Oh Shoot

It ain't done there yet. - OS

Walmart. Remington Slugger 2.75" 1 oz. slugs are around $9 plus tax for the 15 packs. You might can beat this slightly by quantity buy online, but not by much. The same in buckshot has gone up a buck or two, but the slugs are still at that price as of last week. A store that has them in stock generally only has 10 or 15 packs max, though, so if you need quantity at one time, online is probably gonna be necessary. - OS

Like probably you, use max camera zoom? - OS

Loaded with 13+1 124 grain Golden Sabers, my XD SC9 weighs exactly 2 lbs on digital scale. Plus holster weight. (avatar) - OS

Don't be an ass. - OS

This comes up now and then on TGO, and I don't know if there has ever been a crystal clear legal opinion emerge. In TN, for example, you are required to get a TN DL and plates and HCP after a certain time of "establishing residency". 'Bama may have similar requirements, don't know. Here is how TN determines residency, only thing I can find, and it's related to voting. There may be a more general topic area for residency, but I've never found it. Tennessee Department of State: Elections And Bama is likely somewhat similar. Point being, if you don't change anything, who would ever necessarily know? Maybe. Except that if something unusual happened, like being in a shooting, or a wreck, or maybe even just a traffic stop, 'Bama might look deeper at your work and residency situation and I suppose there's outside chance of being charged with carrying without a valid permit or something related to driving credentials. Whether that's a real concern or just being overly cautious, I don't know. The fact that you are in adjoining states might be a factor as far as reasonably claiming that you are still a TN resident, and are taking a job of "unknown duration", then again, maybe that's only my shading the issue. You'll almost certainly need to be either/or, as a Bama DL/plates with a TN HCP is bound to raise some questions if ever stopped, for example. There is also the possibility of sticking out in some database correlation, since I assume you'd keep your TN address for IRS purposes, but income derived from Bama. Also, Bama has state income tax. Whether this might raise a flag at some point is another unknown. Anyway, guess some others will chime in. In the meantime, you might try to search Bama's state sites and see what's technically required, not just for packing, but DL and other stuff, and their definition of residency, just so you can decide better. And I'm sure you'll get more responses here, hopefully maybe even from one of our resident attorneys. I trust I have made this now as clear as mud. You're welcome. :) - OS

Got the file from Glenn, just to confirm: yeah, we are all three using same PDF file, and I can see exactly same thing that he does, just not as hip to the program to fully understand the results. - OS

Well, if there were OCR involved, there would be vector text, eh? That's the only reason TO use OCR. Well, Illustrator shows 9 "links" if you do the select all/clipping mask release thing that Glenn mentioned. Two are blank but 7 sort of correspond to what your program shows. Which evidentally indicates that these areas were independently created, moved, whatever, if I understand Glenn's explanation. However, my Illustrator keeps only showing one layer, and now that I look at his screen shot a little more, I see that his does too, it's just expanded to show the different stuff in that layer, which I admit I don't really understand the program enough to grok exactly what that means, etc.. At any rate, we all three do seem to be working on the same file (I downloaded mine today also), PDF shows creation date of 4/27/11 at 12:09:24. But he hasn't sent me his file, so I'm beginning to think he's in on it. All in all, I can see the differences in pixel compression in just PDF viewer, so that fact alone is enough to create plenty of doubt. - OS

That's the one, Bronk! Why should I spend big bucks on a Maxpedition and still have to carry it myself? - OS

Yes, I agree that among other oddities, I can see different levels of artifacts. There's no doubt the thing has been futzed quite a bit. I don't get the overwhelmingly obvious mystery of the green "security" background being interposed around what was obviously the original scan (if indeed there actually ever WAS one), with the registrar's info being on that. I mainly just want to "confirm" that the file you got from WH site is different from the file I got from WH site. - OS

Sent you PM to send me your file to compare, just for the helluva it. - OS

No, it's all bitmap. The group/ungroup only becomes viable where there are two discrete or more forms within the doc. I can add something to it, and group/ungroup, but the PDF itself is all one whole bitmap, no vector info at ll. I'm not really Illustrator literate though, just have it as part of an Adobe bundle, so I could be missing something I suppose. I suspect that draw program you downloaded is merely grouping sections by interpreting its own vector overlay on similar abutting sections of the overall bitmap though. I had a draw program from MS, forget its name, that would sort of do that. But I can't say that for sure either, since I don't know that proggie you're using. - OS

