MacGyver

The drier and hotter the better. When I was in Saudi Arabia, you could get hypothermia getting out of the swimming pool, even though it was at least 110F outside. The evaporative cooling took place that quickly. I've always wanted to try this on a large scale. Think of a root cellar sized room with two porous walls.

Netflix is being completely split into two companies. One company "Qwikster" will be for DVDs and the other "Netflix" for streaming. If someone wants both, they will be charged by each of the companies.

It will be a few years yet before my son is old enough to be in scouts, but I know some things have changed since I was a kid. Today's dens and troops have a lot of kids whose parents never get outdoors and will not naturally pass these skills down to their sons (or daughters). I would definitely take the opportunity to send something home with the kids letting the parents know what you're doing with the whittling chip, and the fact that you're talking about knife safety. Hopefully for some of them, this won't be the first time they've heard it, but for some of the kids, it certainly will be. When you have the advancement ceremony where you present the chips, really praise the kids to their parents. That may be the stimulus some parents need to continue a conversation they wouldn't have had otherwise with their kid. And, it may prompt some of them to get their kid that first knife! I've been in situations twice in the last month where I've watched adults who weren't raised in scouting use an axe. Their handling skills were downright dangerous. I've used both situations as teaching opportunities, and both times the participants said that they wished someone had taught them this stuff as a kid. You can really make a lifelong difference in a kid's life as a Scoutmaster. Nice work!

btw...I don't know many kids who can say their first knife was a Benchmade. Lucky kid. And, if you can teach him to sharpen D2, he'll be able to sharpen anything.

If they're just using them to carve soap to get their whittling chip, I'd likely have a good conversation on knife safety, pass them out, and then take them back up. I might also mention to the parents in the den what you're doing, so that if they want to get their kid that special knife, this might be a good time to do it.

Your first knife is a special thing. I've got the Swiss Army knife my grandfather gave me for my 8th birthday to this day. I don't know that I really have a firm opinion one way or another as to what you should do, but I know that I cherished my first knife. I used it all the way through scouting. I carried it all the way through school, and had it in my pocket the day I got my Eagle Scout. The one thing I would consider in your case is that kids (and adults too) get cut a lot worse by cheap knives that dull quickly than they do with good quality sharp ones. You have to work a lot harder with a dull knife, and then due to poor handling, when it contacts flesh, it does a lot more damage. I know they're carving soap now, but they'll soon progress beyond that. I decided a long time ago that if I planned to use something more than once that I would get the best I could afford. I've never been disappointed by that. Not that this maxim really applies to your situation, but you can get a lot better knife for not much more money.

I think the studios are going to screw Netflix, and then end up screwing themselves by proxy. Starz reportedly walked away from talks last week after demanding 10 times their previous $30 million to conti ue their deal. The studios can't stand them; I think they're going to be late to the game, just like they were with digital music. While I applaud Netflix for having the guts to just focus on streaming, I increasingly think that the dominant position will eventually go to someone else. Netflix really botched the transition. That's cost them half their market cap, a lot of their brand integrity and their reputation. Add the fact that every major studio would love for them to fail, and I think that may wind up costing them the game.

Pretty much as soon as we notice. It's the Calvinist side of TGO. "Once banned, always banned."

I'm sorry to hear this.

Man, I'd love to do that sometime. I'm likely going to go scout Sevenmile, but it may be the first part of November before I can get away to do it. Alabama's regs seem to be written to get rid of hogs. As I read them, the WMAs I've looked at are open for hogs during any other active season using weapons allowable by that season.

Thanks for the advice, Dave! I'm likely going to spend a couple of Friday's in the near future scouting that area. Something about Sevenmile appeals to me. Looking at the maps, it looks like a place that could yield some big hogs.

You think I'll sink it?

Has anyone hunted Sevenmile Island WMA outside of Florence Alabama? I'm reconsidering my options in light of the TWRA's position on hog hunting, and am considering heading down that way. It looks like the only access is by boat. But, it also looks like they're a lot more welcoming to hog hunters down there.

Ran Big South Fork from Leatherwood Ford to Blue Heron Mine this weekend. 27 miles. Great time for all. We had four people in canoes, three in kayaks, and me on my stand up paddleboard. Water was about 250cfs, which made for some interesting rapids along the way for the beginners that were with us. Just big enough to be challenging and fun without being too overwhelming. A couple of notes on the trip: Give yourself three days. While we put in late on Friday and took out around lunch on Sunday, the vast majority of our paddling was on Saturday ~ 20 miles. Spreading it out a little bit will give you a lot more time to just screw around. Bring fishing tackle! This section of river is way underpressured. I think I saw one fisherman, and he was 250 meters from the take out. Two of us limited on smallmouth bass with no effort, and I saw a couple of huge walleyes. Something hit a Rapala topwater lure I was using so hard that it broke the lightweight pole I was using. The two portages are longer than advertised. The portage for Angel Falls is at least 1/4 mile. Devil's Jump's portage is not well marked at all, and is long and steep. You really need to watch for the overlook and then start really scouting for the portage. For a bigger group, you need to start looking mid-afternoon for places to camp. There simply aren't that many places on the river that will support a group. I was in a jungle hamock, and several of our guys bivouacked, so we were fine, but if you're looking to put up more than a couple of tents, you're going to need to really look unless you want to be sleeping on an incline. Check this section of river out. It was a lot of fun. I wish that we had gotten some footage of me running Devil's Jump on the paddleboard. We had a great time.

