So much value in the combined weight of the nominated folks.....how to choose who to single out and honor for their contributions in 2015? An important piece of what 420magazine provides to us all could easily be overlooked so I'd like to mention it and why it will factor into how I vote today. This space, this community is one of the only outlines I utilize to connect me to the world outside of my home. Sure, I travel out into the world as life requires, and I have a phone and internet and all of the things that people use these days to stay connected....but....I also have a condition that severely limits my ability to cope with the stimulus out there in the world. Often I can't manage traveling more than a few miles from home before I have to retreat to my safe place. Frustrated and sometimes rather lonely, I can spend a lot of time feeling isolated and defeated in my efforts to maintain healthy social habits. But when shit gets dim and no one is near for me to find the warmth of human interaction in (or when I'm not in a space to interact face-to-face), I can mosey into the forums and find a kindness just when I need it. That kindness doesn't even need to be heading in my direction to be valuable; sometimes just reading over someone's outpouring of love on another person is enough to brighten my living room or dry my weary eyes.
What I'm getting at is that some of us (maybe all of us) come here for more than free lessons on pot farming, more than pretty pictures to get us salivating, more than
contests and prizes and diagnose-my-sick-plant parties. We come here for what other people go to the bar, the pool hall, the club or team or whatever for. We come here and are met with some warm, welcoming folks who neither know nor care if we are 20 or 200, size 2 or size 32, wheelchair bound or running marathons - it just doesn't matter. We come as we are and are accepted as we are and that, my friends, is a rarity. And be sure of this: the generalized notion that cannabis culture is full of happy, stoned, nice guys is nonsense. I've met just as many (if not more) stuck up, self-righteous, judgmental, angry, even violent people in our slice of society as I have elsewhere which tells me one thing: this is truly an exemplary community. YOU people are amazing.
All of that said and giving considerable weight to how each of the candidates interacts with the community, I am still torn to pieces because, OG and LA, you two are aces in my book. You guys both offer good information to folks, you spend a lot of your time investing yourselves in these forums, you entertain us while educating, you guys are great. But beyond all of that, you both stick out in my mind as being real friends of the community (which I'm sure all of the named people are) and that carries serious weight in my book. I'll pick one of you - by coin flip if I have to - and vote today, but you both deserve to be recognized and are both widely appreciated. Thanks for being here OG and LA!