OldIronFan

United for internet but we pay extra for increased bandwidth speed since the wife works from home pulling large amounts of code and data from off site locations or cloud storage. Company pays a stipend that covers part of that bill. We dropped Hulu Live when they jacked up their live rates a few months back. We run Netflix, the cheap Hulu, Amazon Prime, Max, and Disney+ for the paid stuff. We use Freevee, Peacock, Vudu, and occasionally Tubi on the free side. We are about to drop Disney+ since we only got it as a trial and to see a few things on it. Once we did that we seldom use it. Even with all the paid channels we have our bill is significantly cheaper than the old Internet and traditional cable plans we had. We are currently getting most of our live TV, on the rare occasion we watch it, via Peacock. I do not watch sports on TV so I have little to no use for live TV. Most of the movie watching is either Netflix or Max.

sushhhhhh. Don't tell her, or at least not the full cost. Better to break it up and say oh those are not that expensive because there are not many parts, just a tube with some cheap metal baffles inside. Last one I did I paid for my can with cash and used the card for the stamp. All she saw was a $200 charge. Pretty cheap in her eyes since she is used to much higher charges from the gun store usually.

I actually bought a legit snow blower last year. I did it for a couple of reasons. First, it was dirt cheap and used the same battery packs my other lawn equipment uses. Second, my driveway is a steep incline and is very difficult to shovel. When I bought it I joked that I fully expected to never use it. With my luck once I owned it we would never see accumulated snow again. I guess I was wrong. I looked like a Minnesota local out front with a rooster tail of snow shooting off into the air and into the yard next to the drive. I was glad to have it though and a couple of my neighbors looked fairly jealous yesterday.

7" at the house in Nolensville, drifts over 12" in some areas. Most snow I have seen here in well over a decade. My driveway is extremely steep, like 35º~40º steep. Took a good bit of effort to clear it. Only fell twice, pulled a muscle in one shoulder, and tweaked the already bad knee. Took the AWD Subaru out yesterday afternoon and local roads were not cleared but not terribly slick. The packed snow had decent traction even on plain all season tires. I had to force it to spin or slide in most cases. Love the Subaru AWD system. Work opened up today so I made my way in at 7am. Took the Subaru again. It was 2º when I left. Local side streets were actually slicker then yesterday afternoon due to the slush and snow pack actually freezing overnight. Still no issues getting into work. Once I got to the interstate it was virtually clear and 70mph+ wide open.

Submitted Jul 28, 2023 so 168 days or 24 weeks on my 30 cal can. Submitted Nov 22, 2023 or 51 days or 7 weeks and 2 days on my .338 can. I was told things are running 8~9 months right now on Form 4's May your approval come quickly!

The restaurant world was a temporary period for me. A means to the goal of getting back to school and into my real career in the engineering/manufacturing world. I enjoyed it, I could do it again, but it is a bit of a young mans game at times. I worked nights out of necessity and while I function fine doing that I did not want it long term especially on the north side of 50.

I did but it involved a return to school. My wife did and used her previous education plus some new industry specific training to make the jump. For me I quit my IT related job to start a second temporary career in the restaurant business that allowed me to work nights and return to school. I did a couple years back in school to get started in my new machining and eventual engineering role in the hard parts manufacturing world. I was experiencing extreme burnout in the IT world so I have been infinitely happier after more than 15 years in manufacturing and engineering. My work is interesting (to me), I have had some great experiences, and made some great friendships. I got to travel the world which was good at the time but eventually I changed roles so I did not have to do much traveling anymore. My wife spent 20 years in logistics and intermodal freight management. She eventually started her own business with two partners but did so at the worst possible time when the industry and the economy itself went into a major free fall. With the business failing and no good prospects for transitioning back to a role with a decent company, since no one was hiring at the time, she took a handful of database / SQL / and related IT courses. We scrapped together a few thousand dollars to allow her to take the classes. She managed to talk her way into healthcare analytics role for a major health care company in town after doing some creative spinning of her past logistics and marketing degree and employment roles. Within a year she was back to making just as much as her best year in her logistics career. Within 5 years she had more than doubled her salary, within 10 years she had tripled it. She now works as a senior project manager / product owner in the Healthcare/health insurance management data industry. She does not regret the change one bit and wishes she had done it a decade earlier. Her stress level is much lower, benefits are better, income is significantly better, and she actually likes most of her coworkers. She also is able to work 100% remote. Sort of odd that I was in IT and hated it bad enough to get out while she hated her career choice in logistics so bad she got out to go into IT but you have to find the groove that makes you happy. Her brain was built to stare at data, code, and Gantt charts. My brain was built to look a blueprints, geometric dimensioning & tolerancing, CMM reports, and G Code.

