MacGyver

Maybe the best classic mill ever made. It’s the one I learned on.

I still like the old Body For Life method of eating with intention for 6 days a week and giving yourself a “cheat day” to eat literally whatever you want. If your exercise is right - and you’re getting enough sleep and water - that cheat day not only won’t derail you - it’ll show your body that you’re not going to starve it. Even though it’s probably 30 years old, and is dead simple, it is in my opinion still the single best “program” out there. I bet you could find a copy at a used bookstore or EBay cheap.

There’s an old saying that abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym. I know you’re not going for a six pack - but you may have found yourself in the same territory. You’re likely going to need to eat your way into the last few pounds - and take this from an athlete at almost 50 - calorie restriction probably isn’t working for you right now. I think your calorie intake is actually probably way too low for that level of activity. You may be tricking your body into a starvation mode and unconsciously derailing yourself. Fixing it is likely to look a little different than it would have when you were 35. You could eat whatever you wanted then and it didn’t matter. Now, you’re going to have to be specific about your inputs - and they’re going to need to be good ones. For me, that looks like smaller meals, enough protein, and good hydration. On protein, I find a meal replacement shake (Ripple chocolate ftw) is a great way to supplement easily during a busy day. Good luck.

To be fair, his “yard” was more or less a wreck. The sheep couldn’t have made it worse. I’ve got a client in Texas with sheep that he keeps for the same reason. His grass looks great - but he’s probably on 20 acres and almost certainly seeds regularly.

The hardest thing about multiple groundhogs is you only get one shot before the lot of them disappear. If you've got two - you need to bring a friend.

When I was in survival school - I remember the instructor telling us that a raccoon would feed a grown man for a week in the wild. We all turned up our noses at it. A week later when we snared one in the field after subsisting on whatever we could fine - you would've thought they were serving prime ribeyes. -- I have a friend who raised sheep for years for meat. He said they were about as low maintenance as livestock could be, significantly cheaper to finish than cows, and they kept the grass around the back of the house mowed. He said the biggest thing you had to keep in mind was "cattle not pets" - but if you could get past that it was a really great source of good protein.

I had a '96 4Runner that I sold at 300K miles. The guy I sold it to sent me a picture of the odometer when it turned to 400K.

There are giant differences between our southern border and the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. There's not much similarity other than - it's a border. Look, it's a low bar to look at what Hamas has done and condemn it. It's evil - and will likely not exist after the coming conflict. It also doesn't take a lot to look at the conditions just over 2 million people live in and say "I totally disagree with this - but I can see the path to how we got here." You can only be kept in what's essentially an open air prison for so long before some portion of the population is going to resort to violence. Multiple things can be true at once, I guess. But it's just not apples to apples with our southern border.

damn avocado oil that all the hipsters rave about doesn't season my cast iron worth anything.

I'll make a couple of additional comments for context. Rarely is a member here banned for a single comment. It has happened in our history - but that's generally when someone doesn't have a history on TGO and it's clear that they're just here to be inflammatory. Most bans have quite a deal of discussion behind the scenes amongst the moderating staff. We currently have a staff that does a lot of work to keep from banning people. If you've been on TGO for a long time - you'll note that you see far fewer actual bans today than in the past. That's frankly because of mods like @Chucktshoes who are quite willing to disagree with folks - and who can keep their own opinion separate from the job they do here. TGO is a better place because of it. I made the decision to ban crc4 yesterday after discussion with the moderating team. It wasn't a single point issue. He's been here for less than a year - and has had quite a few posts taken down. His history is still here - you can probably go back and find a lot of it if you're so inclined. If you're looking for where the moderating line is - we've got a code of conduct. Repeatedly posting things that are racist will put you over that line. There are members in this thread who've posted things in the past that are over that line and have received warnings because of their history in this community. We can't police what you believe. But we can expect better in your rhetoric here - and those members have course corrected. crc4 received those warnings, and did not course correct. That's why he was ultimately booted.

You really ought to check with your PCP. It's probably worth picking up a fingertip oximeter - they're not that expensive: https://www.amazon.com/Zacurate-Fingertip-Oximeter-Saturation-Batteries/dp/B07PQ8WTC4 If it drops below 95% - that's a direct prompt to go get help.

A lot of things can be true at once. 1. Hamas is a terrorist group that has committed unspeakable evils. For the first time in many of our lifetimes, there is a window of unanimity behind Israel. You better believe they're going to take advantage of that. The softening that's happening right now is just to clear a path for the ground invasion to come. They're going to level most of the Gaza Strip. 2. You can weep for the people affected by this. No one can possibly calculate to any reasonable decimal points the good guys and the bad guys. But, there are thousands of empty seats at dinner tables in both Israel and the Gaza Strip that weren't that way last week - and those folks didn't pick up a weapon. Most people just want to live their lives in peace - it should cause us pain when that peace is broken. 3. There are no easy days - and someone has to be willing to use force to stand in the gap. That's the way it's always been - and it's likely the way it always will be. There are certainly a variety of folks who've been looking for this fight for a long time - and there are plenty of folks who will try to use it to their advantage. 4. America is almost certainly at war here - and we just don't realize it yet. Two Carrier Strike Groups are already inbound waiting for the escalation that is to come. There are certainly Tier 1 assets on the ground waiting for actionable intel for rescues. It's going to get worse before it gets better. 5. There is an enormous humanitarian crisis in the making. Egypt has already closed its border with the Gaza Strip because they don't want the refugees. There will reasonably be a million people homeless when this is done. One more thing - I can't speak to anyone's faith here - but I can say that when you refer to people as 3rd world trash illegals or uncivilized peoples or whatever that speaks to a deeply seated racism that will not be tolerated on TGO.

