Thurston Fluff

Regardless of the price estimate bf.net is priceless to us.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif Never should a day go by without it's members, in some way, thanking Brian for it.

Hmm, ya, I put in a site I work for and we do as much revenue per day than it says the site is worth. Which of course means its undervaluing sites and we're all RICH! We just sold one of our domain names and decided, out of curiousity, to see what they valued our main site, balloon.com, at. It was valued for about 1/3 of what we just sold printedballoon.com for. So they either undervalue sites or they use differant measurements to determine the values than people who actually have a use for the site names. Either way I wouldn't use those estimates when determining the value if planning on selling one.

What evidence has there been about Sosa? And also, did it look like Alex Snachez or Juan Rincon or Matt Lawton were on the juice? His perfromance in front of congress, his sudden change in body size...twice, once when he got big and once agian after he shrunk coincidentally after testing started, his sudden surge in power? As far as some of the others go I'm not all that sure they failed their drug test due to knowingly using steroids. Some guys especially the earliest ones probably used some OTC substance with banned stuff in them. More stupidly putting unknown substances in the body than actual intentional use of steroids. There is also the fact that steroids help performance in more than one way depending on the type of workouts done along with steroid use. I can't speak for all of them but I just couldn't see Alex Sanchez in the weight room doing everything possible to get more power. I could see him doing a lot of wind sprints or other excercises to incress his speed. If he indeed did use steroids to enhance his perfromance I would guess it would have been used for a differant purpose than power hitters used them. After all I don't remember seeing track stars getting overly huge. They just got leaner and faster than humanly possible.

Griffey has a club option in 2009, it can be bought out for 4 mil. So we would get to pay $17 million for an old but talented left fielder with a long history of injuries or pay $4 million for nothing at all? No thanks. Just not a very judicial way to spend money IMO. That $4 million could be spent on someone who would actually contribute.

Congrats to the Big Hurt. He was one of the most outspoken players in baseball about the lack of testing. There has never been any rumors or any suspicion what so ever about his use of roids. I think one of the greatest evils of the steroid era is when guys like Thomas and Griffey hit milestones like this it is diminished somewhat by idiots like Bonds and Sosa. That's a shame. He is one of the reasons why Bonds use of roids is so unforgivable. There were others like Griffey and Thomas who were every bit as good as Bonds but didn't go to the dark side because they were jealous of the spot light being on others who cheated. The only real knock on his hall of fame career could be his being a DH for a lot of those years. That said yes in my mind he is one for sure.

I guess ESPN should only show the bad things athletes do. It makes for better tv and no one will be accused of milking sick kids for ratings. I'd be fine with sportcenter if they simply reported and analyzed sports and stayed completely away from the personal side of athletes. If they are going to get into their personal lives though I think it's nice to have a little nice stuff to balance out Balco, football arrests and wrestlers murderering their family a little.

So far I've seen several senarios that make sense. Any of them could be true. Lets just hope the he's got some sort of injury one isn't. I think eventually Gallardo is ticketed for the bullpen for a couple months. He'll get a start then some rest then bullpen duty. It's the best way to get him acclimated to the majors while helping the team without overdoing his innings. Why Bush vs. Vargas? I don't know. Sometimes numbers have to be calculated along with human factors like fatigue, ego management, cohesiveness (sp?) ect.

I saw that as well. It's funny yet sad. He's one of those guys that just didn't know when to stop. It's like Reggie White playing for the Panthers.

Get at least three estimates. Give as much imput into exactly what you want and make sure you get references for the contractors. Some may want you to get permits and such some may do it all. Get everything spelled in writing what they do for the estimate. Find out if the contractor will be responsible for hiring other people needed for the job like plumbers or electricians ect or if it's your responsibility. Trust experienced guys more than young guys who are willing to do something cheaper. Something as major as that should be entrusted to experienced builders not new guys barely capable of siding or roofing without problems. Enjoy the mess you'll have it for a while.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I'm 43 and just couldn't see how anyone my age would have any interest in someone that age, ick. The lack of life experiences just make living with one that way insufferable. No disrespect meant to anyone on this board that age we hire plenty of teenagers and I have plenty of fun working with them. I'm sure they would all feel the same way about me in that context.