Gun shops will take as much as 50% of the sale for consignment firearms. They will also offer you as little as 40%~50% of the real value if you want to just sell a collection or individual pieces to them. They will mark them up significantly to either maximize their profit or leave them room to mark down if the item is slow to move off the shelf. They do not want stagnant inventory. There are fewer and fewer shops that wish to deal in used guns, especially older used guns, these days. That is especially true of the bigger and flashier stores. Your best bet is to find a knowledgeable family friend that can help value the items and assist with selling them. I have done this for two estates. I assigned a value to the items, highlighted some of the rarer or more valuable items they might wish to keep in the family, made fair offers on a few items I wanted to keep myself, and helped them sell the remainder to more distant relatives that were not beneficiaries in the estate. In one of those situations the friend gave me one of the items I had made an offer on as thanks for my help. In the other I bought two of the items at a discount and was treated to a nice steak dinner as thanks for the help. I did not expect any of it since I was just helping friends out but it was appreciated. Just be on the lookout for "friends" that want to take advantage of the situation by either under valuing or skimming off the choice pieces. Take a full inventory of serial numbers, brands, and models engraved on the items prior to having outsiders look at the collection. I recommend keeping a spreadsheet of the items no matter how you decide to handle the collection. Update the spread sheet with values or dispositions as they happen but at least you are starting with a full list of the serial numbers and have something to look back at if there are issues that pop up months down the road.

Leroy chilling after some ball time. Leroy hanging with his girlfriend Daisy from next door. Leroy patiently waiting for his mama Leroy giving up on mama and preparing to nap.

Looking for a pre 1991 Ruger M77 Tang Safety rifle. Short Action in .243 or .308 preferably but will consider others as long as they are .473 +/- bolt face calibers. Beater gun, worn truck gun, an old woods deer rifle you are not sentimental about. Heck even a project gun that needs some work. Cheaper the better as this is for a project I am working on. If you have one within an hour or so of Middle Tennessee and will part with it you would make me a happy fellow. If you have a long action let me know as well, probably can't make it work for my project but I am a sucker for new projects so....

Costco has a few and state that delivery is to a ground floor access. In other words they will deliver but they are not going to take it up a flight of stairs. Probably a lift gate and a pallet jack. Tractor Supply says they will deliver to my area but oversized charges may apply. With you being up in Clarksville you should check on Rural King as well. They have a few if I am not mistaken. A quick look on their website shows they have Cannon with a Home Delivery option.

If you find a good deal on a mid range quality safe that you feel you cannot move yourself there are a number of places that will move a safe for $250~$300 dollars. With that said I have moved two of the "mid range" safes myself with just a pickup truck and an appliance dolly. A safe in the 400lb range (most of your small to mid size Cannon/Liberty/Winchester big box store safes) is fairly easy to move for one person. A second set of hands is nice though. A safe in the 600lb range is very manageable for one person but only from a trailer and into a ground floor with minimal steps or height changes. I would not do a 600lb safe from a truck bed by myself and likely would want at least 1 or 2 strong helpers. My truck bed is average height, F150 with OEM tires and no lift, but I do have a topper so I had to lay the last safe down. This actually made it easier to get out with some loading ramps I had. If you can beg, borrow, or rent a small trailer with a ramp gate moving a safe with an appliance dolly is easy. Side note: there is some risk laying a safe down on its side or back. Some lock mechanisms could be damaged by doing that but I have never had that issue. Just beware of that risk and don't jump any rail road tracks on your way home with it. I fall into the "cheap is better than nothing" camp. A big box store Black Friday safe is much better than a stack-on cabinet and worlds better than the back of a closet. If a motivated thief wants into your safe they are getting in. A safe is not single line of defense, it is one part of a good system. The real security is having that safe in a semi secure location behind locked doors preferably with a monitored alarm system, smoke detectors, and in a perfect world a sprinkler suppression system. A safe slows everything down. It will slow down fire damage and it will slow down a motivated thief, hopefully long enough for fire department and/or police to show up and handle things if I am not there. I consider my safe as primarily fire protection, secondarily as access protection from children or visitors, and third as theft prevention/deterrence.

That is exactly what it looks like. Fencersms, If you know; How many rounds on the firearm total? How many rounds fired that evening prior to the failure? How many rounds since the last clean, lube, and inspection?

