JAB

  That is the one part of Trump's stated policy with which I do not agree.  I have said, before, pretty much the same things you have said - a Federal government that mandates carry reciprocity will then be on the field to mandate the rules and requirements that every state must have in place in order for a person to be legal to carry.  To further the driver's license example that so many like to use folks should keep in mind that many of the laws that govern the 'standards' with which cars must comply originated in California.  Do we really want our carry laws originating there, too?  Do we want to be limited to carrying only guns that are 'California legal'?

It sounds like the new software will be a little more streamlined and intuitive - once we figure it out.  As far as being more like Facebook, Twitter, etc. I wouldn't know the difference there because I don't use Twitbook or similar things.  Still, it sounds like the new software borrows features from those things that will be nice.  Tapatalk?  I don't really care.  The first thing I do whenever I visit any forum of which I am a member on my cellphone or tablet is go to the bottom of the home page and click on 'full version' so that it looks exactly like what I see when I log on with a PC.   Now, since I got that out of the way, I think there was some discussion earlier in the thread about cheese?  So, we'll all be getting free cheese as a reward for being patient through all of this?  Awesome!  Just to throw it out there, I like Manchego.  Asiago is pretty good, too.  Feta is pretty good when I'm in that kind of mood but I'd have to have some Kalamata olives to go with it.  (So, will the new forum have an, "I'm being a smartass," button for people like me?)

  As far as allowing military personnel to carry on base, etc. I wonder how much he could do as 'Commander in Chief' that would not have to have Congressional approval.  Would be fitting if he went the Obama route to reverse a lot of anti-gun crap.   Along those same lines, he could veto any new anti gun rights legislation that comes to his desk and instruct the agencies that fall under the Executive branch to 'enforce existing rules and do not create any new ones.'  Keeping the ATF from coming up with any new rules could be huge in itself.  Even better if he could order them to pare down and streamline existing rules.

No, the cops aren't writing laws. However, the problem is that legislators apparently are passing pro-carry laws and the cops (well, these chiefs, etc. anyhow) are criticizing them and fighting against the passage of such laws with stupid statements like, I mean, c'mon, that is the exact, same kind of, "It will be the Wild West and there will be blood in the streets if we allow people to carry - people will be shooting each other over parking spaces," and "O'Charley's will run red with the blood of the innocent if we allow people to carry where alcohol is served," bullcrap that antis around here spout whenever there is a proposed, pro-carry change to Tennessee law. It sounds to me like this dude is an anti-gun politician who opposes the idea that the average citizen should have a legal right to be at all times equipped to defend himself or herself with a firearm and who is using the connection his office has to real cops to give legitimacy to his anti-gun argument. I mean, geez, the above quote could just have easily have come from Diane Feinstein or a Brady spokesman. In fact, it would have seemed much less out of place coming from one of those sources that it does coming from a police official in a Southern state like Mississippi. Further, judging by the article, he ain't the only one.

  There also seems to at least sometimes be a divide between the opinions of rank and file officers and these guys who are often more politicians than police officers when it comes to the right of the average citizen to be best equipped for self defense.  Unfortunately, it is these politicians who are the mouth pieces and who end up appearing on the news when the subject comes up - and, even more unfortunately, who drive policy and get to present their opinion as the official stance of all officers in their department.

I didn't see this thread in time to get in my well wishes before the surgery but I'll send them, now, for a full and speedy (as possible) recovery.  I am glad to hear that it all went well.

  It is absolutely ludicrous to me that a public service official doesn't know the damn difference between a privilege (driving) and a right (self defense.)  I think it is ludicrous that some, such officials seem to believe that they are qualified to determine who should be allowed to be best equipped for self defense and who should not.  I also think it is ludicrous that this guy - who should know better than most - seems to be stupid enough to believe that forcing people to take a test, etc. before being allowed to exercise a right will stop criminals from carrying illegally and doing illegal things with the illegally carried weapons. 

