Jonnin

  They don't go for that.  That is the MSRP -- which is *always* about 15% or more above actual retail.  A sig 938 today is going to cost you $600 - 650 roughly.   Kimber solo is 700 at buds today.   The sig 380 is below the $500 mark now at most places, the price went down fast when the 9 came out.

you can run an engine on -ane gases or hydrogen.  Hydrogen is harder to come by naturally.  You can produce flammable gas easily enough -- hydrogen burns cleaner but that is the only advantage to it over the others, any of the others will do.   If fuel gets too high we will see more solutions.   There are many, many ways to solve the gasoline problem, we just have not yet reached a point for the price/supply to drive people to shift tech.

The last couple of days, trying to post a link results in the link parser reaching out to grab the text around the link and obscure it.  Putting the link on a line by itself works, but for example   http://www.tngunowners.com/forums/index.php?app=forums&module=post&section=post&do=new_post&f=15 this will reach out and grab this text.    

http://data.hodgdon.com/main_menu.asp     They do not seem to have the PDF anymore or I do not see it on the site.   Hopefully that will do until you find the paper copy.

  Oh, good :)   I must have misread it.  I do that a lot.

you can still find working parts for 20 year old machines if you buy used.  Some of the really old stuff is pricy now but almost anything can be fixed if you are willing to spend money on it.  

The compact flourscent lightbulbs burn out significantly faster than advertised.  They are also highly toxic and difficult to dispose of properly.  I think we will regret having these things in our landfills one day, which is where I suspect the majority of them wind up after burnout.   I think LED cluster lights will be the true way of the future.    I am not saying to not use the things, I am just saying that one day we will regret having a few billion of them busted in our landfills.  

  Agreed.  I know a lot of folks bought the sig 380 or 9 at well over $500, some paid over 600.   The price tag on my 380 was over 600, as I recall, but I traded so my price cannot really be listed in dollars.  Far as price tag goes, the colt defender has a following as well, and there are some other small pricy options like the roughberg or whatever its name is.   But price does matter.  For every sig, kimber, etc there are probably 50 p3ats or clones that have been purchased.  The vast majority of pocket pistols being carried are probably sub $400 in price range.   I considered the solo, but could never find one in stock and had heard too many "picky ammo" reviews.  (And it turned out my sig was just as picky, so that complaint is not really justified in hindsight).   The sig cleared up after a few hundred rounds, dunno if shooting the kimber more may help you or not.    Here, I disagree a little: whatever you carry, if you cannot stand to practice with it (ammo cost, recoil, whatever) then it may be a bad choice.  I have surely, by now, put 1k rounds thru my sig, probably more since it had a lengthy break in, and I try to work 50 through it every month.  So whatever you carry IMHO should be a "range" gun (or at least, shot frequently at the range).

I looked into it enough to see what is needed to sell a few boxes at say  show, but its not possible to "go small".   you need, at the least (from memory, so bear with me)   -FFL - a non-residential building for production (inspection needed) - storage that complies with some rules for the explosives and possibly lead/environmental issues. - some sort of proof of acceptance for liability ( I forget exactly what all).   I think there were some other minor hoops to jump thru as well but being unable to make it in the home killed it for me.      Yes, I will buy it if the price is reasonable vs factory vs making my own.  I have bought a variety of this type of ammo from localish shops at shows, but lately there seems to be a lot less of it or they want factory prices for reloads.   Or, to put it in real terms... say a box of 380 is $18 factory,  $6 to make myself with lead projectiles,  I am not going to pay $12+++ per box of someone else's reloads (double my cost).  I would pay say 8 as a nod to pulling the handle for me -- labor costs, as it were, and generous since I have to assume someone selling it has a high speed press.

I like your list. Only thing I will add is to look for gas cutting of the backstrap or whatever the word is.  The bar of metal that goes directly OVER the cylinder will be cut at the front where hot gas escapes.  If this is excessive (really, use your judgement) then the gun has either been shot to death or had a very short life of very hot loads.   Either way, you can pass on one that is cut deeply.

