done

Did you guys look at the other question on Lake norman? It is about 3 or 4 down, I put a link in there to a shore access map provided by Duke Energy for that lake. Check it out and good luck guys.

Well I feel better guys. I was on the fence on calling the cops that day, afterwards I wished I had but then, I grew up in a small town (3 sq miles in size) iN WNY, I was the 4th generation of my family there, everyone knew everyone, and when I was growing up(80's and 90's), we really would not have given a second thought to talking to the guy. However, I like in a MUCH larger town now, my job has had me travel to NYC, Chicago, Baltimore, Boston, Columbia - SC, Atlanta, and some other large cities and I have grown more distrustfull of people. Having my daughters (I have 4 of them), and especially when they are with me, ramps up my suspicious nature, and makes me all the more protective. I guess I am just depressed that we have come to this point where we have to be this proactive.

Heck...I am happy to have whatever I get cooked for me. I cannot imagine cooking everyday for me, her, and 4 little kids. Finding a menu that all of us will eat is tougher than finding a 10 lbs Bass in Lake Wylie in mid-summer

The other day, I am coming home from the store. I have my 7 yr old daughter by my side. I parked in the street and am walking up my driveway. Some dude approaches me out of the blue, he is dressed REALLY rough, nobody I have seen before, and says "Excuse me, can I talk to you sir?". With my little girl with me, and amount of robberies lately, I am REALLY not appreciative of door to door salesman. Especially one looking like this. So I told him sternly (but not screaming or anything like that) "No." and asked him to remain off my property. I feel bad that we cannot even talk to someone without feeling threatened. However, with my little girl with me, I am no taking chances. Also, I cannot explain it, but something about the look of this guy. it did not give me a good feeling. I watched him from the window he stopped at specific houses, not all of them and at anyone on the street. So am I being paranoid, or you guys think you would have done the same thing.

Probably postal employee. That reminds me, WHAT is it about postal employees and guns. I knew half a dozen guys who worked for the postal service. From carriers to local postmasters (Maine to NC), and all of them treated their job like it was the US Marines, and all of the collected guns. The dude in Maine had a federal permit for an automatic weapon. Luckily the guys I knew were also great shots and very respectful of their firearms. Just seems that place breeds gun collectors.

No, but you are messing with my calm. I have a 6 month old 8hp 4 stroke mercury OB on my boat. Let us know how it works out.

Yeah access to the water in NC sucks! Unless you got a boat in many cases you are out of luck. I tried to fish Wylie from shore for a year before I gave up and got a Jon boat. One thing to try, Duke Enery has a set of adobe pdfs on their website that gives all the public fishing access points alone the catawba river lake chain. Here is the link for Norman: http://www.duke-energy.com/lakes/facts-and-maps/lake-norman.asp Good luck.

I remember going white water rafting in Tennesee. One of the warnings they gave us was to never allow our rafts anywhere close to fisherman. Said most of then were armed and they had a nasty habit of shooting holes in the rafts. We also have a kid in Wylie with his daddies ski boat that does the same thing. He started in on us came in at about 30 mph with a 25 ft ski boat (I am in a 14 ft john), maybe 15 ft off the side. He just about threw my grandfather out of the boat, he did actually hurt his leg and swamped my Jon. Luckily my bilge pump could take it. When he came back the second time he got a VERY large sinker against the side of Daddies boat. I don't generally condone that type of action but in his case, 2 or 3 more passes, my boat would have been swamped and my grandfather would have been hurt worse. I can take harassment, but when you take it too far and start endangering the people in my boat, I take is very personal. If I would have had a firearm on me, he would have gotten a couple warning shots. Anyway, after that day, we gave me a very wide berth when we came across each other.

Looks like she's got a lot of potential there. Good luck!! Shoot us some photos when as yo ugo. I love seeing the transformation.

