Month: October 2024

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How to Plan Your Child’s First Fishing Trip

Many fishing enthusiasts dream of the day their children will join them on the water. If your child is finally old enough to handle a reel and you’re getting ready for that milestone first fishing trip, here are some tips to help you make the experience a memorable one.

Get Excited
Once you’ve announced to your child that the two of you are going fishing, mark the day on a calendar and commence a countdown. Help engage your child in the planning by going shopping together for a fishing license and some new fishing gear. Choose some extra tackle from your own box and hand it down to your child as a gift to make the occasion special.

Let your child help choose the location. Point out a few options on a map, explain the pros and cons of each spot, and decide on the best place together. Try to avoid steep or slippery locations, and look for a spot that is likely to yield fish.

Before the big day, teach your child how to clean and oil a reel as well as assemble, disassemble and put a new line on it. Allow your child to practice casting in the yard with a lightweight sinker; you can even set up a garbage can or other target to help build accuracy.

Get Ready
Let your child help you get everything ready the night before, including snacks, lunches and fishing equipment. Nothing spoils a fishing trip like being cold, so bring plenty of layers and extra clothes in case you get wet.

To help keep your child occupied during down time, bring a small bag of activities and keep in mind some other activities the two of you can do in case the fish aren’t biting: Go on a hike, learn to skip rocks, catch frogs, go geo-caching (if you have a GPS unit), etc.

Get Outside
The day of your big trip, wake your child up early to allow plenty of time to get ready and share a special breakfast, either at home or at a diner. Kids tend to remember occasions on which they had to get up extra-early.

Once you arrive at your destination, let your child help unpack and give him or her your full attention as you prepare and bait your reels together. The first time your child gets a bite, let him or her reel it in alone as you coach and cheer from the sidelines. If the first fish is lost, then help with the next one. Let your child know it’s common for a fish to get away.

Back at home, make a point of bragging about what a great job your child did. If you’ve played your cards right, you’ll have a fishing partner for life.

~Flora Richards-Gustafson, 2010

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The Not-So-Silent Killer of the Restaurant Business

Bad publicity can be good for a celebrity, but not for a restaurant business.

Read these comments:

“Why do people come here?”

“The food wasn’t anything to write home about”

“The food sucks, and the employees are treated like crap”

Pray tell me, would you come here on your date night or would you go somewhere else? I think we both know the answer. As of this writing, you can see these comments online for a restaurant that pops up as #2 in Google for Buffalo, NY.

Or how about this restaurant in Manhattan Beach, CA (came up as #3 in Google for me):

“Experience, not so good. The wine was excellent. The food, not so much. The sauce on the pasta was bland, & watered down. Canned sauce from the grocery would have had more flavor. Maybe because we came early evening and their sauce was not done yet? Don’t know. The scallops were over-cooked but still good as they were fresh. Service was NOT first class at all, not even 2nd class. This is the first restaurant that was Zaggat rated that I found was not deserving. It was a waste of time & money. Very disappointed as this is a very pretty setting.”

If a friend from out of town was visiting, would you pick this restaurant?

This comment shows up on top of all other reviews and it has been there for over six months! Over all this time, this restaurant’s management could be looking at their sales reports, wondering about their slow sales this summer compared to last year and blaming the economy. The problem, as is usually the case, is right under their noses: It’s their restaurant’s online reputation.

Notice here that I am not scraping the bottom of the barrel. These are some of the most popular restaurants in their cities that have been in business for a long time.

Marketing a restaurant business used to be a relatively simple thing: Create an ad, run it in the paper or give a chunk of cash to the Yellow Pages people, and you’re set. Even your biggest and worst mess ups didn’t usually get known outside of a small circle of people.

And boy what a different world we live in now! Restaurant marketing success today depends not as much on what you say about yourself but rather on what other people say about you.

It doesn’t matter is these comments are based on facts or fiction, if one of your staff happened to have a bad night, or if you had to fire an employee and they are retaliating by smearing your restaurant business online. It’s of no consequence if the customer was irate and unreasonable. All these reviews are there for the entire world to see and judge. As a result, your restaurant business suffers.

With social media and review sites everywhere, the reputation of your restaurant business is under constant scrutiny of literally thousands would-be-guests. Some of them could be strolling down the local street and reading your restaurant reviews on their cell phone while others would be miles and miles away, on their computer, planning their trip to your city.

Restaurant reviews, if not managed properly, can tarnish restaurant reputation online, send would-be-guests away, and hurt restaurant business.

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With Motocross Games Experience Fun, Excitement and Adventure That Is Different

Many people out there wish to experience adventure in life. What can then help all of them add such adventures are some sports activities that can simply be categorize as EXTREME. One such sport that sends a rush of adrenaline through anyone participating and even witnessing the same is the motocross. Touted to be the most daring form of motorcycle sports, this dates back its origin to 1940s in Great Britain.

Today with new features and innovations getting added to help players enjoy the game action but while sitting at home has lead to the surfacing up of the new form of motocross as the online motocross game. With a plethora of sites now offering many game versions, all those interested in playing this adventurous game now have the advantage of experiencing fun and an exciting activity but without even spending a penny.

Saying that you can now experience all the fun this amazing motocross game veils, but without going into the mud will not be exaggerating. With newer technology, more advanced graphics getting added, the motocross games are now capable of giving players a close to reality experience, but without actually taking any risks.

With easy to follow instructions, the motocross games can lure anyone for the extreme action and thrill they all pack. With better features getting added to sum up the game action as simply an out of the world experience these motocross games have grown in great popularity among not just the youngsters but people of all age groups.

From single player version to multiplayer feature, when playing this fun filled action and thrilling game one can enjoy either playing against the system or real players. A multi level game, this entails riding a motorcycle from all types of terrains in the virtual world. Consisting of many laps in one single level, a great performance in one level automatically makes the player eligible to play for the next above one.
So, if you are someone who wish to experience fun, thrill, excitement and adventure that is simply amazing, log in now at the many online sites offering all this with the motocross games and that too without charging any fee.