ness

Although my mental image of Jack Ryan wasn't Harrison Ford, he did a great job with those movies: Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger. I really can't identify any differences between the books and the movies off the top of my head, but I thought they were all great. Alec Baldwin makes a better Jack Donaghy than a Jack Ryan.

...and not just for the series. The additional info on the DVD set is great too. Interviews with a lot of the guys, including Winters.

Yeah, it's written on his stationary with his name at the top, signature at the bottom. He wrote a mini-history lesson on the family who shared our last name.

Looks like a good time with a bunch of good guys. Sorry I missed it this year, kinda.

Sorry to hear that. He was an extraordinary guy, but I think a pretty humble one too. In the interviews I saw, he was always quick to acknowledge the others. We'd all do well to consider what people like him endured on behalf of a greater cause.

In the 'spy' genre, I read a lot of Robert Ludlum's stuff. Ken Follett too. Just reread Eye of the Needle by him. Really enjoyed Pillars of the Earth (though, not spy stuff). I've got Key to Rebecca in the queue. Read most all the early Clancy/Jack Ryan stuff. Good, but I moved on. Started into the Sacketts and got maybe halfway. The plots just seemed too contrived and some of them leaned so heavily on an unbelievable set of circumstances that I was having trouble 'believing'. I've read some of his other stuff and like it pretty well -- like his short stories series. I've got an interesting letter from L'Amour to my dad, who had written him asking about the source of a character who shares our last name. Read a couple oldies but goodies in 2010: Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Travers (of Trout Magic, etc.), To Kill a Mockingbird and In Cold Blood. Picked up An Irish Country Doctor on a whim, and really enjoyed it. Reading another in that series right now.

Sorry folks -- I'm gonna drop out. Give any flies tied for me to a worthy cause.

There's a little more informative article than the first one I saw. It's almost like...I dunno...more facts are becoming available and this isn't such a big deal. Hmmm.

Lindsay Lohan was released from the Betty Ford Clinic today, much to the surprise of this Hollywood sanitation worker.

I hang mine by the straps on a couple nails, and pitch them in the bag when I'm ready to go.

For what ever reason, we just didn't see much Virgil Ward at our house, but I sure do remember seeing Harold Ensley a lot. It was a local KC show, and we'd see that fancy red and white station wagon with his name on the side occasionally. Remember seeing him at the sports shows in the 70's. I have a vague recollection of Paul Dallas. I remember he was down on Table Rock when we were there once, and the whole place was buzzing about it. Lots of snickers and whispering among the adults. My parents would never talk about it though.

Sounds like a great day. Congrats. That one in the center is a 'trophy'. Farther up you go, the skinnier it gets. You eventually hit some really thick stuff and it gets marshy and hard to walk. I've never ventured above there. I think you hit the good stuff though.

I spend some time on another forum. There was a mean-spirited dude that got a lot of leeway because he excelled at a couple things, and was pretty good about sharing info at times. But, man he could be downright nasty! Others had been banned from there for stuff that was nowhere near his level of nonsense. He finally got banned last week, and dropped dead of an aneurysm a couple days later at 39 years old. No joke. I wonder if he'd do it all the same if he knew what was in store.

Cool. I got my name in a thread! No BBQ for Flysmallie or Cricket. BTW -- Phil: can we get some more manly emoticons? Those little kitten things just don't cut it. I mean, really, what the heck would this be for:

The only real entertainment here has been watching Cricket laughterbate. You're just so cute when you do that Cricket Goodun, Eric. Which makes me think of this:

I must enter a post.

Too darn cold. Just sayin'.

Maybe we should all get together and discuss this around a campfire. A real hot, smoky one.

So, we've narrowed it down to Simms, Patagonia, Orvis, LL Bean and Cabela's, Bass Pro and Albright. Hope this helps

When this question has come up in the past, I've recommended LL Bean waders. But I don't recall anyone ever agreeing or adding a recommendation. Maybe I'm the only guy that wears them. I'm on my second pair. First ones were pretty good, but the second ones are really tough and have features I really like: built-in cuffs, double-thick knees/shins and butt, sturdy support straps and buckles. Just good quality stuff at a reasonable price with a lifetime, no-questions-asked guarantee. Like all their stuff.

