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The IRS decides to audit Grandpa, and summons him to the IRS office. The IRS auditor was not surprised when Grandpa showed up with his attorney. The auditor said, ‘Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I’m not sure the IRS finds that believable.’ ‘I’m a great gambler, and I can prove it,’ says Grandpa. ‘How about a demonstration?’ The auditor thinks for a moment and says, ‘Okay. Go ahead. ‘ Grandpa says, ‘I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye.’ The auditor thinks a moment and says, ‘It’s a bet.’ Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it. The auditor’s jaw drops. Grandpa says, ‘Now, I’ll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye.’ The auditor can tell Grandpa isn’t blind, so he takes the bet. Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye. The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa’s attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous. ‘Want to go double or nothing?’ Grandpa asks ‘I’ll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk, and pee into that wastebasket on the other side, and never get a drop anywhere in between.’ The auditor, twice burned, is cautious now, but he looks carefully and decides there’s no way this old guy could possibly manage that stunt, so he agrees again. Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants, but although he strains mightily, he can’t make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, so he pretty much urinates all over the auditor’s desk. The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win. But Grandpa’s own attorney moans and puts his head in his hands. ‘Are you okay?’ the auditor asks. ‘Not really,’ says the attorney. ‘This morning, when Grandpa told me he’d been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here and pee all over your desk and that you’d be happy about it.’

I was a very happy man.  My wonderful girlfriend and I had been dating for over a year.  So we decided to get married. There was only one little thing bothering me. It was her beautiful younger sister, Sofia. My prospective sister-in-law was twenty-two, wore very tight miniskirts, and generally was bra-less. She would regularly bend down when she was near me. I always got more than a nice view. It had to be deliberate.  She never did it around anyone else.  One day she called me and asked me to come over. "To check my sister's wedding invitations" she said. She was alone when I arrived.  She whispered to me that she had feelings and desires for me. She couldn't overcome them anymore. She told me that she wanted me just once before I got married.  She said "Before you commit your life to my sister".  Well, I was in total shock, and I couldn't say a word. She said, "I'm going upstairs to my bedroom" she said. "If you want one last wild fling, just come up and have me". I was stunned and frozen in shock as I watched her go up the stairs.  I stood there for a moment...then turned and made a bee-line straight to the front door.  I opened the door, and headed straight towards my car.   Lo and behold, my entire future family was standing outside, all clapping!   With tears in his eyes, my father-in-law hugged me.  He said, "Sergio, we are very happy that you have passed our little test. We couldn't ask for a better man for our daughter.  Welcome to the family my son."  And the moral of this story is:   Always keep your condoms in your car.

Would anyone like to break out the Enigma machine and decode this thread for the uninformed among us?

  Perhaps we should privatize humans to cull ignorant bastards like this from the herd.

  You raise another point that so many of our students today would be wise to consider - that is putting a few years of actual work in between high school and college.  The focus that provides - sometimes into what you would like to do, and more often what you positively DO NOT want to do is so valuable.

By his second year he figured out he should drink until 8am and go to a 4pm class

A second way to look at this is there are those LGS and those with an FFL that have embraced transfers.   I can guarantee you that the Saddle Shop makes more than most LGS simply through transfers.  They aren't a traditional gun shop, but I bet they do 15-20 transfers per day.  Easy money if you ask me.  I am the most impatient of the impatient most of the time, but rarely can't I buy something that an LGS sells on Amazon and have it in two days.  More importantly, I didn't have to go anywhere.   For ammo, I buy in bulk or reload so even in components I buy in bulk.  Times have been changing for a long time.  It's the old adage, adapt or die.