This is probably the most significant escalation in anyone under 50’s lifetime. The response is going to be overwhelming. It’s mind boggling to comprehend how Mossad missed this. I’ve got thoughts - but that’s for another thread. I pray for the millions of people in Israel and Gaza that just want to live their lives in peace. I also pray for the folks in Washington who are doing their dead level best to keep Tehran from getting nuked.

A lot of businesses are incentivized from multiple directions to go card only. Think of it like this: a business wants to get its product into the hands of people who want to buy however they can. Taking a card actually costs them more than taking cash - figure about $0.30 per transaction and between 2.5 and 3% of the total purchase price. That’s a lot in most low margin businesses. So, there has to be other stuff at play to make them go with a more expensive way to sell you stuff. As it turns out, cash is a liability for a lot of businesses. If you’ve got a bunch of it onsite, you’re a robbery target. Same for the person taking it to the bank. Likewise, I’ve known plenty of businesses that have gone out of business because someone on the inside was stealing cash. Factor in that an increasingly small portion of transactions are cash - but a thief doesn’t know that - and you’ve still got to send someone to the bank. Your insurance is more expensive if you handle a lot of cash. Any of y’all tried to get an employee to fill out a cash report competently in the last few years? That Square reader does it right every time and imports it straight into your bookkeeping software. Suddenly your managers get hours in their day back. A lot of businesses are deciding it’s better for their business to go card only.

To quote Fletch, “if you’re gonna stop - you’ve got to plan ahead.”

Why weld when we’ve got chains? Thats really something.

This isn’t necessarily going to be a comforting answer - but for all intents and purposes - your dollar is already essentially digital in every way that matters. And, for everything anyone in this thread might be worried about - the Fed doesn’t need any new currencies to do any of that. But, on the flip side - I’m not the least bit worried about it. Why? For anyone who’s reading this, the dollar has been the global reserve currency for your more or less your entire life. While we don’t typically go through this exercise on a daily basis - the average American consumer actually benefits from this. A lot actually. There are a lot of countries (the BRICS countries specifically - but some others too) that would love to see that unlinked. This is the kind of thing wars are fought over. The system we have in place right now came into being towards the end of the last really big one. China is working on a digital currency. Their end goal is to replace the dollar. We’re absolutely going to do everything in our power to counter this - including developing our own digital currency. FWIW, when you see a story that’s trying to get you all spooled up about digital currency - and specifically trying to handicap that development - I’d encourage you to ask yourself what the teller’s end goal is. You don’t necessarily have to root for China to root against America - but the outcomes sure look similar.

This group is run by the Dorr brothers - who don't care about anything but grifting from gun owners.

Nope.

Keep it sharp and that sharpmaker will serve you fine. A good strop wouldn’t hurt.

The claymore is a nice knife. D2 is an interesting steel choice - it’s an amazing tool steel - but it does require some care. It’s a hard use steel. Take care of it and it will serve you well for a long time. Corrosion resistance isn’t as good as some of the more modern super steels. But, this is a powdered CPM variant - so it’s also not your grandpa’s D2. It’s a coated blade, so this should be a non-issue for most EDC folks. If you get caught in the rain - wipe it down. If you cut up a bunch of oranges - wipe it down. Just keep it clean and don’t worry about it. D2 does take some practice and determination to sharpen. As has been mentioned above - it’s easier to keep it sharp than it is to get it sharp once it’s dull. I also wouldn’t worry about this much. Invest in some decent tooling if you haven’t already and sharpening won’t be an issue. Note that I’d reach for my diamond stones first on a dull D2 blade. Use that old whetstone you’ve got in the garage and you’ll be at it for a while. The final thing I’d note is that this blade is hardened to a Rockwell 60-62. This is hard. You can get a blistering edge - but it’ll be prone to chipping if you don’t make good choices about what you cut. All in all - a good choice for an EDC that won’t let you down if asked to do bigger jobs.

This forum is rife with threads of people getting stitches because their auto opened in their pocket. Heck, one of our group buys was endemic with them opening in pockets - and that particular knife was a hidden mechanism. There was a time when there was a real market need for autos. I was carrying an AFO on a search and rescue team when I got the first Spyderco Rescue any of us had seen. In a season we went from 100% autos to no autos. The conditions on the ground just changed. We have so many great options these days that fill the same space autos once dominated. If you want an auto by all means get an auto. For me, that means three things have to be present: 1. It has to have a manual safety 2. I need to have full control of the knife even with my thumb pushing the button. There should be no questions as to whether or not it’s going to jump out of my hand. 3. The locking mechanism is really important to me - this is often a weak point on autos. If there’s a question as to whether hard use is going to make that mechanism less reliable - that’s a no for me. 4. I guess I’ll add a fourth - it needs to come from a vendor who’s going to offer good warranty service.

I’ll take the under on this. And I say this as someone who loves Benchmade and has a bunch of them. The AFO set the standard for what a good auto should be - back when you had to have credentials to own one. They’re amazing - but you can get a great auto for a lot less money these days. I’d start with something less expensive with a lock. The kershaws are great. Notice a trend of how many folks have had autos fire in their pockets. Honestly, I guess I’m in a place in my life where I can carry about any knife I want - and have more than I’ll ever reasonably carry. My daily carry is one of a few Spyderco PM2s. They’re practically as fast as any auto out there - and one has yet to either open in my pocket or jump out of my hand.

I told everyone who called me all the government agencies came calling. May as well spread the anxieties around.

A capful or so of a good predator lure around/under where you park your truck ought to keep the squirrels away. https://www.jrandsons.us/trapping-lures/52-predator-scent-.html If you come out and a coyote is having his way with your tires - probably best to just let him finish.