TGO David

Helpful tips for taking pictures of your lit pumpkins in the dark... #1 - Turn off the flash. #2 - Use a tripod or set your camera on a steady, stable surface. #3 - Use the count-down timer so that you can press the shutter button and then step away from the camera before it snaps the picture. This lessens the chance of you shaking the camera in the slightest as the picture is actually taken. Which is very important for the next tip... #4 - Use a long exposure time! Most cameras have a Tv mode which lets you set the exposure time. An exposure time of 0.8 - 2.5 seconds is typically perfect for this sort of thing. But you have to make sure the camera is rock steady before you do this. A long exposure will magnify any movement of the camera at all, resulting in a blurry photo. #5 - Position the candle inside the pumpkin so that it doesn't create a "hot spot" inside the photo. You want the interior of the pumkin illuminated, but you don't necessarily want the candle flame visible. Refer to the following examples: Bad... GOOD... #6 - Another cool effect is using an external light source of some sort to show other features of the pumpkin even while it is lit. A small candle placed nearby outside the pumpkin can yield some interesting results, like this...

What an insightful post. When I choose a new handgun, I always look for opinionated emotional outbursts from a truck driver before making my decision.

2008 Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest Maybe I'm just a big kid at heart, but I am excited to announce the inaugural TGO Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest sponsored by Hero Gear in Winchester, TN. Here's how this will work... Members may submit ONE pumpkin via photo to be judged. Carving design should be related in some way to TGO, firearms, supporting the troops or other form of patriotism. Any schmuck with a knife can carve a scary face; it takes talent to make it relevant. Submissions must be posted in THIS thread no later than 12:01am Wednesday, October 29th. Submissions must be the member's original work! No copies, no ripping off photos on the Internet. Both daylight and night / dark-room shots must be submitted. Submissions will be judged by popular vote from October 29th - 30th. The winner will be announced on Halloween. First Place Winner The owner of the submission receiving the most votes will receive from Hero Gear one 5.11 Tactical shirt embroidered with the TGO logo, a SureFire G2 flashlight and a Glock pistol bag. Second Place Winner The owner of the submission receiving the second highest number of votes will receive from Hero Gear one TGO hat and a Glock pistol bag. Third Place Winner The owner of the submission receiving the third highest number of votes will receive from Hero Gear one TGO hat. Get busy and let's see some killer pumpkins!!!

Between 3:00 - 4:00 depending on which gun it is. My Glock 19 usually rides right between those two.

You seem to have a little somethin' on your face, Jake. Right there... next to your nose.

The problem is the radio in the phone itself. AT&T is a GSM network. Verizon is a CDMA network. Unless his Verizon Blackberry is one of the "World Phone" models, he won't be able to use it on the AT&T network.

One of our execs just bought an iPhone 8GB model and we activated it for use with our corporate Exchange server. She really likes it and I think the phone is pretty much the cat's pajamas. I'd take one in a heartbeat if Apple ever allows Verizon to carry them. Her experience with the AT&T network has been good so far and we've received no complaints about dropped calls. Bear in mind this is in Davidson Co. so I am sure the tower coverage is really, really good. I have no idea what it would be like down near you.

Ooo... new event! Ten paces, turn and fire!

The beauty of forums is that almost anything we post can turn into a discussion of amazing proportions.

Changes have been made. For everyone else's benefit, Quarterbore is the author of the vbClassified software and has been corresponding with me on his support forum regarding this issue. I'm grateful to have him here helping with this.

Thanks, Ken. I'll make those changes.

Pardon me if I feel a little slighted by that comment. Since when is discretion considered cowardice?

Your conclusion that this is indeed a positive outcome is pure assumption. As Creeky pointed out, you may now also have a store full of anti's who will mobilize against open carry or at least carry resentment about it with them into the voting booths down the road. There are plenty of more favorable ways to educate the masses. Scaring the **** out of them isn't one of them.

