Well the whole league has a golden opportunity. Torts is back on the head coach market after the Flyers fire his @ss with 9 games left..

Or owners, double your fun and make Torts your next GM. Act now.

I like seeing the old guns come out as well. This season we have a new shooter using Grandpa’s Browning A5 and another new shooter using his Grandma’s Remington 11-48 that has a short stock so it is perfect for him fit-wise.

But nostalgia doesn’t fool me into thinking there’s no reason other than vanity to use a trap specific shotgun. These guns and their features exist for a reason and that reason is to give the shooter as many advantages as is possible. Whether or not the shooter can take advantage of these features will vary.

Well we scored A goal. Finally. So that’s something.

And now the feed is back.

tswoboda wrote:

Fanduel feed all good on the ESPN app

It was back right at the end of the first period and now it’s back to technical difficulties.

Did FanDuel just crap the bed for everyone?

Stanley wrote:

All 3 of mine are shooting this year. Oldest is a senior (2nd year) shooting a mossberg 500 and averages low 30’s. Middle is a sophomore (2nd year) and averages high teens to low 20’s. He shot a mossberg 500 last year and will shoot a franchi affinity 12g this year. My youngest is a freshman and this will be his first year and is shooting a franchi affinity 12g.

So cool that all 3 of your kids shoot. Nice that the oldest joined up as a junior. This is too good of an opportunity to miss.

We had two kids join a seniors this year for their first season. Glad to have them board. But I think they’re probably going to wish they joined sooner.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Although this doesn’t apply to me for now, Grouse and many others are spot on. The time saved on engine maintenance will be a godsend if the technology ever gets that far for us people in the country.

The day there’s a battery powered mower that can mow a few acres and a couple miles of fencelines at a time at the same clip as a diesel zero turn and sub compact tractor…we will be all over it. If I had a lawn in town I’d be all over either the Milwaukee push mower or the Ego one. They are the only 2 I’ve seen in action but seemed impressive.

The cost of battery replacement would kill that idea in a hurry.
[/quote]

I easily burn enough $4.50+ a gallon non-ox gasoline every year in our remaining walk behind mowers, trimmer, and blower that I’m sure I could buy a 5 amp hour battery every 2 years and still be money ahead compared to fuel and maintenance costs.

Of course the guy with the small yard isn’t going to come out ahead just on fuel savings. But then look at what it would cost to take a lawn mower to a mechanic for a plugged up carb.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Huh? Barzal has a couple of 80 point seasons playing for a stagnant roster in New York. When healthy (I agree that’s been an issue for him and he would need to be medically cleared) he’s one of the better skating & setup center’s in the league, something Kirill would thrive playing with…

I meant to say Barzal has never scored that many goals (30) in any season. In fact Rossi right now is 1 goal from equaling Barzal’s career best goals season. Yes, he’s had 80 point seasons. With 63 and 57 assists.

The Wild don’t need setup men, they need men who can put the puck in the damn net. We can’t afford to backslide by trading a 30 goal guy like Rossi for less goal production.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

2) Rossi + Ohgren + Heidt + Gaudreau + 2025 2nd round draft pick for Matt Barzal (needs to be medically cleared) I know Barzal is the Islanders cornerstone player,

Trade multiple assets including what is likely by end of season to be a 30 goal and 60 point guy in Rossi for an established player who has never been that good in any season?

What is it about Rossi that makes people always want to pitch trade ideas that involve trading down and getting less than what we have?

Hynes must want to just crawl under the bench and lie in the dark… The bad luck. It’s just unbelievable.

A friend of mine has a kid playing in a development program out east. His kids team has a D man and a winger both with really heavy shots. Which was awesome but the problem was they kept hitting their own #1 center with friendly fire on the PP and injuring him. So they had to put the #3 centerman on the PP. I guess the kids nicknamed him Mr. Expendable. The coach told him his job was to block the goalie’s vision as much as possible and try to get hit as little as possible.