I've got a 23' Aquarius sailboat and love it. We bought it used and totally redid it to our tastes. One thing you should keep in mind is the gas cost. We manage to get out about 10 to 15 times a summer and barely go through a tank of gas. You'd go through that in a day or two with a speedboat. Sailing requires wind though and has limits in that regard. I keep mine in a marina but if you are looking at a 17' one you could put up the mast in about 20 minutes. Not hard at all. Have you done much sailing or are you new to it? IIRC Green lake is pretty small so you might want to see if there are any regulations with speed boats. I don't think there is but I have't been on it for years. Really the differance between the two activities is night and day. One, depending on wind, is more active the other more relaxing. If you like speed related activities like skiing obviously go with the motor although a sailboat seems like it's going faster than a speedboat at the same speed. One thing you may want to take into consideration is night sailing. I love to go out at night it's a totally differant feeling than day sailing. Either way enjoy the water.

If the Brewers win today they will have a .500 record or better against all the divisions in the NL and the AL central. Many felt the Brewers only won because of the division they played in. They really are starting to show they can win in any division.

Cubs are 9-6 this month to climb all the way to 5 games below .500. Brewers are 6-6 this month to fall all the way down to 6 games above .500. So they have to play as well as they have this month well into July just to get to .500. If we don't play any better this month than we have we are still six games up in the wins cloumn. Doesn't that sound better than they are within 5 games of us?http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I guess my main point is that the Cubs have a much better chance of improving if players they already have start producing more consistently, rather than being really active in the trade market - their whole team seems to play great or horribly at the same time. If they find a way to pick each other up rather than piling on to good and bad situations from game to game, their talent will keep them winning consistently. Good point. One of the problems they have been talking about with the Cubs was a lack of continuity with a whole group of guys who haven't really played together very long. Taking some away and adding another could set that back some. I don't know if their talent will do all that much. Really I see a couple great players surrounded by some pretty average to below average ones. Personal opinion here but the reason they are so sttreaky is they go the way a couple players go. If Soriano and Lee struggle the whole team does. The advantage the Brewers have is if one or two guys struggle the rest of the lineup is good enough to compensate. You need look no furhter than the Detroit series where Prince struggled and the team won anyway.

I was looking at the standing on Yahoo and noticed the Brewers have a winning record agianst the NL East. All we ever seem to hear is they wouldn't be winning in any other division yet they manage to win more than they lose in two of the three NL divisions. The NL West is where they have had real problems. Then agian the only NL West team they faced at home was the Dodgers. Which happens to be the only team in the west we have won as many as we lost. Aren't we also 3 and 3 in interleague play against the AL central? Must be hitting them all while they are playing poorly I guess.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif

OK. Who will be out there at the trade deadline? Gagne? I really don't know... Who would want what the Brewers have to offer? Realistically they won't be giving away pitching or significant prospects. I'm sure Melvin might trade Mench without blinking an eye. Problem is only two types of teams trade players. Buyers wouldn't want him because he doesn't really add much to a playoff caliber team. Sellers usuallt are rebuilding and who would want him as a part of a rebuilding project? I don't think the Brewers will be overly interested in trading away significant prospects since small market teams just can't afford to do that very often. Given this team is in the begginning of a couple year run they might be more hesitant than if they were at the end of said run.

Of these 6 series, 5 of them are at home! We've played the others on the road already and will play Arizona on the road too. So, this is something to really look forward to over all. We've already played teams that today have a winning record 7 times. 5 of those 7 have been on the road. We've lost 5 of those series and won 2. One home and one away. We were only swept once! I think we all might hvae over reacted some to the "rocky" stretch. It was a lot of good teams one after another and that really mounts on a team. I've been saying that exact thing for a while now. This stretch was the most difficult of the season. I don't think any team would have fared very well. Perhaps better than the Brewers did but not to any significant degree.

