What being a Fiend is ALL ABOUT

[Lou... 3,118]

Buddy is an awesome Fiend. But I am partial to Mr. Lou.

You might want to rethink that.

[mommy rainbo.....Bo 41]

You might want to rethink that.

What a good boy, hmm I missed Lou on my trip but I really miss not meeting Buddy.

[bord1niowa......Curt 79]

I've met that crotchety old man Lou a few times but haven't been lucky enough to meet Buddy yet.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

You might want to rethink that.

That is an awesome "Happy Dog!" photo :heart:

[momof3kids-Yvonne 596]

You might want to rethink that.

Well there goes Lou's street cred again.

[Grumpy and Grandma 740]

Once a FIEND, always a FrIEND..

[LORNADUCK 261]

I was thanking Curt, but then everyone's posts reminded me of all the Fiends I haven't thanked and owe a lot to.

Mike and Bob, without them my camper would be falling apart. 1st Mike installs an awing for us, then he has to take it off to replace some parts and installs it again, both time with Bob's help, some help from other's TJ, Stacy and who ever else was around. Then Mike fixes my steps that were broken. Forgot when he came to stay with us and we gave him our guest house the MH, he noticed something wrong with that and went to work fixing that. He always say it's a 5 min job and 5 hours later!!!! We owe them a lot. Then I have to thank Doodle and Kathy for letting them take their vacation days and using it to fix our MH.

I probably can come up with more things that Fiends have done for us, because every time you turn around one is helping in some way other the other.

Then there is the Fiend that hinders, but I won't mention his name :heartsmiley:

[kampfirekim 260]

I agree. Fiends are awesome! :bighug: :heart:

[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

I even got to meet Buddy. I thought he was always with Lou, so now I feel extra special. Don't tell me differently. :jumpforjoy

[Retired and Happy (Ken) 101]

On two trips to the Fort, my wife ended up in the hospital for several days...blames me for her injuries. I was the house husband staying at the Fort and taking care of our special needs kids. We were brought food by persons previously unknown. For the first incident one fiend and her daughter the gymnist went to the hospital and brought Judy back to the Fort. In the second incident, another fiend visited her at the hospital, visited us several times (with Buddy), made a grocery run for us, then brought Judy back to the Fort. We recieved many visits and electronic queries asking about her injuries. Most of these helpful people were unknown, or only electronically known to us, before they generously offered their help. The Fiends are the greatest.

[rdancemom... Pam 113]

I have been blessed by the kindness & friendship of fiends in so many ways, both big & small. I started listing them and then realized there are just too many awesome fiend encounters to fit on this page. These are all people I'd never met 3 years ago - and some I still haven't met in person - but now can't imagine life without.

Sometimes you hear or see more than you expected (don't look now, but there's more than one full moon whenever Bill's in town :rofl2: ) still it's always a good time full of exceptionally nice people I am so proud to call my FrIENDS. :heartsmiley:

I know there are more of them out there that I just haven't met yet. If you're reading this, it could very well be you! :wave1:

[Retired & Tired (Judy) 90]

As my dh mentioned above that I blamed him.....he was driving the golf cart that threw me out and broke my arm. lol However, the last time (this past December) he was in the house when I tripped and tore my arm open. Can't blame him this time. lol

Both times fiends have been there for all of us. When I got back to the campground it was as though a celebrity had arrived. I looked like death warmed over but no one said a word about it. Then fiends came with cookies, candy and gifts. Feisty gave me a great

red sweatshirt with my name on it (my favorite color is red). I love wearing it. And those home made goodies were soooooo delicious. And my Mickey (red) Head ornament will not be packed away til next year. It is hanging in the RV for all to see and enjoy.

Knowing you have friends like the fiends makes bad things seem not so bad. They are there for you (and us) and they honestly never seem to mind helping out.