I switched to all Milwaukee for small power equipment over the past summer. Trimmer and blower.

I love it. No stink, minimum noise such that I don’t have to have hearing protection on all the time. No engine maintenance, no winterizing, no spring starting issues. Total win.

I mow way more than most because my kids and I volunteer with the KoC to do elderly folks lawns and we do the church lawn as well. Even at this high level of use, I’ve had nothing but praise for the electric equipment. The key is to size equipment and batteries correctly.

Freaking hell, the Wild are going to need to sign Zeev out of practical necessity. At this injury pace, we’ll be down to 4 defenseman by this time next week.

What happened to Chisholm? I didn’t see P1 and most of 2.

Forgot to add, I’m assistant coaching again this season. We are blessed with a tremendously dedicated head coach who has been doing this for 10 years, so I’m thankful and happy to pitch in.

Our team is full as it has been since Year 1. We have to cap the team at 55 because of limitations at our gun club, we can’t cycle any more shooters through practice and comp days because of limited daylight and traps at our club. That’s okay, though, the only thing it impacts is whether or not we will be able to take 6th graders on the team. Otherwise we generally have space for anyone 7-12 who wants to shoot.

fishthumper wrote:

Much like bass fishing at the HS level its great to see so many schools also having a trap team. Sure wish those were both HS sports when I was in school. Its hard to believe in this day with all the Anti – gun people that this sport is even allowed much less grow like it has.

Yes, I also would have loved to have a trap team back in the day, but we were stuck in the 3 sports era with nothing else offered or supported.

The way the USACT league has set things up is genius for a number of reasons. In MN, trap is NOT an MSHSL (Minnesota State High School League)-sanctioned sport. Which, IMO, is actually a good thing.

Instead, it’s a “recognized activity”. So this means schools can support it if they choose, and there are other benefits, but here’s the big thing: Schools can’t stop it either. They can choose not to support it, but they cannot stop a team from forming as the [Insert town name} High School Trap Team.

We have one such team at our gun club, they school board contains some rabid anti-gun members and they blocked support for the team, but much to their chagrin, they found out they couldn’t stop it. The team formed anyway, and has been very successful without school support.

Schools can choose to support and include the team

You know it just makes me smile, every time somebody posts a playlist of awesome music from the past, it gets me thinking of different bands and the great songs that you don’t often hear.

Just the last 5 songs that played on my randomized playlist last night…

Queen – Fat Bottomed Girls
Jane’s Addiction – Been Caught Stealin’
Radiohead – Creep
REM – What’s the Frequency
Beastie Boys – No Sleep ’til Brooklyn

Matt Moen wrote:

It’s been years since I’ve been to Ozarks but I agree, Grouse. I think I counted a half dozen “poontoons.” Real original.

After seeing the 11th boat that day with the ultra-original name “Wet Dream”, I had to lie down.

I believe in one trip I saw at least 3 boats with each of the lamest names you see repeated everywhere, and the worst offenders were repeated so often that I’d have needed a spreadsheet to keep track of it.

I don’t recall seeing a single boat name down there that was original.

Matt Moen wrote:

I’m not a fan of it…feels like it’s for bigger boats. If you have something really personal I say go for it. Tough to fit on the back of a fishing boat if you have a kicker.

I had a sales guy who worked for me that had a shitty old Donzi…like a 22’ model. He named it “Commission Driven” and that drove me crazy. He was the worst salesguy we had and he got fired.

So, I’m a little jaded on boat names. What would you name yours?

This is exactly the problem. The people who think they’re being clever and original are almost always neither. If you think you’ve come up with something something original, Google the name and just look at all the people who beat you to it.

I always thought Lake Minnetonka was Ground Zero for un-original boat names, but upon further review, Lake of the Ozarks is probably worse.