Huh?? The first article (a mail-in opinion poll of climate scientists, not a scientific study and a conclusion) says 97% agree temps are up; 84% say humans have something to do with it; 54% say it's outside normal fluctuations. 54% is a push! That article kinda confirms my suspicion that this hasn't really all been figured out. And, to take an extreme -- on either side -- really ignores the accumulated science available at this point. I bought a car ago that I really don't like that gets 50% better gas mileage than my beloved, go-anywhere, 4x4 Explorer. So, I'm suffering for the cause. We all should.

Welcome to the forum, Tim You know, when I hear statistics like '95 percent of climate scientists', the skeptic in me says 'who did THAT poll, where'd they get the list of climate scientists from?' That smells a little like the hyperbole I mentioned earlier, but I don't really doubt there are a lot of scientists who think we have A role. We're just trying to get to how much. I think Coldwaterfshr's point is that you don't wait until after the event to take out the insurance. So, why wait until we have an environmental catastrophe before we worry about it? Why wait until you've got cancer before you start shopping for life insurance? (BTW: Insurance carriers are typically nationwide or global so their risk is diversified, and they further spread the risk around with reinsurance. There is not a substantial 'Louisiana insurance industry' to even bankrupt. And, it's nothing new to not be able to insure, or pay more, for a high risk. Call your homeowner's insurance agent and tell them you got a pit bull and a trampoline and see what happens ).

You've got a valid point -- that the earth is self-cleansing. But, a century to clean it all up? I think that's probably optimistic. Lots of the stuff we've created is gonna last a heck of a lot longer than that. Anybody drink their coffee this morning out of a styrofoam cup or use a plastic fork on your Big Breakfast ™? And that's just stuff I can get my head around. Who knows what the local ABC or XYZ plant is burping up? I don't mind the self-cleansing argument -- unless it's used as an excuse to pollute. That's the mentality that leads people to just dump stuff in the river. As for snowfall and such -- a decade or two is just too short a span to really reach a conclusion. Sure, I remember more snow when I was a kid, but I always figured that's because we had a ball when it snowed. Much more memorable than just another day at Three Trails Elementary. We had an ice age up to about 10,000 years ago. The 'Little Ice Age' up to about 150 years ago; Dust Bowl in the 1930s; midwest drought of the 1990s. It's all over the board, all over the world. But why spend all our effort debating the statistics, when we know that what we're doing is having a negative impact? We've made big messes, and we've also cleaned a lot of them up. Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, EPA etc. have had a major impact. Are they perfect? Hell no. Are there still problems? Hell yes. Are we too slow in reacting most times? Yep. Does that mean we shouldn't try?

Welcome to fly fishing and this forum Jerry. Don't sweat the lingo -- not too many folks here are too worried about the Latin names for insects, or all the other technical BS that you encounter out there. It always boils down to stuff you probably know -- put a bait/lure/fly where it's supposed to be, and learn to make it look like something the fish wants to eat. Then they'll eat it more often than not, and you're in the club. Fly-fishing has all the other elements too: fly-tying, rod-building, being more in-touch with the stream and its natural forage. It's something that you can study and learn for a lifetime. It's more about the subtleties than the raw power of you or your equipment. PS: Don't tell anyone how easy it is -- that'll spoil the mystique.

Dano -- I tend to lean that way too. We really need to look long-term, but that's not a popular stance on this thing -- or anything these days. Temperatures have been rising for thousands of years. How much is 'natural' and how much is man-made? How much can we change, and how much is beyond our power? How much is a threat, and how much is just the way it's gotta be? Podum -- thanks, I'll take a look. There's a 'truth' here somewhere that shouldn't tick anybody off. At least anybody with an open mind (who are the ones whose opinions matter most to me).