  Well, crap.  I read the amendment but didn't realize it had replaced everything else in the bill, including the part about 'language' on the sign.  Great.  But, hey, let's all be sure to vote Republican because they are on our side!  What's that?  We got more pro-gun and pro-self defense legislation passed under a Democratic regime with Naifeh as Speaker because the Republicans were trying to con us into believeing that a Republican majority with a Republican governor would be better 'prove' themselves?  Now, now, stop looking at the man behind the curtain, already!   Man, I'm sick of these pukes.

  As well you should be.  That thing looks awesome.  I love that it isn't just a 'display' piece and that you have already split some wood to test its strength and edge retention.

I have actually said - in all seriousness - that although I wasn't very enthusiastic about him when he first announced he would run the more such groups and individuals hate him the more I become convinced that he is the right choice for POTUS after all.

  Add in that - at least where I work - there is language in the employee handbook prohibiting carry.  We have to sign a copy of certain rules, including that one.  So, even though you won't find a single sign on or around this building, I'm thinking that employee rule and the requirement that we sign off on it would likely count as the policy having been 'reduced to writing and disseminated in a manner most likely to ensure that it is known' to employees - and isn't this bill mostly about allowing employees to carry (or not)?

So, if I am reading the summary correctly, now in order for a posted sign to be legal it has to include language that refers to this bill?  This is the part I am talking about:         We know that, basically, all this bill does is give a permit holder an avenue to bring a suit against the property owner.  It doesn't mean the permit holder would win and even such a suit could only be brought under certain, narrow conditions..  If the above clause is still in there, though, it could be a good thing in that:   1. Signs that don't refer to this bill probably aren't 'legal postings' -  which would mean that the simple 'circle and slash with a gun in it' and no verbage would no longer be a legal posting, right?  Because - according to this - a legal posting now has to have language citing this bill, etc.  Also...    2. In attempting to post a truly legal sign the property owner will be made aware that he or she is potentially liable for any harm that comes to a permit holder on his or her premises which could have been defended against with a firearm had the permit holder be able to legally carry there.  Yes, Amendment #1 seems to have pretty much neutered the bill in reality but I'm thinking that all a potentially posting business owner will see is, "I might be liable if I don't allow HCP holders to carry guns and one of them is attacked while on my property."  I'm thinking about reports on here that there was a group of antis who were sending out or handing out circle/slash signs to business owners to try and get those owners to post.  If I am reading this correctly, that group or groups would now have to put language on the signs which business owners who aren't that 'up' on the issue either way will read as, "If I post I could be sued," which just might make them think twice.  Yeah, still not a great bill but maybe it will help more than we think (and probably more than the state legislature intended.)   Still, honestly, why don't they quit beating around the bush and making things more complicated when all they have to do is simply remove the weight of law from the stupid signs?  I guess that would just be too easy and not generate more business for the lawyers.  Also, if they were determined to take this route the bill should have also been worded so that it applied to employers who have employee policies which prohibit an employee who is an HCP holder from carrying at work - and requiring any business with such a policy to 'cite this bill and the duty of care that the employer owes to the permit holder employee' as part of that policy in the employee handbook.

Ah, thanks for the further info. Mom did sell off the timber from part of the land a few years back - before I moved (back) out here. In fact, I think it probably was seven or eight years ago or thereabouts so that makes sense. That is also the reason there is such a dense thicket of young trees.

  You mean the one in the first, two pictures?  Cool.  So, now for another dumb question - does this, particular type of black cherry yield fruit and, if so, how mature do the trees have to be in order to have fruit on them?   I almost hate that I cut that one down before it got bigger.  Then, again, there are so many trees that size in the woods behind me (on our land) that they are going to have to be thinned out some so that the remaining ones can grow.  We are talking a thicket of trees of around that size so dense that it can be difficult to walk through there with several that are so close that two or three trees have grown together.  I am pretty sure a lot of them are maple (need to go back and look now that they have foliage on them) but there are others mixed in, as well.   That is another good reason to be able to identify these things - some of them I might want to let stand or I might want to use the bigger pieces for woodworking projects, etc. rather than just burning them in a cook fire.  Thanks!

