Holy moly. Lakeville South plays fast, the Spuds just play faster.

Sooooo glad to see that Hitman Hartman is back. The playoffs are a lock now.

The Freddy/Zuc/JoJo line actually looks great. Can it last?

Merrill. Please, make it stop.

lindyrig79 wrote:

First time with a bunk trailer. One of my side bunks has a pretty good bow to it. Can see daylight and not making contact throughout.

What is the answer here? Replace the bunk? Is there adjustments that can be made?

I had this happen with my last boat. IMO the cause was the bunks getting wet and expanding between the two fixed points. Obviously, the bunk can’t bow upward, so it bows down. Once the bunks got a bow, they stayed that way.

My fix was to make new treated bunks and I put about a 2-inch “stiffener” made out of 2×4 on edge on the bottom side so that the bunk was shaped like a T. The stiffener was only between the two mounting brackets where the bow is.

I attached the stiffener with waterproof adhesive and stainless screws driven in from the top and I was careful not to countersink the screws making a pocket that would then hold water. Then new carpet over the top.

Bunks stayed perfectly straight for years.

Almost inevitable that the Avs overtake the Wild in the central, so basically we’re trying to hold on to a Wild Card slot long enough to get Ek and KK back.

Nice to hold on yesterday for the win but not exactly confidence inspiring play.

I’m not overcome with the feeling that this is the year for a deep playoff run, that’s for sure.

Pete Rose isn’t in the HoF because even before his gambling on baseball was exposed, he was known as the biggest jackass in all of baseball. Which is saying something.

He was absolutely unapologetic when he was caught and he remained that way, thinking that his fans would somehow force the commissioner to give in. That was never going to happen. Rose made MLB actually benefit from keeping him out of the HoF because his crying about the injustice of living with the consequences of his own actions served as a warning to the whole league for decades.

suzuki wrote:

If I were to crack the Johnny Walker Blue I have would it taste like mossy scotch?

Very nice blend, lots of fruit and spice notes. There is certainly a mild hint of peat smoke, but from my recollection it’s by no means as strong as peaty single malts.

IMO Blue is a blended Scotch imitating the best of the Speyside whiskies. I wouldn’t let a bottle of it sit unopened, that’s for sure.

Justin Donson wrote:

Most scotches will have the region on the bottle somewhere, Campbeltown, Highland, Speyside, Islay, Lowland being the big 5.

I’ve most often read and heard of the 5 Scotch whisky gropings described as Highland, Islands, Lowland, and Speyside.

Islay distilleries most definitely have characteristics of the Island whiskies. Laphroaig has all of them and then some. Not for the faint of heart.

fishthumper wrote:

What is the biggest difference between Scotch and say a Canadian Whisky other than where it is distilled? I believe Scotch has a much more smokey flavor.

There are tremendous variations in the taste of different Scotch whiskies.

The mossy/smoky taste is the smoke flavor imparted by the distilleries that use traditional peat fires in the malting process. This produces a smokey flavor, more pronounced in some than in others.

If you’d like to try a single malt Scotch that has very little smoke flavor, try The Glenfiddich.

BTW, “ich” in Scotland is pronounced “ick”. So Glenfiddich is properly pronounced “glen-fid-ick”.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Wallstedt has 2 more years to figure it out contract wise, goalies take longer, Wally needs a year of consistency on/off the ice…

And what are we going to do for a backup while Wallstadt takes another 2 years to figure it out? More cap space burned. Guerin needs to quit playing favorites. It was obvious that he took a hard line with Rossi, it was get full-on NHL ready or you’re getting dealt. So why the softly-softly with others? We need a legit backup goalie next season, why should we be wasting cap on a R1 draft pick that can’t get even backup-ready in 4 years?

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I mean with the injuries, how is it the Wild’s (GMBG) fault Spurgeon gets slewfooted into the boards, or Ek breaks his foot blocking a shot, same with Brodin? The Soft tissue injury Lauko has had COULD be looked at if the Medical staff/trainers handled it properly, Kirill had a Sports Hernia, how do you stop a hole forming in someone’s internal body?

Yet we remained competitive defensively despite injuries to key D men, but now with 2 offensive players out, we’re useless. It’s almost like we’re missing the same thing everybody has been saying we’ve been missing… Our top 6 is really a top 3.

My prediction is neither Ek nor KK will be truly playoff ready if the Wild even make it that far. Somebody besides Rossi is going to have to step up and start scoring consistently or the playoffs are going to be in serious jeopardy within 2 weeks.

Sorry, but this season proved one thing: Guerin has to go or the PP and PP will NEVER be fixed and the Wild will continue to be first-round playoff fodder forever.

All these special teams coaches that have come and gone are all Guerin’s boys. No more “It wasn’t my guys.” excuses. Another 5-year GM Job Security Program/planning cycle isn’t going to fix anything because the first 5-year plan didn’t change anything.

