That’s what I wanted to hear… yeah!
You said it Loren… “As shocking as my words seem to some at times, I’m equally surprised by how often people will overlook the validity of what I’m saying, simply because they don’t care for the delivery…”
Agreed, it’s not a lie and the facts are correct… just revise the delivery to be more effective… that’s it !
Guess I’ve filled this thread enough.
Have a great weekend!
Yeah well Tony, I guess you missed the part about “I gotta be me” 
Loren
Epilogue
Behind the scenes, Mike and I have been emailing each other since early this morning. First he dropped a check in the mail to cover the overlimit charge, plus five dollars so I could open the package, check out the whistle, then if I didn’t like it, the five would cover the mailing back. He also told me that he’d cover the cost of any more overlimit charges that might result by other charges I’ve made that would cause more OL fees. Toward the end of the afternoon, he asked for the customer service phone number of my credit card, then called them and got them to take the overlimit incident off my record and REFUND the overlimit fee! Then he wrote me and told me that I could keep the check he had already put in the mail that had been supposed to cover the OL fee, and for me to use it to go out to dinner on him. Of course I’m not going to do that to him, after all he’s done to make things right, but I’m totally impressed with the man. During the course of all these emails, a friendship has been forged. In hindsight, I’m glad this all happened. I have a friend now that I didn’t have when I woke up this morning.
My hat’s off to you, Mike!
What I’ve found about the big guys,
the whistle makers like Mike and Michael/
Jim, and Glenn, and John S, and Chris
Abell is that when things go wrong,
they always make it up to you.
I seldomly post on this forum any more but I do enjoy looking in from time to time to see whats happening.I dont wish to blame anyone anyone here nor massage anyones ego but editing the original post in an attempt to change history not only leaves Loren with extra egg on his face but the following posts realy make him look like the bad guy when he was,in fact only trying to help. Peace, Mike
Yeah, I feel that way too Mike. It bothers me particularly because I stepped into this thread to support Darvis, and then I offered advice on how to help keep his credit card history clean, and in the end he’s dissed me with the changing thread titles, and finally the deletion of his entire original post. (Makes me wonder why I bother.) Anyway, I decided not to bring it up, but I’m glad someone else noticed.
Loren
[ This Message was edited by: Loren on 2002-08-25 08:44 ]
On 2002-08-25 08:42, Loren wrote:
Yeah, I feel that way too Mike. It bothers me particularly because I stepped into this thread to support Darvis, and then I offered advice on how to help keep his credit card history clean, and in the end he’s dissed me with the changing thread titles, and finally the deletion of his entire original post. (Makes me wonder why I bother.) Anyway, I decided not to bring it up, but I’m glad someone else noticed.
Loren
I can see where it might look like I was unappreciative of Loren’s help and support here. That’s exactly the opposite of how I feel. I was deeply grateful for your posts, Loren, and for all your ideas. It was your idea, for just one example, for Mike to call the credit card company and explain the situation to them (and he followed your recommendation, as I explained above). I’d never have thought of that, and like I say, that’s just one example of things you said that I appreciated. I deleted the original post and changed the title because after I got to know Mike thru his emails, it became obvious that he is a standup guy who simply made a mistake, and my original post might have cost him important business. It’s not my intention to ruin someone for making a simple mistake. I’ve made too many of them myself.
Loren, I’ve communicated my respect to you off board more than once. That should be more eloquent than anything else I can say here. If my desire to minimize damage to a man’s livelihood is taken as an attack on someone else, then it’s beyond me. My mind doesn’t run in those channels. In any event, you can all have the last word here. I’m done with this thread.
I said nothing about you making any sort of attack on me. I do however think it’s wrong to start a thread and then 2 pages into it delete your original post, replacing it with something that is essentially 180 degrees from what was originally there, thus throwing subsequent posts wildly out of context - and in this case making my comments look like they came out of no where.
I must say that a certain irony is not lost on me here: That you feel more compelled to protect the reputation of the guy who originally screwed up, Mike Burke, rather than the friend who jumped in to support you.
I’m done here too.
Loren
On 2002-08-25 11:07, Loren wrote:
I said nothing about you making any sort of attack on me. I do however think it’s wrong to start a thread and then 2 pages into it delete your original post, replacing it with something that is essentially 180 degrees from what was originally there, thus throwing subsequent posts wildly out of context - and in this case making my comments look like they came out of no where.
You’re absolutely right, Loren. I didn’t realize how it would be perceived with regards to how it would make you look.
I wasn’t going to reply to this thread again, but I do feel an apology to you is in order. Deleting the original post resulted in making things look entirely different. And I sincerely appreciate you jumping in to defend me yesterday. Your eloquence far exceeds my own ability to put words together, and it was very validating to me when you jumped into the fray. I’m sorry if I made you feel that you had been left twisting in the wind. It was 180 degrees to what I felt. You’re a good friend.
Fair enough Darvis, apology accepted, Thank you.
Thanks also to Mike R. for bringing up the issue, otherwise we wouldn’t have gotten to this point.
I’m sure we’re all ready to move on at this point, so I’ll simply finish with this: I truly have no grudge or hard feelings towards Michael Burke - I know him to be a very nice man.
I think, in the end, these sorts of threads do no harm to the (honest) whistle makers (ego brusing aside). In fact, it’s been my experience here that these things usually help the maker, by bringing to light unresolved issues and giving the maker a chance to set things right, for all to see.
Another good example is what happened in the serpent thread, where Mr. Serpent has now had the opportunity to show what sort of person he is, and get all kinds of publicity that he other wise would not have been afforded. So the controversy over in that thread didn’t hurt him a bit.
My wish (for the umpteenth time) is that people on this message board would learn to be more tolerant of dissenting opinions, for they rarely lead to heatbreak and ruin around here, and in fact more often than not (once the dust has settled and everyone finds they still have egos intact) more GOOD comes out of having these discussions, complete with the more “Cynical” viewpoints, than not.
Loren
[ This Message was edited by: Loren on 2002-08-25 12:12 ]
I know that the “strengths” in my character are often to a fault and that “back off” is often good advice for me. I also know that C&F is an amazing community where I learn more about human nature, my own as well as that of others, than about whistle playing, and that is why I spend the time that I do here.
I don’t assume that Loren or anyone else expressing themselves in this particular thread need validation, but I’ve been following it with great interest and I want to thank everyone for expressing strong opinions at the risk of offending people.
Blackhawk, I can easily imagine myself feeling chagrined about an original post and changing it to make up for any trouble I caused, and at the risk of being criticized. Regardless of the already discussed consequences of this thread, you prompted Mr. Burke to be human with us, show us a side of him that I needed to see.
I just ordered a Burke whistle from Song of the Sea, an Al pro A that I searched C&F about first and so had many points to discuss first with the retailer before finalizing the purchase.
As Loren stated, this is a bit of a volatile time to negatively criticize whistle making–if some of you will remember I felt really burned by a top whistle maker who offered to fix the problem but (I emphasize now) did not offer to pay shipping.
Everyone, please keep being you.
Lisa
Mike, Mack said it all. You are a gentleman. Also, I recently bought one of your brass soprano D whistles. It’s the best I own. I hope to also buy a Hoover when Mack gets back into production.
I’d really love to meet Loren some day. What a gal! What character, eh?
On 2002-08-24 18:55, Tony wrote:
Loren, you’re a very intelligent guy and anyone who doesn’t believe that is a fool, but something about your personality tends to be a bit overpowering.
Loren is a guy? Oh. Both his name and acerbic writing style made me think it was a gal. Sorry Loren.
Don’t think much of women, do ya?
No need to apologize, it happens.
Mr. Loren