Question about loop leaders?

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 04:29:37 -0500, Cyli
wrote:

Trendy..

About half an hour after typing the above, I picked up my book by
Connie Willis, Bellwether. Started laughing. It's about chaos
theory and trends. The hero is trying to trace river systems for his
chaos work and the heroine is trying to figure out what sets trends in
bobbed hair, among other trends. One of the sub heroines is a very
trendy 20 something with the apparent IQ of a stopped clock. One of
the other characters, a sheep, seems to be a good deal smarter than
the trendy one.

If one has to say whether it's a guy or a chick book, I'd have to say
chick, so none of you would probably get much into it, but...

Her time travel series is astounding for it's differences, btw. She
has one, the Doomsday Book, that's pure grey misery in almost all its
parts and fascinating anyway. The other one I've read in it, To Say
Nothing of the Dog, is lighthearted comedy, with occasional farce. An
SF writer of many facets.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 04:29:37 -0500, Cyli
wrote:

Trendy..

About half an hour after typing the above, I picked up my book by
Connie Willis, Bellwether. Started laughing. It's about chaos
theory and trends. The hero is trying to trace river systems for his
chaos work and the heroine is trying to figure out what sets trends in
bobbed hair, among other trends. One of the sub heroines is a very
trendy 20 something with the apparent IQ of a stopped clock. One of
the other characters, a sheep, seems to be a good deal smarter than
the trendy one.

If one has to say whether it's a guy or a chick book, I'd have to say
chick, so none of you would probably get much into it, but...

Her time travel series is astounding for it's differences, btw. She
has one, the Doomsday Book, that's pure grey misery in almost all its
parts and fascinating anyway. The other one I've read in it, To Say
Nothing of the Dog, is lighthearted comedy, with occasional farce. An
SF writer of many facets.

Cyli
r.bc: vixen. Minnow goddess. Speaker to squirrels.
Often taunted by trout.

http://www.visi.com/~cyli

"Cyli" wrote in message
...

What they lose from me isn't much...

My fav canoe and camping shirt used to belong to one of my buddies and
his wife passed it on to me when it got too tatty for him to wear to
work. So I wore it to work for a year or two and then it had to go on
the river. The elbows are going, so soon it'll become short sleeved.


Funny that you'd mention a favorite shirt, as I had written a related story
about trendiness concerning a shirt, but deleted it because I thought it was
too 'subtle' to make sense. But I see that you might get it after all; let
me try.

I also had a favorite camping shirt, used it for many years, but I wore it
to shreds on a Canyon trip while shimmying into a limestone cave. I tried
for several years to find a similar replacement. It was quite unique, I had
bought it in my travels in Mexico, but it was precisely the right type of
shirt for the boating I used to do, as it was baggy enough to be shady, was
a pullover so it did not catch on the oar handles, was made of the right
material to dry out quickly, but still remain damp enough to keep me cool,
etc. Even other boatmen would comment on it, and how great a river shirt it
was. Having this shirt was like having a specialized piece of equipment that
worked in a certain niche so well, and I felt pretty good about having
found it and using it. So I tried hard to find another.

It was, unfortunately at the time that these shirts called "Henleys" were
all the rage. I would go into store after store, and describe the shirt I
wanted (which was only very vaguely like a Henley), and consistently
storekeeper after shopkeeper would cut me off mid-discription and say "Oh,
yes. That's a Henley, they are very popular right now. We have lots, right
this way..." No matter how much I tried to explain what my need was, they
assumed that I wanted this other thing that was not at all what I wanted.
Worse yet, they could not fathom why I DIDN'T want a Henley, as everyone was
buying them. It was infuriating, because they were mistaking me and my
desire to find a specialized piece of equipment for some preppie who wanted
to follow the fashion that everyone else was following. It was like going
into a fishing shop to find tippet, and everyone keeps telling you how what
you really need is regular fishing line and some worms.

Anyway, that experience captured for me some of what I hate about
trendiness, and what I mean when I say that it robs you of your own personal
experience. I hope that wasn't too subtle after all....

--riverman

"Cyli" wrote in message
...

What they lose from me isn't much...

My fav canoe and camping shirt used to belong to one of my buddies and
his wife passed it on to me when it got too tatty for him to wear to
work. So I wore it to work for a year or two and then it had to go on
the river. The elbows are going, so soon it'll become short sleeved.


Funny that you'd mention a favorite shirt, as I had written a related story
about trendiness concerning a shirt, but deleted it because I thought it was
too 'subtle' to make sense. But I see that you might get it after all; let
me try.

