Man, there is no way to not make this awkward one way or another.
I'm not entirely opposed to it personally, on the assumption that, having gotten off to a very slow start and being at least receptive to a hell of a lot of advice we could at least help you out with that - you're welcome to it however this works out, by the way, just hit me up on Jabber - but I'm not the guy based a few dozen miles up the road; I'll shoot BarbulaM1 a PM and see what he thinks about it.