Big Cliff

here are two that I could find. these were posted after last years event. The first one was posted by Cliff the second by BPSBASSMAN

No wonder I'm proud to be an OFNr when we have people like this doing so much to help others. Good on ya Roger!

It's wonderful to hear that Tyler is making progress and that what little we can contribute is helping. Every year I look forward to Tyler visiting us at the event, he is such a wonderful little boy and it's obvious that all the love and support he receives from his family has helped him along the way. It is such a pleasure to do what we can to help you and Tyler and know that it is making a difference. Thank you for taking the time to let us know and I hope I'll get a chance to see you both again in two weeks.

MTP; All the signs in the world won't stop people from going out, we hear it on the news "ice conditions unsafe" we read it in the papers.....There is always someone that thinks it doesn't apply to them or thinks that it must be somewhere else. Sadly it's not only those people that don't make it that suffer, it is the ones left behind! SkelzWoods: try travelling at 50 mph+ at night on a white surface when you can only see 200' in front of you at best. You are moving @ 73.3'/second (and many of these guys are doing a lot more than 50 mph.) Unfortunatly the normal reaction is to hit the brakes and try to stop when in fact the best thing you can do is to pin it and shift your weight back. You'd be surprised at how far you can go on open water, ever watched any of the open water races with sleds? If you keep your speed up and make your turn gradual you can even get turned around and get back to solid ice again. Anyway, it is always sad to hear of someone going out to have a little fun and loosing their life because of it!

Can't speak for any of the other brands but I have the Aqua-View Scout and love it. Up until now I haven't used it as much as I should have but this spring I am going to build a mount for it in my boat and will be using it much more often.

Welcome to the board Mike, what area of the Kawarthas do you normally fish? Unlike some of the other support groups, we don't have weekly meetings.... oh no, we thake our adiction very seriously, we meet anytime, anywhere, and every chance we get. Hope you can make it to the "fishing for Tyler" event in two weeks, it will give you a chance to meet up with a bunch of the locals and we always have good food, good fun, and it signals that spring is just around the corner.

Well, as others have said, congratulations, hope to have you as a neighbour some day soon. Rhonda Bischoff is a neighbour of ours and a long time friend, She has a wonderful reputation in the area and lives four doors down from us on Sturgeon Lake so she knows what to look for and what to avoid in buying up here. We are 10 minutes North of Lindsay just off Goose Bay (excellent fishing). Rhonda Bischoff Coldwell Bankers 705-324-3411 Toll free 800-507-9280 [email protected] www.cbrmr.com There are a few places just starting to come on the market now in our area. If I can help with anything else, just let me know!

Lew if we called in the Army, us country folks would have to go clear the road so they could get in to help us LOL. It's pretty bad out there, sun is shining but it's blowing and drifting so bad that at times you can't see two car lengths. I was out on my ATV and hit some drifts that were hard to get through even in 4WD. Moe; the trip to Tim's was just an excuse to drive out and see how bad it was. It's gotten a lot worse since then, I just spent three hours out with a buddy on our ATV's we both ended up getting stuck and had to winch ourselves out. we found places where the drifts were easily three' deep.

Just got back from a run to Tim Hortons; roads up here are a mess. Hwy 36 is a sheet of ice and drifts are starting to build in several areas. Just heard on the radio that Hwy. 115/35 is not in very good shape because of blowing snow. Snug Harbour Rd. already has drifts about 2.5' deep almost all the way across the road and building fast, an other hour of this wind and the road will be blocked. It doesn't help that the City of Kawartha Lakes Municipal Services are on strike so we have very limited salt/sanding and snow ploughing. If you don't have to go out, don't! As outlaw said "good day for the fireplace and a movie".

Haliburton area still has unsafe ice in some areas! There are still dangerous areas

Be careful even if you are heading up to Haliburton, I heard on the news last night that there are three snowmobliers missing. they were saying that there are still many dangerous areas. Be safe!

Good for you! It's really nice to see someone living their dreams. I hope they all come true!

Well done! are you finding much slush out there? What time are you heading in to shore?

Yup! Asked my insurance agent about what happens if my bike goes through the ice; her respnse was "there is no stupidity clause in your policy, if it did go through the ice it's covered!" Just as a side note: sleds sink really quick, ATVs tend to float because of the air in the tires. Not that I want to but if I was going to go through the ice on anything I think I would prefer to be on my bike!

