I started this site 7 or 8 years ago with a friend of mine but through the Jigs and reels, I now am the sole owner.

OffDaRock or ODR as its known have seen some great success and a few rough times, In the early days we got hacked and the database compromised, We've had our hosting company lose our database and ALL our members data and a few other setbacks.

Earlier this year, we had over 1000 registered members in the Virtual Kitchen, we were on the first page of google if you typed in almost anything regarding Newfoundland or Labrador, there were tonnes of jokes, articles, ghost stories etc in the database, Now its all gone.

I was between two minds ifI was gonna start over (again) or just let ODR die. It was summertime, I was enjoying my motorcycle and honestly couldnt be bothered messing hour after hour messing around with a website that takes so much of my time.

O.K. honestly, I did'nt want to walk away but I did'nt want to work at it either.  But I started working on a new version, better version but I was not finding the time to dedicate to it. 

I would get emails time to time from members, "hey craig, when is ODR coming back", or "Hey Buddy, I know your busy but I miss all my friends on ODR, just wondering when its commin back online". When I would get one of the said messages, I would work for a day or two on the site and then lose interest (again).

Then a few weeks ago a Member and friend (BigBadClif) started a facebook group regarding the site. And I thought, wow, people really do miss it, so I better get of me arse and do something about it, That weekend I had the site up and running (again). Sure, we dont have all the content we had, we dont have the members we use to have (yet) but we have the site and we got the friendships that we fostered earlier in full bloom again.

Last year, the gang at ODR got together virtually an adopted a family for Christmas. We had tonnes of members, lots of time to plan and Sonya, Vance and their two darling children dressed as elves executed it brilliantly. It was something we planned to do each year but.

But as I mentioned, we were down almost all year and had no members. Again, if memory serves me BigBadCliff brought up the OffDaRock Angels Fund and adopting another family.  I threw in my two cents and said I thought we would have to skip it this year. Cliff didnt want to hear that, neither did Sonya and Lakey so ODR Angels Year 2 got setup and money started rolling in. Not as much as last year but for the amount of members we had I was more than impressed and touched.

Sonya has a young lady picked out whom she located vicariously through former co-workers. This young lady, is a student, mom and always trying to help other people. Sounds like a deserving person to me.

Im looking forward to reading Sonya's story this year and how everything went, If you want to know more about Sonya, click on "A Day In Any Life" in the colums section in the left, ther you can read also about how the ODR Angels went last year.

I hope you enjoy the site, drop back often and if you want to chat with a group of great cyber friends who in many cases become real life friends, consider signing up in the Virtual Kitchen

Thanks

Craig Wiseman

ps. Its late and I didnt proof read and I'm a horrible typist so there are probably 1000 typos...