Tennessee has a pretty good history with firearms manufacturing. As of 2021 there were apparently 82 firearms manufacturers in Tennessee and they made 185,720 according to the ATF. The largest being Beretta. That is according to this article https://tennesseeconservativenews.com/how-tennessee-ranks-in-gun-manufacturing/ I am not fully sure how that number of 82 was reached as there are 502 Type 07 (Manufacturer of Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices) License Holders according to the ATF as of Sep 2023. Probably the number of license holders that filed paperwork on a new firearm (serial number) created with the ATF. I know many of those 82 manufacturers were likely small business producing small numbers of custom rifles but they still have a type 07 license to manufacture. Some are gunsmiths that do repairs and produce replacement parts or custom guns so they carry the 07 license but do not produce new firearms. There are also probably some on the books as legacy companies, i.e. they are no longer producing but someone owns the name, intellectual property, and/or rights to business related items so they maintain the license. Finally there are a slew of suppliers and manufacturers that do not produce an actual firearm but they have on 07 license to be able to transfer firearms and firearm components through their facility to do business. Think a company that does anodizing of aluminum. A firearms manufacturer sends a raw aluminum receiver to them and they anodize it then return it to the customer. That is an ATF book transaction for the anodize shop. Ramo Manufacturing (Ramo Defense Systems) was operating back in the 1960's and 1970's I believe all the way up through 2002 when they were bought by Guy Savage creating Sabre Defense. Ramo had military contracts and were producing M2 50 cal machine guns. We all know what became of Sabre Defense. Barrett started in 1982, 40th anniversary was last year for them. Beretta moved to TN in April 2016 Some others I know of. Defiant Machine Works (Adams, TN) Troy Industries (Clarksville) Tennessee Arms Company (Dyersburg) they were doing and may still be doing polymer frame receivers and such. CMT Tactical (Cross Machine Tool) (Lexington, TN) one of many doing AR receivers (upper and lower) There are 1,989 total ATF licenses in TN (not including Type 03 Collector of Curios and Relics). Note: some of those License holders hold multiple license types. For instance Barrett holds Type 07, 08, and 10 Licenses while Beretta holds Type 07, 08, 10, and 11 licenses. Also interesting is according to the ATF there are currently (Sep 2023) 50 - Type 06 (Manufacturer of Ammunition for Firearms) licenses in Tennessee 47 - Type 08 (Importer of Firearms Other Than Destructive Devices) licenses 17 - Type 10 (Manufacturer of Destructive Devices) licenses

The current strain of Covid is actually on the uptick and hospitalizations are also increasing. This current strain seems to be a bit worse than the last two or three mutations/variations. I had it in July for the second time. Mostly flu like symptoms with body aches, a bit of a fever, some headache, fatigue, some upper respiratory issues, and sore throat. Honestly it was exactly like the first time I had Covid in late 2021 only is was half as bad. My symptoms in July were identical to 2021 but half as severe while lasting half as long. In 2021 I barely stayed out of the hospital, this july I was back to work and fairly well recovered in 5 or 6 days.

Never went to the Hermitage location and it has been years since I went to the Murfreesboro one. I was never impressed with them at all. Limited selection even before the supply chain issues of the last few years. Sky high prices on what they did stock. I was not impressed with the knowledge or attitude of the staff I interacted with. The range was a bit dated when compared to many other Middle Tennessee indoor ranges, it was just adequate. Honestly I think they survived as long as they did because they were the only indoor range in Murfreesboro for a long time. Now that there are other indoor range options in Murfreesboro I can't imagine why anyone would have gone into On Target.

I had 3 45-50 ft hackberry trees in poor condition two years ago. One dead, one growing nearly horizontally from about 20 feet up, and one living but half rotted in the trunk. All were in close proximity to each other as they were former tree line / wind break trees before the property was cleared and developed. I got three quotes but Smyrna Tree Service was the most responsive and seemed to be the most thorough in their process of quoting and scheduling. https://www.smyrnatreeservicetn.com/ It was $1800 to cut, remove, clean up and grind the stumps. They were in and out in a matter of a few hours and all their equipment was in good working order. They did not tear up my yard, driveway, or sidewalks with any of the equipment. even though the trees were in the back of the house over 150 feet from the road. If I had to pick anything negative at all I would say they could have ground the stumps down just a bit further but that would be nitpicking. I was very pleased with their work. I ended up tipping the crew and making at an even $2000 since I was so happy with their work.

