#witnessthis - Because ... Reasons

Yes, in a manner of speaking. Everyone went through their withdrawals this week as some account that went by the name of @nijeah (ironically is @haejin backwards - also a 'crypto-analyst'), decided to power down only during the process - ended up having negative vests. That caused an unexpected glitch which froze the blockchain (as it is designed to do when an anomaly appears - malicious or otherwise) and gave us all some really itchy fingers.

Be glad it halted, that means all of your information was kept securely on the blockchain and no one could remove anything. I have to give props to the people that did their best to resolve the issue including @pfunk, @drakos (who is now a top 20 witness - go give him props when you can) and @someguy123. I stayed up ALL NIGHT waiting for the patch to make sure I did my part to assist in the smooth sailing of our lovely technology.

Most people's transitions went fairly smoothly, including my protege @jatinhota. I was even in Steem.chat per @guiltyparties suggestion, and followed the first set of commands that was dished out for the witness nodes. None doing. Mine kept locking up. So I waited for Jat to let me know when @someguy123 had his docker version situated and then again, none doing. So I asked him what the deal was and it turns out I had to clear any shared files and then replay the entire blockchain. That is very time consuming and I missed another three blocks before I was back up and running again.

Yes, I missed five last week because I changed all my keys. Was NOT my intention as some asshat with the ID @lostkey decided it would be funny to rob my family's account, @thealliance. It was quickly recovered but despite his bullshit white hat claims, he never returned our funds. Which, led me to changing all my keys, as previously stated. I thought I did it right, three times, but it turns out, as I dug deeper into my witness, that I had overlooked another configuration file that was causing it to hiccup and forcing me to miss blocks on my turn. Fixed now, everything is back up and running as it should be.

My family. This is my baby here on STEEM. Barely walking now. You want to know what I contribute as a witness? Aside from promoting and fostering things like @minnowbootcamp, @mbc-meps, @photocontests, @poetsunited, @welcomewagon, @ramblingradio, @adsactly, @freewritehouse, #steemsilvergold, #steemusa, @spl, @youarehope, @tarc and is that enough? The list does go on, I promise.

As for The Alliance, I really do love these people. They all came together so fast to recover the account and recoup our losses. THANK YOU EVERYBODY. Everyone knows coming in what they're about to be exposed to and it's not for everyone. Spreading the love is hard with some of the inane focus' on negativity. That's not how STEEM grows. Well, at least not how we envision it. We are the change we wish to see in the world (ask @jackmiller if you don't know what that means) and we stay true to ourselves in the process.

It would appear that several witnesses have either just not upgraded to the new soft fork or just don't care enough to do it. Heck even a few have backed out altogether like @jerrybanfield. I'll give all the ones I am voting for until Saturday night to make the change and if they have not done so, I will remove any votes I have placed for ones that aren't actively securing our chain. I have had problems too, takes a few days some times. But you are a witness. People here rely on you. STeeM oN my peoples, and remember to BE YOU!