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  Colorado also has a very large military population in a small area between Denver and the Colorado Springs area.  Fort Carson, a few Air Force bases, the HQ for U.S. Northern Command, the Air Force Academy...a lot of military population for someone to target.  Just something to keep in mind for trend tracking if this heads further south in the area.

My AT&T service is working.  All the spam callers are making my mobile ring just fine.

  If you can deal with flying into Nashville and not Knoxville, American Airlines has a bunch of flights a day from O'Hare to BNA.

I've found this site to be decent. https://www.kayak.com/flights   Also, if your destination is a hub for any of the airlines (ATL for Delta, Dallas or Chicago for American, ect), it's worth looking at their pages directly.  With the flights going to the hubs anyway to get people on connecting flights, they do all they can to fill them up.

  Words of wisdom right here.   Athletes spend countless hours doing the simple things for their sport in practice.  Baseball players field ground balls, basketball players take free throws, football players catch passes, all hundreds of times before a game.  Why should shooting be any different?   Best shooting time I ever had in the Army was at a course taught by a cadre of retired guys from CAC/Delta/whatever you want to call it.  They had us doing fundamental shooting for so long each day, good results from our "advanced" techniques like barricade shooting and rollover prone came very easily and we were able to have a lot of fun and hear that lovely "ting" from hitting the target with consistency.

  Glad Zorin is working well for you, dual boot is a decent way to go to get the best of both worlds. I'm thinking of getting a Solid State Drive for my laptop and making it even faster.   Win10 is something I'm holding off on, though.  No need to go through the headaches of "upgrading" when I have a stable system that does everything I need and has enough support for a while.  All the things I'm reading on other sites about Win10 being set up to send a lot of information by default doesn't sit well with me either.

A quick "...there I was" story...   Spring 2002, somewhere between Kandahar Airfield and Kandahar City, our patrol sees a local group walking by, and there is a donkey with the rope for him being held by a kid I would guess is no more than 8-10yrs old.  Donkey was either uncooperative as Dolo mentions, or got spooked by the trucks following our dismounted element, either way, he wasn't moving.    Kid tugs on the rope, nothing. Kid starts smacking donkey on the rump with a stick (from the side), nothing.  Kid picks up a decent size rock, chucks it full force at donkey's head from about five feet, donkey gets in gear.    As to what they can and cannot carry, in an environment like that, which a post SHTF America may very well look like, an animal to carry your excess gear and equipment is a decent idea and has many advantages over motor transportation for the long term.

Makes me wish my lease didn't prohibit pets...maybe some of you folks are on the lookout for a new pet.  Please share as you see fit.     http://wkrn.com/2015/07/31/metro-animal-control-waives-adoptions-fees-after-reaching-capacity/   NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – The Metro Animal Care and Control is at capacity and is waiving adoption fees for all cats and dogs beginning Saturday.   Currently there are more than 200 pets in need of homes at the shelter located at 5125 Harding Place.   “Our shelter is completely full and every single pet here deserves a warm bed, a loving family and a place to call home,” said Metro Animal Care and Control spokeswoman Rebecca Morris.   All animals will be spayed or neutered, microchipped and vaccinated before going to their forever home. Adopters should bring a valid form of identification, proof of address and a copy of their lease agreement and pet policy if renting. For more information on animal control’s adoption requirements, click here.   Metro Animal Control is open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.   The waived fees continue through Saturday, Aug. 8.

I waited until Jan 2013 to go from XP to 7, skipping Vista entirely.  I'm comfortable waiting for 10 to work itself out and see what it can and can't do.  Between having a dual boot with Win7 and Linux Zorin, I can afford to wait.  

  Individual rights aren't much of a concern when business interests enter the conversation.   I really think these decisions are all about making Nashville a destination city for events by being as friendly to as many groups as possible both in and out of state, including those who don't want any guns at their events.  The AG opinion is someone not reading the script like they're expected to. 

I think the real surprise here is that LA didn't already have a law like this on the books, or that state law didn't take care of it for them.   No big deal, out of any potential places I might want to visit in California, LA wasn't even on the list to begin with.

  I have the 2.0 and it's pretty good with most shorts I have.  I'd be comfortable recommending it to someone.   I'll have to check out the 3.0 if I ever get a new pistol.

  After a year of owning an SBR, my 16" AR feels like it's the size of a musket.  SBR's are awesome to shoot, and very practical for home defense.  Not that I'm happy with all the rules around them, but from a cost benefit analysis, it's worth the hassle of the process to get one.

So, this pic (which is awesome, BTW) has me thinking...if someone showed up looking like this, how many guys on guard do you think would open fire without any real provocation?

