On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:13:17 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:

On Jan 26, 2:40?am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:23:13 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing

wrote:
made it back home to their home slip.

It's been fascinating following their travels along the Great Loop.

Well done to them.

Yes, great trip, nicely documented. ?We had the pleasure of meeting
Doug, Kathie, and the now famous Hank as they looped down the south
western coast of FL. ?There is a picture of yours truly on their blog
site as I went down river to meet them with our runabout.

Doug's a good example of the kind of top caliber boater who no longer
bothers participating here. What a shame.

They can be darn proud of their accomplishment. Sort of like checking
something off the "bucket list." Everybody has a few lifetime cruising
ambitions, but not everybody has the time, money, and courage to
realize any of them.

I'm looking forward to meeting him this summer in New Bern.

Should be fun.

Chuck Gould wrote:
On Jan 26, 2:40�am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:23:13 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing

wrote:
made it back home to their home slip.
It's been fascinating following their travels along the Great Loop.
Well done to them.
Yes, great trip, nicely documented. �We had the pleasure of meeting
Doug, Kathie, and the now famous Hank as they looped down the south
western coast of FL. �There is a picture of yours truly on their blog
site as I went down river to meet them with our runabout.

Doug's a good example of the kind of top caliber boater who no longer
bothers participating here. What a shame.

They can be darn proud of their accomplishment. Sort of like checking
something off the "bucket list." Everybody has a few lifetime cruising
ambitions, but not everybody has the time, money, and courage to
realize any of them.


Other than taking a long river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, with
lots of stops along the way, I have no "lifetime cruising ambitions." To
me, the destinations are important, not the transportation to same.
Oh...I wouldn't mind transiting the Suez Canal. I never got to do that
on my trip to Egypt.

I like "day trips" in small boats, and even an occasional overnighter.
Beyond that, I find "cruising" boring.

On Jan 26, 6:21�am, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message


I am guilty. �Here's my boating contribution.
Boat A �is currently winterized, surrounded by ice, and about to be sold.
Boat B �is currently winterized, stored in a building and covered with
plastic.

That's all for now.

Eisboch

Few people live in climates where they enjoy the opportunity to boat
as much in the winter months as in the summer. But, IMO, an interest
in boating should be sustainable around the calendar. Based on the
history of this group, all of the political and controversial OT crap
that is running rampant right now will have enough momentum to
continue dominating the subject list even *after* the boaters in the
frozen-over sections of the country decide it's "boating season"
again.

On Jan 26, 6:33Â*am, hk wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:
On Jan 26, 2:40�am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:23:13 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing

wrote:
made it back home to their home slip.
It's been fascinating following their travels along the Great Loop.
Well done to them.
Yes, great trip, nicely documented. �We had the pleasure of meeting
Doug, Kathie, and the now famous Hank as they looped down the south
western coast of FL. �There is a picture of yours truly on their blog
site as I went down river to meet them with our runabout.

Doug's a good example of the kind of top caliber boater who no longer
bothers participating here. What a shame.

They can be darn proud of their accomplishment. Sort of like checking
something off the "bucket list." Everybody has a few lifetime cruising
ambitions, but not everybody has the time, money, and courage to
realize any of them.

Other than taking a long river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, with
lots of stops along the way, I have no "lifetime cruising ambitions." To
me, the destinations are important, not the transportation to same.
Oh...I wouldn't mind transiting the Suez Canal. I never got to do that
on my trip to Egypt.

I like "day trips" in small boats, and even an occasional overnighter.
Beyond that, I find "cruising" boring.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Harry, you should take that barge cruise in Europe, and book passage
through the Suez. I know several people who have chartered canal
barges, and all of them are enthused about the experience. Some have
returned one or more times. It' on my list of things to do when I
don't have to have a new product ready for distribution every 4
weeks. :-)

Doug must have paid some attention to Mark Twain (I believe it was)
who said something like, "On your deathbed, it's the things that you
wanted to do but didn't, rather than anything you did, that you will
most regret". Same goes for all of us, and we should use his adventure
as an inspiration.

