Wow, that’s a lot to take in.
I’m sure many people know me or have met me in the past, I’ve been reefing in Denver for MANY years now. I’m also 6’5” and 275 so I’m hard to miss at the big reef events when I have time to attend. I rarely make it to meetings for any of the three local clubs but have been to several over the years including a couple of SCMAS. I set up my first reef back in the 90s when your only goal was to keep things alive for 6 months, and I built a 2.5G nano reef before the term was ever invented. I’ve attended DARC events, paid dues here in the past, and I’ve been on Reef Central since 2003 but made less than 300 posts there. I don’t get involved in intra or inter club politics either, although there have been times when that sport did look entertaining. So I really didn’t think of myself as a “new guy” anywhere.
As for introducing myself, I generally don’t even read the “introduce yourself” threads on any board, I learn more about people by reading their posts on real topics. I don’t really think of boards like this as social sites, I just come here to learn about reefing – I do my social networking other places. I’m also the type that doesn’t post just to see my words on the screen, I generally wait until I have something useful to say (or think I do). I started browsing this forum again a few weeks ago when I saw a post on RC about why the MASC section was so dead. This site has certainly exploded in popularity since I was last on several years ago. It was pretty dead back in the day and I stopped checking in. You folks have a lively board going here, something to be proud of.
And yes, I do have a pretty thick skin. I won’t be taping any of your icons to my voodoo doll. I can see how my first email being in the jobs section could look like a scammer, but I’m a trainer and my big project right now is building training for all these new job openings. And I know that reef nerds are frequently computer nerds as well so I gave it a shot. The jobs are very real, and I’ll personally put in a good word for any reefers with our recruiting people.
That said, I probably won’t rush to post a “Hello” message, brag about my cool non-reef hobbies, or try to beat any records for number of posts. But if I see a thread about water pressure, photon absorption, or what the heck that blob is in the back of your tank, I might just chime in with my home spun wisdom and questionable wit.
Your newest reefing buddy,
Denverhoss
(Steve "Hoss" Cartwright")