Larger boats require a name out of practical necessity because of radio communications, but midwest walleye boats…. yeah no.

mxskeeter wrote:

Just call everything silver and problem solved.

That’s not going to work for Mrs. Grouse’s hound–a greyhound.

Strangely enough, it is always a greyhound, even in the US.

tswoboda wrote:

What would be the better option… Tell you he’s done for the season? Not sure how that helps.

And how does hiding it help? Like the fans will be so excited that we made the playoffs that we won’t notice KK is still missing?

Absolutely no one believes that the Wild is in a position to make a deep run with or without KK. So what are they really hiding by playing games with his return status?

Reading between the lines on Hynes comments on Kaprizov, the Wild are cooked. My prediction is that not only is KK not coming back this season, but he probably needs an additional surgery.

This is nothing but a Wild front office orchestrated screw job to keep the fans spending money even though KK ain’t coming back. And we all know what that means for playoff success.

Ek might be back but now we’re going to drag ass into the playoffs, without our only legitimate superstar. And now we risk reinjury to Ek even though we’re going absolutely nowhere.

Remind me again, where are we on this Billy Gee Wiz 15 year plan? Is this year 2?

No Foligno again. No JoJo due to illness. Now Rossi doesn’t return for the 2nd period. What the…

The pellets are the same size and travel at the same speed, there are just fewer of them with a 20 gauge. Absolutely no reason that a 20 wouldn’t work, like any weapon, you have to know its limitations.

I watched once as my dad whacked a fox with his 20 gauge #5 at 35 yards and it was with a 2.75 inch shell to boot. The old adage still applies, it doesn’t matter what you hit them with, but you still gotta hit them.

I love the music from the 70s, 80s and 90s, but that’s always there and nowadays it’s always accessible.

What I miss and that is mostly gone forever is the stereo equipment from that era. Those stacks of components with their flickering analog meters or later the digital graphs. And it was just cool. Does anybody remember those Technics turntables that held the record vertically? There was just so much cool stuff back then.

You could tell a LOT about a person by their choices of stereo equipment. The brands they had, components they had and didn’t have, etc.

I sold all my speakers and components. They reached the point where they were considered “vintage” (yikes! You know what that makes me…) and some of it was worth quite a bit of money. I don’t miss the space it took up and with kids there wasn’t (isn’t) much time to sit around and just listen to music, but it was kind of end-of-an-era sad to part with most of it.

But I miss that stuff and I still think about getting something cool but simple. Maybe just a Bang & Olufson Beosound with that freaking cool vertical CD player/changer… Man, I always thought those were just so cool. And that would be great with a pair of speakers from…

oldbear wrote:

I know everyone has to be younger than I but growing up it was a pretty much natural thing to smoke. Your Mom smoked same as your Dad,Grandpa etc down to your 2nd cousins. It was advertised in magazines and billboards. When I was on the church council and had a meeting the first thing that was done was grab a stack of ashtrays and put them on the tables in the back room.

Man, isn’t that the truth. I think back to the old days when damn near everybody smoked. People say, oh I’d love to go back to whenever. Well, no, you really wouldn’t because all the stuff you forgot about or never knew about, would be back there to make you regret it.

I suppose it was the early 1970s, my mother would host a group of mostly older women to play cards. I would guess back then, 50-60% of women over 40 smoked. My mother never smoked and as a nurse she despised the habit, but back in the day courtesy and manners required things which are now unbelievable to most of us.

Mom used to not only have to allow the ladies to smoke IN OUR HOUSE. Which just in itself is unbelievable now. But it gets better. It was just expected that there be two ashtrays on every card table AND this last one is just the best. Mom used to keep a couple of packs of cigs (I believe they were some “ladies” brand, was it maybe Chesterfields?) in the freezer so they were “fresh” in case one of the ladies forgot hers or ran out. I still cannot believe this one, the very picture of my mother being forced to buy cigarettes just blows my mind.

