Congrats Kevin for first Savant in Excel Zone...

How are mere mortals to compete?

Congratulations through misty eyes, (mist is green isn't it?)

Chris

Congrats Kevin on a monumental achievement.  

Regards

Dave

I'm particularly impressed that you seem to have hit 10m exactly! Now that's professionalism of the highest order. :)

Congratulations, and I hope you get a huge pay rise.

Rory

>Congratulations, and I hope you get a huge pay rise.
Matching EE Savant shorts.

:) There's a picture I didn't need in my head!

Keep it down...I don't want my wife to find out...I'm in enough trouble as it is.

>I'm particularly impressed that you seem to have hit 10m exactly! Now that's professionalism of the highest order. :)
I have friends and a lack of humility: http:Q_23828604.html#a22755137

>Keep it down...I don't want my wife to find out...I'm in enough trouble as it is

Kevin i thought you would be throwing a party...but after your above statment i doubt that....

well, I had to remember this one:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Game/Q_23654024.html#a22453879

I could extract this sentence
<...> {some expert name goes here} the nerdiest nerd of the nerds who  <...> has more points than anyone <...> of {any} other Excel guys ...

anyhow, good work

Congratulations Kevin,

Even without the hard-earned and deserved points, quite a few of your answers are worth Savant status on their own merits.

Keep on bringing joy and brains to the Excel zone.

Thomas

Congrats Kev Kev, 10M is a huge accomplishment.  -Jim

Woohoo!!!

Nice job, Kevin :-)

Kevin:

You have always inspired me to greatness.  I miss our playful banter while learning more about Excel than I ever thought possible.  I am glad that I had the opportunity to work with you helping solve so many problems through the years.  I know I have been away, but you will never be forgotten.  I would never be where I am today without the advice, assistance and knowledge I acquired from you.  Thank you for helping me and thank you for being my friend.  Congratulations!  You deserve it!  I cannot wait to see you become a Legend.  Keep up the incredible work!

Kindest Regards,

Jaes W Overley

I've been competing and collaborating with Kevin since he first became active on the site five years ago. It's been a pleasure the entire time. Since his day job is developing Office applications for people, I often learn something from the way he approaches a problem.

I think most of us would prefer not to look at some of our earlier threads--ones before we learned the tricks and acquired the all the good coding practices. Some of us take more time to catch on than others--brettdj may recall it taking months to break me of the habit of declaring variables as Integer, for example. Kevin is singular in the speed at which he picks up new things. I remember the threads when he learned about SUMPRODUCT formulas and using regular expressions in VBA. In each case, there was a period of an hour or two when he realized there was new material to study--and then he posted something in that same thread which indicated mastery of the topic.

I enjoy the repartee with Kevin in threads and off-line correspondence. He uses self-deprecatory wit to good advantage. How could you possibly stay mad at someone who describes himself as a goof?

Let's hear a cheer for Kevin. Woohoo!

Brad

Kevin,

I hope that's not true, but it sounds all too plausible to me. If it is, you will be very sorely missed indeed!! It's been reassuring (and occasionally disturbing) to know that you are always around, night or day.

But can I have your knowledgebase either way? ;)

Saurabh, you have a lot of slack to pick up, so it's now no more than 5 minutes sleep a day for you! ;)

Rory

Kevin...

Understand things have been hard at your end...and you have been taking about retirement lately..but some how or other i have the feeling that you still gonna manage like you have done so far...and surely gonna miss you here incase if you are not here.....

Rory...

Dont you touch that knowledge base thats mine...i asked him way before to give it to me...so now im just expecting it to come it my way and im already sleeping for 4 hours only...and 5 minutes uff...man thanx for being so generous that letting me sleep for that much time... ;-)

Saurabh...

Kevin,

I hope you come back at some point, we can't afford to lose the guy who is the base of the Excel TA pyramid  ..... or maybe that's arse about and I should say at the top of the Excel TA ziggurat. Anyhow, you get the drift.

