The process to move back to the .com name has been messy and more complicated that it should have been. Before I give you the update and where we are and our options for moving back to .com let’s have a little History Lesson for everyone who might not have been around in the early days of SOH.
There used to be a thread here at SOH that detailed our history pretty well. I can’t find it right now. It may have been lost in the 2008 crash. What follows is our history as I remember it using Canelo Kids “SOH History” from our home page as a general guide. If anyone remembers details differently, please add them. I will gladly be corrected.
1995 Air-America with Warbirds Library opened up on Geocities. I am not sure what they supported or what files were made available. What I do remember is being told they got kicked off for using too much bandwidth in the downloads. They bounced from host to host for a few years.
November 5, 1998 CombatFS ‘CFC’ opens including the Warbird’s Library. The original owner of this site started it and then went offline. During the time he was gone CK, Ickie Tekworm, Henry and a few others not noted here ran the site. They continued until the original owner figured out he had a successful website that he could make a profit off of. He returned and promptly kicked off all of the members who were currently running the site. Leaving himself as the only person in charge.
This took us to Septer 6th 2001 when Tekworm, CK, Ickie, Henry and the other admins setup Sim-Outhouse.com. They made an agreement with each other that the hostile takeover they just went through would never happen again. CK purchased the forum software and maintained the licensing, Ickie purchased the server and found our hosting location, Tekworm bought the domain name. The other Admins were the new admins of the new site.
By separating out the site no one person could gain full sole control.
This worked well for many years. Then the inevitable started happening. Ickie was the first of the Founding Fathers to pass away in 2016. Tekworm died in 2021. CK has not been on the site for a few years and his status is unknown.
Ron partially prepared for his departure. I had been taking care of the server for a number of years prior to his death. He was working on the financial side of things. Only weeks before he died he requested that when something happened to him that I take over the financial side as well.
We knew we would have an issue with the domain name as we had been trying to contact Tek for years. Email addresses and phone numbers at this point were all dead ends. I actually had the .com portal login credentials given to me by Ickie but found out they did not work after his death.
This year we started looking for Teks family. Thanks to Tom Clayton’s work we found his daughters. I was able to talk to Katelyn Tek’s daughter. Things were looking up, we could finally get the domain name issue resolved. What we needed is Tek’s death certificate and a letter letting us gain access to the control panel. There were some concerns on her part that we might not be who we said we were are so she was checking us out. I understand that completely.
Meanwhile as time goes on the domain name is due to expire September 7, 2024. Our plan prior to contacting Tek’s family and it was not a good one was to let the domain expire. Wait out the 70 days of grace period and then hope to purchase the domain name before anyone else did within the next 1 to 7 days which is when it would randomly and suddenly appear available for purchase.
Having made contact with Katelyn I renewed the domain name for another year.
Now comes the more complicated part. Kately lives in Ashville North Carolina. It was effectively wiped off the map from the Hurricane a number of weeks ago. I have not gotten word if she is ok or any response from her cell phone. At this point I am not concerned about the domain name just primarily want to know she and the rest of her family are safe. I know they are probably going though some really tough times right now.
This is where we currently are.
There used to be a thread here at SOH that detailed our history pretty well. I can’t find it right now. It may have been lost in the 2008 crash. What follows is our history as I remember it using Canelo Kids “SOH History” from our home page as a general guide. If anyone remembers details differently, please add them. I will gladly be corrected.
1995 Air-America with Warbirds Library opened up on Geocities. I am not sure what they supported or what files were made available. What I do remember is being told they got kicked off for using too much bandwidth in the downloads. They bounced from host to host for a few years.
November 5, 1998 CombatFS ‘CFC’ opens including the Warbird’s Library. The original owner of this site started it and then went offline. During the time he was gone CK, Ickie Tekworm, Henry and a few others not noted here ran the site. They continued until the original owner figured out he had a successful website that he could make a profit off of. He returned and promptly kicked off all of the members who were currently running the site. Leaving himself as the only person in charge.
This took us to Septer 6th 2001 when Tekworm, CK, Ickie, Henry and the other admins setup Sim-Outhouse.com. They made an agreement with each other that the hostile takeover they just went through would never happen again. CK purchased the forum software and maintained the licensing, Ickie purchased the server and found our hosting location, Tekworm bought the domain name. The other Admins were the new admins of the new site.
By separating out the site no one person could gain full sole control.
This worked well for many years. Then the inevitable started happening. Ickie was the first of the Founding Fathers to pass away in 2016. Tekworm died in 2021. CK has not been on the site for a few years and his status is unknown.
Ron partially prepared for his departure. I had been taking care of the server for a number of years prior to his death. He was working on the financial side of things. Only weeks before he died he requested that when something happened to him that I take over the financial side as well.
We knew we would have an issue with the domain name as we had been trying to contact Tek for years. Email addresses and phone numbers at this point were all dead ends. I actually had the .com portal login credentials given to me by Ickie but found out they did not work after his death.
This year we started looking for Teks family. Thanks to Tom Clayton’s work we found his daughters. I was able to talk to Katelyn Tek’s daughter. Things were looking up, we could finally get the domain name issue resolved. What we needed is Tek’s death certificate and a letter letting us gain access to the control panel. There were some concerns on her part that we might not be who we said we were are so she was checking us out. I understand that completely.
Meanwhile as time goes on the domain name is due to expire September 7, 2024. Our plan prior to contacting Tek’s family and it was not a good one was to let the domain expire. Wait out the 70 days of grace period and then hope to purchase the domain name before anyone else did within the next 1 to 7 days which is when it would randomly and suddenly appear available for purchase.
Having made contact with Katelyn I renewed the domain name for another year.
Now comes the more complicated part. Kately lives in Ashville North Carolina. It was effectively wiped off the map from the Hurricane a number of weeks ago. I have not gotten word if she is ok or any response from her cell phone. At this point I am not concerned about the domain name just primarily want to know she and the rest of her family are safe. I know they are probably going though some really tough times right now.
This is where we currently are.
