maybe

Thanks for the support, guys! Some excellent pointers there, pikehunter. I had no idea SAWDAC existed, but their website has a lot of excellent information, and I'm really glad I read it. Never saw Tin Men, but I'll certainly be tracking it down. Its IMDB page looks like a scream. The in-home contract cooling off period is 10 days now. That evaporated back early May, long before I knew these guys existed. They definitely won't be getting another cent. I've never heard my lawyer giggle so hard as when I explained their shenanigans. I actually had a nice long chat with a reporter at the Bancroft Times last Friday. He hadn't heard anyone else gossipping about them, but then again seniors who get taken are usually too ashamed to talk. Have promised to keep him in the loop as things develop. To be honest, I'd expected them to go ballistic when they got the letter. Really surprised they're laying low, after the scare tactics they tried. Sorry to hear what happened to your mom, Johnny! Cliff...wow. If ever there's a good reason not to return a phone call, hernia surgery works. Dad sure was miserable for a while after he got his fixed, wouldn't wish that on anyone. Glad you found a good guy!

My mother is elderly, in failing health, and cursed with far too much faith in the ability and inherent goodness of others. This means I get to clean up messes from slimeballs once in a while. The current project is courtesy of 2 men from Peterborough & Lakefield, who are slithering around the surrounding communities in unmarked vehicles peddling windows. Hopefully putting this out there will help keep someone else safe. In April, these 2 older men ("pushing 70") came knocking on doors in Mom's Bancroft neighborhood. She'd been thinking about starting to replace windows in her home, and let these guys in to do their song & dance. Next thing you know, she's signed a $300 downpayment check and a "contract" that sounds like Charlie Farquharson wrote it. Fast forward to late July, when some guy shows up with the 5 windows. The number 5 was the only thing they got right. The pair for the dining room had the wrong pattern of mullions. The 3 kitchen windows were more than 2" too tall, but this hack decided to scab them onto the house anyway. This made for some real fun when the crank opener tried to occupy the same space as the windowsill. The other aspects of these "installations" weren't any better executed. You wouldn't believe it if I just told you, so please check out the photographs. When the "installer" finally left with the balance check, Mom had a chance to breathe and look around...and notice problems. She stopped payment on the check and called the "main company owner" to discuss getting the problems fixed. She got a call back from his son, trying his best scare tactics - his job was flawless, and if she didn't immediately cough up the cash he'd place a lien on her house, and hold it hostage so she'd never have control of it again, and I don't know what all else he tried to make her believe. It sure scared her, and she's by far the ballsiest woman I know. That's where I came in. Grabbed the paperwork they'd left behind, and started trying to verify that they were who they said they were. Boy was that fun! The "contract" letterhead says Don Osborne "Home Renovation Consultant" of 566 Cameron St, Peterborough. The guy who tours around with him and acts like a salesman hands out cards that say Frank Rennick aka "Classic Window City" of box 1004 Lakefield. Osborne claims to have been in business since 1957. No Yellow Pages ad, the telephone # is a personal line. No hits on Google. Government says they've never heard of it. Sasquatch has left more of a trail in the last 50 years. Letterhead gave their address, so I took a spin past. It's a small old brick house with a 1990s car & minivan with recent plates on them, combined retail under $10k. Odd, for a business that's been running half a century. Rennick only admits to a post office box in Lakefield. Same deal - no business registration, no Yellow Pages, no Google, no nothing. Running his phone #s turned up his home address as 7 Coyle Cr, a nondescript box house with badly curling shingles and new plates on a ~15 year old car. If this wasn't skeevy enough, what really put the coffin nail in for me was the building inspector slash bylaw enforcement officer up at Mom's. She went to pick his brain after it happened, and he hopped over to see the wonderment for himself. This lead to him looking at these guys too, and he noticed they didn't have the required paperwork to carry on business. He called Osborne, and told him not to come back to town until he got himself legal. The answer he got was "well I just won't come back to Bancroft then." Yech. On advice from the Ministry of Government Services - Consumer Protection Branch, we've sent the applicable (and downloadable) boilerplate letter saying they didn't deliver what was ordered, and a refund is in order. That went out registered mail on Friday, and so far no reaction. Meanwhile, a reputable local builder has been recruited to rip out their garbage and redo everything right. His bill is actually less than the crooks wanted, so even if she doesn't get her deposit back, this mess won't cost more. Thank god. I hate to think about what these guys have been doing to other people around the area. If anyone has stories of fun or interesting ways they've gotten the better hand on sheisters like this, I'd love to hear em.

Thanks for the update, and congrats on the win! Definitely a cute name, and a nice looking piece...well, except for that dated font. I'm sure you'll do it justice when you take it in.