I can only take so much shilling for his classes so I have only watched 75% of the video so far as I have had a spare 5 or 10 minutes. Branca is the king of turning a 15 minute video into a 1hr and 15 minute video. Branca himself states that a reasonable jury could have gone either way in this case based upon what he knew of it. If we follow his 5 key building blocks of self defense; Innocence, Immanence, Proportionality, Avoidance, and Reasonableness we can all likely come to slightly different legal conclusions. 1. Innocence - Not much ambiguity here. Colie was an innocent party in the situation. We see nothing in the video or his demeanor that would indicate he was a willing or actively engaged in the interaction. 2. Immanence - Again not much to argue over here by Branca's analysis. If you were to interpret the law to mean that immanence requires the threat be present and immediate you could easily argue there was not threat of deadly harm by Cook. 3. Proportionality - Branca seems to define this as the size difference between the parties involved and the number of individuals on both sides of the interaction. Clearly Cook is physically larger than Colie and with both is videographer and sidekick they outnumber Colie. So if you agree with Branca's definitions and principles than there is not much to argue over here. If you interpret proportionality as a proportional response things are less clear. 4. Avoidance - As Branca states Virginia also has a "no retreat" or more commonly know as a "stand your ground" law, which means you are not required to "retreat", in other words try to escape, prior to using self defense, under certain circumstances. He does state that their law is not as clear as some other states, such as Florida or Texas. Colie may not have had a legal requirement to retreat but he certainly could have and it could be argued he had a moral obligation to do so. Colie stops, turns, and at least partially faces Cook not once but twice in the video. He did have able opportunity to simply walk away. Cook does not appear to block or detain Colie, he only follows him. 5. Reasonableness - Here is where I think the holes in Branca's analysis lie. Would a reasonable person fear for their life in this encounter? Would a reasonable person see a threat of deadly or serious bodily harm in this encounter? Was Colie's response to the encounter reasonable? I do not see a threat of deadly or serious bodily harm in this video until Colie pulls his weapon and fires. Cook does not at any time verbally threaten Colie. Cook at no time presents a weapon, closed fist, or make threatening gestures. The sidekick is visibly distracted and looking down at his phone in half of the video. Again he makes no verbal threats or threating gestures. He does not present or appear to have a weapon. In fact Cook makes no effort to physically contact Colie at any time. When Colie actually reaches out to swipe Cook's phone away Cook attempts to avoid Colie's contact and promptly checks his phone again to manipulate the recording he is playing. I do understand that either Cook or his sidekick could have easily closed the distance to Colie at anytime and turned this into a physical altercation. At that time it clearly been self defense on Colie's part. I also understand that for a person of Colie's size his ability to defend himself would have been greatly reduced if it became a physical altercation. I still don't think it was reasonable for Colie to consider Cooks movements and actions as a threat of deadly or serious bodily harm. Where do we draw that "reasonable" line? Take YouTube and cell phones out of the equation. If Cook was a protester standing in your path waving a sign in your face and shouting something at you would you draw your weapon and shoot them? If you turn and walk away and they walk to follow you as Cook did would you then draw your weapon and shoot? If you physically tried to push the sign out of your face and they tried to hold the sign back in your field of vision would you shoot them then? I would argue that a sign on a wooden or metal pole/stake would be a much more effective weapon than say a cell phone or fist but I doubt anyone would be advocating for the shooting of protestors. What if it was a picket line worker? They are have been known to actually make threats or be verbally abusive to management or scabs crossing the line. They actually do stand in the way and attempt to impend others movements. They often outnumber the management and scabs by a significant margin. Would you advocate for a non union worker to shoot a picketer impeding their movement, shouting, and sticking a sign in their face? What if it was a "Karen" in a restaurant being verbally abusive to a member of the waitstaff? What if they were standing in their way sticking a cell phone in their face and video recoding the interaction? What if they started pursuing them all around the restaurant and continually tried to get the cell phone (camera) in the waitstaffs face while screaming about who they knew at corporate that would get them fired. Ok to shoot "Karen" when she comes by your table then? Sounds silly but Cook was not screaming, shouting, or verbally threatening Colie. He was not physically restraining Colie and he was not impleading Colie. He was sticking a cell pone in his face and repeatedly asking a nonsensical question.

The problem with ACH is that it is a false or short lived gain. ACH is in the same state as credit card transaction were several decades ago when their fees were "reasonable". Once they have a significant foot hold on the market and the number of transactions skyrocket they will simply raise or impose fees on vendors that rival CC transaction fees. Some are already doing that. They are not going to leave money on the table for long, there are beach houses in the Hamptons to buy afterall.

