rehsifylf

I see a good number of comment on the debt, lack of savings, and other financial concerns with the US. Every now and then, I'll see information that surprises me. Have a look at this chart: US is still way ahead in GDP per capita. Canada lags even France. India is about 1/4 of China (thought they would have been about the same). Biggest surprise was Saudi. Anyway - haven't been many finanical posts on here since things turned around. Hope everybody bought stocks when Warren Buffet said it was a good time to do so.

I know what you mean. Went hiking with my daughter this week-end and took my 4 piece along. Found this gem of a lake that I still can't find the name of... Two casts - two nice fish. I had to leave because we needed to get back to camp, but I'llbe going back with a float tube next year.

Wow - thanks. My present from my wife this year was a 3 day heli-trip to the South Ram. It was a real surprise (for her that is...when I told her). We went last week-end and it was epic. Got lots of pics and video to wade through then I'll post some pics.

I saw a good one a few weeks back. With the new system, the camera car just drives down the street, images the license plates, checks against those that have paid, and you get a ticket in the mail (i shoud know). Well, I was walking on 11th ave and I saw a new Mecedes SUV parked with its front bumber touching the back bumper of a brand new 700 series BMW in front of it. So close there was no way a camera could see the plate of the BMW. I guess these hot shots were together and one figured he could park without paying and not worry about a ticket. Funny thing is the camera car is stopped in front of them and the 'meter maid' is outside the car looking down over the hood of the Mercedes and writing out a ticket by hand for the Beamer. Too funny. I hate those meter maids, but that one made me chuckle.

Mark got another golfer into fly fishing early in his career also - a guy named Eldrick. Funny story about Tiger fishing here http://www.flyrodreel.com/node/12469 When I went into Bow River Troutfitters earlier this summer, they were playing an old video of Jack Nicklaus fly fishing. You may have seen it. As I was looking around, I kept looking up and jack was fighting a huge fish (for 10= minutes). Finally the guide said something to him, next thing you know the fish either breaks off or gets off and Jack looks about as pissed as i've ever seen someone - quite a competitor. Edit - not quite on topic but I remembered reading this story from a year ago: James George Aylwin Creighton lies in an unmarked grave in an Ottawa cemetery...but he was the captain of the first organized team in 1877. In 1877, the so-called "Montreal Rules" for hockey were published by the Metropolitan Club of Montreal, supervised by Creighton, the athletic club's secretary. "Sport emerges when we have rules and we have regulations and we codify this and we have set the size of the playing field," said Matthew Barlow, who teaches a course on Montreal sports history at Concordia University. "Creighton was the driving force behind this. Creighton, who played with the sons of Lord Stanley - the man behind the Stanley Cup - ended up in Ottawa . He died of a heart attack in 1930 at the fabled Rideau Club." his obituary recorded Creighton's interests as"fly fishing, reading and skating. . . . They didn't mention hockey." The guy invents organized hockey, but his obit mentions he liked fly fishing only - that cracked me up

Fishing bug at 4 - thats a good lad there. Easy answer to your question bring lots of snacks (bars, candy, chips...) Then wait till he gets bored/antsy and bring out the next round. Works for kids at hockey games too.

I'll say two things: 1. Glad there was no internet or video cameras when I was a kid. 2. I'll probably get flamed for saying it, but I think we are losing perspective here. People are killed and women are raped every week in Canada, but kids chasing a moose or three guys shooting ducks has people riled up. Not saying that the duck thing was right, just that it doesn't bother me as much as some other things that people (men) do.

Voted 1. Purely for reciprocity. Very few BC anglers fish in Alberta anyway, but for the Sparwood/Fernie/Kimberly crew that rammed in the Class II regs - it would make me feel better that the Crow was going to be a much of a hassle for them to fish as they've made the Elk and St Marys for me.

Go with him then. I'm no expert but did read up on this. I think the guy listed below could be called an expert http://www.absc.usgs.gov/research/brownbea...pepperspray.htm I agree with his reasoning. I look at what happens to spray cans once I've used them. Tough to get the nozzel fully clean and I have never used a brand new spray can that didn't spray cleanly but have tried can that have been used before and had issues with them.

These things are really a use once item, so if you test it, I wouldn't try to use it later. That said, I had two cans that I bought and they expired years ago (same type, same expiry). Took one out and fired it off and it worked fine. If you get peace of mind from Bear Spray, then probably best just to buy a new can and not be wondering.

Yup. No kidding about the dryfly action. When I came to Calgary in '95, I seriously used only one fly pattern (brown elk wing caddis) for the first three years I fished the bow and the action was great. Last week was the first time I've fished the bow in years with only a dry and had steady action. Next to sight fishing on a marl bottomed lake, casting dries to rising trout is about the best fishing there is. The other thing that I've noticed is the ratio of browns to bows - seems like I'm getting 2-3 browns for every rainbow - and until this year, my ratio was more like 10-12 Rainbows to every brown.

I've only not tipped once, and as a Canadian it was damn difficult for me to do it. Not sure why that is, but seems like, as you say, for really bad service all we do is reduce the tip to 5%.

