Wowzers, 17 years! I always felt like I'd come into something quite long running and it certainly took me a while to feel like I "got" the lingo, atmosphere, spcial norms etc.
It was a wee bit like walking into a village pub...
My first ever post was about a finger injury, where (quite ahead of my time if I do say so myself, with some amount of smug self-satisfaction) I asked about using a fingerboard for rehab....
Aaaah, the old days.
What I particularly like is that you can tentatively suggest ideas, theories, half formed hunches and, instead of being shut down and labelled a fool, you get considered responses.
I also like that you can occasionally say things you're not proud of, and you know you've crossed the line. This is only online place that's ever actually changed my viewpoint on a subject, and it's happened a few times. So thanks everyone for that!
I love the training and injury geekery, Stu doing critical force analysis for me, Barrows' pdf, loads of other random shit.
Chris (SA) is the only person I'm aware that I knew from outside, but there are a few other lurkers that I see at the wall occasionally, Fiend who I try my best to avoid at all costs (kidding...) how did we never actually climb outside together?, bumping into Nibs in the dolomites and almost doing my only ever 7C boulder....
As others have said, it would be great to have more women on. But the look my OH gives me whenever she see's me on here makes it clear it's an uphill battle.
