"Roger Houston" wrote in
:


"John Fereira" wrote in message
.. .

First, what did you get to replace it?

Another kayak.

I know that. I was just curious as to what brand/model you replaced it
with.

Some of the long-time regulars on here will agree with my choice,
others will not.

You could replace the words "my choice" in the above sentence with just
about any topic and you'd pretty much be right.

More to the point, I found a shop I hadn't visited
for quite some time. Good guy, I'd bought climbing and camping gear
off him. It suddenly dawned on me that (duhhhh.....) they sell KAYAKS
there too. Off to the shop, another mea culpa or three for having
overlooked them in my quest for a kayak, and now I'm all set. Shop has
a better customer, I have a real knowledgeable salesman / mentor who
actually cares whether the thing works for us or not, and will stand
behind the thing and do everything in his power to make it work. He
will also sell the highly coveted Animas for what I paid for it at the
(now defunct) other shop, and he'll sell it to someone who knows what
it is and how to use it, who has a roofrack to transport it the many
miles to waters where it's the right boat for the job.

Sounds like you found a good shop to work with. It sounds quite a bit like
the shop a friend of mine owns.


Secondly, I've been reading this group for about 8 years and believe
that Steve has been here as long as I have or longer. Coming into a
forum and asking a long time regular to leave is not a very good way
to gain favor from him and other regulars.

You're at least partially right. I (Roger here again, not using Maria
Teresa's computer today) should have said something different. Of
course nobody can get kicked off of UseNet, right? So my response to
him was hyperbolic. Unlike this most recent spanking you've just
administered, my summary execution and expulsion of Steve was quite
improper and unjustified. I'm sorry I know neither the ritual nor the
incantations to gain favor from the in crowd.

There are not rituals or incantations. From my 20+ years experience with
Usenet I've found that generally getting testy if the answers to your
questions don't exactly meet your expectations is likely going to provide
equally testy responses.

I should have made a different observation, though, instead of kicking
Steve off the internet. The horse was dead when Steve rode up. Now,
it's a large, unpleasant oily blot on the shoulder of the road, and as
recently as a day ago, Steve was still obsessively beating it. That's
what I SHOULDA said. He can come back anytime and stay as long as he
wants, and beat that poor old horse-stain as long as he pleases. I
don't care.

It sounds like your biggest beef about it is that more than one person
responded with essentially the same information (that the Animas *is*
actually a WW boat). That's just the way Usenet works. Those that read and
respond don't always check to see if a question has already been answered,
and even when they do, might reword a response. Sometimes it looks like a
pile-on a dead horse but you *do* have the option of just ignoring a post
that appears to be directed to you if you feel you've sufficiently addressed
an issue.

Now that you've got (or getting) a new kayak you'll probably have a
lot more questions regarding using it.

Yes, I will. And I won't ask guys named Steve who spend their valuable
time finding brand new and creative ways to repetitively tell me I
stuffed up.

I doubt that was intent and it's unfortunate that you'll categorically
exclude "guys named Steve" based on one incident as there are several guys
named Steve here that can provide a lot of useful information.

I know that
at least I would be more likely to spend time providing answers if I
thought they'd be met with a bit more congenialtiy.

Rightly so. But I don't know you, and you don't know me, and free
advice (as I recently re-learned to my embarrassment, once in real life
and repeatedly on R.B.P) is usually worth what you pay for it.

Stick around this group long enough and you'll discover that among those
providing free advice include instructors and shop owners with decades of
experience, kayak designers, kayak company reps and founders, book and trade
magazine article authors (including yours truely), and plenty of just plain
good people with years and years of paddling experience.


If you
run a shop, and I stop in, I will ask you questions. The difference
between that and my Animas "experience" will be that I will assess your
credibility as a knowledgeable kayak guy before I once again plunk down
my hard-earned. I will assess you as a businessman the old fashioned
way, not as a "long-time regular" on some electronic discussion group
where the veracity of Dirty Harry's observation about opinions and
orifices is so frequently borne out. AS often, I hasten to add, as is
the old saw about speaking up. as I did, and removing all doubt.

I'm not sure how running a shop correlates with knowledge and advice about
kayak models. If anything, someone that *doesn't* own a shop is more likely
going to be less biased regarding a recommendation. It's entirely possible
that the original shop owner for the Animus was more interested in unloading
some stock than provided the right kayak for the job. I also know of quite a
few shops where the proprietors are businessmen first and paddlers (assuming
they even paddle) second.


My new/old kayak guy runs a business and his advice is worth my money.
I don't know that about you, or about Steve.

I know that if you had posted *before* you bought the Animus it would have
been pretty clear consensus in the responses as to whether it was a good
match for you. Specificially, I would have suggested that there are very
few kayaks that are designed as "beginners" kayaks (though many are marketed
that way) and that the more important criteria is how well a model suits the
type of water you're likely going to be paddling. I've also discovered that
for many, until you start paddling a variety of types of water it's
difficult to know what kinds of paddling you prefer. That makes choosing a
first boat (and recommending one) rather difficult.

I will run my own
business doing what I'm good at and successful at, and my kayak guy
will run his. You guys are entertaining to read, but you're a bit
clannish and at least some of you have a tendency to haze newcomers.

I suppose when a group of people participate in a social forum for a long
period of time they get to know each other and can seem clanish but in my
experience any hazing to newcomers is almost always in response to a
newcomer becoming belligerant when their question are not being answered to
their satisfaction.

My thanks to those who don't.