Welcome to Wiggy's Newsletter! All of my newsletters and letters appear here every two months. The topics deal with the effectiveness of materials in use today, and whether or not finished products using these materials perform as advertised.

THE INTERNET AND RUSSIA
As many of you know Wiggy's has a Web site, which you can order from. People from all over the world can order, even Russians. However, based on my experience I will no longer accept orders from Russians. It seems they are learning scams. In October and November of this year I received orders from two individuals; I felt great, knowing that I was getting known in the country of my forefathers. Unfortunately, they disappointed me.

Essentially, after you have shipped the merchandise or after they have actually received it they write to the credit card company saying they never authorized the use of the card. Since the cardholder was not present to sign, you are out the money.

For my money, I wouldn't have a thing to do with the Russians! I have supplied oil companies who have done work in Siberia, all to no avail; they never did get oil to sell on the open market. We have read in the newspapers reports of on-going problems in their society; they are a Third World country, as far as I'm concerned. The best policy is to let them wallow in their own mess.

It is not my intention to be political, rather to point out that all U.S. companies which are mail order and making their products available on the World Wide Web, are targets for these thieves.

I am fighting the charge-back; I may prevail.
I will report the outcome.

LETTERS (A BETTER SUBJECT)

Hi Wiggy,
Have been using your boots up here at Fort Richardson in temps as low as 2 degrees F. They had no break-in period and were surprisingly comfortable right out of the box. They are warm duty boots and I highly recommend them. Not only warmer and more comfortable than the Danners or Matterhorns, but less expensive too!
I'm heading for Emmonak & Alakanuk out on the West Coast in February, will take the your boots along and see how cold it gets.
Thanks for supporting the troops! Keep up the good work.
1 st/L. M. Goring ( via e-mail)

Dear Jerry,
My story promised to you on the phone started when I arrived in N.Y.C. last winter, in search for a job. I landed in a friend's living room, which at that time was the subject of a strange experiment. He wanted to know if he could survive with no heat in the middle of January, and with all windows wide open. He was armed with an Ultima Thule bag and was ready to test other equipment.
I joined the experiment reluctantly, and grabbed my wife's Wiggy bag travelling with me, to guard against the brutal apartment weather. In my view the room was already cold, before opening any windows. Now, the minus 15 degrees F from outside started to crawl mercilessly towards my bed. But for some reason, however, my friend thought it was not cold enough, and he added a fan in the window.
Oops, I said, I might have taken a wrong decision*. Starting to look frantically for the warmest clothes I had, I quickly grabbed winter gloves, socks, and hat, plus a couple of sweaters.
You should know that I am very skinny and get cold even at 65 degrees F. I started imagining how unpleasant it might be with amputated parts, and with these thoughts, I entered the sleeping bag and covered my head completely. Nothing prepared me, however, for the wonderful experience to follow.
First, the Ultima Thule seemed to warm itself pretty fast, molding softly on top of my clothes. Secondly, I was able to inhale and exhale without much difficulty, leaving a small air opening. Not long after that, I started to feel surprisingly warm, and took off the sweaters, gloves, slacks, and the hat.
In the middle of the night I had to take off my socks and, feeling kind of warm, to unzip a portion of my bag, at minus something. I looked at the fan: it was blowing arctic air directly towards me. And still, the bag felt much better than my bed.
We ended up sleeping the entire winter with the windows open. Why? I don't know. It was no Y2K yet. But when the bug comes, we said, we will not fear the cold.

Unfortunately, I discarded the envelope and the writer didn't sign the letter, so I can't put down a name. He's on the mailing list, so I hope he calls so I'll know again who he is.

HOLIDAY GREETINGS