Hope we can pay it forward to anyone needing us. And Lou, you are a great fiend whether you like it or not. :jumpforjoy

[AuburnJen 777]

You know, I have "heard" that other boards are better without certain people. (posted recently elsewhere)

Frankly, I don't know of anyone that would be better elsewhere but here. This is not the place where you just post a question and then "walk" away, never to return. It "sucks" you in, because family does that. Family takes care of you (sometimes whether they like you or not :rofl2: ) and will complain, and spit and moan for a while too. BUT THEY DO IT. Us Fiends, we do the helping willingly and without forethought. When I am at the Fort, I consider myself ON CALL. That means I am willing to go on missions, help out a fellow Fiend, recruit new membership, give up something I own for a fellow Fiend, or anything that is necessary. That is what we are about here. We are not a board that has been created out of chaos, but has become a family that no one could have possibly imagined. Many, many of us will be life-long friends, oops, FIENDS. No other place can claim that.

If you don't know what I speak of, join us and find out. You have NO CLUE what you are missing.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Something else to consider for those that might make the argument "well I just want information, not all the banter"

There are LOADS of places on the web to get "just the facts ma'am." Anyone ever heard of Google? Of course these days many of the topics you Google specific to the Fort will point you directly to FF.net! Hmm... I wonder why that is? After all, Google doesn't tend to rank you highly for just "banter."

I know for me, I come to a message board not just because I'm too lazy to find the answer for myself or I don't know where to look, but because I don't just want facts posted on some random website.

For starters, some of that information is just plain WRONG and if you only ever get your information there, chances are you're going to find that out the hard way. On top of that, many of these websites just regurgitate information from elsewhere - in other words, it's general, common knowledge vs truly helpful "inside" information from people that know it first hand.

I find that getting your information from a group of people that actually have first-hand experiences and REAL inside information is the best. Not only is it information you're not going to find elsewhere, but because all of us are different and have different interests, family dynamics, likes/dislikes... you're going to get a lot of different points of view on the same subject instead of ONE point of view from some internet know-it-all who thinks theirs is the only opinion that counts. :wave1:

Yes there are a lot of shenanigans, joking around and thread hijacking going on here. And thank goodness!!

Personally I find that to be something to look forward to, not just because I enjoy the Fiends in general (even you, Lou) but because the daily grind sucks and why would you NOT want to "hang out" somewhere people are actually having a good time?!

For those that say that some places are better off without certain people... hmm... let's break that down a bit...

• FF.net has been in existence for almost 2 years. In that time we've grown to over 1000 members
  
• Nearly 100 of our members have over 500 posts during that time.
  
• We have new people joining almost every day, with many diving in head first and quickly becoming fixtures in the "new content" department.
  
• We have a debate board and topics that cover things banned by other boards, and yet we have banned no one from these boards in 2 years. Not one person.
  
• We don't just talk about GGs, we actually have them! Not a season goes by when there isn't a gathering of Fiends somewhere in the country - not just at the Fort!
  
• We just had a Christmas card thread that resulted in a big group of Fiends spreading some holiday cheer with each other through the mail
  
• We've had virtual baby showers, helped out Fiends in need, supported each other's causes and been there for each other - not just virtually but in person.
  

All that while other places that have eliminated all the fun have faded to mere shells of their former selves. And how do we know this? Because not a month goes by that we don't have someone new sign up saying "thank goodness I finally found you!"

And let's not forget that in between all that is some fantastic information and first-hand experiences, from many points of view, on the things that brought us all together in the first place - our love of Disney, camping and the Fort.

So while Disney may give the Fort a back seat most of the time, FortFiends.net puts the Fort front and center, with members at the Fort nearly EVERY DAY (actually this is the year I'm betting it's EVERY day!), and dozens of active trip reports that don't just show you the same photos of WDW over and over again and give you the thumbnail view of a week at the Fort. Our TR Fiends take amazing photos (and lots of them!) and give us TONS of great, current information on all things Fort Wilderness. They also entertain us with the particular styles of reporting (who would have guessed we'd have so many good writers here??) and really bring you in and make you feel like you were there.