I'm going to try to respond to this thread in more detail when I've got some time.  Higher education is changing a lot, and in a lot of respects is a different animal today than it's ever been in the past.  A few thoughts:   Higher education - like most other areas of our economy is being raped by the finance industry.  They're taking all they can get, and there are a lot of participants.  They're not going to stop until they drive it (and the economy) off the cliff or some other force acts upon them. The universities have been participating in raising costs to where it's difficult to work your way through school at these elevated tuition levels.  Not saying it can't be done, but it's a lot more difficult than it was 20 years ago when I was in school. There is a fundamental failing at the family/high school/mentor level where college is sort of expected.  For a lot of big organizations today, the bachelors degree is sort of the new high school diploma.  Frankly, there are a lot of positions that simply aren't available to someone without a four year degree.  So, to some extent, companies are feeding this problem, but it's something that's going to have to be addressed.  And, to address it, we may have to start to go back to the old days where "college isn't for everyone." People in counseling roles need to have honest conversations with the students they are counseling about what the debt load is going to look like in  comparison to what you're going to make.  Mind you, a lot of these students aren't in a position to hear this when all they've heard is, "do what you love." But, we need to have that conversation.  Study something that will allow you to feed yourself - then do what you love. If a student is going to graduate from college with more total debt than the salary level they can expect to make in their first year out of school, someone needs to have a hard conversation with them.  They're going to be a slave to debt for a long time, and they need to know what that looks like. We need to encourage a return to the trades.  I teach at the university level, both undergraduate and graduate.  I tell my students all the time about paying welders more in 1995 than many of them will make upon graduation today.  For the health of the economy - we need healthy trades.   At the university level, I think we need to have an honest discussion about what the heck we're doing.  Frankly, a lot of college is glorified trade school these days as they just sort of regurgitate what companies tell them they're looking for.  We're not teaching.  We're making good little "information worker" drones.  Teaching people how to think and solve hard problems is important - and most of our universities have lost this ability.  I think in the future, universities may look more like the universities of old where there is a liberal arts grounding with room for experimentation and learning in the sciences. There are alternative paths emerging with a lot more sustainable cost structure - and this is really exciting.  Coursera, EdX, etc... are making some awesome content available.  If you want to learn - and the piece of paper at the end isn't that important, there is some great stuff out there.  I've taken several Stanford courses over the past couple of years for free, and the content was on par with any class I had in undergraduate school.   Learn to code.  In today's economy you'll be able to feed yourself and your family.  You'll be able to think about problems in different ways, and you'll likely never hurt for opportunity.

I see a lot of strong opinions in this thread. That is refreshing, but it also a bit short sighted and naive.    We are not cookies cut with the same shape.   That is what makes us fun.   That also doesn't make you wrong. Or right.   I graduated from high school by the skin of my teeth and was kicked out in the world. It beat my ass. I have held a full time job since I was on my own at 17. I was a guest of a state system that could care less and put me though a half baked 'independent living center.' I was on the streets with no skills and no help. I worked. I worked. I worked.   When I was 22 I enrolled in school and got saddled with a fair amount of student debt. It was my only option, how could I afford to eat and live, and pay for school. I worked two jobs and went to school full time. A couple of years later I got a piece of paper that meant crap, and honestly I have done nothing with it. It was all because I thought the only way to get ahead was to get a college degree. I make a good living, by working hard, and experience has done more for me than my education.   I pay my student loans. My education is something I am proud of. I carried a 3.75/4.0 GPA through the whole thing.    I am however teaching my daughter that life is better to find what you love, then find a way to make a good living doing it. I think way to much of the world is focused on money, and having more than the neighbors. I know that part of what motivates me is to ensure that my daughter never, NEVER, has to experience the life I did.    So while it is really easy to sit in your easy, or uneasy chair and judge everyone else based on their choices that differ from yours, remember that you haven't been presented the same choices to make with the same tools. I know that now in my life, I would make a whole lot of choices a lot differently, but I also know that I would still make a lot of them just as badly. And that is with all of the information that might not have been available ten, twenty or thirty years ago when I made them.   But I do think that today's enforced idea that a degree is required is highly flawed. And a lot of that comes from the fact that I have spent a large part of my post college career in specialized 'skilled trades.' It is also because at the end of the day, learning how to sit in an office and type on a computer isn't going to help you a bit when your car breaks down, or your pipes burst or a tree falls in your yard. Life experience can.    For the record I went to school for electrical engineering. And I sit behind a desk typing on a computer and telling people what to do. I can turn a wrench and run a chainsaw too.

    You couldn't?  Amateur.

