For whoever has noticed my BB situation or cares about it, the following is for you. Most others will be bored by it so would do better reading other interesting threads.
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Since I have been a long time member and moderator of the fishing BB scene, and post more than most people, it seemingly gets noticed a bit more when I goof up. And I have really goofed up lately. I want to clear the air about it.

I have my share of getting into people's faces (or should I say graemlin smilies ) in controversial threads. But it was fitting in those threads at the time. Lately it has gone over the line. And with some soul searching discussions about it with friends we've come to the conclusion it has a lot to do with a combo of a reactive nature and with extenuating circumstances lately. Well, I knew that to a degree, but things have gone beyond simple benign stuff lately and I have handled it poorly with worse over-reactions.

Essentially I have become aggrivated and intolerant and thus over-reactive in threads involving affronts. More than ever recently. For this I want to appologize to the members of these fishing BBs. I am going to work on it, with help of many friends I have on here, to ignore flaming and baited posts (some are for agendas, some just to get entertaining reactions). Geez, I guess I didn't disappoint those crews, eh? But enough of that now.

As for the revelation ... It's an ironic one indeed. For a long time some people have put out on the rumor mill that I have pain med problems. This 'wrong at that time' rumor was exascerbated by a couple things - that I do use them on ocassion for a bad ankle when going fishing, and also kidding around about it in posts. It was never as it appeared though - despite lots of silly sounding posts I've done in attempts at lighthearted humor. But ...

... the ironic part is that now these meds have become a problem for me the last 3 months. I will reveal a little about it, and hopefully it may help others who have been thru it, and others who could be faced with it suddenly at any time in their lives. I had the most painful injury in my life in early October; and it is a very slow to heal type of injury (severly broken tailbone that still may require surgery to pin back together if it doesn't heal on it's own in the next few months). The pain gets bad and can't be avoided when you need to sit for awhile. So my family doctor and I have used the pain meds, reasonbly carefully, to help manage this situation during the slow recovery process. And there is no doubt that it has helped me deal with physical pain. But at what price?

In addition to already being pain aggrivated, these meds do make people who use them quite irritable much of the time. So this double whammy on my disposition has gotten me to be anywhere from terse to snapping at people. That's partly why I have been so affrontive in some of my posts when under uncalled for flame threads. This isn't an excuse, but an explaination - and an alert to others about getting into the pain med trap. I am already cutting back on using them the last few days. It will take a while, due partly to what I have to sit on.

BTW, you should see the stares I get when I take my family into resturants and I am carrying a big inflatable red rubber hemroid cushion with me. I tried folding it in half but that made it look like a giant pair of lips being carried by a kinky guy. I tried putting it into my pants (only on the backside ), but with an already large enough butt this made me look like those Saturday Night Live characters with the huge behinds. So I just carry it around with me and smile now.

As I get off these irritability causing things, I would appreciate any advice on alternatives. So may others appreciate such info. We have a lot of outdoorsmen here who undoubtedly have had serious injuries/pain issues to deal with. What works and is safe and non-invasive? Accupuncture? Headphones with loud rock music or rap music ? Sit on an ice bag a lot of the time. Thanks for any helpful ideas.

And again, I'm truely sorry for snapping at people in posts, and away from the BBs as well. I will do better with that starting right now! ... And maybe go sit on an iceberg and meditate. ... Excuse the long ramble about it, but I wanted to air this out.