MacGyver

I'm happy to send you mine and let you check it out. They're pretty sweet. Dirty water + rock salt = your own miniature commercial water treatment plant. The SteriPens work well, too. I find it hard to trust a simple light, but they work great.

The goal zero chargers are nice. REI occasionally runs some pretty good deals on their stuff. I used to be an all AA guy, too. But, I had to break with that a couple of years ago when I started running a MIOX purifier thar required CR123s. It was a big enough feature advantage to get me to start working some other stuff in. That switch opened me up to better lights, and there was no going back. Any solar charger of decent quality ought to be able to recharge AAAs, too. I say that to say, don't count the Tikka XP2 out before you try one. It's noticeably lighter on your head, and seems brighter than the 2xAA models I've used.

[quote name='mikegideon' timestamp='1355166108' post='857939'] Has more to do with the Saami spec and the Freedom Group's money. Just interesting that they could take a wildcat and turn it into a legitimate caliber so quickly. I wish they would do the same with .458 SOCOM. Cool name too... still a wildcat. [/quote] Agreed...

I think the [url="http://www.rei.com/product/829554/petzl-tikka-xp-2-headlamp"]Petzl Tikka XP 2[/url] is the best headlamp on the market today. That said, it's 3 AAA, which you don't want. If I were going to buy a AA headlamp, I'd go with the [url="http://www.rei.com/product/837874/petzl-pixa-3-pro-headlamp"]Petzl Pixa 3 Pro[/url]. It's one of the only AA models on the market that doesn't have a require a separate battery pack (which is why most manufacturers went to AAA).

I dispose of all my live ammunition through the barrel - the way the good Lord told John Moses Browning it should be done.

[quote name='Slasher' timestamp='1354904447' post='856543'] I got on the Ring Central site and it looked like all of their plans are either Office or Professional, pretty much business centric. Was I looking at the wrong site? [/quote]That's a good question. Maybe they've changed it since we signed up. Nonetheless, the "professional" option for $9.99/month with 300 minutes of long distance and a fax would suit me fine for home, too.

Vonage, Ring Central and all of the others out there are required to have 911 capability. You register a street address as a part of the service. We used Vonage for several years, and have used Ring Central for the last couple of years. No real difference in the quality of service, Ring Central was just a lot less expensive. I think we pay around $14/month for the service that includes all the features and 1000 or so minutes of long distance. The historical "reliability" of the POTS lines is probably moot for most people who have cell phones. If your internet goes out and takes your phone with it, most just switch to using their mobile. Plus, with the decimation of the telecommunications industry over the last decade, I wouldn't put that much stock in the POTS lines being available in emergencies anymore. All the investment is going into mobile.

It's probably an emply gesture at this point, but I'm glad to see someone actually debating it.

I'm all for bringing the hogs back so that I don't have to go to Georgia, Alabama or Florida. Has anyone seen data on the current strategy? Or are we just pretending they're going to go away?

Oh, how sad! Was just listening some of his music on the way out of Atlanta today.

I've got one you can use.

Best sights on the market. Hands down.

That is amazing!

Despite the manual safety, that trigger scares the heck out of me. Nice looking derringer, though!

Everyone needs at least one 10/22 in their collection. I still have the one I got for my 13th birthday and shoot it regularly. If you're a fan of the AR type platform, the S&W M&P 15-22 is a great rifle. I'd argue that either of those will see a lot of use, and serve you well for a long time.

Good paperclips are invaluable...

