Thank you notes

I'm sitting here writing overdue thank you notes to my brother and sister-in-law, as well as to the friends of theirs who offered me a refuge from the madness that is DFW airport.

It occurred to me that I'm rather overdue to write a thank you note to the CSB and its members as well.

To start with, once upon a time I posted at Cafe Dartre on "The Cartalk section at cars.com," as Tom and Ray say at least once a week. Good posts, good topics, great people. Then someone at CD posted a link to the Darwin awards, and wandering around that site, I found they had forums as well. There were all the things I liked about CD, and a format I found more comfortable and easy to use.

I met many wonderful people at the DAF, and it was three of them who were instrumental in my starting to post at the CSB. Loki was the one who brought it to my attention, and told me what a neat place it was, and something of the history of the board, such as it was then (I think it was about 6 months old at that point). Norea and tyro talked me through registering at EZBoard, a process which had me almost in tears of frustration, as a very slow server combined with a very slow internet connection on my end caused an awful lot of timeouts.

Eventually, I succeeded in registering, and have been posting ever since, allowing for an interruption or two when I had trouble finding an ISP I could afford. I should and do thank Garaelb for his setting up and maintaining of the board. At this point, I'm going to stop naming people, mostly because there is something to thank each of you for, and I'd rather make my points without a list of names. If you think you see yourself in a particular area, you're probably right...

To the members of the CyberSoapBox:

Thank you for the laughter. I can't count the number of times I have smiled, chuckled, laughed, giggled out loud while reading posts here.

Thank you for the information. I don't always manage to follow links, but I've learned a great deal about many subjects from things fellow posters have shared or linked to.

Thank you for the debate. I don't do it often, as I'm lousy at it, but when I do, thank you for being interesting and worthy opponents.

Thank you for showing me what grace is. Many times I have seen posters demonstrating this quality, and it has reminded me to at least try to show a little more of it myself.

Thank you for helping me stretch my writing skills, and for being patient with me while I do. I know that not all of the views of these articles come from my family, although they probably account for most of them...

Thanks to many of you for providing me with examples of great writing. There have been many times I have despaired of achieving the same level of skill, passion, and flow demonstrated by so many here, but I keep trying.

Thank you for supporting me. From a simple bad day, to a problem with a co-worker, to the black monster of depression, many of you have been there for me.

Thank you for sharing your lives. It's not always easy to reveal yourself, and many of you have done so.

Thank you for reminding me that the world is not always a safe, comfortable, happy place. I've read things here that deeply disturb me, but better that I know that such things are out there, as opposed to wrapping myself in cotton.

Thank you for the times we've worked as a group for a worthwhile goal. Whether it's voting for the CSB (do you realize we went from #166 to #7 in 2 days? :0 ) or trying to make peace, when we choose to work together, we usually do it well.

And thanks to all of you, for contributing to a place where I spend the bulk of my online time, mostly because if I could, I would throw a party for all of you, and find time to talk with each and every one of you.

Post long and prosper, folks...