On Jan 26, 12:17Â*am, Chuck Gould wrote:
On Jan 25, 5:23�am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

made it back home to their home slip.

It's been fascinating following their travels along the Great Loop.

Well done to them.

Well done indeed.

Unfortunately, almost nobody here gives a Schlitz, unless Doug is
running for office. You might try posting this news to a boating
newsgroup, not a partisan political whorehouse and middle school
insult fest like this site has become.

Jeez, talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You insulted every
person here!

On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:08:14 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:


On Jan 25, 5:23?am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
Partisan political whorehouse is a bit strong don't you think? ?:)

Not at all.

Look at the topic list for the last several weeks. Boating subjects
represent less than 10 percent of the content on this site, and the
typical boating-related thread draws 2-3 informative replies. Anything
beyond that too often disintegrates into "you don't really own a
lobster boat" and other nonsense. The other 90 percent of the content
typically includes threads labeled "Democrats can't keep it in their
pants", "Republicans are pedophiles" and other horse ****. Many of
these threads attract 200 or more posts, (from about the same 10
screen names representing 6-7 actual guys), and the majority of posts
after the first dozen degenerate into bitchy remarks and personal
attacks.

It's truly amazing when some of the worst perpetrators of OT crap and
launchers of patisan political chaos suddenly want to have discussions
regarding boats. I wonder how many of those folks think that the
people interested in boating are willing to sift through 20 or 30
goofball, hostile, threads filled with name calling and political
extremism
to find the random thread actually relating to boats? How truly
biazarre is that? Do they think their behavior has no consequence? How
many people give a ratz arse how big a TV or how many cars somebody
else owns, or other non-boating related details of a person't
financial life? There aren't any boaters left here, to speak of. Many
of the more active participants are political hacks- and some of then
do go for an annual boat ride.

None of the "Democrats are Evil" and ""Republicans are Worse" crap
posted here makes any difference to the world. What the NG *could be*
is a decent forum for discussing boats and boating. It's too damn bad
that folks with enough time on their hands to make 600, 700, 800 posts
and more to the NG in 25 days often tend to be so ridiculously
juvenile and egotistic that they believe their personal political
opinions, their cut and paste partisan propaganda, and the recitation
of Limbaugh's weekly "talking points" should constitute the vast
majority of content in a boating discussion group.

As a group, we are acting like Middle Schoolers. We should all be
ashamed. Some of us for fostering chaos here, some of us for getting
sucked into the vortex from time to time, some of us for the inertia
that keeps us wasting our time on a boating newsgroup group that has
been ruined by a half dozen self centered post-bots, and some of us
for all of the above.

10% boating reated threads, a couple of responses each.
90% political bull****, dozens to hundreds of repsonses each.

I think that meets the definition of partisan political whorehouse.

The good news is that if we want to identify just who's responsible
for
running a boating NG into the ground, all most of us have to do is
take a look in the mirror. To be fair, that would have to include me.
And to be frank, it certainly includes you.

Now *that* was a RANT!

Albeit, a *good* rant!
--
***** Hope your day is better than decent! *****

John H

On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:35:02 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:

On Jan 26, 6:21?am, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Chuck Gould" wrote in message


I am guilty. ?Here's my boating contribution.
Boat A ?is currently winterized, surrounded by ice, and about to be sold.
Boat B ?is currently winterized, stored in a building and covered with
plastic.

That's all for now.

Eisboch

Few people live in climates where they enjoy the opportunity to boat
as much in the winter months as in the summer. But, IMO, an interest
in boating should be sustainable around the calendar. Based on the
history of this group, all of the political and controversial OT crap
that is running rampant right now will have enough momentum to
continue dominating the subject list even *after* the boaters in the
frozen-over sections of the country decide it's "boating season"
again.

Chuck, I promise that when my neck heals enough to allow me to swing a golf
club, I'll be better!