I deal with a lot of teachers, mostly church circle folks.     There are 5 things that come around again and again as problems that make the schools low quality and unable to educate...   1) no child left behind act.   Complete morons who cannot learn remain in the class, many with behavorial issues that distract the other kids.  2) teachers have no authority to perform even mild punishments for disruptive, disobedient, or otherwise disfunctional kids. 3) the material has been dumbed down to the lowest common denominator --- see problem #1 4) the material has been modified.  "New math" -- where the wrong answer is OK if you talk about how you feel about that.  Modern history, where apparently minorities and women ran the country from 1600 to 1980.   Logic, science, critical thinking, and such are GONE, replaced with rote memorization and psychobabble, PC agenda, and liberal indocrinization.  5) modern parents, who simply do not discipline nor work with their kids nor do much of anything at all that could even remotely be called parenting.   this is all third party, from their comments filtered thru my memory.  But it sounds like if a teacher wants to keep her job, she does 1-4 and acts happy to be doing it.

Agreed on the first paragraph... the issue is that the more we allow the laws to be twisted and ignored, the worse it gets, and this is a very large law to play games with.    Yes.  I would rather see it as a tough learning experience for the country than have it seen as a "victim".   It does a lot more than kill jobs.  People are already getting love letters that their insurance package will change next time it is renewed, and not for the better....     It is too late to stand up to it, because it is already voted for by the spineless folks you mentioned.  I would much, much, much, much rather that he had taken a stand against borrowing more money than trying to fight just obamacare.   You are right, someone DOES need to take a stand, and I support the man.  But I think he picked the wrong fight here -- more borrowing for ANY reason is the fight.   Obamacare is a red herring.

  I they actually ARE the payer.  The business does the actual credit card processing and gets the actual cash from the cardholder.  It then distributes that money to the server.  So as far as the server goes, for getting the money, it comes from their employeer who may, or may not, also report the income but you can rest assured that since the business had the money in hand for a time, that it is tracked in their accounting systems to the penny.  It has to be.

Nice.   You got it back, which was sounding less and less likely as time went on, so you can't be a dummy.   This, by the way, is why I recommend the wipe/reload/etc type destructive fixes only as a last resort.  Most of the time, a little patience will get it back up and running.  Its been a long time since I saw a machine that absolutely HAD to be reloaded because of a software issue, though I have been sorely tempted a time or 3.

  Its not that at all.   I agree with him, but, look at it twice.   If he wins: -he has strengthened the idea that the law of the land can be ignored by those in power.  That is already a serious problem with our government, but we don't need MORE of it.   Like it or not Obamacare was voted into law, signed off by the executive, and even contested and won in the supreme court.  Defunding it now comes across as sore loser and dirty fighter.  - his fight does not address the problem.  If he wins, and we extend our borrowing after defunding Obamacare, then we ARE STILL INCREASING DEBT.   So conservatives LOSE the fight here regardless. - If he wins,  conservatives take the blame for the failure of Obamacare.  "it never had a chance because it was illegally defunded" type whines from the left.  If he wins, conservatives will lose more and more of the "middle of the road" voters.  The party is rapidly losing ground with moderates and this is not helping.  Obamacare WILL fail on its own -- but it has to do that.  If it is forced down by conservatives, the point is not made clearly to the liberals.  - if he wins, you can bet the next time conservatives are in power (if ever) that these tactics will be seen again......    and if he loses, he just makes conservatives (or at least himself) look idiotic to anyone who is not already in his camp.   Which is the likely outcome -- same as every other govt shutdown, everyone caves in at the last second and we do it again in 6 months.

I still think he picked his fight poorly, and even if he wins, he loses here.  

welcome!   I suppose you also remember that eastgate mall had a gun shop at one time :)     Personally I like the city better now.  The 70s, it was a fairly disgusting place,  you could reach out and get a handful of the air.

All he had to do to run out the clock was to read the obamacare bill word for word.  He would still be going a week from now.

My wife would probably enjoy it or at least be amused (she mostly lets her hair air-dry though), but she would not accept it for her turn on buying a new gun so I would just be out that much extra for the toy.

  Well, I would have a true custom gun, built from the ground up by a master 1911 smith.   I do not know who I would get to do the work, though, as I have not put in the time to do the research and phone calls /legwork etc because I can't (or won't anyway) spend the money on it.

  Not sure about the LR version but we had one of the S&W 22 mag airweights and it did not hold up at all, it cracked after only a few hundred rounds.  Obviously the mag has more pressure than LR but I would not buy an alloy pistol and expect it to last forever.   Speaking of which we ended up with the taurus 9 shot 22 (steel version).  It is still fine after many rounds, at a guess over 1000 by now but I could be off, we took a break blasting thru the bulk packs for this past year so my estimations are a little harder to get right.

