Welcome, Brett! Finally stopped lurking/reading in the shadows and introduced yourself, I see. Hope you get out of "n00b jail" soon!
Don't be shy -- keep exploring and chatting with people. You'll meet good people, brilliant people, bad people and dumb people, just like anywhere else. You'll meet some of the "gurus" who have forgotten more about Bitcoin than I ever knew, from whom you can learn a
lot. So dive in and have fun, and you already know I'm a short drive away if you need technical help. But as I've said many times, other people can only teach you so much. About 90% of the learning process is putting in your own personal effort and studying, studying, studying.