10-Ring

Always good to hear about a company that takes care of their customers.    I recently had a good experience as well.  This one with Merrell Shoes.  I certainly will not hesitate to buy from them again.  Turned out there wasn't anything wrong with the shoes they just needed to be broken in a little bit more.  Here is a copy of the email correspondence I had with them.    And their response...

How dare you talk about two outstanding members of our forum like that? :)

Do you and Dolomite shop at the same Wal-Mart by chance?

...if only there was a way we could trick those protester idiots into having one of their protests and lay in the middle of Alcoa Highway (main thoroughfare between airport and town) so it has to be shut down today.

Send 'em to Memphis.  They are liked over there.

  I wouldn't carry any gun without getting very comfortable on the range with it first and knowing the gun.  Especially something really small like a .380.  I swore that I'd never own a Taurus but I relented and bought a TCP and love it.  That said mine did not function well out of the box, it took a lot of polishing and tweaking to get it to run right.  When I got it it was for all practical purposes a single shot, if you got anything else out of it you were just lucky.  Carry a single shot .380?  No thanks.

Never heard of it but a quick search tells me that it could be pretty annoying to have someone watching me all day.  I like to rock out in the car but I don't even do it around other cars, I just don't think that I could handle that.  I would so put that in my kids car though.

When someone swears that some gun info is absolutely true because a cop told them.   Example:  "My neighbors cousin is a cop, and he said that it is illegal to have more than 3 rounds loaded int any gun."   Nothing against cops all of them that I personally know are great guys.  But they are not all gun guys, they just happen to carry one everyday.  I carry all kinds of stuff around everyday like hammers, ratchet straps, shovels, and motor oil yet I do not consider myself an authority "subject matter expert" on these things, they are just tools that I use to get my job done.  I will note that I've never heard this bologna come from the mouth of a cop, some of the cops I know are VERY well informed about guns because they have a personal interest, like us, instead it always starts with the "I know a cop..."   Other people who are "gun experts."  I have an uncle that is a real A hole.  He was telling me something about his buddy that is a "gun expert" (like it's a professional title) telling him that a Taurus Judge was absolutely the best home defense weapon a person could buy.  He would listen to nothing that I said because I'm not a gun expert.  I have nothing against the Judges and similar weapons but it's not what I would grab for a bump in the night.  Just to poke the bear...  Ever shot a squirrel with a .410 and had to shoot it again?

It's amazing what an addict will do for a fix.  I saw one of my very best friends get hooked on Oxycontin, it ruined his life.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that he was using heroin because it was cheaper.  An addict will steal and sell every precious family heirloom in their parents house and pawn it for nothing just to get high once, and they think nothing of it.  They would thoughtlessly sell their soul to the devil for one more hit if they could.  I say let em at it, problem will solve itself, I've been around more than enough addicts in my life, they rarely get better.

Back around 2007-2008 or so I was living in Cookeville and would see them in town all of the time.  There was one down at the end of the parking lot at Kroger one night that some morons were hand feeding. 

I'm sure the same could be said about some members here and their relationship with guns.  To each his own.

I do the bulk of my dual sport riding in Cherokee National Forrest.  You are good as long as it is street legal and you stay on open roads, same rules as an automobile.  I was out there on Saturday actually, they had some roads opened up from hunting season that are not ordinarily open that I got to explore!  I have a dirtbike that has been "converted" to be street legal.  This is a tricky process that I could write a book about, but it can be done.

It sounds like you are looking for something that will offer good utility, and low maintenance, and low price and performance is secondary to this.  I've kind of sat back throughout this thread to see what direction you are headed before I made a recommendation on a bike.  I will just offer you these tidbits...   -Stay away from modern motorcross 4 strokes, they require more maintenance do to the power that is being squeezed out of that little engine.  Example, I had a Yamaha YZF400, it had 5 valves for one cylinder and was a complete pain in the butt to check valves on.     -Depending on how big a boy you are I would get an electric start on anything over about 300cc.  Preferably with a backup kickstart.  I'm 5'8" 160 pounds, know what I am doing and still had to kick that YZF just right to get it to start, not to mention that kick starter will come back at you with a vengeance.  My DRZ400E only has an electric start, which is nice when everything is working, my battery died on the trail once and it was so muddy that I could not bump start it, even in 5th gear it would just go into a skid when I popped the clutch.  A friend had to ride out and fetch a tow strap to pull me about 2 miles to pavement before I could get it to start.    -I will second the XRs as a great option for you.  They are a little heavier and not quite as powerful as their modern CRF counterparts but they are bullet proof and you should be able to pick up a nice one for around $1500 or less.  Unless you are a pretty big guy I would look for a 200 or 250, if you are bigger a 400, if you are just a strapping dude that is really big and really strong then a 600.  The old XR600s are a beast of a motorcycle, even as an experienced rider I don't enjoy riding them in tight spaces you have to muscle them around.  A friends dad raced one for years back in the 90's.  He was 6' 225 in great shape and worked out everyday.  A really experienced rider that isn't big will have a hard time muscling that bike around.  If you don't want a Honda I would really try to keep it Japanese.  KTM and other European brands make an excellent performance product.  It sounds like more performance than what you are looking for, parts cost a lot more, and they will just require more maintenance all the way around.    -Bigger is not always better.  If say a CRF150 suited your needs and you are not really big I promise you that you can not ride that motorcycle and NOT smile.  I think one of the funnest bikes that I ever owned was a CRF50, built up with the 88 kit, and it would go anywhere in the woods since you can lift it over or scoot it under a blown down tree on the trail.  That package weighs 100 pounds and will still run 45MPH.  A couple of friends and myself have done 50 mile days on the trail on these bikes, the seats on the other hand are not butt friendly.    If there is anything I can do to help you just shoot me a message, I've owned dirtbikes all of my adult life (momma said "not under my roof") and I currently own 5 dirtbike based motorcycles, each with a specific purpose.