100 bucks to make a dent in your electric bill eh?   1) buy and use a clothsline.  Your dryer is probably using a lot of energy AND it wages war with your AC in the summertime.     2) Turn of the AC at night (in all but the most brutally hot days), and blow a fan in your bedroom at night.   3) Turn of the TV, vcr, xbox, .......   all that crap.  As in, really turn it off, via a power strip.  MOST modern gadgets burn a ton of energy even when supposedly off:  It ate my links.      maybe that will work. http://www.forbes.com/sites/williampentland/2011/09/03/top-26-home-energy-hogs-turned-off/   4) Forget the microwave.  Use the oven.  Microwaves use a LOT of power in a short amount of time.   Most everything else I can think of that has not been mentioned is gonna cost a lot initially but over time will of course save money... things like triple pane windows or modern appliances. 

right --- so the ones who cheat the tips on their taxes are complaining about having a better setup --- less taxes and above min wage earnings ---  they have nothing to complain about!     Min wage is a tough subject.  Without it,  if we assume that everyone who wants a job is willing to work for less, well lets just say that certain types of people who are used to living 30 to an apartment while sharing 1 or 2 cars have an advantage and can afford to work for less than the single mother of 8 living in a high cost of living place like LA or something.   The problem with min wage is the ripple effect when it changes --- everyone at the bottom gets lifted up, prices of everything they touch (fast food, shipping & handling, data entry, and a billion other such jobs) goes up, everyone's cost of living goes up, but the folks that make just over min wage do not get a raise, the folks above them don't get a raise, ... and all the way up the economic food chain, everyone who makes a cent more than min wage is now making effectively less due to the increased costs of everything caused by increased labor costs.   So.... we can't easily eliminate it, and we can't increase it, and we can't leave it where it is forever either.   Long term elimination of it would probably be best, but its a very long term --- in the short term, a great many people would be unable to afford food/clothing/shelter when competing for wages against folks that live in unteneble conditons and agree to work for less.   It also gives rise to the issues we used to have with "factory provided housing/store/etc" which was all but a form of slave labor --- you work for credit in the store and never get ahead, effectively working for goods.   It would also decrease the taxes taken by the feds for the great many low income workers....  making govt more broke.  Its... a complex  problem!

you missed the really funny one.  Websearch  "ar15 shotgun navy" ....  

NO job pays only enough to cover taxes so that is a lie (however, if they make GOOD in tips, their paycheck may ONLY cover taxes on the TOTAL AMOUNT).  NO one pays a 100% income tax, in other words.  First, its TN, so tax = federal tax.  Second, fed tax increases in % the more you make, and even millionaires only get hit for 80% or so.   Middle class eat it at 30% or so.  Lower income workers can have anything from 0% (yes indeed, even with a job if your total income is less than some amount it is tax free) and up but NEVER 100%.     As stated, you make min wage or more and are taxed on what you make.  If the total is below min they make it up and you get fired after a few weeks of those I would think.   Servers are supposed to track tips and pay income tax on em.  IFF the employer does not pay min wage+ directly, the employeer forces the employee to report the tips, therefore the tips are tracked.  If the employeer pays say $10 an hour and you get your tips, they often do not track the tips and often, that money is tax free due to, um, erroroneus reporting of said tips...   About 75% of good looking female servers are useless, trying to rely on their boobs to earn a tip when their service is no good.   Then they cry about their low returns.  I tip off the job done -- 10% standard and more if they did a very good job.  I know the going rate changed to 15 or 20% but that is too much IMHO, sorry.  You walked 20 feet 3 times over 1/2 an hour to wait on me and my wife, who are not demanding (order, bring it, refill drink, bring check, that is all we need unless you screw it up).  Typically for that 5-10 min worth of work that you did for me (total) ... 1/4 an hours worth of min wage is a good solid tip for you, so $3 on a $30 meal for 2 people is PLENTY.  If you are working hard and doing it right, you get that 5-10 times in an hour across all the tables.  That is more than I make doing a serious job... its PLENTY.   Seriously do the math ---  $3 buck over 5 tables is $15, then another buck or 2 for their wages -- and that is a very reasonble wage for this type of job in a place like TN where cost of living is exceptionally low.   One of the worst things I do to my waiter is I will happily walk into the kitchen to locate whatever I need that was not provided after a reasonable delay (refill drink, missing food, silverware, whatever).  Immediately upon entering their domain, they want to know what you want --- tell them, be nice, and you will get what you need and your waiter will probably be lectured about it.  And you get your item without any more aggravation.   There are 2 things that cause me to not tip usually.  One is no refill on the drink.  The second is screwing something up and not refusing to fix the problem.  Even the most 1/2 assed will get the 10% from me otherwise.