I get the argument that investments help with the economy, but right now I think we have too much of the money going to the investment/financial sector, and not enough making its way down to the workers.   Everyday people need purchasing power, and I'd rather raise the minimum wage than raise or expand welfare.  We all know the latter will happen if the income inequality problem isn't addressed, right?  At least by raising the minimum wage, we can reward those who actually go out and work while reinforcing the value of a job.  Salaries are also still a tax deduction up to $115k I think, so businesses wouldn't get hit as hard as some like to argue.   I would also tie the minimum wage raise with an amendment saying welfare rates won't raise with it for somewhere around five years.  That can serve as an incentive to get people to take jobs, not just pull minimum wage (or higher) living from the dole.   A hike in the cap on salary deduction amounts isn't out of the question, but I'd cap it at a proportion to the raise of the minimum wage.

  No worries, they'll find rocks that need painted, the motor pool will need to be rearranged a few times, CONEX's need to be inventoried often...plenty to do in a nine month deployment.  Damned if I ever knew the reasons for it all, though.

The "free market" would victimize low skill and some technical workers if left unchecked by things like a minimum wage.  There were reasons for instituting it in the first place, and without a minimum wage, those reasons would come right back.   Another upside to a minimum wage hike is the money it would put back into what I call the "real economy"  by giving low income workers more purchasing power.  I think $15 an hour is too much unless it's phased in over a decade or something, but $10.10 now is reasonable.  Let's face it, if someone is making between minimum wage and $10.10 an hour, bring raised up to $10.10 isn't going to have them saving, or opening up a mutual fund.  That extra pay will be used to buy more items, and that's more money retailers can compete for.

Open carry for this shindig, right?  :D

A friend told me she saw people with flags on every overpass between Murfreesboro and Smyrna tonight in honor of PO2 Randall Smith. 

  These sites do well because people are human, and the allure of someone new is always going to be strong.  Even the most good hearted men of God can be corrupted in their lust.  MLK comes to mind as an example.  These sites are just adapting to the 21st century.  Nothing new under the sun when you break it down.     Completely agree with those who think that marriage is rushed into these days.  But, it's been programmed into people that's what's normal.

Who had Lancaster, Ohio as the spot for our first civilian guard negligent discharge? http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2015/07/23/recruiting-center-shot-fired.html   From the article... A group of armed civilians have been guarding the recruiters inside the multi-branch center since Monday. One of them has been charged with a misdemeanor after he accidentally fired his AR-15 rifle this afternoon. --- The shopping-center owner issued a statement this afternoon saying that after the firearm discharge, it was decided “for the safety of tenants, customers and construction personnel working in the immediate vicinity of the Military Recruiting Center, it would be best to request the removal of the armed individuals.” Christopher A. Reed, 28, of Lancaster, was charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits, and was issued a summons to appear in Fairfield County Municipal Court on Tuesday, according to the police incident report. Reed told the officer who responded that he was holding his AR-15 rifle in front of the military recruiting station to guard the personnel inside when someone approached him and asked if he could take a look at the weapon. Reed agreed to show him, and while he was trying to clear the ammunition from the weapon, he accidentally fired into the asphalt pavement. The only damage was a hole in the pavement. The rifle was taken from Reed pending his appearance in court, the incident report says. --- Reed pleaded guilty and was convicted of the same offense in 2013, and was fined $50, court records show.

Budgets just aren't safe from awesome gun related deals these days.  Not sure how low a suppressor can get, but I would think they aren't immune to the trend...not with eForms humming along at a decent rate.

  I don't pretend I don't have to answer to a higher power, I simply don't.   My personal code of conduct, desire to function within society, and a healthy fear of socitial punishment (ie: jail) guide me through life.

  At the risk of fulfilling Grand Torino's prognostication above, I think modern society has transcended the needs for controls based in religion.  Goes back to Voltaire and the line of "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."  At one point, society needed God to provide the framework.  Now, not so much.   Religion was a big deal when King's ruled through divine right and needed rules and laws based in religion to legitimize them, but in 21st century democracies, society has evolved where we don't need a religious themed reason for every rule.  We can recognize that it's in the interest of society to have rules and what not so we don't become savages who destroy themselves.  The line on what those rules are ebbs and flows, but it doesn't require religion for enough people to come together and decide some things should be prohibited.   That's not to say religion doesn't have a place, but it's best value is individual and within the faith...anything beyond what is needed for the basic functioning of society (not to be confused for what we think it should be based on our own personal beliefs) should not get copied and pasted in both word and effect into legislation that will beholden those of different faith's and non-believers to it.

  If I can make it, I'll be the white, balding guy, with a belly.  Surely that will make me unique in this group.    Okay, yeah, name tags are a solid idea.