I will more than likely be in the area that day, if I'm around I will come by for sure.

I was just wondering if they had any openings :tough:

Forget everything you know about 4 wheelers. Practice in an open area where there isn't anything hard and stationary to hit until you get the hang of things. I've taught a lit of people to ride over the years and always start them on some kind of dirt bike.

Did you find anyone? The company that I work for is out of Athens and we are slew right now. We have a couple of dump trucks I can give the boss a call tomorrow and see if he can get you hooked up.

I like to be as unencumbered as possible especially in any terrain that is tight as you will be moving your body around a lot and sometimes quickly.  I would put a top rack on it and carry your pack on the top rack to free yourself up. 

I think to make good money in the car finance game you really have to extend credit to high risk people.  You're dealing with clunkers so like 45guy said you are even on the vehicle when they put the down payment on it.  If they don't pay you either have to go through the trouble and risk of doing a repo yourself or pay someone else to do it. 

On rental damages...  I could see damages destroying your business.  A friend of mine owns a motorcycle rental business, talk about people tearing stuff up, his customers crash a few of his bikes each year.  Can't remember off the top of my head but he puts a hold of something like $3,000 on their credit card when they rent, plus in his contract he specifies that the client is responsible for any damages beyond that as well.  Big difference between equipment and motorcycles is that 3 grand can about replace most of his motorcycles while 3 grand wouldn't cover most heavy equipment repairs.  Also working against you using something like this is that it is not the industry norm (to my knowledge anyway) to put a hold on a credit card so you would have to find something that would be appealing about renting from you compared to your competition.  Obviously the advantage of doing this is that you can immediately recoup some damages without having to argue or go to court.  

  Keep this in mind and do your research...  If I'm not mistaken...  When they take in junker trades like I had they donate them to a charity and get a $2000 tax write off.  If you call them out on this it can work to your benefit.  I had a friend use this trick with what really was a car worth maybe $500 on a good day, at Rick McGill's, trading for a new Tacoma of all things.

Once while camping in the Western North Carolina mountains a local sheriffs deputy came by to check us out.  He was obviously very bored and asked us if we minded if he hung out at our fire for the remainder of his shift.  One thing led to another and eventually he got the breathalizer out and would guess where each of us was after giving us a field sobriety test.  I remember blowing a .06 and I was in no condition to drive, and I'm not a light weight by any means.  One of my coolest cop encounters.    

I think that we could surmise here that responsible dog ownership is very akin to responsible gun ownership. 

I've been self employed and I've worked for "the man."  Each has it's benefits.  Right now I work for the man, but he's a good man and he's very good to me, IMO that's the way to go.  I wish you the best of luck and if I could give you two pieces of advice they would be 1)  Don't ever get a full nights sleep, you will operate better just being tired all of the time since you are used to it.  And 2) Don't put all of your eggs in one basket.  See to it ahead of time that if your business doesn't work out that you are not going to loose everything and not have a place to live, it happens to more people than you would think. 

It doesn't seem like a lot of places will haggle anymore.  I went to Rick McGill's Toyota in Alcoa looking for a used Tacoma about a year ago, first and last trip in that place.  They offered me $500 for my '97 Avalon in trade.  Now my Avalon wasn't like new I'm not going to lie, but I sold it on Craigslist a few days later for $1300 in an hour.  Anyways, when the salesman offered me $500 for my car I didn't blink, I just asked him what he could do on the price of the Tacoma for me.  Without hesitation he said, and I quote "We don't negotiate the price on used Tacomas, we get asking price for them."  That was the point at which we were done talking.  I wound up buying a truck off of a small lot, if you can find a small lot with good people running it you will be in good shape.