eagleflorida
Posts: 1633
Joined: 12/23/2007
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: TheGonz Here's the thing, Todd. . .and, seriously, I'm going to effort to be as polite about this as I can. No sarcasm, no BS. . .nothing. And it's probably going to get long-winded. I happen to be quite proud of the little corner of the internet I've managed to help build. The site has been around for almost six years. During that time, it's made pretty significant progress, considering that at the beginning I was basically talking to myself. Hell, you know who had representation in the Vikings' media center at Winter Park over draft weekend? I don't know the whole list. . .but I can tell you that two of our guys were there right next to the Star-Tribunes, Pioneer Presses, KFANs, and 1500 ESPNs of the Twin Cities media world. There are few sites like ours that have the sort of connections and access to the teams they cover that we have, and I'm quite happy with that. So, when somebody goes out of the way to disparage the site and what it's accomplished, yes, I take offense. If you built something from the ground up into a success and somebody disparaged it, it's likely that you'd be quite displeased with that, too. The source, in this case, exacerbates the problem. . .Dan has, to put it mildly, had it in for me since the days of the STrib boards. Why? I don't know. . .I know that he loathes the career path I've taken. Other than that? I don't get it. As far as "needing defending?" I don't "need defending." I defend myself just fine, and that's what I've had to do for a significant period of time. From my first or second post on the Political forum, good ol' Eduardo labeled me as a racist. Why? Who the hell knows. But, that put me on the defensive from the start, and I've always thought of myself as being in that position. To say nothing of the attacks on my record. Really, I have nothing to defend when it comes to that. . .I have 14 years (next week) of active duty service in good standing. I also realized I'm not the only one that's served here. . .TrekGeekScott has served, Thomas Eliason has served, eagleflorida has served, and Dan has served (and if I missed anyone, I apologize). While I don't agree with any of them on. . .well, anything, really. . .I respect the fact that they served before I did and paved the way for those that came after them (even though I don't think any of them were the same branch of service, but I might be wrong on that). I have not, and would not, disparage their service or the things they did as members of the Armed Forces. And if I did, I would expect some sort of action to be taken. . .or, at the very least for somebody to say, "Hey, dumb ass, knock it off." But a couple of individuals were allowed to attack. . .and attack. . .and attack, even after I had proven them incorrect. Even one of the moderators accused me of lying about being enlisted (even though there's no evidence of that now, since the post magically disappeared). Yes, I have allowed those couple of people to color my views of several other individuals. That was wrong of me, and to those people (such as Scott, TOE, Karl Juhnke, T.J. Sweens, and yourself), I apologize. Painting individuals with the same poisoned brush is a flaw that I have, and one that I hope I have corrected. I'm not attempting to play "victim," nor am I asking to be defended or anything like that. I'm simply asking for the same standard to be applied to everyone. Honestly, I'm tired of arguing with people, I'm tired of my blood pressure going up when I come here. . .at this point, I simply want to talk about football, movies, whatever with the folks here (the overwhelming majority of whom are fine, upstanding people and have been through both incarnations of this board). I'm through with the political B.S. and all that that sort of thing entails. So, yes, that's my long-winded effort to apologize to a great deal of people, yourself included. People can accept it, people can dismiss it. . .it's up to them. But it is sincere. Hopefully, what you've just said is as heartfelt as it is well-said. Up to you big guy. We'll see. I think you can add a lot of good football stuff if you're of a mind to. Hope I'm right.
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