JohnF

Is that what they mean by a "clutch player"? JF

Maradona must have been really something to watch as a player with all that intensity. JF

Hey. After watching these games I'm afraid to even stand beside two other guys in a line. I'm thinking I'd like to cheer for the US but that's just sentiment. I doubt they're going very far. I'm still trying to figger out who the teams most likely to last are. This is great entertainment, isn't it? JF

I may have told this story here before but here goes anyway. Back in my curling days not so long ago we were entered in a week long spiel that required us to drive to different clubs each night for games. One of the guys brought along a Champ tape/cd and we'd listen all the way to the venue. The other rinks couldn't figure out what was wrong with us when we started quoting punchlines and giggling like fools. Funny thing was that was the best we ever did in the spiel in I forget how many years of entering. JF

That hurts just thinking about it. We had a crazy old guy (rich guy) here in town who thought it was a riot to come up behind a guy at a party, reach between his legs and give him a tweak. Jeez. I'm starting to realize why I played hockey as a kid. Soccer guys were too tough. JF

JF

I told my wife last night after she commented on their apparent fascination with their own boys that I was ok with all the grabbing but if I ever saw them helping each other out my interest in soccer was over. JF

Hockey players must be wimps. They wear cups. Soccer players just grab for the family jewels when threatened. JF

Matt (my son) just said if you're nearby you're welcome to his. His cars have the inputs now. JF

My audiophile son says the tape deck adapter is the absolute best way to go. And they are still available for about $10. JF

Hopefully we can keep this soccer thread alive with no one trying to turn it into a personal political football (pun intended). I'm not a soccer fan but it's gotten so first thing before dinner I'm turning the tv to the FIFA report and then watching the feature game rerun later in the evening. My wife's not thrilled but that's why we got a tv for the bedroom. Soccer is more important than survivor or one of those silly shows. I can't believe my apparently intelligent wife wastes time watching shows like that. I figger I'll soon know enuf about it to start picking teams to cheer for. JF

ME! Still planning my itinerary. Gonna drive and wade about 5 miles of river bottom. Well, the driving won't be in the river bottom. I'll be chucking wacky worms, tubes, shallow crankbaits, stickbaits & topwaters. There's also a certain patch of lily pads I'm sure has bass hiding under so the toads will be flying there. If the bass don't cooperate I've got a pike hole in mind. It'll just be nice to be able to throw out the whole arsenal without worrying about the OOS fishies. JF

Sometimes folks simply haven't established a credit record (and a beacon score) so the lender has no idea what their risk is. Then they might ask for a guarantor. My son was in that situation the first time he bought a house. He had refused to get involved with credit cards when he went away to university, and I gave him a car, therefore he had no track record for the lender to look at. It wasn't a case of having bad credit. He literally had no credit history. That no recourse thing in the States is more a product of the recent sub-prime fiasco. The banks have been letting creditors walk because of the ridiculous price drops in some markets and the impossibility of selling at enuf to discharge the arrears etc. My understanding is that at least in most states the general policy is not unlike normal lender policy here in Ontario. If you default on your mortgage here the mortgagee is first going to take steps to get legal possession of the property, probably under power of sale, dispose of it to see what proceeds are available to apply to the arrears and costs, then decide how they'll proceed to recover any shortfall. If there's a guarantor they'll probably be the target of opportunity. JF

Ya shoulda said "Wanna bet?" JF

Typically the lenders want someone with subtance they can chase if the primary borrower defaults. If the guarantor is in the States they won't have an easy time chasing him/her. That's why there are hold backs from the sale proceeds when a non-resident sells property here. The CRA knows it's easier to collect from a lawyer holding funds than from a disappeared foreign seller. In fact they have a better alternative. The tax man just demands the payment from the person in possession of the property - problem solved. In this case though I don't think the original poster has much to worry about. I doubt any main stream lenders would consider a foreign guarantor's personal covenant as being worth anything. And just in case they will, take Gerritt's advice and don't do it. You end up on the hook forever and it will probably affect your own credit ability. But I suspect you already know the downside. JF

The lender may go for it if you're a Canadian resident but not likely otherwise. There may be some law on that but I haven't run across it. I'm betting yer off the hook. JF

