Orbital Defense and Keepers!

Monday night, I went in to 10-man Ulduar and got my tier helm token, so I didn't need the emblems of conquest as much, but still wanted to raid this week of course. Dem and I had talked about the fact that I would get in this week, and as always, he was true to his word.
We decided to do Flame Leviathan with the Freya tower up, which is the hardest to manage because of adds. Dem went through who would drive and who would gun (I can appreciate him not having me drive, I do decently but not the best), and I was quite flattered when he assigned me to gun for him. We had a few bumps in the road, mostly involving people not completely being on the same page with strategy (I was so glad I had gone to Tankspot yesterday and looked at Ciderhelm's video), but we got it down! We were rewarded with fragments off the first 3 bosses.
We cleared the Siege and Antechamber, and did Mimiron as the first keeper. Flip was in the raid, so I wasn't tanking. I died to mines while trying to avoid laser barrage, but we got him down. That gave me the keepers of Ulduar achievement! The one thing that could have gone better was the management of Bomb Bots. I had my macro set to target one, cast corruption, and target last target, so I don't even see if they are in range for me to hit. I changed the macro to take out the target last target, so at least now I will know if I'm hitting it, so the melee doesn't have to run to it.
I'm not dying very much at all anymore, and on most fights, I do pretty consistent 3k dps. The fights I don't are fights in which there are a lot of adds, which probably get burned down before my dots can do much to them. I know that on the Hodir fight, right now I don't need to be in for hard mode, for two reasons. First, I've not broken 4k dps on any fight in Ulduar, as documented by WMO reports. Secondly, I can't guarantee that I will never have more than 2 stacks of Biting Cold on me at any time. There's part of me that says, "How will I get better if I don't get in to practice?" The answer is 10-mans and the fact that things happen and you never know when you will be needed for a raid.
At one point between Thorim attempts, I got a tell from Dem asking if I had enough badges for my tier helm or chest. I reminded him that I had gotten my head Monday night and asked him if that was the only reason he kept me in. He replied, "No, I told you I'd get you in this week." Still, it's nice to have a GM/Raid Leader who cares about what all 30 of his raiders need. The top players in each role are always going to get what they need, just by virtue of always getting spots. It takes a lot of character to look at someone who struggles, but is always there, and say, "You are not forgotten."