Is this not true of all dads? I imagine someday your son will say the same. One thing I learned early is that if you have a "go to" or secret spot, you need to enjoy it while you can and accept that some day it won't be the same. I've had plenty over the past 20 years. I miss 'em when they are gone, but it allows me to move on and discover new places - and guess what, there are plenty of places out still 'secret'. I used to hit a lake every opening day for about 4 years in the late 90's. Never had so many big Cutts (and still haven't) - then one year, the fishing was awful and I stopped going. But that allowed me time to go check out a new place and it was great. A bunch of us go to a lake in BC for a week every summer. This will be the 13th annual, and before that, an uncle of mine had been going there every year since the early 70s. Someday soon, I imagine we won't go there anymore, because it will have changed too much or become too popular (or the group that bought the whole shoreline will put up condos). I could sit here and gripe about how isolated it was years ago, or I can look forward to finding the next place. As for folks posting 'too much info' - I have no problem with that - helps me to know where not to go. I'm pretty independant when it comes to fishing and discovering places to go, flies to use, techniques etc is half the fun of fishing.

Thanks - started slow, then coinflipped on a Detroit/Pitt final. I wish they would make you pick all of your players in the first round. Would take more strategy then, I think. In our family pool, my son beat me by 2 points.

That's what I was going to ask. We hiked in last there year - all packs between 60-65 lbs, and we had no beer. Brave to hike in early in the season.

I'll say one thing. He's got balls.

Hey - that Coach Wade Guy from Survivor could motivate these guys and I heard he is available. He'd definatley hit them with his best shot(Pat Benatar). What they need is to scrap the goofy beards and fauxhawks and start sporting the Samurai look for the playoffs.

Not a Bobby Lou fan - but feel bad for him. For the last 10 games of the regualr season and the entire playoffs - Vancouver outplayed the other team maybe 3 times total. Other than that Luongo was the difference every night. He may not have played great last night, but was not alone. Too bad, he ends up feeling like the goat.

You need a deep cyle battery. I've got some good ones - but you can't buy them. My first battery was one of the energizer deep cells from WalMart - that thing was awesome and lasted for years. Not sure if they still sell them. Canuck Wheel sells some as well. Cycling (charging/discharging) a regular battery doesn't work - it will only last a few cycles beore it dies. Also best not to run you battery right down to nothing or leave it discharged. Get one big enough so you only have to run it down to 50% or so before recharging.

NHL is a complete joke. The over the glass rule is and always has been a farce, and that call on Eager was complete BS.

Didn't the natives refer to him as Hardly Knowit.

Ding Ding Ding...Winner

Could be worse I suppose. Could be a San Jose or New Jersey fan. Disappointed that Ken King let Sutter off that easily. Seems certain that Iron Mike will be moving on. While I didn't like the decision to bring him in originally - I strongly suspect he wasn't given much opp to do some of the things he wanted. Firing Keenan is wrong IMO because it will do nothing to address the root problems (other than pehaps working on the PP). Arm chair GM Off-Season Changes . 1) Get a plan in place that counts on no more than 60 games from Kipper next year. Ideally - Irving or Keetly gets the nod. I suspect that if they go head-head with Kipper, Irving could win the starter role 2) Going & Good Riddance- Bert (please, please, please), Aucoin - $4M a year - nuff said, Jokinen - he has a year left at $5.5 - either he or Langkow needs to go to free up some space (I'd keep Langkow and toss egghead), Leopold (Sutter will probably re-sign - but it'll be yet another in a string of bad decisions) 3) Going - Too Bad. Cammalleri (he played too well in reg season and then did nothing in the Playoffs - can't afford him), Lundmark - he is a UFA and someone will pick him up - solid player and his salary was $600K this season - wasted by the flames), Rhett W- he played better than most this preseason - his salary this year was $2.5 - someone will pick him up for cheap, Pardy - he is a UFA VI and I expect someone will make him a large offer. Flames should try to keep him, but not sure they'll be able to. Curtis McElhinney - for the love of god give this guy a chance to play somewhere else - at $500K he was only $25K higher than the lowest paid player on the team. 4) Trades Out - Wayne Primeau - for some stick tape, 5) Fix/re-sign/extend. Nystrom - re-sign for 2 years at 1.2 per year (next year is his last year and at $.775, Bourque - give 2 year extension at $2-$2.5 (yes I know he is injury prone, but a great player), re-sign Roy ($550K is a bargain - look what happened against Chicago without some size in the line-up no-one could move Buffoon). Boyd (RFA) - resign for 3 years - $1.2-.14. 6) Signed - do nothing. Iggy, Langkow, Glencross, Conroy ($1M is a bargain), Moss, Phaneuf, Reggie, Sarich, Vandermeer (not my fav but played well at the end of the year), Giordano, Kipper 7) Bring up - Backland (he made 875K this year that counted against the cap - use him), Negrin and or Pelech, Irving (He is the future and the higher prospect of between him and Keetly). Peters - keep him up. Chucko - do or die with him. He is an RFA this summer (amazingly made $985K FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS that counted against the cap). 8) Free Agents to go after. If not willing to commit to one of the young goalies - go for Labarbera. Defence - One or max 2 of: Oduya (everyone will be after him - 29 points, +21, made $600K this year), Ohlund, Hnidy, Spacek. Forward - Fedotenko, Jason Williams, someone big for in front of the net. 9) Coach - I'd stand pat, but assuming they fire Keenan, consider a successful Junior Coach (Lowry may not be there yet, but he is already in the org) - do not go for Brent Sutter or any other has-been (if they hired Crawford, I'd burn my jersies). 10) GM - Best thing they could do is to say goodbye to Sutter. Look at his record. Two teams, 10 years - underachieved in 9 of them.