I've had a great experience with CT's customer service as well. I've got several sets of their grips. I had an issue on an S&W revolver where the grip seemed to be starting to delaminatie a bit. I called to inquire about my options, and they offered the best possible option immediately. They shipped me a new set of grips in a box with an RMA. All they asked was when I got the new grips to put the old ones in the box and send it back to them for QA testing. I'm a big fan of theirs.

Man, those pies have got me hungry!

The Izula is a great, tough little blade. You'll enjoy it. Be sure to post some pics when you get it.

Most squirrels that I've seen hit with 22WMR are mostly unsalvageable. As such, I've never been able to use 22WMR on squirrels with a good conscience. I love .22 shorts for squirrel. They really seem to bring the appropriate level of whump. Note, .17HMR is in a whole different category. Those explosive little bullets cause even more damage than 22WMR.

Yeah, not fully thinking about it, I was understanding total length still longer than 16".

If it's permanently attached, you only need one. If it's removable, you need two stamps.This assumes a total length longer than 16" ( e.g. 7.5" barrel + 9" permanently attached suppressor). You're paying a stamp for the suppressor period. If your total length of your barrel or barrel plus permanently attached suppressor is less than 16", you're going to need a stamp for your lower, too.

I've been thinking about this today, and this won't sound quite like I want it to, because it makes it seem like I have some bigger role, and I don't. But, despite how unsettling it is even now 10 years later, I feel like I owe it to the victims not to forget. I should be dead. I should have been in my office on the 78th floor - just a couple of floors below where the first plane went in. My office was on the side of impact. I should have been one of the people that was simply never found. But, for whatever reason, I'm still here and they're not. Some people, when they hear my story say that God must have spared me. But even though I have a strong faith, I can't really assign it to providence, because I don't think my life is worth any more than those other 2977 innocent people's. I may not understand God's ways, but I don't think he works like that. Despite how troubling it can be, the heart of the matter is that I really don't want to forget any of it. Even if it wakes me up in the night, I want it to stay in the front of my mind, because I feel like if we forget them - if we "move on", then they died for nothing. We've still got work to do.

I can close my eyes and picture the pure devastation. It took your breath away every day to see it. I don't have to close my eyes to remember the smell and the taste it left in your mouth. I can tell you the story of that morning, but it's only because I've told it so many times. I have to work really hard to put all of the details of that morning into a linear set of events, and I'm trained to do that. I'd argue that all of the other memories are more important. It's the only way that any of us cope with it all.

I was working with the Port Authority at the time, doing some information security planning. After the attack, because of my employer at the time, my role simply transitioned to some other projects.

I was there for nine months, and the city was a wreck in the early days. No one knew what was going on. I needed a place to stay, and knew that at some point I was going to have a bunch of guys working for me, so I negotiated a big block of rooms at the St. Regis Essex House on Central Park South. I've stayed in a lot of hotels in my day, and this would certainly qualify as one of the nicest. The rooms that we paid $79/night for probably go for $1500/night today. My team finally showed up, and it happened to be made up of a bunch of Marines who were really great. Very task motivated with no whining. The Essex House had a service where they would shine your shoes if you left them outside your door at night. Mind you, they were used to wingtips, not jump boots. We worked for at least 16 hours a day, and came back every night filthy dirty. Nonetheless, the Marines enjoyed the accomodations, and each night, we left our boots outside of our doors. And, each morning, we'd open our doors to find them spotless. After about two weeks of this, I got up early one morning to go grab a cup of coffee and a paper before heading to the site. It was probably about 0400, and I ran into the Bell Captain delivering our boots. I pulled him aside and thanked him, but then told him that when they got tired of shining our boots to let me know. I knew they were nasty, and though it was a novelty to my Marines, we were used to shining our own boots. I simply told him to give me the word, and that we wouldn't bother them with it anymore. He immediately cut me off and told me that the shined about 150 pairs of shoes a night. They drew straws to see who got to shine our boots. I really miss the unity that was present in those days. But, it makes me remember the good in our country. When I get really pesimistic about our country or our future, I think back to my time in New York. It was an honor and a blessing to be there during that time.

One of my fondest memories of the nine months that I spent at the site following September 11 was in the early days of the rescue, before it turned into a recovery operation. Rescue dogs were brought in, and if you've never been around a working dog, they are a sight to behold. They do a great job, and while it is a job to them, you can tell that they have fun with it. They're doing what they were born to do. The dogs were having a really tough time, though. They were trained to find live people, and we simply weren't finding them. Other than a very few found in the early days, there really weren't many survivors. This took a massive toll on the dogs, and you could see it in them. I was leaving the site one afternoon, and happened to be walking out with a couple of other people, a dog and his handler. As we neared the edge of the red zone, there was a firefighter sitting on a piece of sectional steel with his head in his hands, completely and totally spent. He was emotionally exhausted, had lost good friends in the building, and it was all weighing on him right there. As we approached, this golden retreiver looked at him, and bounded ahead a little bit. He ran over the man, and gently nuzzled him, only to have the guy push him away. We were even with him by this point, and I remember that dog just stepping back and looking at the man in that confused way that only a retreiver can. Not to be rejected that easily, the dog looked at the man, and then looked at us as we continued to walk towards the perimeter. The dog ran towards us, and his handler, without even turning around or even looking at the dog just dropped the duffel bag he was carrying that had all of the dog's protective gear in it. The dog jammed his head down into the bag and came up with a tennis ball. He then looked at his trainer and ran back over to the man sitting on the steel. He dropped the ball at the guys feet, sat down and just looked straight at the guy. Of course no one could resist this dogs persistence, and the guy threw the ball for the dog, and we all experienced a little bit of healing right there.