In 1992, I came to Nashville to look at Vanderbilt's engineering program. As an afterthought, I visited Lipscomb while I was here. One of their professors, Ralph Nance took a couple of hours out of his day to sit down with me, answer my questions about engineering in general and offer me some guidance on finding an appropriate program. During that time, I watched him interact with multiple students on a first name basis, both in and out of the department. I hadn't seen that elsewhere, and looking back, I can say that he talked me into going there - whether he realized it or not. I later went to grad school at the Univeristy of Washington. I remember wondering how I was going to stack up in a big school with a lot of Pacific Rim students, having received the majority of my engineering education at the time from three men (twenty years later they've got six ABET accredited programs). I was presently surprised. On a complete side note, LINKS2K make sure that you guys look at all of the scholarship options right now! Currently in America, we're graduating about 10K fewer engineering grads than are retiring each year. There's a true brain drain going on. Couple that with the fact that A LOT of foreign governements are sending blocks of their students to American universities, and essentially making deals with schools saying, "we'll pay full price for 20 students so long as you agree to accept all of them." I lectured in an engineering class at Vanderbilt the other day that had 20 students in it, and 16 of them were foreign nationals. You can posit anything you want about this from a political perspective, but what it means for the American engineering student is that there is a lot of scholarship money that's being left on the table every year. As a general rule, if you're working with a good engineering faculty at the undergrad level, you shouldn't have to pay a dime to go to grad school as an American engineering student. Vanderbilt is even having a hard time filling graduate fellowships due to the fact that so many of them have ITAR restrictions associated with them, yet they can't find American students to fill them. I'm always happy to talk with any perspective engineering students. We need more good ones in this country.

[quote name='peejman' timestamp='1354291976' post='852853'] Forgot about them, but agreed. A friend is teaching there now. We went to school together and worked together for a while before he decided to go back for his PhD. Thankfully, I already know how to work a post hole digger. [/quote] They've put together a great faculty. There's a lot of benefit to being small. I got my first engineering job based on one phone call. While I had no way of appreciating that fully at 21 years old, I later found out the my boss's boss had also gotten his first job based on a phone call from the same professor. There was no interview process, instead it was "that was the first phone call I've gotten from him in 10 years. If he says you're a good fit for us, then I figure I need to listen." Full disclosure: I'm on the board for the engineering school and am an occasional faculty member in their graduate program. If anyone's kids are thinking about Lipscomb, make sure to let me know and I'll make sure they meet the people they need to meet.

I know plenty of big school trained engineers who look down their noses at Tennessee Tech engineers until they work alongside them. They have a great program.

If you want a great engineering program in Tennessee, check out Lipscomb University. Small class sizes. Professors who care and are there because they want to be. Plenty of areas for undergraduate involvement - both in research and their awesome engineering missions program. 100% pass rate of the Fundamentals of Engineering exam 6 years in a row (quietly the best record in the state).

Got a super nice Leatherman PS yesterday. Nice to have a multitool without a blade that is "TSA approved". We'll see how that works out. Thanks SL1k! Worked on mine for a while last night. Still need to fab one part, but should be going out sometime towards the beginning of the week.

My personal favorite: http://youtu.be/A5PrqQLWmoU

[quote name='gjohnsoniv' timestamp='1354204538' post='852425'] Here was something interesting I found this morning: [url="http://9gag.com/gag/5955815"]http://9gag.com/gag/5955815[/url] [/quote] Saw this on Reddit the other day. Just be sure to allot some time every day for removing splinters.

I was in 1WTC the morning of September 11. I watched the planes go in and the buildings go down. I spent 9 months at Ground Zero looking at the devastation caused by that attack for 18 hours a day. I don't have to close my eyes to see it now. I can still smell it. I can say for certain that I have not been as safe on an airplane as I was on September 10, 2001 when I flew with a full sized Spyderco clipped to my pocket. If we wanted the airlines to be safe, we wouldn't use a government jobs program to do it. We'd let the airlines provide for their own security and suffer market consequences for lapses. Security theather is okay for pacifying the majority of the population and keeping up the illusion that we care. Just don't confuse it with actually being safe.

Thought this article on tiny houses from the Washington Post this morning might be of interest in this thread: [url="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/home-squeezed-home-living-in-a-200-square-foot-space/2012/11/27/e1a02858-2f35-11e2-ac4a-33b8b41fb531_story.html"]http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/home-squeezed-home-living-in-a-200-square-foot-space/2012/11/27/e1a02858-2f35-11e2-ac4a-33b8b41fb531_story.html[/url]