I also had a favorite camping shirt, used it for many years, but I wore it
to shreds on a Canyon trip while shimmying into a limestone cave. I tried
for several years to find a similar replacement. It was quite unique, I had
bought it in my travels in Mexico, but it was precisely the right type of
shirt for the boating I used to do, as it was baggy enough to be shady, was
a pullover so it did not catch on the oar handles, was made of the right
material to dry out quickly, but still remain damp enough to keep me cool,
etc. Even other boatmen would comment on it, and how great a river shirt it
was. Having this shirt was like having a specialized piece of equipment that
worked in a certain niche so well, and I felt pretty good about having
found it and using it. So I tried hard to find another.

It was, unfortunately at the time that these shirts called "Henleys" were
all the rage. I would go into store after store, and describe the shirt I
wanted (which was only very vaguely like a Henley), and consistently
storekeeper after shopkeeper would cut me off mid-discription and say "Oh,
yes. That's a Henley, they are very popular right now. We have lots, right
this way..." No matter how much I tried to explain what my need was, they
assumed that I wanted this other thing that was not at all what I wanted.
Worse yet, they could not fathom why I DIDN'T want a Henley, as everyone was
buying them. It was infuriating, because they were mistaking me and my
desire to find a specialized piece of equipment for some preppie who wanted
to follow the fashion that everyone else was following. It was like going
into a fishing shop to find tippet, and everyone keeps telling you how what
you really need is regular fishing line and some worms.

Anyway, that experience captured for me some of what I hate about
trendiness, and what I mean when I say that it robs you of your own personal
experience. I hope that wasn't too subtle after all....

--riverman

wrote:



While I realize the fact that you "never bought a pair" doesn't mean someone
didn't give you a pair, etc., but the implication is that you have not owned a
pair. If that's true, how do you say that "their top of the line waders are the
best in the market?"

From lots of contact with people that wear them and observations of
their construction and the materials used.


But that aside, there are lots of things that are, if not the best in the
market, certainly among the best, but that doesn't mean that your average user
needs or will EVER get the useful life out of such items. If they allow
themselves to be objective, most folks have a pretty good about how much use
they'll be able to get from an item - take the waders, for example. What
percentage of buyers of these, would you guess, actually _need_ "the best in the
market?" And a SWAG is fine - it's sorta rhetorical, anyway. And perhaps more
informative, what "minimum level of use" would make these a economically-prudent
decision - i.e., busy guides who fish themselves a lot, too, OK, a person who
knows they'll only need them 1-2 a year, no. From what I know about you, if you
can't justify them, damned few fishers could.


I didn't say I felt them to be the best value. From what I've been told,
Simms doesn't allow dealers to discount their products unless they are
having a model change or some other sale authorized by Simms. I got a
deal on a
pair of Bailey's Guide waders for a third of the price of the Simms.
They're a
very good wader with the features I want. They aren't as heavy duty as the
Simms Guide waders, but I don't think that a pair of Simms would last 3
times as long.

IMO, improvements in waders are the number one improvement for fly
fishermen over the last 50 years. (Tippet material would be number 2) It
used to be "impossible" to stay dry in the older style waders for any
length of
time and they were FAR less comfortable than the new breathables.

Willi

wrote:



While I realize the fact that you "never bought a pair" doesn't mean someone
didn't give you a pair, etc., but the implication is that you have not owned a
pair. If that's true, how do you say that "their top of the line waders are the
best in the market?"

From lots of contact with people that wear them and observations of
their construction and the materials used.


But that aside, there are lots of things that are, if not the best in the
market, certainly among the best, but that doesn't mean that your average user
needs or will EVER get the useful life out of such items. If they allow
themselves to be objective, most folks have a pretty good about how much use
they'll be able to get from an item - take the waders, for example. What
percentage of buyers of these, would you guess, actually _need_ "the best in the
market?" And a SWAG is fine - it's sorta rhetorical, anyway. And perhaps more
informative, what "minimum level of use" would make these a economically-prudent
decision - i.e., busy guides who fish themselves a lot, too, OK, a person who
knows they'll only need them 1-2 a year, no. From what I know about you, if you
can't justify them, damned few fishers could.


I didn't say I felt them to be the best value. From what I've been told,
Simms doesn't allow dealers to discount their products unless they are
having a model change or some other sale authorized by Simms. I got a
deal on a
pair of Bailey's Guide waders for a third of the price of the Simms.
They're a
very good wader with the features I want. They aren't as heavy duty as the
Simms Guide waders, but I don't think that a pair of Simms would last 3
times as long.

IMO, improvements in waders are the number one improvement for fly
fishermen over the last 50 years. (Tippet material would be number 2) It
used to be "impossible" to stay dry in the older style waders for any
length of
time and they were FAR less comfortable than the new breathables.

Willi