Roll all that up in a ball, wrap a big purple bow around it and serve it up on a Snarky platter and I challenge anyone to find a better place on the interwebz to hang out and get information on the Fort and WDW... or a better group of FrIENDS anywhere!

:heartsmiley:

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Well said Mo!

If you get cracking today Mo, you and Carol could join the 12 gazillion post club on the same day!

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

:rofl2:

What can I say, Doodle is my hero! :heartsmiley:

Ooh but I forgot something...

Another hazard of less-than-active forums is that you get people who get a bit too excitable (or... something) and post inaccurate or blatantly wrong information. The other thing I see a lot is, because it can take so long for someone to get a reply to a question, you'll get people who post, trying to be helpful, with a lot of "I think," "I'm not sure but," "I've heard that," "Last time I was there (10 years ago)," answers - sometimes from people that may never have even been to the Fort. Sometimes that information sits there for days and days before someone corrects it. Sometimes it's never corrected.

Not to say that everyone here is a genius know-it-all, or that we always get everything spot-on, but when we don't, you can be sure that the correct information will be along momentarily. And better yet, if it's a question about something currently going on at the Fort and no one has the answer handy, you can pretty much count on a Fiend at the Fort getting you that information - often with pictures, and often the same day!

Oh yeah and the one thing you WON'T see here is people with no interest in the Fort or camping dropping those annoying "why in the world would anyone want to camp at Disney" posts.

:mh1:

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Well said Mo!

If you get cracking today Mo, you and Carol could join the 12 gazillion post club on the same day!

That would be COOL! Carol is a lock...Mo just needs 48 more posts. In fact, if she had broken that last post down into smaller chunks she may have made it right there. That was a LONG post, Mo. In fact, I'm giving you one of my very elusive DaveInTN up arrows for that. Whew!

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

...if she had broken that last post down into smaller chunks she may have made it right there. That was a LONG post, Mo.

Shoot! Why didn't I think of that?

In fact, I'm giving you one of my very elusive DaveInTN up arrows for that. Whew!

Brian heard the typing stop and asked me if I finished writing my novel. :rofl3:

[DaveInTN 3,247]

Shoot! Why didn't I think of that?

Brian heard the typing stop and asked me if I finished writing my novel. :rofl3:

That's so funny....when INC hears me typing away, she asks "working on the trip report?". I guess they've lived with us long enough to know.

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Rick hunt and pecks so badly that he thinks I'm tearin up the keyboard when I type.

[bord1niowa......Curt 79]

When I go looping, I come across several Fort Fiends.net signs and if I see someone outside I'll stop and introduce myself. OK, I've knocked on a few doors too....lol. It's amazing that when I do they perk up and are more welcoming than any group I have ever seen. It's kind of like long lost friends you haven't seen in a long time, even though you may never have met, other than electronically. You can't go wrong with this group. So if you haven't jumped in yet, please do so and discover the best Walt Disney Lovin', Fort Wilderness Lovin' and camping anywhere Lovin' Fiends you could ever meet.

[TnBob 311]

:rofl2:

Not to say that everyone here is a genius know-it-all,

oh yes we are!

[AC in A2......Aaron 693]

Speak for yourself Bob.

Oh wait.......

[asquared....Ally 7]

I found this board last year and quietly sneaked in the back door. I managed to find my way to the chat room where I have met lots of wonderful fiends. We talk about fort things but mostly what is going on in our lives or whatever crazy thoughts come our way that night. I am not there often but when I do return I am always welcomed with open arms. I have been invited to GG outside of disney and at disney but just haven't been able to make my way there yet. That doesn't stop these wonderful poeple from trying to meet me and help me. I did get to meet one local fiend when I invited her to a camp out near me. Without hesitation, she jumped up and came running, and guess what, her fiend flag was a flying. Another local fiend reached out to me and let me know just how many local fiends were in the area (and where they all are). This really is a very large small community. Thank you everyone and maybe someday I will meet you in person!

[thegooftroopfla 18]

Super cool