My dad has a picture of him at college. He was a mathematics guy, so the picture is of him and some college friends in one of the lecture rooms. They would gather there to work on problems together so they could use the large calculating wheels and the big blackboards.

So in this picture, there are ashtrays actually built into each table. And you can see the cigs lying in there burning as well as students in the background actually smoking. Again, just picture it. Firing up a cig in a college lecture room!

I remember visiting dad at his office in the 1970s, and of course the “secretarial pool” back then was all women and most of them except the head secretary were unmarried because once a woman was married it was still expected that she would politely quit and go home. So “the girls” as every man in the office referred to them, would fawn over us kids whenever we visited, but almost every one of them would have a lit cig between their fingers most of the time. The secretarial room was blue with smoke at all times.

The good old days weren’t always so good.

robby wrote:

I too am a hardware hoarder. And worse than that, knowing I have all of this treasure, I normally do not even look through it for what I need. I go to the hardware store and just buy what I need. Once in a blue moon I have to resort to searching shore the embysse.

That was exactly my problem. I just came to realize, if it’s not organized, then I’ll never look through it when I need something.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a whole damn hardware store in my shop, but it’s all organized. It was only that bucket full of stuff that wasn’t organized and I just NEVER looked at it when I needed something. So finally I arrived at the correct conclusion and it all just went in the recycle bin. I don’t miss it.

The other wildcard was that it seems to me that any bucket of old hardware is going to contain a higher percentage of fine thread nuts and bolts. And of course, almost none of the mix will be metric. Of course that runs contrary to what I seem to need nowadays. Everything is either straight metric or a mix of SAE and metric, and fine thread SAE is increasingly rare on the stuff I work on. Unless it’s something old that was made in the UK or has a UK engine, the Brits LOVED fine threads, but you won’t if you ever have to work on a Perkins or a Massey.

Remember the good old days when the Wild could score more than 1 goal?

Just to clarify, I mean more than one goal iper game, not per week. But sadly, it could be interpreted as wishing for more than one goal per week. Ahhh, seems like only yesterday…

Ripjiggen wrote:

He has some work to do then.

You can say that again. The reality is that when Guerin was named GM before the 2019/20 season, the Wild were a bubble/marginal 1st round playoff team.

6 seasons later, the Wild under Guerin are a bubble/marginal 1st round playoff team.

If next season is the make or break season, we’ll, I’d say Billy Gee has some making to do. A whole lot of it.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

The likely answer is he knows this team isn’t ready for a playoff run yet and didn’t want to burn major assets…

Exactly right. You can’t have a Bill Gurin 7-year plan if you pull a Win Now move in Year 3 to try to make a playoff run.

I think all of us Great Hockey Minds know how this works, but for those of you who don’t, you got your basic Guerin 7-year plan. If you push the Win Now button before year 4, that leaves you with 4 non-reclaimable years left on your plan. Which, by GM Rules, means Guerin would be looking for a job in just 36 short months.

But if he waits until Year 4, then he can reclaim the original 4 years as an OCBE (Organizational Culture Building Exercise) and that resets the 7-year clock, thus negating the first 4 years because they weren’t “failures”, they were successes when it comes to hopefully winning at some future point. Maybe. But who cares? As long as we have GM job security, that’s as good as winning.

waldo9190 wrote:

We bought a Sebo E3 canister vacuum last year that that thing absolutely rocks. I balked at the price at first…

Holy moly. I’ve heard of Sebo but never seen a price. Did you get a low rate on the 60 month financing?

Granted you are right in that if they last 20 years, then most people are money ahead over buying 2-3 of the other brands.

Although I would bet my Orek XL will last 20 years+++ of household use as well.

mnfisherman18 wrote:

Do leather hiking boots that are truly waterproof exist? As in standing in 3 inches of water for 5 hours waterproof?

For standing in water, odds of staying dry are always going to be better with rubber.

In and out of water is one thing, but standing in water…