Well, I hate to break-up your hysterical stampede, but...
THE SKY ISN'T FALLING
When I came back after the weekend to check my PM's, I was in utter
SHOCK & DISBELIEF at the mountain of fraudulent accusations and hysterical nonsense that had been posted here since my last post on Friday!
Shortly after my last post, a couple of people went on the assault, launching a barrage of personal attacks, and accusing me of everything short of torturing small animals and running over old people for sport! When I saw all of this crap Monday night, I didn't even know where to start. Like I told teamcole, this dishonest business of attacking someone personally on numerous fronts, just to discredit them & undermine their positions has got to
STOP. Some of the accusations were just plain crazy - I was responsible for the original box disappearing?
And even if I responded to half of this nonsense, the same people will then just turn around and personally attack me for the length of my posts! (Which they have done
repeatedly already, and which I am sure they will keep doing regardless!)
While I do want to address some of the more important issues later (like attempting to undermine the group's prior decision), there is one issue that demands immediate attention, as nmorris279 & friends are continuing pouring gasoline on the flames!
On Friday, someone attempting to "shout-over" the status info I had just provided barely an hour before, and by repeatedly screaming the same thing over and over again in a single post, implying that I was up to something nefarious with the Train!
For those of you that did not hear it above all of the hysterical screaming, in my last post I had provided the following status update regarding the Train's path -
@gnarlyeggs - per my agreement with teamcoal, we are giving Smiter_Q a few extra days to respond, before deciding which address the box will be sent to.
JUST THREE DAYS PRIOR to all of this, I also posted a detailed status update, on multiple topics. This included the issue of people feeling in such a rush, that another participant had been skipped entirely, and that the same thing had nearly happened to me!
Given that it's the previous person's responsibility to get ahold of the next in line, and not the other way around, and that some folks like Smiter_Q had actually signed-up for this last
year, I suggested it might be advisable to agree to a minimum 1 week wait time, to prevent anyone else who had been waiting for months for this from getting screwed out of their turn because they didn't response instantaneously.
I also indicated that I was trying to get ahold of Smiter_Q, as he did not live that far away from me. I had spoken to teamcole about this, and given that Smiter_Q lived in the same state, and
particularly given that he was geographically located between myself and the next stop, we agreed the best course of action was to try to route the train to Smiter_Q on it's way to South Texas. If Smiter_Q did not respond in a reasonable time, then I would send it directly to teamcole, would also try to get it to him, before the box then left the state for Bodeen in Indiana.
Second, the update also included a description of several problems with the box, which I was making an effort to fix, and which were caused in part by all of this excessive rushing. This included what appears to have been two different people that had felt so rushed and harried to get the box out the door, that they had inadvertently threw-in a total of 6 different varieties of unlabeled seeds!
Third, I had agreed with other members' observations about all the duplicate seeds. While this may not have been
"titled" superhots, this swap started with over 650 seeds of exclusively sough-after superhot varieties, followed shortly by some exotic Pimenta de Neyde (something that's been on my "wants" list since
2010), and the box took a major "hit" when all those lovely seeds disappeared! I indicated that I was doing what I could to try to improve the quality of the box, and encouraged others to do likewise,
to help-out the people after us. To that end, I stated I was adding some pretty choice stuff (all non-garden-variety, non-duplicates, pure breeds, and isolated), and was even drying-out some pods to spice-up the mix!
nmorris279's outrageous accusations to the contrary, both of these efforts were done by myself solely for the benefit of the people "down the line" (how could doing these things to help others possibly be considered otherwise?
), and neither of them involved any delay in the Train,
as I took the opportunity to do these things at the same time I was waiting to hear back from Smiter_Q.
At the time I posted all of this info in the update, no one objected to
ANY of this (in fact, I had somebody I didn't even know PM me a compliment!)
Indeed, the only response was a extended conversation between two members about an alternative method for preventing what happened to Smiter_Q from happening to someone else!
It wasn't until the next day when nmorris279 launched an unprovoked, scathing personal attack, that all the craziness ensued.
On Friday after my last post, Melissa just ignored what I had posted just a few days prior, as well as the latest status update I had
JUST provided indicating
EXACTLY what was going-on with the box, and instead kept asking me "WHY HAVEN"T YOU MAILED THE BOX?!", deceptively ignoring that fact I had answered that
very question just 58 minutes previous, and by repeatingly bashing me over the head with that same issue 5 times in one post, giving people the misleading impression that I was intentionally holding-up the box!
Later that night, nmorris279 then added fuel to the fire, by dramatically proclaiming that the hold-up had gotten SO bad,
that he was just gonna have to start a whole new train!
All of this silliness occurred
LESS THAN TWELVE HOURS after I had just updated everybody on the status of the Train!!!
By Monday, this craziness had escalated to the point that one person was claiming the Train had been "hyjacked", and there was even talk of starting a
SECOND new Train!!!
When I came back after the weekend to check my PM's, to see if I had heard back from Smiter_Q, and whose address I was sending the box to, and I saw all this crap!
To say I was
PISSED when I saw what had happened over the weekend would be putting it mildly.
I sent a PM to teamcole Monday night expressing my frustration with the situation. I indicated it was going to take me a while just to figure-out how to respond to this mountain of nonsense, and asked him to give people a head's-up on what was actually going on in the meantime.
jsschrstrcks, when you saw that I had last been online at 7:03AM local time, that was me up since very early the next morning, making
DAMN SURE that teamcole had received that PM!
I'm not sure who got the msg, but when I came back this morning I saw this silliness has escalated even further, mainly by the same handful of people that have been causing me problems this entire time!
So I'm putting a stop to this current nonsense
NOW:
THE SKY ISN'T FALLING. NO ONE HELD-UP, HIJACKED, OR STOLE THE TRAIN. THE TRAIN IS ON COURSE. The train left here early this week, and is in South Texas near teamcole - if he hasn't received it already, he should get it today.
This is the female half of teamcole lol and I would love to have some ornamentals if you have some to spare....
Sorry that wasn't posted earlier - I could have thrown some stuff in the box for ya! But there is a couple things I put in already that you might like -
This plant this was on was actually growing in a small pot on the dinning room table! In addition to beautiful pods, these also go great in spaghetti sauce!
This one does great in containers, is compact, and makes a great windowsill plant!
I've also got some ornamentals & very pretty rare peppers growing, including this guy -
I've also got some Fish, Maui Purple, Tricolor Variegeta, and Bolivian Rainbow growing. Plus a mutant pepper that's supposed to be a Purple UFO, but looks like it got crossed with a Serrano or something, has
beautiful purple pods. Plus some other things, will have to check. Perhaps we can do a trade or something later?
Box Now Also Includes:
*Latest info I've been able to track-down added to label of mis-identified PI # pepper
*Seed Lotto game, ready to play! Comes with Instruction sheet fitted into outer bag for easy reference.
*Added 6 different varieties of peppers - all non-garden-variety, all things not yet in box, all pure breeds, and all isolated seeds!
* One of those varieties is in the form of pods. Not sure if I would eat them though, the pods I was drying for the box were not yet fully dry. Didn't want to hold-up the box any with all the squawkin, so the pods I threw-in were some older ones from this Winter. Should be good for seeds though.