Well, this is just the idiotic direction in which some, other countries (one-Great Britain, for instance) seem to have gone and in which these 'murderers and rapists aren't bad people, they are just misunderstood' limp-wristed, bleeding heart idiots would like to take us.  Screw the rights of the victim - we have to make sure that the rights of the victim's attacker are guaranteed at all cost, even if the victim has to die instead of defending himself or herself to do so.   Honestly, it should be legal to kick this guy in the balls until he pukes.  If he tries to defend himself then obviously he would be violating his attacker's right to express their opinion via a physical outlet.

Okay, y'all, I am liking this thread and really appreciate all the identification help and wood discussion so far. So, can anyone help me with identifying these: Sorry, those aren't great pics but they were taken before I thought of starting a thread like this. Those are some of the trees I cut down for the posts and cross-piece to make my grill/pot hanger stand for the fire pit. I just took these pics in hopes that I could figure out what kinds of wood they are, later but I have had no luck on the 'Net, yet. They were all harvested from my 'back yard' in Roane County. They are two, different species and I almost wonder if the one in the bottom pic (which had really small leaves) might not be something that would be considered more of a 'shrub' or 'bush' rather than a tree, proper. It was as tall as other trees with similar trunk sizes, though - not that height would mean it wasn't still a 'bush'. Could the one above it be a sourwood? Or maybe a hickory or ash? Just as a fun point of interest, here is a pic of the fire pit and stand 'in action'. I braised some venison that I had cut up into 'stew meat' sized cubes in a cast iron pot hanging over the fire. The pot had a lid, I just took it off for this pic. The venison was first browned with onion and then the cooking liquid - a combination of tomato paste, beef broth, one beer and some water - plus salt and pepper was added, the pot was covered and it was allowed to cook over the fire. Kind of a 'country boy' version of beef bourguignon. It was really, really good. I must have accidentally deleted the pics I took of cooking a peach cobbler 'Dutch oven style' in another cast iron pot in the coals after I took the venison off. I don't have an actual Dutch oven so I just sat the pot in the coals and then covered the pot with a cast iron skillet into which I also placed coals (to take the place of the dished in/rimmed lid that a real Dutch oven would have.) I got that idea from a Dave Canterbury video on YouTube. Notice the grill grid set up that I fixed up to hang between the pot hangers (the pots hang from lengths of paracord with pot hanger hooks that I carved out of sticks tied onto them.) Also, notice the 'oven' in the background. That thing is kinda special to me because my late father built it as a grill waaaayy back when I was in high school. He worked at a place that did metal fabrication and similar things so when I say he built it I mean he built it - starting with sheet metal. It was always a little too shallow to work well for a grill so I later got him to build another one out of an old, metal tank so we could grill on it using wood. Both were still on the metal pipe posts to which he welded them in my mom's yard - I still use the deeper one, sometimes (I live next door to my mom.) This one hadn't been used as a grill in years so I took it off the post and re-purposed it as an oven. There is a brick-lined depression dug out under it for the fire/coals. It works, too - I baked a pan of chocolate chip muffins in it as a 'proof of concept' I also have a sink and hand-pump faucet out of an old, now unusable truck-top camper that he had. I am planning to build an outdoor counter top and incorporate that sink and faucet into it. I like the oven and the sink/faucet concept because I think they will be quite useful but also because, even though my dad died fourteen years ago, he is still helping me with my outdoor 'kitchen' setup.

  interesting.  Yeah, I have seen some pine wood that seemed harder than some poplar I have seen.  I knew that poplar was a 'soft hardwood' because of having worked a piece of it, before.  A now deceased friend of mine made treenware for years and he taught me to make some of it.  He also told me that poplar was considered to be a 'soft hardwood'.  I have made two platters - one out of poplar and one out of red oak.  The difference in difficulty of working those two was like night and day.    You know, I wonder how cedar would work for campfire cooking.  I wouldn't want to slow smoke with it because I think it would be overpowering and give an 'off' taste with prolonged smoking.  That said, some people actually grill fish - particularly salmon - by lightly searing directly on the grill and then placing the fish on a wine or water soaked cedar plank over the heat to finish cooking.  In that case, they are going for having a hint of the cedar flavor in the fish so I wonder if maybe throwing just a small piece or two of cedar in the fire when grilling chicken or something would be good.  I also wonder if Eastern Red Cedar (which, to my understanding, isn't really a cedar at all but actually a type of juniper) is used for grilling planks or not.