It’s Deja Vu all over again. The Wild are still an injury-prone team that lacks special teams effectiveness. Either trait is an absolute playoff killer, but both of them together???? First-round exit every time.

The Wild need major changes, not tweaking. Hartman needs to get gone. Jojo obviously will be gone at the end of the season. Walstadt needs to get put on the “Rossi Summer Camp Program” where it’s clear to him he either makes major progress and becomes a real NHL backup or he’s outta here. And, of course, we still have the same need in the top 6 that we’ve had the past 2 seasons.

BigWerm wrote:

How about this idea, Metro Section Finals at the X or Mariucci during the week? Tell me those wouldn’t be close to sellouts for the top matchups. Plus they could more easily televise them, like they do in Duluth at the DECC.

This has been brought up before, but it would take much-needed revenue away from local arenas. The sections are the biggest earners of the year for the arenas and one of the few times that most of them actually sell completely out during the course of the season.

Also, the jam-packed local arena section final is a high school experience in itself. I’ve been to so many of these at classic MN venues, some now are sadly gone. The big league venues are for the state tournament.

The Famous Grouse is the most popular blended Scotch in the UK. However… I don’t actually drink it. I don’t drink blended Scotch at all.

The origin of my name goes back to the early days of Internet forums. Mrs Grouse poked her head into the study and said, “What are you grousing about on that forum now? You’ll become famous for grousing. You’ll be The Famous Grouse! Ha ha ha ha…”

Me: “Hmmmmm.” [Changes user name in settings…]

For the Scotch whisky drinkers amongst us, here are a few of my recent favs to try.

The Balvinie Caribbean Cask. Wonderful take on a classic. The rum cask ageing adds a totally different finish.

The Shin – A Japanese whisky made in the Scottish style. Absolute masterpiece. Depth, flavor, finish. Magical. Well worth tracking down.

Highland Park 18 year old. Island whisky with refined beauty and grace. Probably the perfect all around islander.

gim wrote:

Only 2 section final games left in class AA. Class A is all done.

Cretin vs Stillwater in section 3, and Hill Murray vs Stillwater in section 4.

The brackets for the state tournament will be revealed tomorrow.

St. Thomas Academy plays Cretin DH for the Section 3AA championship at Braemar tonight.

Stillwater plays Hill Murray for 4AA at Aldridge Arena. This game sold out in 5 minutes.

Very sorry for your loss, Randy. Your devotion to the care of your parents is a real tribute to what they mean to you.

fins wrote:

Don’t tell the tweakers about that. That sounds like something that would be right up their alley

Until they realized how much work it is. Then they’d go right back to stealing Amazon packages.

Just a shout out to the girls state tournament teams. I went to both Championship games and they were THRILLERS. Both Championship games went to OT. Fantastic hockey being played by our MN girls teams.

The PWHL is different from the NHL because there are no individual team owners. The league owns all the teams, so the GMs and coaches are employees of the league, not the individual team owners.

Also be because of this league ownership of teams, everything that happens is subject to non-disclosure agreements so no one will be telling the whole story anytime soon.

What has been pieced together by the Athletic is that before the 1st season even started, original MN coach Charlie Charlie Burggraf quit. He was replaced by Ken Klee. Sources say he was not Darwitz’s choice, but again the league called the shots.

Everything seems to point to a rift quickly forming between Darwitz and Klee. Again, unlike the NHL, the PWHL is heavily influenced by a very few superstar players. The biggest of these is Kendall Coyne Schofield. Schofield was key in bringing the league into existence and her influence is probably greater than Darwitz’s. Schofield had played for Klee on numerous national teams and likely was key in him getting the MN head coaching job.

So while nobody will come out and say it, what the Athletic indicated was the core MN players sided with Klee and Schofield and wanted Darwitz out as GM. Which is what happened. Why, exactly, they wanted this, no one seems to be willing to say.

Thanks everybody. The Sharkbite has been installed. Getting the old compression fit valve undone was, as I predicted, not fun because there’s just no space to work wrenches, but once that was out, the prep and installation was easy.

I can sweat copper old school style and I have PEX tools as well, but this was just one of those one-off situations where I really, really, really wanted the easy fix rather than have to remove the toilet and make a bigger project out of this.

I already have another project to move on to. Both my MIL and my sister have townhomes that were built in the late 1980s/early 90s, so absolutely everything that wears out is at the end of its usable life. Now the hot water valve on the MIL’s laundry shutoff is dripping a little… So that’ll mean the cold water is shot as well, so let’s just replace everything… New valves, new hoses, new drain hose.

tswoboda wrote:

It’s not like it was the real Herb Brooks… it’s just a Disney movie mashup with the current players.

Lol. Yes, I’m pretty sure most of us knew that it was not the real Herb Brooks. My inside sources tell me that despite Disney’s dogged pursuit, he was unavailable to do a live appearance due to the fact that he is presently deceased.

By the way, who comes up with these brand names?

