So, after patiently biding my time for over a year and a half, I
finally replaced my last piece of kara gear with a badge piece.  I
now have four pieces of t6 (OMG shadowbolt bonus>all) Last week, for
the first time since we were learning bosses in the d1 bc instances, I
experienced a threat cap.  I actually pulled aggro off of our t6
threat machine and had to be bop'd...It was awesome.

The only
things that I see as gear upgrades easily within reach are the
instances we don't do, or if we do, raid on days I'm working.  WTB
exalted ring from Scale of the sands.  My ring on pudo procs all
the time and I would love to add that little extra kick to my
constantly casting ass.  Perhaps even upgrade my badge piece to
malefic gloves and be full 5/5 t6.  (the gloves are probably the
strongest piece of the malefic set)  I've been steadily collecting
blessing cards to turn in but I keep giving random ones to
guildies.  I hope we do Illidan to the point where most of our
casters have the skull of guldan, because really, the spike in dps I
see between enixa and myself of 2% is that trinket...and I'm hugely
competitive :)

In regards to Pudo, I think I'm going to have to
start haranguing the other officers to bring pudo in more regularly to
standard kills ( mother, council, RoS, bb) because, well, badge gear
can only let you take such a hit before things like backup tank for
kalecgos are a huge stretch on healer mana.  I'm also thinking
about bribing PK and Kybosh for the chance at tanking illidan.  I
know I can do it, and it's pretty much the reason I started seriously
gearing pudo in the first place.  If i can ever figure out how to
fraps without my computer taking a huge lagspike every three to four
mins while recording, I'd love to make a video of it and show my
brother what I've done with his paladin.  My main wishlist item
for pudo is the Tankatronic plans out of Sunwell.  With that one
piece (and a neck/trinket upgrade) I'm pretty sure I could match any of
lf1m or Hamfist's tanks in terms of health and mitigation, and four
pieces of t6 on pudo (because conq rains from the sky onto our raid I
would never take gear from a main) I honestly think I could compete
with any of our tanks in terms of survivability and threat.

Bidding
on Pudo : This is that weird grey area where things are odd and people
have the potential of getting extremely upset with me.  At what
point does me abstaining from bidding on tier pieces actually hurt the
raid in terms of when we have dcin'/rl stuff happen to our tanks? 
I've passed more times than I can count on the gloves in MH, and have
actively logged over 170 hours of NAP and AP on pudo in my time of
utilizing him as a tank in MH and BT, or just having him standby and
ready.  Does pudo count as epat's NRP? lol, it's actually an
offspec for me, in terms of having to gear it up. ( I've never asked
for nor would I expect/accept guild funds for Leg patches/epic
gems/shoulder enchants)  I've logged so many badges from heroic SH
runs and kara/ZA zergs that before the alch lab came out I had 2 1/2
stacks of BoJ's. 

Pudo is my massive project, my experiment
in non healing paladining and my homage to the brother that someday
might look at wowarmory and say "holy shit pat, you have (insert epic
iconic tanking piece here) that's awesome"  So, when you see me
type in chat : can I bring pudo in for such and such...it's not
entirely selfish.  It is, I really enjoy blasting the fuck out of
stuff on epat, but Tankadining is something people scoffed at me for
when Heroic Shadowlabs was the be all and end all of tanking.  I
have a huge chip on my shoulder whenever someone says "lawl paladins
heal, go spec right nub" or "You really can't take that hit, we're
gonna have so and so respec or so and so finish up there and come in so
he can take it for you".  I'd like to think that I paved the way
for some of our up and coming or truly established tankadins.  I'm
not a crossgrip, I'm not looking to get X alt into Y instance so Z loot
will drop and I can ninja it from a main.  Pudo to me is the thing
I bring to guild that makes me truly unique.  I can tank
Vashj.  I can tank a bear mount run.  I geared myself up
through reading about emerging theorycraft that had never really been
tested until we tried it.

I love you all, but don't ever expect
me to back down from you when you say you think I can't tank something,
I'll run your ass through H SH in twenty mins flat, Get you a bear
mount in 45 and tank BT raid bosses with the our awesome bears and
warriors and /laugh at you after.  You telling me I can't tank
something just makes me look for ways to prove to you that I can. 
And if you happen to have to choke on your pride to take those words
back ( you know who you are all you non believers who /laughed at me
when I hit 70 on pudo and promptly started offering to tank Kara and
heroics) I'll give you a hearty slap on the back so that it goes down
easier :)

Epatrick...

p.s.

Kisses!