Behind the RedSoloCup
Hi, long-time player, first time poster here. I wanted to express a most heartfelt "farewell" to Andrew Krug. It's not really a farewell given we will always be friends IRL, but there's a certain special finality here as he leaves his position with Niantic. He and I have had a long history together as teammates, as community moderators both for the local Enlightened and cross-faction communities, as co-creators of the Youtube channel, Behind the Scanner, and colleagues for projects like the anomaly livestreams in Brooklyn and San Diego.
I first met him in person when I was a freshly minted Level 8 on April 1, 2013. One of my mentors had asked if I'd be interested in partaking in a special mission with him and RedSoloCup. RSC was a long-time legend in the community and I'd hear crazy tales from the other senior players about him. Of course I jumped at the chance! We met at the almost-as-legendary "Hippo portal" at George Washington University. It was a treasured location for Resistance Agent Spliao and his "Drunken Hippo crew" where we dropped as many keys and level 1 resonators on top of the portal as we could. Back then, there wasn't any special indicator for portals and you could actually bury them under gear before the portal could be accessed and captured. Andrew was also known to have a sticker of the green Android guy, Bugdroid, on his truck and once he realized he actually had one of the toys with him, he couldn't resist placing it in the hippos mouth. To this day, I'm actually not sure Spliao and the hippos' reaction -- or even if they noticed it at all the next morning -- but I doubt they had as many laughs as we did, especially since it would have been April 2 when they would have seen our presents and not the actual April Fools Day, when we did our prank.
Anyway, a virtual toast to you, Andrew! I'll post a few more memories in the comments. Look forward to more in the future! xoxoxo

Comments
Proof of the no hard feelings, a bunch of us Enlightened at Spliao's farewell party when he moved away a few years ago.
That time he saved my **** when I ran out of gas right before a build at Fort Belvoir. He rushed around base and off-base to find a gas can, but he found one and got to me in time so we could make the build before sunset.
Back when BTS wasn't about KPop
Even before he started working for Niantic, the man was a legend with his own media. I once spammed his house with a big dump of of them on his birthday.
Meeting up with Linda Besh and Agent PowrUp in the way way back
Finally meeting AgentKelly and Fevenis in person at the Oakland anomaly, right before Andrew started with Niantic.
Celebrating the first anniversary of the first non-Google Level 8 portal (that we knew of) in Annapolis, MD
2 girls 1 RedSoloCup
Out on the town with Jorge, our other co-host in Toronto.
Setting up for the Brooklyn anomaly livestream. I don't know if it was hotter in there or outside, but I do know that all the Itoen green tea kept making me ****.
Another behind the scenes from the Brooklyn livestream. For as many hours as we were on the air, you wouldn't believe how many hours we worked off-air.
Behind the scenes at the San Diego livestream. A huge upgrade from Brooklyn when it was just 5 of us.
Behind the stage at the first Pokemon GO Fest in Chicago with the LittleDuoCups
Us at the Arlington Line where he established the first local mission
This was my first ever xfac event, about a month and a half after I started playing. I had no idea who anyone was, but Krug introduced himself, handed me some biocards for himself and BTS (the first cards I had ever seen), and we chatted for a bit about some things we had in common. This was the first time I learned that frogs are people too.
Andrew inspiring the troops before our very first anomaly, Cassandra
Doing a panel at MaGFest. Andrew was showing Intel to the audience and we had no idea what some of our teammates were up to.
At the Persepolis anomaly victory party
Oh we had a couple good chuckles and cursed under our breath alright =p
Happy trials, RSC!
Spliaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Oh yeah, that time we all made it on the Ingress Wikipedia page! @spliao, you're in this too!
It's so nice to read these stories. It sure jogs a lot of my own memories. You guys have always been such great pillars of the community and inspirations to agents like myself. Good luck in your ventures, RedSoloCup! It's great to hear from you MissParker! =)
Pretty sure this kind of behavior now would result in "Keeping Ingress fun" email and failure of the mantra treat others with respect.🙄