  Yep. Never understood places that don't want to do them at all or discourage them by charging outrageous fee.   At just $20 per, that should generally translate to ~ 100 clams per hour for only one person's time with no outlay for stock. Seems like the easiest money a shop could make.   - OS

I'd love to buy guns with my tax return but for some reason, I'm told I need dental work as soon as I get it. ;)

I think that this whole conversation is pretty silly. It's easy for people to be critical when they have no skin in the game. So you went college on your own dime? Great. I'm glad the circumstances in YOUR life allowed you to do so. So you didn't go to college? Great! I'm glad that the circumstance in YOUR life worked out for you too. You want to spend 30 years to get a 4 year degree so that you pay for it a little at a time without debt but the degree is useless when you get it? Great! I'm glad that YOUR life circumstances allow you to do so.   I'm struck by the amount of people who would bitch about college being free for those who desire to learn but bitch about the system as it is. News flash: You can't bankrupt out of student debt, period! It's your debt until you pay it off or die. This guy got arrested for contempt of court; not for not paying his debt. He thumbed his nose at the judge and got what he deserved.

I've never had a problem getting a good deal at my LGS. I've only done two transfers in the last year and one was because it was a smoking hot deal from Buds and the other was because it was a VERY hard to find rifle. I felt guilty both times, but I built my AR there and I've spent a pretty decent amount there in the year I've lived here. Hands down, it's the owner, his wife and some of the staff that keeps me coming back.

  Are you saying that the owners of your local gun shops don't work hard for their money?  Does the $20-40 you might save by buying online make as much of a difference in your life as it might in the difference of a small business owner's success or failure?   Just things to think about.

I'm going to say a few things here and it is worth everything that you are paying for it.  Really just some points to consider.   -  I won't discourage anyone from buying the best safe that they can. -  Any safe is better than no safe.  -  Most thieves will not put forth the effort to break into a safe.  Most will ransack the house and grab whatever they can quickly. -  Most people that you have to worry about stealing your guns you already know, whether you want to admit it or not.  Most thieves are not going to put forth the effort to crack a safe that has unknown contents.  -  A cop friend of mine that works in a fairly high crime area said that in his 10 years of being a cop he has never seen a safe broken into but he's been to a lot of home burglaries. -  The location of the safe its self can add another layer of security.  As can having it properly mounted.  Don't make it obvious and don't make it easy to roll out of the house on a dolly.  As much of a pain as it is, the harder it is to get in the harder it will be go get out.  At my last house the safe was in the master bedroom closet.  Guests at our house never knew that we had a safe.  Of course if I like you enough to let you into my home you probably already know that I have guns.  No need to have it sitting out in the open where service people and the like can see it.   -  A security system adds yet another layer of protection.    So, be careful who you let know what you have.  Be careful about who has access to your house. Don't leave crowbars, grinders, torches and the like easily accessible.  Finally, make it inconvenient to remove the safe from your house.   All of these points can be argued to death and there are exceptions to them all, they are simply observations and generalizations to consider.

If you run into any engine blocks that need killing - you ought to be squared away!

Dude...I think you REALLY misunderstood Garufa. I'm almost positive he was talking about the poacher. Not you..

More venues for people to compete is a good thing. And after all, the only 2 things we control is how we act and who we surround ourselves with. Having choices benefits the entire shooting community.

They've only made the Civilian in a plain edge in very limited runs.  When they do become available on the secondary market, they usually demand a premium.   While I am generally a big fan of plain edge blades over their serrated counterparts, this is one case where serrations - and specifically Spyderco's serrations make a lot of sense.  For this knife's use case - self defense - the increase in cutting surface area provided by the serrations would be desirable.

Dang right Mac.  If I could like that post more than once, I would.     I worked a few little piddly jobs after high school before I started working in a machine shop which became my career for a long time.  It was invaluable.  I had never dealt with people other than my dishwashing job I had in high school.  Never dealt with diversity or different cultures.  Never dealt with different age groups in a work environment.  It did MUCH to prepare me, even though $7.50-$8.00 hr sucked, it was well worth it.  

I NEED AN M1 GARAND!

lots of hate in this thread.  The daughter looks like 90% of the young woman who are my customers.  She can't be blamed for her parentage.   the father is who he is.  It isn't his daughters fault.  I assume she is looking to a career in modeling.   Some of you guys make me shake my head.  Nothing like being sanctimonious.