Thanks for the info, Scary looking thing...I have been testing myself though since then. To begin with, my house happens to be at the top of a hill with a driveway at about the same incline (actualy steeper) than the boat ramp. I can run up and down that thing without issue. I run up stairs at work without issue. Personally, I am siding with my doctor. I was having a couple of GREAT days on the lake. I did not eat, or drink (that would mean putting my pole down), I mainly fish sitting down in the boat, so I do not stand frequently, it was 40 degrees out and my legs and feet were cold. After all that, I siddenly got out of the boat and ran up a steep hill. While in my teens and 20's that did not hurt me, I have about +30 lbs on me since then, I have been a slug since double hernia surgery 7 months ago. When I ran up the hill like that, probably holding my breath, my heart rate shot up, so did my BP, it pushed cold blood out of my feet and legs up into my body and I ended up with my dizzy spell. I did the same thing the next time with 4 hours out and it was about half as bad that time. The good thing though, is right now, from the tests my doc ran, I have a pretty good idea that my cardio is good, from monitoring my BP I know it is safe. He also got me focused on my diet which is long overdue. That has me off the couch, and working my backside off on cardio, and strength training to the extent I was before my hernia surgery. So in the scheme of things, I think the dizzy spells were a good thing.

X2 When I was 39 had something similar plus shortness of breath. Had a few doctors look and found nothing. They were saying acid reflux. Found one doctor to listen to me and he found a 95%+ blockage of the right coranary artery. Glad your docs found it and was nothing serious. a couple of handfuls of peanuts and some gatoraide get me through the day usually. Yeah I like my doc for the same reason insurance hates him. Rather than just dismiss something he will do a full test battery to be safe and be sure there is no serious problem causing it. Now that I have Wii Fit, it will help out more or kill me. I cannot believe a video game actually can kick your backside like that.

Sam, I already did. A blood sugar test was one of the battery he ran on me. Thanks to an extrended stay in the ER the night before for my wife, I had a 16 hour fasting period before the test. Either way, it makes me feel good that nothing major was found, and I got a heads up on a couple things I need to work on (obviously I knew about the weight already), and good kick in the rear to drop the extra pounds.

So I finally get the Wii Fit today. Figure, well I whoop this stupid little thing. First thing, the board comes on with a cutsie little voice and taunts you. Makes fun of your BMI, tells you your balance sucks, then lets you play this series of "games" that continue to tell you how much you suck. I tell ya what, this game is freaking tough. I can definitely see how it helps you get into shape. I am determined now to gain enough strength, balance, and flexibility to throw the board at least 200 ft! Good to have goals.

What scares me is this...it takes you getting poisoned before yo uget sick from eating fish testicles. I do believe I would be sick the second someone told me what I was eating.

Hey guys, thought I would throw a follow up for this. It reminded me of why I like my doctor, the man does not pull any punches. I got the full rundown, stress test, blood check, etc. My Cholesterol is slightly high, my weight sucks, and from my dr "If you are going to go out fishing for 8 hours in the cold and not drink or eat, you are going to pass out when you run up the boat ramp!". Besides that, BP is averaging normal, stress test was clean, and everything else checks out. Anyway, being how am sick of this friggin weight, I am now darn near starving myself (follow Dr's diet guide), and exercising, to drop 40 lbs. Lost 8 already. So hopefully by my BDay, I will have an easier time getting my boat to trim out. LOL

Coule things to consider first off: 1. Is it going to be dynamic or static content? Basically, that is the feature set you want for your site? 2. How much money/Time do you have to invest in its development, hosting, and maintenance? For any web site or app I have worked on, first put down the list of features/Functional Requirements you have for your site. What do you want to do? Message boards, eCommerce, Bullitin board, articles? Do you want users to have accounts and log in like here? Anything else you want the site to do? Rank them. Then you can take #2. Put those together you can start to see if it is even viable. You may need to cut some out. There is a HUGE difference between a static html bases site and a dynamic site, with message boards, e-commerce, member profiles, etc. The technologies used vary immensely, the potential liabity (like Message boards, or ecommerce transactions, data security, etc) you may face. Costs of hosting vary depending on the feature set, as do the need and task of maintenance. It also depends whether or not you are going to do it from scratch yourself, or use someone elses site. You could always use a group on facebook. Which is totally free. Tons of ideas and directions you could take.