Excellent point from dabluz about adopting someone else's problem when you're able to fix it yourself. That works out really well sometimes. Can't comment on Okuma quality, other than to say their 2007 catalog makes a truly excellent moth-whacker when the odd big one sneaks indoors. Hope you get your reel problems worked out soon, Kemper! MrMike...you've been here 2 weeks, and you're spewing 12 posts a day. That's 10 too many for someone who hasn't even got the basics down, like what plastics we use and how to spell Lakair. Now that you've drawn attention to yourself, I notice that your post history shows you usually fall into 2 categories. There's the content-free "nice fish!" type 3-word stuff, and then there's general nastiness where you attack everyone from the mods to Kemper to the staff at Bass Pro. Even this morning, you've thrown huge insults at the core members of this site. At this rate, you're likely --><-- close to being shown the door. I'm off to make some WGSF giggle. Y'all have a GREAT day now!

Anytime I get knots, it's because I've gotten sloppy and let the line get too slack while reeling in. If it's drooping between the guides, it lays down messy on the spool, and next cast I'll have problems. Makes me appreciate the hours I spent as a kid learning to untangle xmas lights.

We've got a couple types of the Storm ones. I haven't caught anything but weeds on them, unless you want to count the occasional zebra mussels stuck to snagged weeds. Don't think Jeff's had any better luck.

That link doesn't work for the rest of us - it points to something in your own account, and lands us at a login screen. Oops! I did manage to find the video by searching. Here's the direct link: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=kUY2rwhV-U8 Really enjoyed watching the little guy dart around your yard - thanks for posting it! Great picture quality, too. That cat sure doesn't take no for an answer, does she?

Now that's interesting! Who's paying for his services - Sinclair or Quinte Conservation?

I was waiting for a mauling, too. Glad I was wrong. Wonder what brought it up after decades? With all the group hugs, fluffy kittens, and long-lost reunions today, I'm seriously in need of a cheesecake....

Still no money from Sinclair Posted By JEREMY ASHLEY, THE INTELLIGENCER Posted 8 hours ago Developer Jim Sinclair still gets a kick out of thumbing his nose at those who enforce environmental protection laws. In a lighthearted moment in Belleville court Wednesday, the owner of the Bakelite property was asked by a judge if he brought in the $235,000 he was ordered to pay for trashing environmental laws in tearing apart the Dundas Street East property. Jingling the change in his pocket, Sinclair smiled. "I'm sorry, your honour," he said, pulling out a small handful of coins, "I'm a little short." The 68-year-old's appearance before Justice Geoff Griffin -- to clarify conditions of his sentence for a slew of environmental convictions earlier this year -- came a little more than a week before his $235,000 fine for those offences is due to be paid to conservation officials. The money is to be placed into a trust account to pay the rehabilitation costs to undo what Sinclair has done on the property. As part of that effort, Sinclair must have a berm he constructed removed by mid-September and the remaining bulk of the work -- essentially the restoration of wetlands and shorelines -- completed by Dec. 1. To date, not a penny has made it into the coffers of Quinte Conservation, nor has any of the work been completed. Sinclair has yet to either appeal the decision formally or apply for a stay to delay the date when the money is due. During Wednesday's appearance, Crown prosecutors sought to have the initial order against Sinclair clarified to ensure environmental agencies have full control of both the money and any rehabilitation to be completed. "You hold the purse strings," Griffin explained to the lawyers, adding environmental officials can reject anyone hired by Sinclair to work on the property. "And if he doesn't do any of this (work to fix the site), you can say fine, we're going in and here is what we're doing," Griffin added. It's important both sides work together to remediate the property, the judge noted. "His sense of remediation and your sense of remediation are going to be radically different," Griffin said. The usually boisterous Sinclair was noticeably quiet during the proceeding, which took about 30 minutes. When asked if he had anything to say, Sinclair replied "I have nothing to say on this matter, your honour. "This is so bad, it's evil -- pure evil," he added, glaring at the team of environmental prosecutors. The judge is expected to issue a revised version of the order later this week to accommodate the concerns of Crown lawyers. The deadline for Sinclair to have the funding in place is Aug. 3, only a few weeks from his sentencing on other environmental charges relating to the Bakelite property. Earlier this year Sinclair, his companies Bakelite Thermostats Inc. and Demolition and Recycling, were found guilty of 14 environmental charges. The Crown attorney is seeking a 10-month jail sentence.

Great post, Peter. Gotta love it when the warm fuzzies start flowing! Let's not forget the special extra group hug for our mods - without them, we wouldn't be here!