Oh, and about the same time of year I should be able to take the shrink
wrap off the new boat. Yippee!
--
***** Hope your day is better than decent! *****

John H

On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:08:14 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:


It's truly amazing when some of the worst perpetrators of OT crap and
launchers of patisan political chaos suddenly want to have discussions
regarding boats. I wonder how many of those folks think that the
people interested in boating are willing to sift through 20 or 30
goofball, hostile, threads filled with name calling and political
extremism
to find the random thread actually relating to boats? How truly
biazarre is that? Do they think their behavior has no consequence?


Little dose of reality needed here, Chuck.

Rec.boats has always had a very low signal to noise ratio with respect to On
Topic/Off Topic posts as do most unmoderated newsgroups. It's been that way
for at least the 15 years or so that I've been following it.

Reality is that many boaters are sitting out the winter right now. Not all,
but many, if not most. That usually ups the off topic percentage. Then,
in addition, those of us in the USA are approaching a critically important
election, the results of which may have far-reaching implications for the
future of the country politically and economically which are pretty damned
important. Might even affect how we enjoy boating in the future.

So, it doesn't surprise or particularly bother me that politics is taking a
larger percentage of bandwidth at the moment. As for TV sets, if someone
asks for an opinion in a friendly discussion, even if "off-topic" or wants
to express support for a favorite sports team, what's the big deal?

Eisboch

On Sat, 26 Jan 2008 06:08:14 -0800 (PST), Chuck Gould
wrote:


On Jan 25, 5:23?am, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:
Partisan political whorehouse is a bit strong don't you think? ?:)

Not at all.

Look at the topic list for the last several weeks. Boating subjects
represent less than 10 percent of the content on this site, and the
typical boating-related thread draws 2-3 informative replies. Anything
beyond that too often disintegrates into "you don't really own a
lobster boat" and other nonsense. The other 90 percent of the content
typically includes threads labeled "Democrats can't keep it in their
pants", "Republicans are pedophiles" and other horse ****. Many of
these threads attract 200 or more posts, (from about the same 10
screen names representing 6-7 actual guys), and the majority of posts
after the first dozen degenerate into bitchy remarks and personal
attacks.

It's truly amazing when some of the worst perpetrators of OT crap and
launchers of patisan political chaos suddenly want to have discussions
regarding boats. I wonder how many of those folks think that the
people interested in boating are willing to sift through 20 or 30
goofball, hostile, threads filled with name calling and political
extremism

Hey, the guys are just havin' a little fun. It's all good natured.
I knew about Doug's trip from rbc and asa anyway.
If I had a boat, I'd talk about it.
Now stuff it.
BTW, what is "patisan?"
Just kidding, Chuck. About everything.
I want a ride on your boat.
In the summer, when it drizzles.

--Vic

We now resume our regularly scheduled broadcast.

hk wrote:
Chuck Gould wrote:
On Jan 26, 2:40�am, Wayne.B wrote:
On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:23:13 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing

wrote:
made it back home to their home slip.
It's been fascinating following their travels along the Great Loop.
Well done to them.
Yes, great trip, nicely documented. �We had the pleasure of meeting
Doug, Kathie, and the now famous Hank as they looped down the south
western coast of FL. �There is a picture of yours truly on their blog
site as I went down river to meet them with our runabout.

Doug's a good example of the kind of top caliber boater who no longer
bothers participating here. What a shame.

They can be darn proud of their accomplishment. Sort of like checking
something off the "bucket list." Everybody has a few lifetime cruising
ambitions, but not everybody has the time, money, and courage to
realize any of them.


Other than taking a long river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, with
lots of stops along the way, I have no "lifetime cruising ambitions." To
me, the destinations are important, not the transportation to same.
Oh...I wouldn't mind transiting the Suez Canal. I never got to do that
on my trip to Egypt.

I like "day trips" in small boats, and even an occasional overnighter.
Beyond that, I find "cruising" boring.


Here is the final word on the imaginary "Lobster Boat". It was yet
another narcissistic lie.