The Cubs will be better than they have been. How much better remains to be seen. They were so bad last year it would be a lot to expect one great aquisition and a couple pretty average ones to make them actually good. Their starting pitching is pretty average and the bullpen is nothing special. Their offense still seems to rely too heavily on a couple guys for them to put together the type of extended run they will most likely have to in order to catch the Brewers. Provided the doomsayers are incorrect about the Brewers imminent demise. I'm not very up to speed on their minor league system so I don't know who these trading chips some are talking about are. I do know, despite the hype it gets every year, they still have not produced very many good major league players in the last few years. I doubt they have so much minor leaguer talent to trade that they could afford to do so without hurting the team down the road. Whether that matters to them or not remains to be seen. Then agian I hate them like I do the Yankees so I know full well my opinion of both teams is less objective than it should be.

Alternatively, it might at least make sense to pin a single post that links to: the venting thread, the silver lining thread, the lineup thread, Yost's Last Stand, etc That makes sense to me. It could be a link coupling all the common discussions that come up over and over.

Congrats. Take some time to enjoy. The summer after high school really is one of those great times in your life. All the fun with relativly few of the responsibilities. As others have said hit the ground running in college. Spending the first couple months studying will end up in the rest of your college days being more enjoyable. BTW as a person your age it is easy to just go with the flow and do what people tell you. Take some time to think for yourself and be your own person. You will be better for it.

At least it took a flock of seaguls along with the 100 MPH fastball and great curve to no hit them. If you need an 80's one hit wonder band to throw a no-no does it really count?

Just got done reading "World War Z. Good read. I would be remise if I didn't mention "The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Very dry humor not nearly as popular n the US as it is in the UK. We even named one of our dogs Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Do you have scheduling software or a calendar so that you don't double book each of your services? No but we have invoices for each one. Our invoices for the next week are on a delivery wall. The ones further out are in a book listed by date. The part I'm most concerned about isn't double booking as much as booking something that will prohibit us from doing another because of a small time frame. We really can't afford to say no simply because someone had us doing a delivery in an hour time frame when it could have been done any time during the day. Thus the skill of negotiation. I went to your website and noticed that the services (characters) do not have prices listed. Is this intentional? If the customers were better informed, would negotiating price/amount of time/amount of other product be easier for your employees and the customers to discuss It's intentional. The prices vary based off several factors like city, time frame, time of day and character type. We thought about putting a chart or program in the site so they could so they could calculate their price. We didn't mainly because that would allow people to narrow the time frame to as small a size for the price as possible which is the exact opposite of what we want. The delivery part of the site is mainly for local people wanting to get an idea of what the characters actually do. We do have pricing for imprinted balloons and nation wide bulk delivery. That is, relatively speaking, a small part of the business though. We do the same with the handbook that you do. It's nice to know the owner of a actual business does the same.http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/wink.gif BTW Bmuch if you like sailing we have a boat at the highcliff marina. If you would like to go sometime let me know. falloutboy thanks for the ideas. I'll look into it.

yes we have an employee's handbook with policies, proceedures and trouble shooting guides. Our website is also fairly useful when used in conjunction with our price charts. The hardest part and the one I'm least capable to do is teaching someone how to negotiate delivery time frames. This, unfortunalty, is one of the more vital things they have to do. I like the check list idea thanks. We also do self checking tests they can take. I figures it at least gave them a chance to visually see the right answer.

We own a little mom and pops place and employ a couple people at any given time. Mostly part time high school and college students. Given the high turnover rate of that demographic it is important to train new people as quickly and efficient as possible. Unfortunatly I wouldn't qualify either of us as great at employee traning. We require them to negotiate time frames for deliveries and retain enough knowledge of what we actually sell to give basic answers. For the most part anytime we leave them alone we are always in touch via cellpone to nurse them through most situations but it would be nice to get some ideas on how to improve our training.