Yep, I'm a natural skeptic. Probably one of the biggest reasons I'd never intervene in what appeared to be an armed conflict between a thug and a businessman. It'd be my luck that the businessman was a drug dealer and the armed thug was an undercover narcotics officer. Perception being reality could really bite you in the butt in a case like that.

Sure, but that assumes that the observer has a positive impression of the person who is carrying the gun. Mars and I talked about this once in the past and perception is indeed reality. If you look like someone who should be carrying a gun, then you are less likely to cause panic. I love to use Eddie (Molonlabetn) as an example of this. The guy is fit, dresses clean and carries an air of quiet professionalism. He open carries a lot but he looks like he's probably got a badge inside his wallet. If he drove a Crown Vic, he could probably get away with a bank heist and even get a cop to help him carry the loot to his car. That assumes that the person concealing somehow lets it slip that he or she does, or lets the weapon be visible for some reason. And again, the impression the latter would make on the sheep depends largely on whether they look like a responsible member of society or if they look like some dreg who shouldn't even be trusted with a bottle opener.

There's a lot of truth in it. I dropped about 50lbs myself then started to slip a little after my wife got pregnant. Lately I've started back on the morning routine of doing crunches and hitting the weights, and the dog and I are about to start hitting the streets every evening for a good long walk. It's hard work losing weight, and not nearly proportional to how easy it was to get fat to begin with, but it's worth it. I keep telling myself that nothing I eat will taste as good as being thinner feels.

Yeah, because a guy walking around in a store at 2am with a gun on his hip sends a positive message to those people. The best activists are those who you never assume to be activists. "You mean you carry a gun? I had no idea. You seem so ... normal. You mean regular citizens can get a carry permit? How hard is it to do?" -vs- "Yeah, Bob carries a damn gun everywhere he goes. Right on his hip like he's Wyatt Earp or something. It doesn't bother me personally but it scares the hell out of my wife and kids. I wish Tennessee would do something about regulating that stuff." Which dialogue do you think has the more positive potential outcome?

The good news is that none of these ads are actually being deleted. If you go to the Classifieds sytem (link) you see that the ads are still very much there. The problem exists in the hoodoo-voodoo that the software does to copy those ads and make "threads" for them in the forums. Those threads are getting marked as deleted for some reason. That's where the problem exists. It is misleading to see a thread marked as deleted when in fact the classified ad is still open as usual.

That's cool and I respect your decision to do so. But I'll be here in a few years to post an "I told you so" follow-up when this happens.

Real men carry all-metal pistols and use angry pictures of themselves as their avatars, no doubt.

Sooner or later our state issued HCPs will be amended to be concealed carry permits and everyone's going to sit around slack-jawed with blank, dumb expressions asking why the heck they changed the rules. And when it happens, I'm going to tell stories about people open carrying at Wal-Mart, scaring the sheep. Yeah, I'm knocking you pretty hard for this. Deal with it. The reason our state doesn't require concealment is because if concealment is required by law, then you could lose your permit or be thrown into jail for even accidentally "flashing" your weapon as you reached for a box of Fruit Loops on the top shelf. In many states where concealment is required, this can and does happen. The law wasn't written with open carry as a provision so you could cowboy-up with your heater on your hip. It was written to keep you out of jail for being careless. People argue all the time that more open carry would make it so common place that the public wouldn't care anymore. Bull****. More open carry will result in more sheep being pissed off about it, writing their representatives and castrating your right to carry at the polls during the next election cycle. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face. CONCEAL IT. The world does not need to know that you are carrying unless you are trying to send the message that you carry your balls in your holster. There is zero tactical advantage to revealing your hand.

I think I'm going to take a lesson from our dear friend Barack and do a little "community organizing" and see what I can accomplish. Today, speed bumps. Tomorrow, the White House.

Gotcha. Not sure our road would support that due to width requirements.

What exactly is a "speed circle" ? I'm envisioning something like a speed bump but made up of circular bumps or something like that?

Man I am so glad I got on here and read this. I was JUST about to go outside and do it but you talked some sense into me.