public apology

“again..."your" instead of "you're". darn fingers.”

“Nafai..

I didn't tell you to "Kiss my hairy ass".
I told you to give me a wet sloppy kiss under my mustache.

We, and I'm not using the royal "We" here..

....We, (I think I'm speaking for a lot of us; If not... I'll e-mail all of you my moon shots, and make you sick)....
.. mostly agree that when someone new to TT attempts the use of cynical sarcasim, humorous or otherwise, when directly addressing a specific individual in the written format without choosing the option of using italics to get the point across, can get him/herself grossly misunderstood.

You can piss people off pretty easily if you're not careful.

Ask 10 Bears about the short flame war we had when we were both new here.
We LOVE each other now!

Even bacpac and flamed the living-sh!t out of each other.

But today?

We love each other from a distance (bacpac, M'Dear, I'm only speaking for myself ...
maybe you only admire ! me...).

When you're a new arrival, it's wise to just go along with the program and pretend to be agreeable until everyone can interpret your way of expressing yourself.

Once you get your foot in the door, you're part of the family.

On the trail to happiness...

There are people here who have been around this place a lot longer than me.

I learned a lot from them at first about how to behave.

You just have to be civil until everyone gets to know you.

You also have to keep from indulging your own little stints at creative writing until your particular kind of expression is accepted.

Once that happens, you can go ahead and criticize, and then perhaps not have to worry about having all the locals jump in your face.

N....

You're as welcome here as anyone else.
We have all been new at one time or another.

This group is open, friendly, and generally pretty tolerant of damn near anything you can throw at them/us.

We range in age from teenagers to 70 somethings.
We're the Ultra-lights to the Heavyweights.
We drink, and we don't.
We come in a variety of colors and shapes, guns and none.
We believe in God or we don't.
Mostly, we like each other and stand up for each other, despite our personal opinions of contrary beliefs, and practices.

Nobody here really likes to fight (I think....).

bacpac?

You going to go out and bare-knuckle it again?

So, welcome to our Jelly Roll.

You've had your baptisim by fire.

Now take off your clothes.

Auntie M”

“when did I have clothes on?

Aye, in the future I will try to use (/cynicism) or (/sarcasm) as if to end a sarcastic html tag to indicate my intent when the context doesn't make it obvious enough.

For instance, see the lack of a sarcasm tag above, the line about not wearing clothes? (/sarcasm). =P”

“As someone who stayed on the sidelines of the mel/mafai cage match and kept my mouth shut (and as a relative newcomer to TT, if not to backpacking), thanks for extending the olive branch, nafai.

As someone who also has learned to watch my cynicism and sarcasm (I stubbed my toe on an early post and gojo nailed me), I can say that once you get the drift of things around here, you are granted a pretty fair amount of latitude in giving your own special/skewed angle on reality.”

“Nafai..

Welcome to our jello party.

Now that we know who you are, and what you are about, and also how we are to interpret your sense of humor, you can come and play in our sandbox with less fear of a full-on frontal assault.

It is unlikely you will ever again have to sweat all of us picking on you at once, unless of course you takes your chances and participate in a gun, religion, or Bush rumble.
In these instances, you're taking your life in your hands.
Be forewarned that these topics can be deadly here.
Bypass these threads unless you truly like to argue.

I imagine by now you have also discovered this site may be an atypical online forum.
This may be due to the fact that most of us consider each other as family, and we seem to respond to insults and threats the same way: as a united group.
We often feel compelled to jump to the defense of any regular singled out for critisim made by a newcomer, or a troll.

Unless the troll is amusing.

Snakeboy?
What do you think of this?

This backpacking site is not populated with nameless, faceless, on-line persona's who out of boredom drop in to keep themselves entertained on a slow day at the office.
Although many of the crew here do exactly that...
they still are not nameless, or faceless, thanks to Phils' hard work assembling and keeping up "our" photo page.

We also "belong to each other" because so many of us of plan hiking or camping trips, include anyone from here who might be able to participate, and then actually carry through with the plans.

Maybe you've noticed we've also had a couple of weddings which occured between people who met each other here.
That's pretty special.
Cause this ain't a singles trying to get lucky site.
Welllll....
Maybe there's a few people here trying to meet their dream date.

To paraphrase jerbear...
Moooohahahahahaha...!

For sure, many strong and lasting friendships have evolved between people who got together here.

I have made more close friends here than I've ever made before under "normal" conditions (work, bars, church, garden clubs, singles clubs, single parent clubs).
This is a pretty positive place to hang out.

This is a great place to get to know people before you actually meet them.

When finally you actually physically meet somebody from TT, somebody you've been "talking to" for years, it seems the only thing left to learn is how they fit into the circle of your arms when you go to hug them when you greet them for the first time.

I'm glad to know you, and I welcome you to add yourself into any llama hike you ever care to join.

Taking off your clothes is optional unless you opt for participating in a "moon shot".
Oh, and also jello wrestling.

A kiss to you Dear, from those of us who care....

Auntie M”

“mel, don't trust him. I think he is just trying to get you backcountry cooking book for free, lol.”

“what a compelling idea, Lipstick Hiker.

Hmm..the big question now is just how long do I have to put up with llamas spitting on me to get it, eheh heh, hehhh...

er, on second thought, whatever you do...don't re-read that last line ;P”

“nafai, I'll leave that up to mel, lol. Llama hike advice, keep the llama to your back, that way they can only spit on the back of your neck. A little spit never hurt anyone :{}”

“Well shut my mouth!
And please don't throw any more bars of soap!

I love the smell of llama sh!t in the morning.”

“Leave a message.... BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!”

“You're a good man for apologizing Nafari.

And Mel - as gracious as ever!”

“What? How'd I get into this?

I just figure that no matter what anyone says, they meant it in the nicest of all possible ways.

Keeps me happy.”

“Nafari - It won't get any worse than what you went through. As a sarcastic cynic myself, the only thing that has kept me from the assult of the trail talkers is that I mostly read this at work and don't have enough time to post too often.”

“Hey! I work my pants off! er..wait a minute, I thought I wasn't wearing any pants.”

“Oh my God! I used the "html" sarcastic tags fully expecting them to show-up and they didn't! Ooops! I was just kidding, really.”

“nafai - Hi! It's great to see someone from my neck o' the woods on here! I live just outside of Carbondale. Maybe we can hike together sometime. I've been meaning to get down there and see Superman! Do you spend much time in the Shawnee? I spend most of my time in the Pope County area, tons of great spots.”

“flyguy, LOL, you have to use parenthesis instead, greater-than/less-than signs will disappear like a real html tag.

m-nutz you've got to be kidding me! I grew up in Pope County, just outside of Golconda. My in-laws own the food concession business right outside of Garden of the Gods. I don't think we could ask for a better area to live in if it weren't for the dad-gum humidity. =)”

“See how nice we all are?
It makes me want to puke.”