LWD

A friend at work loaned me an Evanescence cd and I immediately fell in love with Amy Lee. She is an incredibly powerful singer, she can go from a beautiful melody in one breath and then belt it out like you wouldn't believe. I ended up with a few of their cds, and for a couple of months I couldn't get enough of her. I got the DVD of their concert in Paris and it was great to just kick back for a while and enjoy the concert in my own home. I would love to see her live in concert. She designs a lot of her own clothes and styles, which by the way is pretty much gothic, and refuses to use sex for selling her popularity. She settled in Little Rock and that is where Evanescence was formed. Are there any other Amy Lee fans out there?

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone, may you all have a fun and safe holiday season, and a wonderful year ahead of you! Larry and Terra

Thanks for the welcome guy's. I've been ready for retirement for about 10 years, just not eligible... I'm convinced, I was born to be a retiree and set my own pace. The only drawback is that age is a high price to pay for retirement. Best wishes to all.

I can't find a category that seems like this would fit in, so I'm putting it here. About 40 or so years ago, I remember reading in a Missouri Conservationist magazine about frost flowers and I was intrigued by them. Even at 14 years of age they captured my imagination with the magic of their beauty and how nature can be so randomly fascinating. I didn't give them much thought since then until last week when I was at my sister's house near Shell Knob. We went for a walk on their trail near one of the coves on Table Rock lake and noticed these ice formations, and that article about the frost flowers came back to me. I knew right away what they were, and it made my day. We spotted one, and then like looking for mushrooms you look around and they're all around you. I wish I had a better camera, because the little pocket camera I had didn't do them justice, but I thought I'd share some pics with everybody. I've spent most of my time in northern missouri around Mark Twain Lake and haven't seen any around there. Perhaps the conditions just haven't been right. Maybe they're more common around Southwestern Mo? Larry

I've been reading this forum for a while, and I finally registered. I've been going to Taneycomo about once a year for about 30 years, usually in January for cabin fever, and to get away with the guy's for some fishing, lying (fish stories), bragging (lying), eating, prank pulling, and to get rid of a couple beers that have been cluttering up my fridge. I'm planning on retiring this year and hope to spend a lot more time on the lake, and maybe meet some friends that I haven't met yet. Larry

I decided to take advantage of Phil's half price, slow time of the year, special. My wife and I were going to be in the area anyway, and this made a compeling argument with my wife, to stay a couple of nights at Lilley's and for me to squeeze in a day of trout fishing. My wife loves all the Christmas lights and displays at Silver Dollar City so we spent the first day there, and I got the second day for myself. Well, I guess my wife could say the same thing since she got to go shopping without me. As it turned out, I didn't get to make it a full day fishing because of the cold front that rolled into the area on Saturday along with the blustery winds. The cold I can handle, but fighting the arctic express made it really miserable. Getting a later start than I wanted to, I headed out in one of Phil's half price boats about 09:00. Making a bee line straight to Fall Creek, I tossed out a nightcrawler and almost immediately caught a nice 14 inch rainbow. Out to catch meat for my sister and brother in law, I put it on my stringer and went for more. I caught about 8 more fish, including one nice 17 inch brown, all on nightcrawlers. I kept 3 of the nicer bows and decided to go back and clean them, that allowed me to go try out the trophy area. I went to the cable and drifted back, the water was running slow, and the fishing was too. I didn't bring my fly rod on this trip, and I'm a spoon person so I tried several varaties of them, with limited success. I didn't have much luck with jigs or spinners, so I went back to my favorite spoon, a Walmart Renegade (hey, don't knock it, my friends and I have had a lot of success with that spoon over the years :-) and I caught about 10 nice sized rainbows with a fair amount of work. I drifted back below Fall Creek and switched back to bait, and caught about 6 more fish before whimping out. By this time I had my fourth trout to complete my limit, the cold front was rolling in, and I got tired of fighting the wind. I saw about 6 boats the whole time I was out, and this was on a Saturday. I didn't tear up the fish, but I had a decent day and enjoyed it very much. Hopefully this half price offering brought in enough business to try it again in the future. Larry