TGO David

I was going to mention the bill for heating the house this month. I am scared to death of what it's going to look like. Last year my wife was working during the days and my daughter was in daycare. This year they're all staying home with the new boy, and that means our power bills are going to be much higher. I switched the majority of our lighting at home to LED bulbs to save on power because no one seems to turn the dang things off. *sigh*

Yes, please feel free!

Hey gang... I've often compared my role in a forum to that of a Grounds Keeper. What I am good at is keeping things looking nice and making sure the lights work and the doors open. The real life-blood of any community is the people who come and participate. An important element of that is having good Moderators and we have some openings! When I think about what a Moderator should be, it's someone who is engaging and likes to stir up conversation. It's also someone who can help steer conversations back on topic, or guide conversations to another "room" when it is appropriate to do so. Some folks might think of Moderators as being grumpy bus drivers who ride herd over a bunch of unruly kids, screaming "Fun isn't allowed on the bus!" but that isn't the role I like to see moderators take. If we get there, we've done a lot of other things wrong along the way. While a bouncer at the door may be necessary on the rarest of occasions, what we really need are concierges who help keep things moving. Maybe you're the kind of person that folks naturally gravitate toward in crowds of people. Maybe you're the one who always seems to be surrounded by good conversation, and can talk about pretty much anything. If your friends and family accuse you of being able to talk the paint off the walls, you're probably the person I am talking about. So if that's you, or if you just have a serious desire to help out and always seem to know how to get an answer for folks even if you don't know what it is personally, I could really use your help. In addition to the fame and entourage of good-looking people always following you around, moderators receive full "Benefactor" perks for free for as long as they're on staff. Just kidding about the entourage. Send me a private message if you'd like to be a Moderator here on TGO! (<-- that whole thing is a link. Click it!)

Or the warranty.

I'm noticing a trend with your posts to date.

Which features are you missing the most? Xenforo (the SN software) is definitely a little more basic out of the box but there are a lot of add-ons for it. Lifetime memberships eventually. Maybe sometime in June/July. I want to make sure it keeps the momentum up so that everyone (myself included) has some confidence in it first.

Email from Shooters Nation is now going out via the SparkPost service. It should be more reliable now.

I appreciate all of of you jumping in there! Please do feel free to let friends outside of TGO and Tennessee know about the site too. I'll be logging off here in a few minutes to get some rest but will check in the morning and update any accounts that need to be updated.

That's the one to use. I tried to combine a few things over there to streamline it some. Thanks for signing up.

It's all good. Someone told the Wright Brothers they'd never get off the ground too. I hope the new site flies just a little longer than their first airplane did, though. lol

I switched to invisible reCaptcha to avoid this. Are you still having problems? If so, what device are you using to sign up?

Noted - working on making it a little easier.

Yep. I am also keeping an eye on who signs up and comparing to this thread. If I spot you before you get around to messaging me, I am upgrading your account for you.

I just manually approved your account. Anyone else who signs up and doesn't see an email in their spam filter, just give it some time -- I am checking it periodically and approving them as I see them. I'll keep working to get a better solution in the works than what we have there right now.

By the way, send me (aka Double Tap) a private message over there if you're a Benefactor here and I'll upgrade your account.

I just manually approved the few that were still pending validation from email. Looks like Bellsouth, iCloud and a few others aren't letting our email through yet.

What email service are you guys using? I am still trying to make sure that all of the normal anti-spam methods (DKIM record, SPF record, etc.) are working right.

Yeah once we get rolling and have some credibility to the community I'll do that. I would feel really uneasy about it now since it's purely in startup mode.

PS: The software sends out an email to authenticate your account when you sign up. If you don't see it in your inbox, check your spam filter. Email from forums is honestly far more hit-or-miss than it ought to be and most Internet providers aggressively filter and see them as being spam sometimes. I will keep working to make that better, but you can always whitelist the forum's email address so that you get them in the future.

Hey gang... I could use your help getting a new project off the ground and there's a special perk for our Benefactor members as well. In fact, there's a special perk for anyone who helps but more on that in a moment. For a few years now I have wanted to take the formula that we've used here on TGO and use it to create something similar on a larger scale. I've also wanted to get into podcasting because I think there is something exciting about that media format. While you may be asking if the world really needs another gun forum or podcast, I think the answer is that there is certainly room at the table for something done right. Purely because we have managed to assemble some of the best people on the planet, TGO has grown over the past decade into something I couldn't have imagined it would be back in 2007. You all are the reason this place works and why it's interesting, and I have to believe that there are a bunch more of us out there across the country who would like a comfortable place to come together too. That's why I have put together a new community that I hope you will help me get going. It may be slow for a while, but that's OK. We didn't build TGO overnight and this new community won't be any different. It takes some time to get things rolling, but what really helps is activity. It's like walking into a bar with your friends... if the place is empty, you're probably going to go somewhere else, right? Shooters Nation (http://www.shootersnation.com) is the new site and today is a "soft opening" for it. I think I've got most of the basics running, but there will probably be some hiccups to deal with. If you could help me, I'd appreciate it. For those of you who are TGO Benefactors, let me know when you register over there and I will add you as a Site Supporter for the first year six months there too. Feel free to go ahead and list anything for sale there that you've listed for sale here once you have that access! For those of you who aren't but want to help out, once you hit 50 posts over there, your account will upgrade to a "Founding Member" which will let you enjoy the same benefits for the first year as well. After the first year, I'll figure something out. But in the meantime, a little bit of sweat-equity will give you the same perks as a "benefactor". I am using the Xenforo software over there, which is a little bit different than what we use here. I've had a license for it for a long, long while now (as long as there's been a TGO and then some) but never really had a use for it. I was excited to give it a shot and hope you'll like it. I have toyed with the idea of switching to it here on TGO before, actually. I'd love to hear what you think about it as a forum platform. Feel free to let your friends and family in other states know about the new community also. I am going to start plugging it on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms soon myself. The more the merrier! --David EDITED: After running the numbers for what Shooters Nation will cost to operate for the first year, I am able to comp "site supporter" memberships for the first 6-months before we need to start generating some sort of income to make it self-sustaining. Sorry for the error.

How much if it resonated with you? That's the part that applies to the average citizen. For me, it was about the mindset.

It's been a while. I've shot several that belong to others, but every single one of them ordered them online and had them transferred in.

The CZ P-01 or the CZ-P01 Omega fit the bill, in my opinion.

Simply beautiful.

I disagree. I would counter that some people might not be able to develop the mindset, but most people can. It has to be cultivated in some, and surfaces more naturally in others. The urge to compete and win and survive is innate in all of us. Some of us just have a predisposition to take the easy path if it's available to us. I was that way growing up. I wasn't very competitive, and looked for easy routes. As I aged and matured, I realized -- through experience gained from bad decisions -- that the hard way is often the better way, and that it pays to be a winner. I blame my parents for not putting me into sports and making me stick with them. My dad tried; my mom babied me too much. You may have to be harder on your one boy than you are the other, for his own good.