Where did you get file, Glenn? Mine is from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf And shows no such layers or links in my version of Illustrator CS. While it's pretty fishy, I'm beginning to think there are even further versions with added stuff being thrown out there by folks to further tin foil everything up? Of course, sure, the WH could have substituted new file by now, too, I know. - OS

Gotcha. Well, whatever was done to this image, it's FAR from a straight scan from WHATever WHOever started with. It's just typical though. You don't have to have wear a tin foil hat to be legitimately distrustful of this guy period. - OS

I thought it was one of the big eyed aliens they're keeping (and breeding) at Area 51. - OS

If you used same file I did, then Elements is doing a fairly poor job. I did have Photoshop rasterize it at 300ppi, and that's about the same quality as Illustrator did with no parameters set, so maybe you just needed to go higher. I used Elements briefly way back when. Straight image formats opened in Photoshop, like jpeg, tiff, png, etc, generally show as just "background" in the layers palette, assuming there are no layers, but this PDF shows as "layer 1" which in one of the common image formats that can save layers (tiff, psd) would indicate that the background layer was deleted and layers were preserved in the save as, but I see that all PDFs open in Photoshop showing "layer 1" which is obviously the way the PDF is rasterized, even if the PDF is simply a holder for an already raster image, as it is here, so that's no proof that there ever were layers during any of the manipulation. I'm like you, a straight scan in a lossless format like TIFF, PSD, BMP, or even high quality JPEG or PNG would have cut to the chase and eliminated much of the speculation. One thing's for sure, the White House or State of Hawaii, whoever is responsible, doesn't have any decent digital image folks worth a hoot on payroll. I hate incompetence almost a much as skilled deception in gooberment matters. - OS

Yeah, I finally fired up Illustrator CS and Photoshop CS. I used this one, straight download from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/birth-certificate-long-form.pdf Viewed at full size you can see much of the wackiness of this file without opening in any particular app, just viewed with Adobe Reader plug in , or whatever app is set for your browser for PDFs. I do NOT see the multiple layers that folks keep mentioning, both Illustrator and Photoshop report "layer 1". The PDF is a raster file, not vector. I agree there's some obvious manipulation from a straight scan. The white fields around both typing and signatures is quite odd, and odder still, though, that even the supposedly pre-printed form info fields also have this, not just the typing and signatures. And they obviously extended the form background to surround the actual scan ... and it is this extended field whereon the registrar put his certified info, so maybe that's the way they do it (by laying a physical overlay around the actual bound certificate or something), but then the hash marks are carefully lined up on the flat areas of the abutment, so I rather doubt that, too. Here's an actual pixel size rendition of a section of the PDF, opened at 300ppi in PS, saved as 100% quality JPEG: I could go on, lots of oddities in this thing, obviously much manipulated, so I agree, the whole thing is contrived and convoluted, just like O's entire administration. Tricky Dick opened my young eyes to just what lying dogs they can be at the top, but I must admit, through all the presidents in between, O has forged an entirely new level of total distrust, now for ANYthing coming out of his admin. - OS

That's really the reason I've never given the matter much credence. Just about any GOP pol could rise to instant stardom and assure his place in the history books by getting the goods on O in this matter. The Donald didn't have the goods -- he's much more carny barker than astute pol. - OS

I try to stay out of there, various top of the line stuff, but top tier pricing also. Across the street from River Sports, which has indoor climbing facility. - OS

"nigra" was a widespread southern term when I was a kid, and actually denoted at least a modicum of dignity compared to the also very common N Word. "Colored" was even more widely used, and was actually an "official" term. Water fountains, restrooms, etc were denoted as "white" vs. "colored". - OS

oops, how'd I do that?

Please post if he does that, I sure like to go by for a while, and meet Mr. Becker. - OS

Well federal law says you can't sell handgun ammo to anyone under 21. But of course it doesn't define "handgun ammo" and "rifle ammo". So I can sort of understand the corporate quandary to some extent. Not as bad as Sportsman's Guide not shipping most knives to TN, though. - OS

Then there's the (I think, unique) Taurus striker fired models with multiple strike capability, some with decocker from the lighter "single action cocked" position. - OS

Yeah, WWB 9mm 100 count was about 3 bucks difference in two different Wally's in Chattanooga recently. - OS