Every year about this time, I sit back and hope that the site doesn't make it to 50 years.

Not that I don't want to keep doing the site ... it's just that I am eventually going to run out of things to say on each and every one of our anniversaries.

Today is Aug. 13, 2010, and 12 years ago to this day, our site launched as Syfyman's World, later to become SyFy World, and then SyFy Portal, and finally Airlock Alpha. Twelve years, not a long time in people years, but an eternity for the Internet, and something I feel always is worth celebrating, whether I have something to say about it or not.

However, let me put it in a bit of perspective. On Aug. 13, 1998, Bill Clinton was still denying he had an affair with Monica Lewinsky (he would finally admit it six days later). The new karate kid, Jaden Smith, was barely a month old. "Halloween: H20" and "Snake Eyes" were already in theaters, and the day after Airlock Alpha launched, moviegoers would get to see "The Avengers" and "How Stella Got Her Groove Back."

Yahoo! was three years old. AOL was 15 years old (if you count the old Q-Link days). Taylor Lautner was 6 years old, while Zsa Zsa Gabor was celebrating 81 years.

Wikipedia, where I got all this information, was a twinkle in Jimmy Wales' eye (it would be founded as Nupedia two years later), and Google -- which you probably used to find this site when you did a search on "Taylor Lautner" -- wouldn't even be founded for another three weeks.

Facebook? Six years away. MySpace? Five years away. The iPod? It would debut three years later.

I was 22 years old when I put together the first HTML coding that created the cornerstone of Airlock Alpha. I was in the back room of my parents' house in Zephyrhills, Fla. My girlfriend had just left me because I decided to buy a computer from Gateway instead of an engagement ring for her (do you blame her?). My best friend, who inspired me to create the site because he had a site dedicated to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, told me I was crazy to try and start this, and that no one would be interested in my site. And all the science-fiction news of the time came from two real places: Star Trek Central and TrekWeb.

Maybe it was crazy for me to start the site then. I knew very little about how to program sites, but I did know how to write news. I did know how to market, and my marketing strategy -- get other sites to link to me based on my content -- was something that would take us from a handful of visitors in our first few weeks, to hundreds each day by our sixth month.

Now we're three sites, a radio show, regular videos online, and hungry for more.

Our new look, our new approach, and our renewed dedication to you, our readers, should be evident in the past several weeks, and it's not going to end here. By our 13th anniversary, I want Airlock Alpha to be the place you, your friends, your family, even your in-laws go to first on the Internet. Where you get the news you're looking for, and the news you didn't even know you wanted to read.

Over the years, we have picked up an amazing staff -- I think it's something like 20 people now -- and to me, they're the best of the best. Programming and design (Shane Churchman and Nick Chase), our editors (Bryant Griffin, Alan Stanley Blair, Michele Lellouche), our columnists, our news writers, everyone. And there is only one person we can thank for all this: You.

You are why we do everything we do. You are why we stay inspired to do what we do. You are why I spend hours every other week producing a radio show. You are the reason I have nearly 17,000 tweets @airlockalpha in less than two years. And You are why all of us are here.

So thank You. Sincerely. From the deepest part of my heart.

When I am out and about, and people recognize me, or realize who I am when they hear my name, it's flattering. But it's never been about me. It's about Airlock Alpha. It's about our philosophy, our approach, and the fact that you can write to me, and you'll get a response directly from me. Try getting that from the head of Google, or especially Taylor Lautner.

It won't happen there, but it does happen here. And why? Because we know who we should be beholden to ... and it's You.