analog_kidd

Man, I gotta get me one of them.

I was on the Ocoee once when some punk and his girlfriend took a couple of those down the river, only they were the Walmart specials you'd find in Sporting Goods. Anyway, a couple of rapids down and the girlfriend was so freaked out that she was shaking uncontrollably. even so. the boyfriend was still trying to get her to continue on. They were all over the place on the river and had absolutely no business being there. Some time later that day, I found a bag floating by. I snagged it and looked inside, found some keys and ID. I looked up river and there is the guy standing on the rocks, franticly searching for his bag. The big doofus is looking up-river, like the bag is going to float back upstream. I finally got his attention and showed him the bag and he ran down the bank toward me. I guess he lost his raft too. Anyway, just to have a little fun with him, I moved his keys and ID to a different pocket, and left the original one unzipped. It took him 10 minutes of freaking out, thinking he lost his only keys, before he thought to looking in the other pocket. I'm so mean . I told him he should find a new hobby, and paddled off.

I am a lifelong whitewater kayaker, and spend a lot of time on the Ocoee. The Upper Olympic section is definitely a blast. I prefer it to the middle section, because of it's technicality. The Nantahala is very tame compared to the Ocoee. But, they let you take out the raft all by yourselves with no guide, and that can be a lot of fun. Just be prepared to hit a lot of rocks and get stuck. Go with a fun group of people who don't care about getting stuck, and you'll have a great time. If you want to kick it up a few notches, look into the Cheoah River. It is close to the Nantahala, near Robbinsville NC. In fact several of the Nantahala raft companies offer trips down it. If you thing the Ocoee is exciting, you'll be completely out of adrenaline by the end of this trip. It is the biggest thing in the Southeast. Unfortunately, it is a dammed river, and TVA has to open the gates for the river to flow. So, we only get about 20 or so days of boating on it. The next scheduled release is in teh fall sometime. Getting your own stuff can be very expensive for rafting. If your up for it, I'd recommend looking into kayaking. You can take them places that rafts will never go, and the gear is less expensive. You can probably get a complete setup used for under $800. A raft rig is going to cost more than double that. Have fun!

While it doesn't happen here because it would just add way too much typing, ti drives me nuts when people use the word "like" at least three times each sentence. It has become the new "uhm".

Yep, I've said it all along, the Dem leadership talks a good game about how they are for "The People", but when it comes right down to it, they really don't give a darn about them.

I have thought about the topic of this thread a lot since becoming a gun owner. I generally try to avoid any kind of confrontation, so I think if I had a run in with a bad guy, I'd probably be pretty shook up. Pulling the trigger and actually taking the life of another human would be the last thing I would want to do. Although if it's me or them, it's gonna be them. Now I think that if my wife, kids, grandkids were being threatened, something inside me would snap and I would go into protector mode. At least I hope I would. If I get attacked, that's one thing, them it's another. But what really keeps me up at night is the thought of actually doing the deed of pulling the trigger, missing my target and hitting an innocent person. Above all else, this is what would prevent me from shooting.

I'm color-blind too. Can't tell you how many BLUE things I've bought that turned out to be PURPLE.

In East TN, you can PAINT anything ORANGE and people will buy it.

Dude, what's yer address? I got some shorts I want to mail you.

I was listening to a piece on the radio a few weeks back, and they were discussing Anwar. Forgive me, I don't have exact numbers, but I'll be close enought to get the point. They were saying how many billions of barrels of oil we use here in the US each year. Then they said how many trillionsd of barrels they estimate to be in Anwar. I did the math and it came out to 500 years worth of oil at our current rate of consumption. Now our rate may go up some, so lets say it lasts 400 years, or the rate may go up for a while till we discover a new source, and then our usage will drop off. Either way, 400-500 years is an awful long time to come up with something else. Also, the other argument I hear all the time is we don't have enough refineries and it will take us 8 to 10 years to get online, which is a true statement. However, the idea of building new refineries and drilling in Anwar was first brought up during the Clinton administration, and was shot down because everyone said it would take 8 to 10 years and won't be worth it. Well guess what? if they had the foresight back then, we would not have the problem we have today. Let's not make the same mistake now. As far as the time to build the refineries, I'm not so sure we couldn't shorten that as well, if we really wanted to. Looking at the history of my hometown, Oak Ridge, back in the 40's, the US rallied together to build an entire town, and the facilities to develop the atom bomb, all in just a few years.

Let me start of by saying I don't think that what went on there was right, and some of those people need to be locked up. However, I think some families there were just trying to raise their kids in a certain way, diconnected from the crud that most are subjected to these days. Many of the kids had never seen a TV before. Then the state comes along and takes the kids, puts them in foster homes, where they are housed with other kids that have seen all the world has to offer, many of them with serious criminal records. Once innocence is lost, it can never be reclaimed. If these families are reunited, much of what they were striving for may be lost.

We used to get Walking Catfish in Florida. After a heavy rain, they would swim up the overflowed drainage ditches, get stranded and try to "walk" back to water. Most of them would make it, but some weren't so lucky. We would then get to enjoy the smell of rotting fish for a week. UGH!

I've been thinking this would be a good idea too. I've also thought it might be nice to have an option to ignore the thread completely. You can mark it read by just going in it, but as soon as someone else posts in it, it become unread again.

Blasphemer!

Some questions I have when you get a more finalized plan: How much does the class cost? Are shotguns provided? How much ammo is required?

I used Skype for a while. It's definitely not on the same level as Vonage, but it is $30 a year for unlimited outbound calls. I even bought a little gizmo that let me use my house phone with it, otherwise you use a microphone or headset. It was choppy most of the time, but it filled in the gaps when I didn't want to use my cell (like being on hold with the IRS last year). Now I have Comcast VOIP. It works really well. The sound quality is very good. I can't tell the difference from a regular land line. I would have kept using Skype and my cell, but I called Comcast to complain about raising my bill, and they hooked me up with a package deal that was cheaper than my original bill and included the VOIP. So it was like I am getting it for free.

He has a volunteer Posse - Awesome. This just proves that we don't need new illegal immigration laws, we just need to enforce the ones we already have.

This guy is just awesome! I don't understand why more Sherriffs don't take this approach. It seems to be very effective, and his constituants love him for it. I don't know any statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that his inmate return rate is lower than normal too.

Phantom6, another member of this board, has training classes in Oak Ridge. I took his Handgun Carry Permit class and was very impressed. Looking at his web page, it says that they offer "Shotgun" classes. Here's the link... http://firearmsclasses.com/

Thanks for that update, I had no idea they all were back in action. I gave them each a listen, and State Radio definitely has the same flavor as Dispatch. I'm going to have to get the album.

I got hooked on a band called Dispatch. I think they have broken up now, but they have 4 or 5 albums of great music.

Yeah, and I thought ammo was going up due to the high cost of copper. How much copper is in a 12 gauge shell?

Well, the good news is this is the Summer Olympics and curling is a Winter event. But the bad news is there are 4 days of Table Tennis coverage.

If you're at a range that allows it, or on private property, practice drawing and firing from concealed cover. I've started doing this, and it is a real eye-opener for how long it takes to actually get a shot off.

Of course, I also blame the officer for not knowing that the first rule for going to a bat fight is to bring a bat.