He does look healthy. Long as he didn't show a taste for our pet chipmunks, he'd be more than welcome in our yard. If you're going to have an exotic "pet" in the neighborhood, best to touch base with the neighbors. If everybody knows he's healthy and well-behaved, they'll likely be happy to have him around, like you are. It's when unusual animals show up unexpectedly that you get problems. When I was a kid, my mother lived out on a little country sideroad. Her next door neighbors had a pet de-scented skunk. It would go outside like a normal house pet, and the neighbors were all quite used to him. Strangers...weren't. One day, a telephone repairman panicked and launched the poor critter halfway across the road, thinking it was wild and dangerous. He was beside himself when he found out he'd kicked someone's pet, the poor guy. The skunk came through in one piece, and soon started wearing a big bright collar. Never heard of any problems after that.

One of our local Dollaramas has finally started accepting debit cards. Uh-oh.

Congrats, Justin - that really is a rare find! Thanks for posting those pics. Jeff and I found ourselves smack in the middle of a dragonfly orgy on Saturday. Nothing shy about these critters - we kept having to shoo them off our rods, hands, feet, etc.

I don't think you'll be sleeping for long after that.

Big, bold "Lost - REWARD!" ads in every newspaper that serves the area from your in-laws house to yours. Vet's offices & pet stores, too. Does your local radio/TV station have a lost pet announcement thingy? Who handles "stray dog" calls for your municipality? The dog catcher may not have your dog, but he may have heard about him...or may hear about him in the future. Years ago, just before our anniversary, I lost my wedding rings. Total bonehead move...took them off, put them on my watch band for "safekeeping" and then stood up out of the car, forgetting I'd set the watch on my lap for a second. Idiot, idiot, idiot. Discovered they were missing 45 mins later, and flew back to the restaurant where they'd gone awol. Jeff went in to talk to the staff, who said they hadn't seen/heard anything. Sitting within earshot, listening to him, was the woman who'd found them in the parking lot. You'd think she'd have stood up and introduced herself, but no - she hid them in her purse, and took off to a nearby town with them. Days later, after the "REWARD!" ads popped up in all the papers, she suddenly became religious. I got a phone call saying that she wanted to "do the Christian thing" and give them back, like she'd "always intended to do." I can't believe she tried to pull that line, after admitting she'd sat there and decided not to talk to Jeff at the restaurant. Guess some people's Jiminy Crickets are coin operated. Anyway, I really hope you manage to track the little guy down soon. GOOD LUCK!!

Rubbing your hands over stainless steel with some water will get rid of fish/onion/garlic odours too. No need to shell out $15 at the gourmet shop for a "stainless steel soap"...everyone's got a big stainless spoon somewhere. We use some spare inch-wide hair clips to keep the small ends of our rods under control. Keep a snap swivel on your key ring, and clip off to something (like a loop inside your boat bag) before setting foot on the dock. No worries about dropping them, or having them bounce out of your pocket while you're digging for something else.

The experts over at 419eater.com should give you lots of inspiration. Just remember to be very, very careful with the personal info.

Way to go, Botbot!! Your Dad's bass is our team entry right now. 5 more sleeps til you can catch a bigger one!

Sounds like you had a great day, even if Pepe le Pew was along for the ride. Thanks for the laughs, and the pics of those baby catfish - who knew something so ugly had such great herding skills?

One stretched dump truck, coming right up. Spotted it in a music video a few weeks ago.

Giving the shirt off your back is one thing, but Big Cliff's really taken it to a whole 'nother level.

haaahahahaha....Canuck2fan, I like how you think! Goodtimer, it'd help if we knew what general shape this thing is. Giving you "____ Cup" suggestions isn't very helpful if this thing doesn't hold water. That said, "The Liar's Cup" comes to mind, if you're not all going to be fishing together, and photographs containing measuring tapes aren't mandatory.

Gannon's Narrows is quite the exciting place lately - OPP pulled 2 dead bodies out of there so far this month. The causeway is usually pretty populated with shore anglers. I've heard rumours of mattresses being submerged in the area to snag lures, but that may be hot air. What I do know for sure is that a group of teenagers from the trailer park on the west side likes dropping stuff off the bridge onto passing boats. Ours got a bath 2 weeks ago, courtesy of the little :asshat:s. Keep an eye out for them, if you're going to try fishing the water under the bridge.

Only thing I know of is the old "a fax machine keeps calling me" routine. Call repair services at 611, tell them some computer keeps dialing your # and you've been unable to get hold of a human to fix the problem. They'll fill out a form, someone'll throw a switch, and that # won't be able to call you again. Doesn't cost anything.