MacGyver

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]

I use a long blade on an xacto.

I plan on including mine.

If you ever find yourself in Denver International with some time to kill before your flight, spend a little time outside of the concourse in the area that looks down over one of their two security checkpoints. The number of items you can watch TSA agents pocket in a short period of time is pretty amazing. That said, don't try the above exercise is you're somehow still under the illusion that you're safer on a plane today than you were on September 10, 2001. You'll leave sadly disappointed and disillusioned.

Nice!

There are some ways that fingerprints can become dimished from diseases like dermatitis, but it seems a lot more likely that he simply had an inexperienced person taking his prints. I was recently surprised when getting a set of fingerprint cards done that fingerprint taking has become a bit of a lost art. Since this particular government agency used an electronic scanner, and I needed a specific set of cards, there was literally no one in this agency who could take my prints. Finally, the director - who I'm pretty sure hasn't taken a print in 20 years got fed up with his staff and took my prints himself.

Making mine. Should be together sometime next week depending on the schedule.

Had a friend who had them out last year as an adult. He had a strange, but apparently not that uncommon side effect of post operative bleeding from the lingual artery. They think that had someone not been there with him and been able to take him immediately to the ER, he may well have bled out. Oddly, I think something similar happened to a young friend of mine last year as well. I don't know all the details of that one, but know he had to go back in the hospital a week or so after his surgery.

Saw this yesterday. Creative prank.