I think I understand where you are coming from. By the time I simultaneously finished my addin (an obsession that gradually  became a chore) and lurched across the Genius line (with an order of magnitude less questions answered than you), I was pretty much over Excel, VBA in particular to the point where I didn't touch it for two years. And full time EE at home is not conducive to good family life, especially with small children and frequent business trips.  Enough about me

You have to do what's best for you and your family, so best wishes in your EE retirement   .... on the plus side, it's a lot more enjoyable getting back into the swing of things after a good break. So I trust you will come back refreshed at some point

Best wishes Kevin, you'll be missed

Regards

Dave

(In lieu of my non-use of a Messenger product)

[ http://www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/Savant%20Syndrome.htm ]
"Savants are people who despite serious mental or physical disability have quite remarkable, and sometimes spectacular, talents"

I always said you were mad to spend so much time here! ;)

...but if you are also on the autistic spectrum then perhaps we have more in common than we realised to date :)

Well done in any respect, buddy.

BFN,

fp.

If anyone is a Kevin Bloody Wilson fan, they will know the only possible response to the presence of a Kevin and a Nigel in the same place...

Kevin

Sorry at the idea that you may be going ... but perhaps after an initial lull you'll sneak back in occasionally ... if only to police us dregs , (i'm hoping i've achieved that lofty level) :o)

Chris

I had a dream. The Excel zone went to hell in a handbasket (handcart). There were bozos everywhere.

So I went to my wife and said "Look, dear, Obama is our man and, with a wee bit of luck, in a few days the world will be a happier place. But the Excel zone...I'm worried: http:Q_23835174.html#a22773469 ."

She said "Honey, you're a dick and a douche and I love you, but the world needs us."

I'm not sure what she has in mind but I decided to come back to help solve the world's Excel problems (http:Q_21407772.html) and beat up silly Askers (http:Q_23496065.html).

Or, depending on your perspective, entertain and steal points.

Looks like my shenanigans brought some trolls out from under the bridge!

So stop all your dancing and reveling, I'm not done being a dick and a douche. But I might take the day off.

Sounds like a Cher farewell tour to me...

Welcome back, I'm looking forward to some additional edification (and point stealing).

Thomas

Somehow I missed this!

Kevin, your accomplishment boggles the mind.  I remember trying, briefly and in vain, to hold you off as you rose up the ranks on the Excel leaderboard.  I put up a good fight--for about 15 minutes or so :)  You rocketed past me and never looked back, eventually doing what had once seemed unthinkable: passing Brad to take the overall lead, now having a comfortable cushion of ~2.4 MM points.  (I once made the mistake of projecting that you might--**might**--pass Brad in 17 years or some such nonesense, based on rates of point accumulation at the time :)

There is nothing I can write about your technical abilities that hasn't been written before; you very often comes up with solutions that just leave me speechless.  I have learned so much from interacting with you, in EE questions and offline, that it is fair to say that you are in a large measure responsible for my own growth as an Excel developer.

You have also made outstanding contributions to EE as a mentor of rising Experts.  I know of several Experts--some still active, some not--whom you took under your wing, giving them guidance and encouragement, so that they too could find their stride and become assets to our little community.

So, for all that, I say "Huzzah!", and heartily congratulate you on becoming a Savant!  I'll join you there someday; about 2015 or so :)

Patrick

The infamous "Kevin will pass Brad" post:

http://www.experts-exchange.com/Q_21587433.html#15082338

Thank you for your kind words Patrick.

I passed Brad only because he made a choice to limit his Experts Exchange involvement and to focus on his career which has been more than a little interesting the past few years. If he would have remained where he was I doubt I would the first Savant. And your estimate of 17 years was probably on the conservative side.

The only reason Rory isn't ahead of me is I had a huge head start and, for some strange reason, he decided to work another site while waiting for the cake to bake. Something tells me he isn't done cleaning our clocks.

But, as many of you know, what keeps us here for the long run is not the points but the learning and companionship. And there is still plenty of both.

So I'm not leaving you bozos to mind the store for too long. And someone has to keep Saurabh's training wheels greased.

I'm a little uneasy the admins and mods are showing up here...it usually means someone is misbehaving ;-)

Kevin