The wheels have been in motion for some time now, so yesterday kind of slipped by without me noticing. But congratulations are in order for various friends in our corner of the aspiring DC media conspiracy: Kyle, Heather and Sommer are all stepping into new roles at DCist, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm looking forward to reading more music stuff from Kyle; to Heather having a larger hand in the site's direction; and to Sommer finally having access to the budget necessary to pay down her not-inconsiderable debt in promised milkshakes.

But of course I'm also very sad to see Ryan step down. I imagine Catherine and I will write some more weepy posts closer to his departure date, but for now, suffice it to say that the guy is pretty amazing. I think DCist has had an unbelievable string of luck with its editors. Rob and Mike's encyclopedic knowledge of the city, organizational skills and affability helped attract and sustain readers and writers. Then Martin and Ryan stepped in with a level of talent and dedication that bordered on masochism. Martin's sticking around (the knots seemed pretty secure, anyway), but Ryan's off to pursue his boyhood dreams of a PhD in economic history.

I have no doubt that Sommer is going to be great as an EIC, but we're all sad that Ryan won't be around to occasionally save us. The level of dedication the guy has shown is more than a little ridiculous (and a testament to Lisa's overwhelming patience). If a writer said, "I had a post saved on my hard drive, but my computer broke and I can't afford to fix it," I have no doubt that Ryan would immediately start figuring out how much blood plasma he had to sell to raise the money. Not that Sommer wouldn't do the same — but Ryan's taller, and therefore probably has more blood. That's an important trait for an editor.