please be gentle with UNNA during the transition period.

In closing, I’m sure everyone will join me in thanking Victor for all his hard work and support over the past years. To quote Maurice in Waking Ned Devine: “You’ll be missed. You’ve done well.”

¹ He’s a PepperPad kind of guy now.