Hi fellas,

Been a while. Just my two cents worth here:

Cent number 1: Has it escaped anyone's notice that the AGM is scheduled at 4 pm on Thursday? I could be mistaken, but I don't think that such a late hour has been the custom in recent years. 4 pm is TSX closing time. Could it be that there is a blockbuster announcement scheduled, one that could be followed up immediately by an afterhours news release? And now my cynical side (although I am a longtime NOT shareholder): A very positive vibe engendered at the AGM might deflect criticism of some of the issues we as retail shareholders might want to raise at the meeting, to wit, the lack of disclosure about Windfall (this one really irks me), timely assay releases, the stifling of our voice re the compostion of the BOD, the fact that some of us just got our proxies TODAY, etc. I cannot attend, but I hope some of you who do attend will not be shy about voicing some of these things. We have to keep them honest. Blockbuster news or not, the NOT we have today was built by the ones who came before them, a NOT that showed great respect and concern for retail. I don't believe for a minute that the institutions and the hedgies were not given more detail about Windfall. Damn that bugs me still. WE spent 15 million on a ramp and were told squat.

Cent number 2: Don't get me wrong, although I have been a little (er, sometimes a lot) disappointed at the way that our company has been run in the last several months, there are some bright spots. It looks like someone is finally intent on moving this to its rightful conclusion. I've waited far too long. We may not like all the tactics they use, but I am willing to bet that the end game will be better than what we might have gotten with Nemis or Mac. I hate to say that, because these are men I respect. (yes, I own FWR too, bought in during the last year. Why? Because they have an amazing amount of chromite ore, frankly, much more impressive than what Noront has produced so far...sorry to say, but I don't believe much in blue sky until the clouds clear.) The fact is, I believe that this is now a cut-throat winner-takes-all sort of scenario developing. And sad to say, I believe at this point we need to put our trust, (bad choice of word perhaps, I mean money) in the hands of shrewd businessman as opposed to more amiable ones.

Aside from the above reasoning, I am leaning heavily towards voting my shares of FWR toward the merger because it makes more sense; perhaps some new revelation from either of the parties will change my mind in the next few weeks, but I do believe that the old axiom "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" will hold true in this case. Noront has tremendous potential due to its large N-S-E-W land base. Tiny little Freewest holds somewhat tremendous potential due to its amazing chrome deposit with undiscovered DEPTH! Together I believe they create critical mass. Separately, I see a couple more years of indecision. I don't want to wait another couple of years or so. I'm getting tired of this roller coaster. I just want to get paid :)

One thing I've done, (and suggest anyone else should do if they have any kind of basic math skills) is try to calculate the net result to my bottom line if the merger goes through at 4:1 vs other possible ratios, such as 3:1 for example. With my present holdings, the difference in my ratio of shares vs the entire FD float would be only about 1%. I believe the suggested "synergies" accompanying this merger proposal will more than make up for that 1%! That said, a new offer of 3:1 would suit me just fine, but (for me anyway) 4:1 wouldn't be worth making a fuss about. I urge all of you to try this simple calculation before bemoaning the horrors of this merger. Of course, if you exclusively own FWR and not NOT you may have more reason to howl. In that case, I certainly understand why you may want to vote otherwise. (but I don't understand why you would have put all of your eggs in just one basket in such a high-stakes environment as the ROF!).

Anyway, those are my two cents for tonight. (actually, looking back on the post, it looks more like a whole NICKEL!) Hope some of you can spend it wisely.

Johnny