Since your place is available: might I suggest...... Day 1: Musky lure making (followed by steaks and beverages) Day 2: Take a lady fishing (I'm sure we could find a couple of LADIES that would attend) (followed by fish fry and beverages) Day 3: How to find the big ones (followed by BBQd ribs and beverages) Day 4: How to hide all your fishing gear from your wife (followed by "never mind food" and beverages) Day 5: How to convince your wife to let you buy a new boat (followed by beverages) Day 6: More beverages and cleanup the mess (followed by steaks and more beverages) Day 7: Pck up flowers, a nice bottle of your wifes favorite wine and cook a nice dinner for your wifes return and pray you haven't missed cleaning anything up that might get you into trouble!

ya, they would but I don't think the guy next door would appreciate me cutting them down; they are on his property LOL. I wonder how much roundup it takes to kill about 20 30' cedar trees?

Well, I fully believe in supporting our local farmers, got a few of them that I hunt with but buying a 1/4 side of beef (typically 150 or so lbs) is a lot for us since there are only the two of us. We don't do a lot of roasts so most of what we use are steaks, the odd pot roast, ground beef and occasionally in the summer some nice beef ribs. The butcher that we deal with (the guy that helps us with the saussages for the Tyler event) only deals with local farmers so we are supporting them indirectly. based on what some of you are saying, he sure is expensive though, strip loins for $4.99 a lb, I wouldn't even think of making any kind of a change, his quality is excellent but I pay a lot more than that!

Dartee, that's exactly where my problem is NE exposure, the sun starts melting at the peak, water runs down to the bottom where it is shaded by some big cedar trees so it starts to form an ice dam. There is a valley there too which focuses all the water into a narrow area. As more melting occurs the dam builds until the water gets backed up and finds it's way through the shingles. i do have R40 in up there and several vents (although I haven't climed up in the attic to check it in person, I'm a little to old and too big to get up in there anymore). Guess I am going to have to invest in one of those cables, it can't cost anymore to run it than it costs to repair the damages when it does leak. Thanks for all the input guys!

No problem at all Lew, you can even get out and help them with their bags, just don't leave your car parked to take their bags into the airport for them unless you are right outside the door.

I have a bit of a problem. Twice now I have had ice dams build up on my roof causing water to back up and end up leaking through my shingels. Believe me there is no sound quite as disheartening as the drip, drip, drip of water on your living room floor at three am. I was just wondering about these heating cables that I have seen around and wondering if they would damage the shingels. Any suggestions?

I can't see why it wouldn't work and think it might even be an advantage. The changes in speed might really work in your favour, I know that lots of times when trolling you get the strikes when you are changing direction/speed. I use to troll behind a canoe when fishing rainbow up in Elliot lake and we always got more than anyone else. Good luck and let us know how you do!

There are a lot of questions that would have to be answered here before I could give you an answer. Do you have to put any money up to buy inventory? Do they already have established customers here in Canada and if so what is their sales volume? Do they have a marketing program already in place? Are there any other distributors in Canada or the US and if so, what are their sales volumes and typical profit margines? Would this be the only product line you would be carrying? Are you in a position financially to start out on a new venture? Have you ever run a business before? How would you intend to promote the products, are you going to sell to dealers and if so are YOU going to have to make all those sales calls? What is your background, do you have the technical skills to trouble shoot problems if they occure? How did this offer come about? Who is going to cover all your expenses for travel, advertising, phones.......? Could/would you carry other product lines in your new venture? If you were to get sick and couldn't work for three months what would happen to the business, is there a backup plan? If for some reason the business wasn't successful, what would it do to you financially, could you end up loosing everything you have now? There are a lot more questions that need to be addressed before making an informed decision, as Justin said "Getting a business plan together would be your first step." If you are unsure of how to do that I would be happy to help you, I have done many! Don't be afraid to dream, just make sure your dreams are possible!

Thanks for the input guys, very much appreciated. I think that based on the replys we'll just stay with doing it the way we are now and using our local butcher. He has always provided us with good quality and stands behind what he sells and we can order exactly the cuts we want. The price is a bit higher than what we could get it for at the local markets but we've never had a bad cut of meat from him. Nothing worse than sitting down to a nice steak and it's tough! Once again, many thanks!

We have done the 14 and 1/2 thing before but we find that we end up with some cuts that we just don't use. This meat is all supposed to ve Vaccuum sealed so no freezer burn and the part that interested me most is you can order only the cuts you want. it's not just beef, apparantly you can get all your meat from them. Anyway we'll see if anyone else has any experience.

Just had a call from a company offering freezer orders of meat. They claim the beaf is all Black Angus, you can order what ever cuts you want, it's all vaccuum packed and that their prices are about 20% less than typical retail. You have to order 6 months at a time but delivery is free. Sounds like it might be a reasonable deal but wanted to see if anyone else has any experience good or bad and would appreciate any help. Thanks Big Cliff