A Heartfelt Thank You To The The Founders Of Above Top Secret !!!!

Wow, what a place to be! You have created an awesome site and should be very proud of yourselves and the evolution that has transpired right before your very eyes.

I, for one, am very thankful for the opportunity you afford me to come here daily and share my most inner thoughts on various subjects.

I spent a year here watching, reading and learning the ins and outs. I think there are a great deal of people that feel the same way, and wanted to give them a thread to join on this matter.

There is always something new to learn and share. For instance, the reason why I came here to begin with. While my situation may not be unique and others may have experienced similar things here goes:

I fell in love with a wonderful woman who was forced to leave the USA, after we had been married and been together for a year. I was forced to stay behind, due to circumstances of a personal nature, but I fulfilled those obligations and decided to join my wife, after being apart from her for 6 miserable months. I moved to Brazil, where I had very little knowledge of the country or language (Portuguese) and I had never traveled outside of my comfort zone before.

It has been a very humbling transition and experience thus far, with no end in sight, but that is a different story that requires a different thread. I only wanted to lay the foundation for why I am so grateful to ATS.

Needless to say, I have not found very many people here, other than my wife, to communicate with about subjects that are of interest to me. My family did not agree with me leaving, so they have basically cut off any serious form of discussion with me or support emotionally about this situation. My sister's are glad I am with the love of my life, but they are not in agreement over me being here in Brazil.

I was spending time playing poker and hanging out in a game room site trying to have a serious discussion about life and kept getting these rude, obnoxious, immature comments that were very disheartening, I stopped trying and started spending more time searching for a forum to express my feelings and emotions that would get serious feedback. I tried many different venues to do this and they all had the same end result, blah, blah and blah with no real value. One day I was at a site and caught a glimpse of an article and it was attached to your web site. So, I thought I will check it out.

There are so many wonderful people in here willing to express their feelings, I feel that in spite of the anonymous nature and faceless contact it is the best place for me to share. I have had some negative comments to deal with in some of my posts, it seems there are those that just like to start trouble, you know the type, but the ratio of good/bad is in my estimation 90/10. That is a great ratio to have. I, also, feel that the MOD's that you have trusted with monitoring the traffic have done an excellent job.

You all have my heartfelt Thank you! Keep up the great work! The founders, the staff and all the members!


Sincerely,

Ascension211

I guess I hit a dud here! Maybe I posted it in the wrong place, but I thought I would get more response from this.
Doesn't change how I feel though, ATS rocks!!!

reply to post by ascension211


I think all the members here more or less echo your sentiment. We all appreciate having such a diversified place to share our thoughts.

Best of luck to you in the future. You are to be admired for following your heart!

reply to post by ascension211


Walking Dead man, everyone busy - they'll be back later.

Just kidding

That was a nice post, I'm sure it's appreciated.

Hooray! You both get stars! Thanks for the replies!

Ascension211

I really thought I would get more response to this thread. I guess my expectations were out of line. Expectations, there is another thread topic coming soon, lol.

Words from a professional lurker:

I agree with your sentiments 100% but you are going to get flamed. The people who will flame you will likely be a bunch of twits who, if you review their posting history, do nothing but bad mouth this place - even though they do spend 12 hours a day here. They will flame you because they they have confused being against things with having any opinion of their own that is worth a damn. People too ignorant to realize that creating takes work, destroying requires only a lack of concern. People who think that mocking you for your honestly will somehow make their own inadequacies better.

Alas, my friend, in trying to be a nice person, you've thrown out troll bait. Bait that the trolls will likely get the scent of eventually. When they come you'll be lucky if anybody else sides with you publicly. Those who agree will likely cheer for you in silence. They are not likely to post support, however, because obvious trolls are a pain in the ass and nobody likes playing with them.

Because I think this all to be true. I have sided with you. Let them flame me all day long. I could not care less what they think or say. Small minds merit small consideration. I will not respond to them. I will just sit here, lurking, laughing at them, and cheering on your enthusiasm.

Don't let the insipid ones rob you of it. It is a good thing. ATS lets me learn here, for free. Let the haters hate.

You get a star and a flag from me. Also, my respect.

reply to post by WrathShadow


Thank you. Star for your effort as well. I must admit ulterior motives for this post. I was hoping to instill some sense and gratitude for those 10% that I think really don't appreciate what ATS has to offer. It is unfortunate that some use the fact that it is an anonymous/faceless web site, like all others, unless an actual video, and even then that is still removed from actual consequences directly because we really can not confront them in person, unless we actually know them, to take the opportunity to be rude, obnoxious jerks without real consequences. I myself am human and have made comments I wish I could take back, after the fact, but I will at least feel guilt about it. I will make every effort to make sure before I hit the reply button, or post a thread from here forward not to try and offend anyone, it's just not very becoming.

reply to post by ascension211


I remember when ATS started.

It was 1972. SkepticOverlord, yes that is his real name, ran a bunch of string and tin cans around the old neighborhood. We only had one mod at the time. His name was Carl and he ran around with sizzors.

*sigh*

Good times. Good times.

There are so many wonderful people in here willing to express their feelings, I feel that in spite of the anonymous nature and faceless contact it is the best place for me to share. I have had some negative comments to deal with in some of my posts, it seems there are those that just like to start trouble, you know the type, but the ratio of good/bad is in my estimation 90/10. That is a great ratio to have. I, also, feel that the MOD's that you have trusted with monitoring the traffic have done an excellent job.

reply to post by beezzer