Hello, I hope you don't mind me reading your letters. You seem a very interesting group of people, but I don't know what FRL friends stands for. If it's not too much trouble could someone post a reply and I will check back in a couple of days. Thankyou.

-- C (carfred@hotmail.com), February 27, 2002

Answers

arrggghh, and I thought we were on a private line!!

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), February 27, 2002.

LOL, Gene!

Carfred, FRL stands for Fruitcake Resistance League and came about as a comic relief for a bunch of "doomers" who were preparing for a Y2K crisis. Somewhere there's a list of all our old threads on the original Y2K forum. As long as you have a working, not too dirty, sense of humour, you're welcome to be here. I'm not here near as much as I'd like to be, and I think that's true for many of us. Maybe if you start a whole bunch of new threads, you'll get a few comments! :-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), February 27, 2002.

Hello Tricia, Thanks for the reply. I was a bit wary about the FRL thing as I could come up with a load of subjects it could stand for and most of them weren't nice. I guess I'm a suspicious old thing. If it's okay with Gene I will lurk for a while. Your old postings are so good. I just didn't want to intrude. I loved the woodcutter by Lon Frank, it's a long time since I read anything that could make you feel as if you were right there. Many thanks. Carol in OZ.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 03, 2002.

Welcome, Carol in Oz! (Robert Cook LOVES making fun of you guys being 'upside down'.) :-)

Lon is a superb writer as are many others at FRL friends. It's the thing that keeps us all 'hanging out' here. That and the humor. :-)

Real life has kept most of us pretty busy lately, but hopefully with the new story by Helen, it will pick up a little. Feel free to jump in and share any time.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), March 03, 2002.

Hi Carol, and thanks for the nice comment. The woodcutter was what we call a "snapshot". Several of us write little word pictures to share with the group. I hope you will join in; I've never been to Oz. We're all glad to see new folks around here. Just remember, don't take anything too seriously; we're a pretty loosely-wound group.

Oh, and watch out for my alter ego, Lon Frankenstien. He's not put together all that well, and sometimes makes a nuisance of himself.

-------------------------------

-- Lon Frank (lgal@exp.net), March 03, 2002.

And watch out for a Bayou reporter named Skippy...

-- helen (skippy@will.getcha), March 03, 2002.

Can your computers run on time there, or are they too slow too?

Seeing as your AC current runs backwards half the time and all .... (It's really a cosine wave down there ya know.)

-- R. A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (racookpe@earthlink.net), March 03, 2002.

Thanks all for the nice welcome. Unfortunately I am not at all articulate, but am enjoying your stories immensley. Yes, my computer is very slow as not only am I down under, but also in a small country town with old telephone wiring. I am lucky we are not DC instead of backward AC, and my computer reqularly goes off on a tangent. I think however our clocks are ahead of yours, so all is not lost. Perhaps someone could explain if a cannuck is a Canadian and what a bayou is? Thanks. Carol in OZ.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 03, 2002.

Thank you for your kind replies ... as opposed, for example, to your kinda replies.

We understand you're from OZ- - close to Kansas we understand, except you probably don't don't a witch underneath the house, but since you're upside down and all that, you'd probably prefer a witch on the roof.

Easier to clean and all.

OZ, isn't it? Anyway, since your not from NZ, you must be from Old Zealand. What state/province/beach/desert/swamp?

Out answer to the bayou question will be determined on your relative level of experience with flat land, slowly moving water, and general soggieness.

-- R. A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (racookpe@earthlink.net), March 04, 2002.

Couldn't get online so I wrote you a rhyme it's not too good, it's my first

but I've forgotten the rules as it's so long since school isn't old age a curse.

I had a good look in a trusty old book and a bayou's a swamp it says

I think bayou sounds better as swamp sounds much wetter and reminds me of mozzies and crocs.

A Canadian's a Canuck it says in the book I should have looked there first

but I'm lazy you see and I love this I.T. it's even got me to write a verse.

No we don't have any witches down here Robert, but sometimes when I get the broom out at work, the boss asks me if I'm going to take a spin around the block. He also says my work mate and I, sound like a pair of witches when he hears us cackling in the kitchen, but what would life be without a few laughs along the way. Cheers.

-- wendy the witch (carfred@hotmail.com), March 09, 2002.

Sorry about that. I guess there's some trick to getting verse to print properly. I assumed pressing enter would start a new line each time, but apparently not. Many apologies.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 09, 2002.

Carol, your poem was great! Don't worry about the formatting.

Is it fall where you are? Spring is trying to 'arrive' but winter is slow to let go in some areas here.

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), March 09, 2002.

Good laugh, "Wendy" :-D

BTW, for those in TX and others who might get our weather now that it's moving out of here... we had daytime temps of about -20C (-4F) which is about 20C (36F) below our normals for this time of year. I'm not sure which way that weather system is moving, I just know it's not sticking around here much longer. Thank Goodness!!!!

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), March 09, 2002.

Thanks Gayla and Tricia, Yes, we are just coming into autumn (fall). We have had a fairly cool summer for us, so we are hoping for a gradual slide into winter. Not that our winters are anything to complain about. We think it's cold if it drops below 10C (50F I think). I can't imagine it being minus anything. Our summers can be pretty hot though, often 35C-40C (95F- 108F). That's my kind of weather, I love it hot. I hope you all get some lovely spring weather soon, I'm feeling guilty having a week of 24C (mid 70'sF) days while you're all freezing your butts off.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 13, 2002.

Hmmmmmn.

Has Wendy the Witch met Lon Frankenstein? His bolt threads aren't metric ya know, and he might get a screw loose if this metric talk keeps up.

If God wanted us to use the metric system he wouldn't have made chicken lay twelve eggs per foot.

Hint on the pair-a-graphics formatting: Put TWO carriage returns between the lines to get ONE blank line between your paragraphs....if you use just one, there's no paragraph separation. To get several lines in a row, use a "<" then a "br" then a ">" ... that makes a line break in html.

-- R. A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (racookpe@earthlink.net), March 15, 2002.

Wow, Robert! You must have some prolific layers in GA! Since hens each have 2 feet, they must be producing 24 eggs per hen, right? ;-)

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), March 16, 2002.

Hmph!

-- R. A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (racookpe@earthlink.net), March 20, 2002.

Sorry Robert. I wouldn't want to upset you or Mr. Frankenstein, so I will try not to use metric terms anymore. Can't have Mr. F. having a loose screw!!! Were you trying to nudge the storytellers with the title "Wendy the Witch meets Lon Frankenstein"?

Thanks for the formatting tips, but I think I will leave the creative stuff to those who do it so well. That was just a moment of weakness, that I will blame on insomnia. Hope your weather is improving, ours is still lovely. Cheers.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 22, 2002.

Carol, don't stop using metric! You'd leave me all alone to face these backward Americans? Us commonwealthers have to stick together! :-)

I can't believe I got Robert so well that his only response is a "Hmph!" :-D

-- Tricia the Canuck (jayles@telusplanet.net), March 23, 2002.

Backward Americans? Hmmph! ;-)

Carol, our weather has been gorgeous this week! The only problem is: with all the trees blooming, everything is covered with nasty yellow dust. YUCK!

-- Gayla (privacy@please.com), March 24, 2002.

Gayla, I'm glad someone else is getting some nice weather. There is nothing like the first breath of spring. Instead of yellow dust over everything, we have fallen leaves everywhere. Our daylight saving finishes next week, so then I will really feel that summer is over. I hope the nice weather isn't too far away for the rest of the US.

-- Carol (carfred@hotmail.com), March 24, 2002.