Buyer Beware> I have bought items from Goodwill off and on for the past few years. We didn't have a store close by. One thing you need to check is the outrageous shipping charges and handling charges. I saw a lovely metal vintage style tea pot I would love to have....bid 3.00 reasonable............shipping 10.00........handling.....2.00. Hmmmmmmmmmm tea pot not so attractive at 15.00 and that's if you get it for the 3.00 bid. I love looking thru all the items Goodwill has but some of their shipping rates are way out of line. All these items are donated and I know for a fact it doesn't cost 10.00 to ship one tea pot. Don't want to rain on your parade just want to make you aware. I also bounce between goodwill and ebay and yes I am a wicked sniper...............LOL Does anyone remember Andy's Warehouse Auction? It was run by Fingerhut no less..........oooooooooh the bargains I got there and their shipping was reasonable. How i miss them. There were a couple others but I don't remember the names. Sigh! Hmmmmmmmmm maybe I should google. Then there's freecycle.............I can't begin to tell you all the goodies I have gotten off there. Ok so I belong to 5 different ones.............:) I subscribe to all that are within a 50 mile radius and try to pick up two or more items on one trip if possible. Anybody watch the Junk Brothers? Boy would I like to find some of the loot they find. And that Workshop............ ChelCass

You are correct Pete. Your generation hit the retirement "sweet spot:" the best of all worlds. Four of my aunts and uncles have died in the past twelve months. Each of them was fortunate to have an "ordinary" career with different companies starting immediately after WWII. Each was blessed with a couple of million in retirement plans acquired simply by going to work for the right company at the right time through the "boom" years. I tend to believe that the best "retirement plan" available to people my age and younger is to try and maintain one's health as diligently as possible and to begin preparing in other ways, more education, developing different skills, discarding "grandiose" ideas of retirement. (I need to make some more changes in that arena.) I have an unpleasant theory on what's going to happen to existing "private" retirement plans when push comes to shove. Can't elaborate. MichaelAT

Hi all. I'm a newbie to this forum but not to this topic. Bottom line in regards to the original posting: if you sign the forms and then violate those terms then you are legally responsible. Putting aside what I think about the chem congloms (I detect a stench strongly akin to that of Ma Bell), signing your name to a legal agreement is still binding. Say you decide to quietly save back some RoundUp Ready seed, or decide that non-GMO refuges are just a waste of time/money and put a field completely into a GMO crop...you are knowingly going against your contract and busted is busted. If the speed limit is 35 and you get clocked at 70 don't feign surprise when you get the ticket. We have been saving back seed from our best-performing variety of soybeans for the last seven-10 years (non-GMO of course). This year when we contacted the operation that we use for our cleaning and storage they informed us that they had totally discontinued this service due to ongoing litigation with several customes. You guessed it...people were caught saving back GMOs. And the same people who don't understand the concept behind a refuge system with GMOs are quite often the ones who have more and more weeds still nice and green after yet another year of ALS-herbicides and can't figure it out. They accept the technology as foolproof without ever fully understanding it. I am sure there are a few here who will immediately want a background check. Here's what you get: We are small farmers-- the dying breed, if you will. We farm less than 400 acres of the big three (a rotation of soybeans, corn, and milo), all conservation tillage. The only reason my husband and I stay with this is because his dad died this past September and we absolutely refuse to sell the family farm to the 5000 Acre-Big Names. If I had my way (and wishes were horses so that beggars could ride) I would put it ALL BACK into native hardwoods and prairie and tell the rest of these greed-driven big operators to keep their damn hands off...uh, sorry--need my Prozac fix, forgive the tangent. Did try Bt corn against my wishes...I don't feel secure around anything GMO but the decisions are not all mine to make. Objectively speaking, I did notice that the non-Bt had a higher mold occurrence in the ears due to caterpillar frass breaking down (Makes me think of the contaminated Diamond dog food in the news lately), but other than that, we didn't see much difference in yield or stalk quality between the GMO vs non. Of course, no two growing seasons are alike in terms of weather, pest stresses, etc.... Never used RoundUp Read...beans, corn, any of it. In fact three years ago we got a 30-cent PREMIUM for non GMO beans. Only money we EVER saw from RoundUp Ready was two years ago when a neighbor who does bow and scrape to The Roundups had an adjoining field custom sprayed... seems that operator skipped school the day they taught basic GPS and so we received a complimentary spraying and a bunch of dead beans. It isn't possible with bigger acreages, but some of us still do it the old-fashioned way: long-sleeves, a bottle of water and a cane hook. I admit I am losing ground to the water hemp and the cockleburrs in some places, but after the initial spring planting/spraying (yes, we DO use some chemicals) the majority of post emergent weed populations such as shattercane, ragweed and velvetleaf are up to me. I have yet to read of a knife-resistant strain of anything. Politicians, maybe?

The author obviously didn't do his homework or was just doing a puff piece because he neglected to ask Mr. Carl about Viking's recent relationship with Asian juggernaut LG. I see a few problems with their strategy long term: watering down a high line or luxury brand rarely works, you ruin the very thing that got you to the show - quality and exclusivity. while they claim to practice kaizan - I just think those country boys can't figure it out. Many of their products still have quality issues. Their built in fridges still have defects that were in the product from day one. Not good for image as a "quality manuf. " they've done a piss poor job marketing their metal cabinets - I see more LaCornue metal cabs than I do St. Charles/Viking and they cost 5 times as much. Still unclear what their Asian partner strategy is.