I am in the opposite camp as most here I guess. I seldom have cash, don't need it, and don't really want it. It is a bit of a hassle to go to the bank and get cash when I need to deal with someone face to face for a transaction in cash. I use a credit card for everything, I found one with great travel benefits when I was traveling 40+ weeks a year and have stuck with it. I have not paid for a hotel room, rental car, or flight in 5 years thanks to those points and benefits. I have also not had any identity theft or hacking issues since going to one single digital form of payment. I have had my card number skimmed, stolen, or otherwise hacked multiple times but my CC company caught it before I did, notified me in each case, shut the card down, reversed fraudulent charges, and overnighted me new cards immediately. In fact they once overnighted a new card to a hotel I had not even checked into yet that was 4 states away when my card got caught by a credit card skimmer on a gas pump. I use my bank account for exactly 4 transactions each month; my direct deposit, my spouses direct deposit, the payment to the CC company for that months charges, and a payment to the mortgage company since they will not take a CC as payment. I have never had fraud issues with it because I just do not use it and don't want it out there to be skimmed or stolen. Now for the sake of safety I do carry an ATM card to my checking account, a second CC that is used only in an emergency, and if I am traveling I do keep a bit of cash. I generally carry just enough cash to cover a meal and a tank of gas in those instances where I might encounter a business without a working CC reader which these days is very rare. I would also get local cash when traveling internationally since acceptance of foreign cards in other countries is not always guaranteed. I simply do not buy the precious metals argument. If S does actually HTF and there is true societal collapse gold is useless. It can not easily be traded for food, medicine or weapons. If I have food and no gold I can eat. If I have weapons and no gold I can either trade for food and medicine, or take it by force if I have collapsed to that level, but I am not likely to to find someone willing to give up their food and medicine for a bit of gold. If I have gold but no food, medicine, or weapons I am probably going to starve in fairly short order. Barter works for the trade of useful items or services for other useful items or services. Gold does not satisfy any basic human need. No one in their right mind would trade food for gold unless there was an existing market still existing which could convert it to some other currency or commodity. If there was such a market still in existence then S had not really HTF and society had not truly collapsed in my opinion.

Had not seen this one discussed here. Good guy with a gun or the worst example of a self defense shooting ever? What say you? As much as I think the YouTube influencer is a moron, as are most social media "influencers", and deserved a good punch in the face the shooter was in the wrong here. I don't think there is a good claim for fear of bodily harm or death here. The YouTuber had no visible weapon other than a cell phone screen and while you could consider his actions aggressively annoying they were not aggressive enough to warrant deadly force in my opinion. The video shows Colie (shooter) pause and face the Cook (YouTube moron) with the cell phone before they began to move and he swipes at the phone and Cook's hand. Colie then partially turns his back to Cook and begins to walk away. While Cook does continue to pursue Colie and hold out his phone he does not make any other moves that I would consider threatening. After four days of testimony and jury deliberations the jury returned its verdicts guilty of discharging a firearm within a building (Class 6 felony) and not guilty of the more serious charge of aggravated malicious wounding (Class 2 felony) and not guilty of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony (unclassified felony). Colie has been incarcerated since the time of the incident on April 2nd. I believe I read the sentence for the charge of discharging a firearm within an occupied building in Virginia is 2 to 10 years but I can not find that link now. Pending any changes during post verdict legal maneuverings and the actual sentencing I my gut reaction is he is getting off a bit light. Now if the Judge comes back with a full 10 year sentence and he serves 5+ before parole that might be about right. Do you think you would you have acquitted or found him guilty if you were on the jury? What do you think the acceptable sentence should be (if any) for Colie? I don't think either of these are behind a paywall. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/30/delivery-driver-youtube-prankster-shooting-not-guilty https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/video-shows-encounter-between-youtube-prankster-and-food-delivery-driver-who-shot-him/3433999/

Message sent

"The shutdown comes after Yellow failed to reorganize and refinance the roughly $1.5 billion dollars it had, as of March, in outstanding debt, a large portion of which came from the $700 million pandemic-era government loan." Too much debt and they could not manage to find any path to refinance it. A small amount of turmoil over the next few weeks as customers find alternate carriers. Trucking companies are dying for freight and drivers. They will quickly absorb both from YRC. Without getting into any political discussion or discussions of unions I will say that the Teamsters did not do YRC any favors. I worked for YRC years ago. I just picked up shifts in the busy season as a side gig but the influence of the union was readily apparent even to me, not in a good way either.

They buy blanks from the likes of Krieger, Rock Creek, Proof Research, and others depending on the product line. All chambering, exterior profiles, threading, and finishing is done in house at Barrett.

Barrett does not use them. They make their own barrels from blanks. The Barrett .50's all use a different chamber as well. One of the very original prototype designs may have used a modified M2 Barrel but production guns do not.