Not to pressure you, be really be careful of rushing to a quick decision. You pikc something you loathe because someone else did it, or because it pays good you will end up being mediocre in the field and miserable. What interests you? What is a field you find "cool"? besides fishing, what else do you do for hobbies? If you cannot make your decision up quick, find a good school go in as a general studies/Undeclared, and get your basics out of the way. Also, don't wimp out on something you love because it is a hard major. I went for Computer Science, and I was not the best math student. I had to go through Calc I, II differential equations, and some of fun math classes. It was tough, very tough, and I ended up doing more study and less drinking, spent days in front of a monitor coding. However, I got my degree, and now 10 years later, I am doing work I love. As a result, I have a passion in it, and I am good at what I do. If you really like the job (i.e. mechanical engineering) and you want the degree, set your eyes on it, and do whatever it takes to get your degree. If you do not know, really have no clue, take some time off and consider it. I knew many people who went to college with me with no major, no clue, no direction. They wasted a LOT of their parents money and racked up some nice student loans and got no degree out of it. Whatever you do go for, get an internship as soon as possible. It gives you an idea on what you are studying for, what you will be doing. Shows you the destination of this trip and lets you figure out for sure, if this is what you want to do.

LOL, maybe you should copy this on the thread about the environmental impacts of fishing.

Scary indeed. The wors part is the uncertainty. It breeds fear in the market and feeds back into the mayhem. Nobody can say how far it is going to go. Or how much it is going to take before it just collapses. I do know this. At a family party a couple weeks ago we had roughly 15 folks over the age of 18. 2 were already out of work, 8 were in serious concern over whether they would have work in a couple months. Of the rest of us, I am the only one still getting bonuses and raises and having a real good employment outlook (for now) but if this continues it is only a matter of time.

To fishizzles point, I now when I went trout fishing I would pick up golf balls and other small human items like that, even discarded fishing line, and put it in pockets on my vest. The cool thing about the golf balls was I would get enough after a day to do the the driving range and beat them up a bit. There were always TONS of them.

The thing with the fishing line though, it is littering. Whether it is fishing line, a milk jug, plastic dishwashing detergent bottle or a sofa (all if which I have seen in Lake Wylie), it is people eing craeless and throwing their junk into the wild instead of into a trashcan. IMO, It is not really, fishing. Another thought, boats. Boat engines dump a lot of garbage into the water. Granted you do not need one to fish but a lot of us do use them. How many of us have ever started the boat and seen that small slick behind the motor? Take a look at trout stream fishing, I do that a TON. You wade in streams, on some heavily used streams (like Little River near Jefferson, NC) the fisherman have tramped the shore like a herd of wildabeast. The worst impacts though are usually from irresponsible folks who do not take any respect or responsibility for the environment they fish.

man..that would be totally awesome to try. My wife would kill me for even thinking about it, but it would be cool.

Cool. I grabbed a type III vest from cabelas. I will probably move to the Mustang eventually. It looks like a good way to go and a LOT of experienced folks use them.

I have no idea. It is not a big deal for me. I realy like the motor and I do have a 2 battery setup already. Course if I could get the motor to charge the battery, that would only serve to increase my range and time on the water. So not a biggie but if I can extend my fishing time easily, I am always game.

I put in at the launch around the allen steam station. I have carried an NC&SC license for a couple years so I do not have to care about what state I am in. I focus on a the numerous coves out in that area. Usually in the spring and fall you can pick up a mess in the coves, winter i am struggling, and summer the same coves that pick up Bass, have HUGE cats. FYI...so far this winter I have been pulling 3-5 lbers in 8-12 ft of water. The coves I hit, it seems to be the magic depth. Once thing i can catch lots of is catfish. Usually just using nightcrawlers I can grab a mess of them.