  Have never really thought of hickory being similar to mesquite.  Honestly, I have only ever used mesquite once - to smoke a beef brisket - so am not as familiar with it as with some, other woods.  I can say that the woods that are traditionally used for making chipotle (smoke-dried jalapeno peppers) are mesqite and/or pecan.  Since pecan is considered to be as 'traditionally right' for the job as mesquite I just sort of figured mesquite probably had a similar flavor profile to pecan.  Can't say for sure, though.   Oh, just as an aside, I have made chipotle on my smoker and I used pecan to do it.  I dry mine a little more than is usually 'traditional', though.  Most you see are kind of 'leathery' but I dry mine to the point that they can be crushed or ground to add into my spice blends.

I am a smoked meat freak and actually can tell the difference in woods used to smoke meat.  I do like a good, heavy smoke flavor (I literally like pork ribs to be so smoky that they make my lips go numb) but don't like the smoke to completely overpower the meat.  For instance, red oak is great for beef because beef can stand up to the flavor of that smoke.  Red oak is okay for cuts of pork like butt roasts, shoulder and arm roasts but can be a little overpowering for smoking pork loin and especially for chicken if used as the 'one and only'.  Hickory is, of course, the one that lots of folks are crazy about although it is not my favorite - good, but not my favorite.  To me, it has a flavor profile similar to oak but lighter and with a little bit of sweetness.  Cherry is my favorite wood for all-around smoking use as it also is a little lighter than oak, has a bit of sweetness but imparts more of a 'depth' of flavor to the meat.  To me, things like apple and pear have a nice sweetness and are good to add in with other things to give a more complex smoke but - aside from maybe chicken or pork loin - the smoke they produce is a little 'weak' for most cuts to my tastes.  Those 'lighter' smoke woods can also be good for smoking fish.  Maple is probably second to cherry, for me.  Pecan is also a really good wood for smoking, especially if you mix in a little maple or some kind of fruit wood.  Walnut is good as an 'accent' flavor but not as a main smoke because it can have a bit of a bitter taste if too much of it is used.  Unlike red oak (for beef, anyhow), I don't like white oak as much for the 'main' or 'one and only' wood for smoking.  Poplar is technically a hard wood but I don't like it much for smoking.  Usually I like to use a blend of different hardwoods, including some fruit wood and/or maple if I have it and sometimes even throw in something different (like just a little walnut toward the end - tossing in something different toward the end of the smoking process is usually called a 'finishing smoke') for a twist.  Lately I have been mostly using pecan because I had access to a good supply of it (which is, unfortunately, running out.)   That is part of the reason I want to be able to identify these trees - because I can (at least sometimes) tell a difference in smoke flavors.  Honestly, I wouldn't be able to do it every time but I have impressed some mom and pop barbecue shop owners by identifying the woods they use simply from tasting their barbecue - sometimes even being able to pick out three or four different woods.  My ability to do that lessens as I get older, though.   Oh, and as far as an AR goes, well, I could tell you, "This is the trigger, this is the mag well, this is the bolt and that is the stock, foregrip and barrel."  Beyond that I am not making any promises (I don't own an AR and they have just never interested me all that much - wouldn't turn one down if it fell out of a tree, though!)

Thanks!

