I am in 4th place for number of posts. I keep showing up here so I can get my spot on the medals podium whenever the Chishams finally pull the plug on this place.
3rd place -- seems possible?
2nd place? Probably not. Wade has a lot to say.
1st place? Forget it! At this rate, it'll take me
another 45+ years to get up to a post count like Joe's. And, that's if he stopped posting completely.
Beyond that, a few serious answers:
* I don't do Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. So, this is my one internet time-suck. Everybody's got something...
* I learn an awful lot here, both about tubas and other non-musical stuff.
* I can buy and sell all sorts of things here, both mainstream and obscure. I think of when I was a kid, and if something wasn't sold in a store, you probably weren't going to get it. I've owned (and yeah, sold...) way more tubas and tuba stuff than I would have ever imagined, largely because of this site. For the availability of the stuff to buy, the ability to sell it, and for the validation that buying and selling often stuff is normal (ssh, even if it's not, don't tell me!).
* Related to above, the "side deals" of buying and selling stuff off-list, has really worked well in my favor.
* The no politics rule (and its enforcement) make this a far more pleasant place than the rest of the internet.
* Most days, I don't get to play my tuba at all. And even when I do get to play, it's not for as long as I'd like. This place helps to bridge the gap a little, I guess.
And sappy as it sounds, I probably come back here the most for the people. It's a group of people with shared interests and still with many differences. It's an interesting group, and it's been fairly stable over many, many years. I've gotten to know a lot of people because of this place, both amateur and professional, and it's been a source of friendship, help, advice, etc. Most all of these people, I've never met in person, but I consider them friends nonetheless. Recently, more than a few people contacted me over the last week or so to check in, and see how me and my family were doing amidst all of the uprising and trouble in Minneapolis; that actually caught me off-guard, and I truly appreciated that.
So yeah... it's more than just tuba people running their mouths on the internet. I mean it IS that, and I AM part of that. But it's MORE than just that.
