regarding the people on the forum:

earlier this year I took a road trip to meet as many friends as possible from this forum... I didn't have any guarantees regarding what to expect, because it is so easy to present a false persona online.

But I took the chance based on the way people here have shown a consistent concern for one another, spanning all the years I've been a member here. Usually, a false face will slide down in time, and whatever is underneath will be visible... but I never saw anything but goodness for years at a time.

What I found at each visit confirmed and even far exceeded my positive forum impressions! I've been on many online forums (still am) and no other forum I know about comes anywhere close to collecting this many good people in one place!

And its not uncommon for forum friends to travel in order to meet one another... a bunch of people here have done the same. You live in a great state for that... Florida is home of quite a few BIAB forum members.