Okay, as much as it pains me to admit - and as much as I wish otherwise - I am not all that great at identifying tree species. I know what the 'basic' leaves look like on the most common trees (oak, maple, hickory, etc.) I know that if it has acorns it is an oak, if it has hickory nuts it is a hickory and obvious things like that. I can identify a pine tree pretty easily (I think most folks can - although I probably couldn't tell you what species of pine it is when it comes to making pine needle tea and the like), etc. but am usually at a loss with other species or even with less common variations within the more common species. So, I am wondering three things: 1. Are there any folks on TGO who have the background to be considered SMEs when it comes to tree identification, particularly from pictures of leaves, etc.? 2. Would those folks be willing to participate in a possibly long-running thread where those of us with less tree identification skills and knowledge could post pics of leaves (or the tree, bark, etc.) to get help in identifying various tree species? 3. What resources would those 'in the know' recommend - both electronic and in print - for clearly and concisely identifying tree species in Tennessee (and, specific to me, at least, in East Tennessee?) I have always been interested in such things but am becoming more interested in them as I become more interested in things like cooking over an open fire with 'gathered' wood. I recently took a week off from work and spent most of it digging a fairly sizeable 'fire pit' in my yard and setting up an outdoor cooking area complete with a hanging grill, pot hangers, a place to cook in a frying pan, etc. and even an oven. I had my nephew weld me some pot stands out of a few railroad spikes so that I can use 'regular' cast iron pots the way you would use a Dutch oven. I have been 'in' to smoking meats for some time, now and can usually tell one kind of wood that I have for smoking from another. However, those are larger pieces that are cut up so that I can see the wood inside and also I already know what kinds of wood I have in my smoking wood pile at any, given time so that narrows things down a lot. For this kind of cooking, I am wanting to do more of a 'campfire style' cooking where I gather smaller pieces of dead or fallen wood, just as if I were camping, etc. To that end, I'd like to have a better idea of the types of wood I am picking up. I don't think there are very many truly poisonous woods around where I live but there are some woods that impart a better flavor than others (while things like pine can burn well for just a fire but often produce a lot of dark, heavy smoke and are no good for cooking.) To get things started, here are a couple of pics of leaves from trees right in my yard: This first one looks sort of like some pictures of white oak that I have found but not exactly. Is this some type of oak or something else, entirely? The second one I think is a 'chestnut oak', at least according to the pics I found online. Is that correct?

  What I am saying is that private colleges should not get any, specific mention at all any more than any, other private business type gets specific mention.  There shouldn't be any need to actively 'decide to allow'.  Just like any, other private business they should either have to actively take steps to disallow (legal postings, etc.)  Otherwise, carry should be allowed by default by anyone who holds a HCP.  Yeah, 'employee handbook' stuff could still result in an employee getting fired - if there is such language in the employee handbook and if the employee is 'found out' - but there shouldn't be anything specifically mentioned by law that distinguishes private colleges from any other private establishment.

  I work at a satellite campus of a private college and have to wonder why in the hell a PRIVATE college is treated any differently by the law than any, other PRIVATE business or organization.  What is the difference whether the PRIVATE business or organization is question is a college, an accounting firm or a hardware store?  Not that I could carry at work, anyway but the state shouldn't even be involved in that decision.

So the consensus is that, for example, if the anti-gun group in New York gives me money to buy guns with the idea that I will later have them destroyed then there is nothing illegal because the gun that is purchased actually belongs to me and the anti-gun group never has any real, legal control over it?  Hell, somebody tell me how to get in touch with those folks - I've never been all that interested in owning an AR but if someone is going to give me money to buy one then I'd love to have one.  Sounds like I'd get a nice hunting rifle to boot!  I mean, if they are my guns and they can't legally have any control over them then they have no, legal way of forcing me to destroy them after I buy them, right?  How great would it be to buy oneself a couple of brand new guns with money from a bunch of antis?  As a consolation prize I'd probably send them a picture of me with a big, ol' grin on my face while shooting my new guns.

Just from the posts that you and she have made on this forum I know that:   1. Your wife seems like a nice, intelligent person 2. She has been there to support you during a lot of crap you have had to endure 3. She has her head on right when it comes to firearms 4. She is German and so probably knows how to prepare things like Sauerbraten, Weiner Schnitzel and Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte   so congratulations!