Hey everyone. Just wanted to take a few moments of my life to be soft and squishy. I joined three days ago, because I was interested in tortoises (go figure, right?). At first, all I could do was devour every piece of information I could get my curious hands on. The deeper I dug, though, the more I realized that there are REAL people here. I have spent some where near 16 hours on these forums in the past three days, and I have learned more in three days in these forums, than i have in my entire life of being obsessed with torts. I have read countless books, visited a million different websites, but nothing touches on the fact that there is REAL personal connection here. I have made a handful of new friends, all who feel the same way I do about these awesome animals. On top of torts though, I read even deeper, and found actual emotion here. Some of the life events that have happened to people, I can connect to. I bawled my eyes out reading some posts, and laughed hysterically at others. I love the relationships that people have here. And I love reading a thread where everyone supports eachother, has a good time, or has respectful debates. Some of the threads I clicked on expecting to see a bloodbath (the EBT thread, lol) was just a simple debate in which people shared their thoughts on the subject. I love it. I love it here, and I am forever a member. I look forward to seeing future topics, debates, new tortoise info, and maybe even hope to start a couple threads that get three pages of response. I look forward to the day when I have enough experience in tort keeping to professionally welcome a "noobie" forum member. And mentor them in the keeping of these beautiful creatures. And maybe even help them feel comfortable enough to spill there heart out into a thread... Like all of you did for me. thanks guys and gals.
-Brandon
-Brandon