peejman

  I'm right there with you.  I still have a glimmer of hope that I might get to quit working at some point, but true retirement ain't gonna happen.        And I thought about this thread a bit and it began to make me mad.  I spent nearly 7 years in college and have worked hard for another 15 to achieve this level of mediocrity.  If that ain't even middle class....   that kinda pisses me off. 

    You and me both.  But I agree with what Jonin says too, they're surveying people in big cities.  A $200,000 house here would cost 3-5x more in the northeast or and even more on the west coast.  While I do own a 4wd SUV, it's 10 years old and I paid cash for it used.  $5k for a vacation?  In my wife's dreams.  She's desperate to take the kids to Disney, which would be in the $4k range for a week.  We're planning to go back to HHI for less than half that in the fall. 

One of my childhood friend's father had a Luger.  I got to shoot it once, a long time ago.  My only real memory of that is getting burned by brass that landed on my wrist.  He also had an Uzi, but I didn't get to shoot that. 

    Pretty much all of this.    Mike, sounds like you have a great job and a good life.  When I started this job, it had a pretty strong "family" vibe where the big boss knew everyone's name.  Over the past 7 years it's quickly transitioned to just another faceless corporation, and I'm one of the minions.  That sucks big ones as that's exactly what I was trying to escape when I quit my prior job.    Based on the recent salary survey I saw, I'm below the 25th percentile in gross pay and that's rather depressing.  I'm sure that's significantly location based, but still....     We live a modest life on my modest income.  The only debt I have is my mortgage, and I wish I'd spent 15% less on that.  If I lost my job, we could make it 3-5 months on cash savings before having to raid the 401k.  I feed, clothe, and house the wife and kids and occasionally have a little extra cash for a few toys.  In the grand scheme, it ain't bad. 

I'd never heard this song so I youtube'd it and found this.... Wow. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d0T2GaesWzg

Congrats, the supertuck is really nice. Just be sure you've accounted for the extra width in your pants size, typically 2" in the waist. And get a quality gun belt, they make a big difference. And remember, most people wouldn't notice if you were on fire, much less a bulge under your shirt. Particularly is this day of cell phones the size of phone books.

Most morons like that are 99% talk. I witnessed something similar happen to another guy not too long ago. I thought about it a bit and decided that I'd enter the store for several reasons... the guy would have to "pursue" you inside the store and there's cameras and plenty of witnesses inside. I wouldn't draw unless there was a clear disparity of force.

If you keep the oil changed and don't beat on it, the timing chain will go 300k easily. Given the expense of things like AC and transmission repairs, the extended warranty might not be a bad thing.

Hard to go wrong with most any of the usual suspects.... Remington, Savage, Winchester, etc. Or you could try something different like a K31, Mauser, or a lever gun of some sort. Lots of choices.

I bet that's some darn good salsa. Our next door neighbor is from Texas and got some chilie pepper seeds from family there. He gave us some peppers and my wife used them in the salsa last year. It had a nice kick when it was fresh. After several months in the freezer.... Holy moly! The sweat beads started popping out after a couple chips. Nice way to keep warm in the winter. :)

True, but even Shiloh asks "Are you sure?" when you ask for one in .45-110. My shoulders hurt enough as it is. Indeed. :drool: And you suck, just so you know... :)

  Wife hates Blazing Saddles?!?   :panic:

Print out a copy of the airline's firearm policy and TSA's policy and keep them in your carry-on.  Can be helpful for educating uninformed employees.  I've had a similar problem at the post office before. 

  Because other critters eat the corn and/or the poisoned carcasses and die too.      Trapping followed by high speed lead poisoning works well enough. 

  I've been eating them like cheese puffs.  According to google, a reasonable way to freeze cherry tomatoes is to simply line them up on a cookie sheet and put the whole thing in the freezer.  Once they're frozen, repackage in whatever container suits you.  We did two full cookie sheets worth the other day.  We'll see how they do.  We've done the blanching, skinning, and freezing routine on regular tomatoes (and will again) but having to skin eleventygillion cherry tomatoes seems a bit too tedious for me.      Wifey also made a big batch of salsa.  The food processor made it a bit foamy, but hopefully the bubbles will work their way out.  The bubbles make the texture a little odd, but it still tasted really good.  Need get some beans to make black bean and corn salsa next.    :yum:   

    heh... I still do.  No other way to listen in the car.  If you buy a CD from Amazon, you usually get to download the mp3's free.  Not that making them from the disc requires any real effort. 

Cost not much of an object... A Sharps rifle in .45-70, specifically a Quigley. Doesn't get much cooler than that. :)

Cool.  Dig me some PF and Gilmour is a fantastic player, nobody else can make a strat sound that big.  "Shine on" from Live in Gdansk gives me chills.

    We've also got LOTS of cherry tomatoes.  Gonna try freezing them and see how that works.   Slice of bread, slice of tomato, slice of cheese, topped with a little Italian seasoning and red pepper, couple minutes in the broiler = :yum:   Used to eat those all the time as a snack during the summer when I was a kid.  Gonna have to do that again...

So many choices....   I think I've "liked" at least half a dozen posts so far.  I'll put one in the mix that hasn't been mentioned yet.  Liar Liar.  Jim Carrey's wacko opinions aside, it's a freakin' hilarious movie.  As TrickyNicky said in the OP, it's a movie I watch when I need to laugh and I usually laugh until I cry.    Another one is Office Space.  "Hey Peter man, breast exam on channel 9.  Wooo!" 

Time for some high speed lead poisoning. My parents have regular trouble with raccoons. They're smart critters.

Bummer, hope your critters find their way home. We couldn't get our dog out of the house. We had family over and we all were out watching the neighbors shoot fireworks, letting the little kids play with sparklers, and shooting a few bottle rockets and such. I think the dog spent the evening hiding under the bed.

I've never rented out a house I own, and I never will. A handful of friends and coworkers have tried and the best case has been one that almost broke even. The others have lost piles of money in repairs and even attorney's fees. I do know of a friend of a friend who basically pulled the "slum dog millionaire" deal. He bought old apartment buildings, lived in them while he renovated them himself, then rented them. By the 3rd or 4th building he had quite the pile of cash. That's the only success story I personally know of.

Welcome!

Yet again, awesome work!