[chumbucket]

I sleep with my rod in hand every night. :o Wish I could get Mrs chumbucket to take over that duty. ;D ::)
The money is tucked away right now. I think some other good friends are going to hook me up with a baitcaster for the St. Croix. If so, I'll be looking into a light spinning reel to replace the other reel that was stolen.

Penn reels were once a standard in the fishing world. They're loosing ground very quickly though. Other than the big conventionals, they're now being manufactured in the far east. Not that reels from the far east are bad. Some are better than others though. Penn let technology pass them by a long time ago and pretty much stuck with the status quo without incorporating many new features that fishermen desired. At the same time, they discontinued reels that fishermen wanted to remain in their offerings. A lot of people are now out of work in the PA area due to these moves made by Penn.
So, they've fallen out of favor in my eyes (for a while now actually) as there are many other reels that I consider better values and have better features for the money.