One of the contractors I work for in Murfreesboro installs these in his houses.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0crHkIdsuA8

  If there were no internet, then the Crash has happened, and folks will only be using the guns they already had anyway. Or swapping them for food.   - OS

*Gasp!* How dare you!!! How dare you bust your butt and work hard to accomplish your goals. How dare you make something out of yourself without milking the system! You're making a bad example for the others who need to 'feel good' about taking handouts and dragging out the repayment of said handouts. ***Spit*** High five buddy.

I'm cool with it. When you take a loan, you're agreeing to pay it back. Refusing to pay it back is NOT 'sticking it to the man' it's THEFT. Theives should be in prison. Pretty cut and dry.

I think this video is one of the best to help you decide on a safe:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltK-bDbADa8

Thanks for the heads up Mike. Manage to snag a big bottle of the antique tonight.

Well several of my parts came in and I'm getting close.  I'm still waiting on BCG and handguard.  I decided on the SLR solo lite series and went with the 14".  I called them up to ask a question and they were very helpful and even gave me a coupon code for 10% off!  To top that off, I had a shipping notification in exactly 30 minutes!  Awesome company as far as customer service is concerned.  Obviously I'll give my impressions of the handguard later once it's received.    The BA barrel looks great.  Rifling looks good, threading is nice, crown is good, finish is smooth.  Test fit in my receiver is nice and snug.  I guess my only complaint is that it isn't dimpled.     BCG should be here tomorrow, not sure about the handguard. 

I think a person should have a simple, but robust armory of shooters and then move into collector pieces. I could see a place for a gun like that Python in my safe after I get my shooters finished.

The pics are incredible, as is the work you are doing and the love you show these little guys (& gals).   I've had the honor of swapping a few e-mails with MrsMonkeyMan and believe me folks, this lady is incredible!   My appreciation and admiration go out to you and MrMonkey!   :up:

Woohoo!  Payment sent!

Get a Garand from the CMP while they still have them.

Man you are right on. I have told people for years, I was not ready for college and I paid for it both monetarily and with time. I never finished engineering school, not because I wasn't good enough, I just was too immature to turn down the beer and partying. Now I'm fortunate to be a forester and love my job but I could have benefitted from a couple years of hard labor.

:biglol:

I like Bill's Outpost over in Alcoa.  Great store with good prices.  You might even check if they already have a lower in stock.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this one. lol

Yeah, because you're not using the services that the state taxes provide. I'm not about taxing people to death but you should be paying a "fair" amount for the legitimate services the government provides. They should actually revisit the gas tax because if you drive a hybrid or an electric, you're using the road just as much as the guy that drives a truck yet you're not contributing to the upkeep of the roads.

That is why it's up to the parents to shine a little reality into their lives.  If parents keep raising their kids without some reality checks it will be a bitter disappointment for most of them when they realize that they actually have to work for their success.

I am only saying that I work hard for my money, and I am a very good steward of my money.   That is all, nothing more or nothing less.   I know its difficult for local businesses to compete against the world with the invent of consumer shopping on the internet, but this is not my row to hoe, I just take advantage of it since it allows me to have more cash in my pocket, and more cash in my pocket allows me to buy more things.  I am the consumer, and unless I win the lottery and/or I am flushed with so much disposable income from various sources of income from investments, and other revenue sources, in my view and smarts, I have no choice but to be tight and shop smart, isn't that a display of good stewardship?     Seriously, it always bugs me why don't the small biz sympathizers just walk into a mom & pop shop and give cash freely (donation) with nothing in return.  That surely would help their business model.

so im at the dr office,and a lady sitting a seat away is sniffling and drooling like she has facial syphillis. i hit the link w paiges 30 some odd girlie gun photos. got halfway through and ms drooley sniffles got up gave me a scowl and left saving me 10 minutes!!! good karma!!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk, its either this or smoke signals!

Easy solution for lack of money and desire to go to college. Join the military.

Clint Smith for president.

If they killed off Daryl, they would have to fill his void quickly with a character of similar qualities or I'm with you, doubt I'd watch much more. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

She's been busy: http://thebrigade.com/2015/03/09/paige-wyatt-and-her-guns-37-photos/

I couldn't  care less about the douche.  What's that tart Paige up to these days?

I don't care if I, and everyone here has already said it...You guys are terrific! X100! It brings a tear to my eye seeing these little ones. As much as we would like to take one, our Molly will not accept a puppy in the house. She is so spoiled it is pathetic.