That might be the answer for me. JF

I was raised on the shore of Trout Creek just where it meets the Thames in St.Marys. Those waterways were our playground in the 50's. We didn't realize how bad the water quality really was in those days and it wasn't until the last few years when I got back into fishing that I began to realize what a good job we've done of cleaning up the waterways. In the 50's there was raw sewage flowing into the river. That has been eliminated for the most part. The problem now is the effluent from farms and residential areas. The storm sewer systems are still washing too much noxious stuff into the waterways but short of banning cars that isn't likely to end. The farms have nutrient management requirements to follow but the field runoff of chemicals and manure is difficult to control. The result is that our waterways are now strangling themselves with weed growth promoted by the excess of nutrients running into the water. The long and short of it is that wherever we go we wreck the water. We do a lot to mitigate the damage but we only really slow down the damage effects or just change the type of damage. Short of taking man off the earth I doubt things are going to get a lot better. It's just not in our nature to do without our cars and our chemicals. Despite our brave talk we're really all about "me, me". JF

Way back when my son was in his early teens and showing signs of the golfer he would become we got into club building. I think we got pretty good at it. I think it was not unlike rod building in some ways. Unless you started with quality components there was no way the end product would be decent. The problem was that no matter how much we spent or how hard we tried we really couldn't do much better than pretty good. The best we could do wouldn't compare to the high end factory clubs. I gather that's the difference between building golf clubs and building rods. By all accounts here Spiel's output rivals or exceeds anything one can get with a big name on it. One of these days when I've figured out just what I should look for in a great rod, and if Chris is willing, I might just have to spring for one of his creations. JF

You old fart! And here I thought I was older than you. You just made my day. Happy birthday, brother JF

I know what yer saying. Last year I lost a beautiful rig that cost me over $250 a few years ago, a 5 1/2' L rod and a small spinning reel. It was just barely heavier than a true UL. That was a great rig. JF

This has my attention now: The first step is to read this site thoroughly. http://www.settlement.org/sys/faqs_detail.asp?faq_id=4001257 You’ve got lots of material for this. The Consumer Protection Branch takes this stuff seriously. Use them. There might be some help here: http://consumerinformation.ca/app/oca/ccig/main.do?language=eng Then check this out. Interesting reading about Tracker Marine. Is this the company you’re dealing with? http://www.bbb.org/southwestern-missouri/business-reviews/boat-builders/tracker-marine-group-in-springfield-mo-10611 Some interesting stories there. Sure looks to me that with the story you've got to tell there's gotta be someone there who'll listen. But failing that I wouldn't give up totally on the media. They just need a story with people appeal. And people love stories in which the little guy gets justice from the big bully corps. I'm gonna check out some possible sympathetic ears in the media. This is kinda interesting. Obviously I can't promise anything but it can't hurt to make a little noise. Someone with a concern for what's best for the boat company may get wind of it and decide to stop the bleeding. JF

I'll defer to your experience in the reporting trade, but it sure would be fun to try. JF

I agree. Now that I've had a few okay rods and had a chance to fish them I'm starting to know what I'm looking for off the rack. I really can't tell for sure though until I bolt the right reel to it. Even then it sometimes surprises me out on the water with different lures. I think it's why I've become so partial to braid lines. They feel much more consistent than mono. I've still got a lot to learn but that's fun, and also part of the reason I spend so much time reading here. JF

Once I find a cheap flexy rod that balances nicely with one of my UL reels I have no problem casting light lures. In fact that's probably where I find the whippy rods really shine - launching lures with no weight to carry themselves out on the cast. It's just a matter of getting the timing sorted out. As for sensitivity you probably have a point but I feel enough of the taps to have a little fun the few times I go back to the UL rods. I may well be missing a few though because of a lack of feel. I get yer point about hooksets but when I use a really cheap rod with light mono I get lotsa cushion, at least for the little fishies I run into. I never get to hunt little bitty trout so I have no idea how hard the hookset has to be for them. I used to enjoy playing the fish for a long time but I've kinda been brainwashed about getting him in, off the hook and back to the water. It just doesn't feel right tiring the little guys out any more. Finding and hooking them is the fun part now. I'm not saying you guys who choose to go with expensive UL's are wrong. I'm all for running the best gear you can afford. And if I was in a location where I could hunt panfish and little troots all the time I'd for sure have a sweet UL rig or two. It's just that like most fishermen I'm on a wife-imposed budget (sort of) and I'd rather shoot the bigger bux on the gear I'm gonna use most of the time. If I had an unlimited budget I'd be trying all the best UL's and matching reels to them till I found a combo that felt really nice. New gear is always good. JF