Before last nights game - spoke with a friend who said he was going. I told him - Too bad. He asked why and I replied "I guarantee Kipper will let one of the first three shots in". I would have said first shot - but couldn't guarantee it. Turned out it was the first shot. Iginla had on okay series, and a very good regular season (8th in points out of 500+ players). He was tied for 35th in points in the playoffs out of 318 players (tied with other losers like Bobby Ryan, Henrik Zetterburg, Corey Perry, Marian Hossa..). Was it his best playoff round - no - but it wasn't horrible either. Start of Rant In the regular season, Kipper was 32nd out of 46 qualified goalies in GAA, and 32 out of 46 in Save%. In the playoffs - he was 14th out of 17th in GAA, and 14th out of 17th on save% (.844 Save % won't win many series). Who was worse than Kipper? Carey Price, Steve Mason, and Jose Theodore. Mason is a Vezina candidate for his regular season and played the highest scoring team in the league in round 1 (he may not have played great, but you can see why the Coach would stick with him), Price was bad (don't hear many Canadians fans saying he was good), and Theodore only played one game. Also consider that Kipper was the 5th highest paid goalie in the league this year. Chris Osgood 34th, Jonas Hiller 35th, Tim Thomas 37th. Here is the intersting thing. You know who the 4th highest paid goalie in the league was? No peeking. It was Jean-Sebastien Giguere. How did he play in the play-offs? Easy - he didn't play because the Anaheim GM was smart enough to know that after sucking last year and sucking for 46 games this year (he finished just behind Kipper at 37th in save% 42 in GAA) - he wasn't likely going to suddenly get great lead you to the Stanley Cup. You don't keep playing the guy even if he is locked in for a very high salary; you get some back-up talent that you trust to play. By making it through the first round, Anaheim will more than pay Giguere's high salary. Wonder if that worked for anyone else. Hey - how about the Capitals? Theodore is the 13th highest paid goalie in the league at $4.5 M/year. He played poorly for one game and he was pulled - because, again, the GM was ready for this by having a back-up he trusted and could go with. What did we have? Answer: Nobody knows because Curtis never got a serious chance to play anything more than a throw away game (back end of back-backs or thrown in when the Flmaes were down by 4). And what about Mr. Khabibulin? He was stinking it up this year as well. The difference is that Chicago had a back-up that they would play. Had Khabibulin played in the 1st and second games the way he did in the 3rd and 4th games, Huet would have been in for sure. I think it would have required complete decapitation of Kipper before Sutter would have let Keenan start McEllhinney. What about Vancouver? They had a back-up with far better stats than Kipper for Save% and GAA in Curtis Sanford, but they still went out at the deadline and got Labarbera. Even though their top goalie was playing great. How hard would it have been for Sutter to get Labarbera? I agree that the PP is/was terrible. I put that on Keenan and Sutter - at the start of the year it was one of the best (after 40 games they were in the top 5). Failure to work on it, made it predictable, and weak. Sutter getting Oli only made it worse. I think that with the PP the way it was, this team was not going to make it through the Conference even with great goaltending. But - they easily could have made it through Chicago with one or two really solid goaltending efforts. The two games they won were not because Kipper played great, but rather Khabibulin played poorly. Other than Detroit or Pitsburgh - no team can win without great goaltending. As for the defence. Take 3 of the 4 top defensemen out of any line-up and I expect you would say the defence was average. you could argue that Phaneuf played most games, but when you hear about the injuries he had BEFORE the season ended, you can see why he might not be 100% End of Rant - I feel better. I expect that Khabibulin will fold badly against Vancouver - thats the luck that Vcr has had this year. For next year, NW willl be the weakest division in hockey and likley only the winner will make the playoffs.

The Flames dominated in every category except goaltending - tonight. And score. Surprisingly, I thought Darren Pang summed up the issues best - poor goaltending (all-year, not just in the playoffs). Wasn't the result Flames fans were hoping for, but at the very least we can say that we got to cheer FOR a team in the playoffs instead of having to be so bitter with our own hopeless team that the best we can do is cheer AGAINST another team. The Edmonton Calgary thing is not even a rivalry anymore - the dogsleds just haven't made it to Edmonton yet to tell them. Vanouver - Calgary is the only real rivalry in the past 7 years.