Gooloo?
Yaber?
Zeus?
Noco?

This has the makings of a quiz show category. Is it a jumpstart pack or part of a bad pickup line?

Hey baby, I’m bringing out the Gooloo tonight…

When the Canadians pulled even 2-2, I told my son that Canada would win this one in OT. Again. The USA was just not generating anything other than brief rushes and then right back the other way, it was like watching tennis.

Not much more to say about Binnington, just when the Canadians needed it, he came through. What can you say, I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that you’d want Binnington to be the guy to win you a 7 game series of this type of game, but that wasn’t what this was.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Anyone else annoyed with the redo of the “Miracle” pregame speech?

Yes, I thought it was completely lame and as someone who watched the Miracle game live, I will tell you that even as a 10-year-old, that game had VASTLY more meaning and symbolism than this game. The idea of recycling one of the great moments in sports and trying to shoehorn it into a modern-day context that it doesn’t fit, was just wrong.

Musky Ed wrote:

Not only that, the main distributer for Ionic, sells and recommends a Noco jump pack for lith batteries. If you are getting one for lith boat batteries or any battery for that matter, what you want is one that will work with a battery that has gone below the 10 volt area, as if it doesn’t have that ability, it will not allow any charging or jump to take place, similar to most stand-alone chargers that will not charge a battery below a certain voltage.
Noco’s and Gooloo’s have an override that will allow a dead battery to take the jump, not all do, and this is an important feature.
On lith starting batteries this is extremely important as sometimes they will go in protection mode and shut off but can be woke up with the right jump pack.

This is great information. I have had the same issue with so called smart battery chargers. They will not charge a severely deleted battery because they read the battery as having a dead cell if it is below a certain voltage.

I gave Gooloo battery packs as Christmas gifts to my dad and BIL last year. Sooner or later they’ll need it.

Okay hockey fans, what are USA vs Canada final score predictions for tonight?

I hate to say it, but IMO Canada will come out on fire. National pride is at stake on a totally different level and they’ve been lackluster so far and the Canadian media have let them know it. They don’t want to be “that team”, as a Canadian best-of it doesn’t get any better than what they’ve got.

USA needs to stay out of the box and Brady and Matthew both need to be at the level they were at in the first meeting. Hellebuyck has to be lights out as usual.

Final score:
USA 3
Canada 2

No editing now. State your predictions.

Nodakk wrote:

The main times I have seen any issues with stab on stops is if the pipe is not round (ie ovaled). Just make sure the copper looks good

Thanks, I’ll make a clean cut and clean up the ends. This whole thing wouldn’t be a problem if I could get in there to put on a compression fit stop, but I should take a picture of how this stop is boxed in between the toilet and tub. I doubt this is code but it’s in a townhome so they must have done it the same and gotten away with it in all the units. It’s not a problem until the toilet is installed and then there’s just no room.

I already went and got the Sharkbite fitting from the Home Despot. Shouldn’t be a big deal but wanted to ask if guys had bad experiences with these as I’ve never used them.

I agree with Randy and BC in that the 90 and 110 ATVs get outgrown so fast that I don’t see them as being worth it. My kids were big and didn’t even fit on the 90 size when it was within their recommended age range.

I ended up buying Coleman mini-bikes and the kids have had endless fun on these. They are simple to ride, go anywhere, and they are Chonda (Honda clone) powered so they are as simple and reliable as the day is long. We’ve kept one of these bikes because the kids still ride it even though they are teenagers and it’s great for a run-around utility ride just to go back and forth to fetch tools, etc.

Thanks for the feedback guys. That’s what I was hoping.

The crappy thing is that If they had put the stop on the other side of the toilet there would be 3 feet of open space to get at it.

Nodakk wrote:

I take it that it’s copper pipe coming out of the wall?

Yes. Good old 1/2 inch copper.

NHL trade deadline is March 7 at 3 PM EST. Do the Wild and BG make any moves?

I don’t see it. I don’t think Nelson wants the disruption and the Islanders are showing a lot of interest in a new contract plus they have their own playoff picture to worry about. If he comes here, it’ll be as a UFA this summer.

Do the Wild make any moves?

JoeMX1825 wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>AK Guy wrote:</div>
35 seconds in and that bum Kreider scores.

yeah, he must have been fueled by Mathew Tkachuk’s energy from the press box….

Brady looks ready to join him.

PM sent.

If DT is willing to freeze his blue line off, he deserves support. Please donate if you can.

Matt Moen wrote:

We have a solo stove…I like it because you don’t smell like a campfire. We can use it for a couple hours in the evening and don’t have to wash our clothes. My wife wouldn’t use our old fire pit because of the smell.

Also have a Solo and I like it for exactly the same reasons. Once they get hot, there is very little smoke smell.

One thing I have noticed is because the steel sides reflect heat, they are not as warm to sit around. They don’t throw radiant heat sideways off the red hot coals. So that limits when Mrs Grouse wants a fire.