MacGyver

Here's a dirty trick you can use, that is more effective than the DoNotCall registry. Telemarketing firms today are multinational corporations. Above anything else, they care about their bottom line. You can game the system against them. Call centers use auto-dialers to call you. That's while there is a pause at the beginning of a telemarketing call. It is waiting for the computer to connect you to a live body after it recognizes that some idiot is actually on the other end of the line. These companies databases know A LOT about you. For instance, they know that you specifically are most likely to answer the phone at 6:17CDT - because that's when your phone rings 4 times instead of 2 (meaning you are likely home because your answering machine is empty). They know that you will spend an average of 35 seconds on the phone with a female between the ages of 18 and 25, and will spend on average 4 seconds on the phone with another male. They track all of this stuff. But, at the end of the day, all they care about is the bottom line. Everytime they make a phone call it costs them money. If you answer, it costs them money. If your answering machine answers, it costs them money. They only way to make them quit calling is to make them think they are wasting money. Here's the trick - download this tone and put it at the beginning of your answering machine. http://www.scn.org/~bk269/errorbeeps45.wav The above link is to the SIT (Special Information Tone) for a disconnected number. If one of your friends calls you, they are going to hear the tone, and then your voice on the answering machine. They'll think - "that's weird" and leave their message. A computer will think differently. As soon as it hears that tone, it thinks - "uh oh, my data is corrupt. This number is not in service." It will delete your record from it's database. That's not the best part. At the end of the day, most of these companies share data through a couple of different providers, so once the auto-dialer marks you as an error, they report that back to the main computer, which will delete your record from their database. You get deleted from the Matrix if you will.

Be careful here when you purchase services from a company. I won't discuss any by name (other than my Lifelock reference above), because for the most part they all operate the same. 1. Credit monitoring is not really preventative for identity theft, but may be of use if you don't keep up with the stuff yourself (i.e. your bank statements stack up, you don't know what your credit report looks like, etc...). It's kind of like a smoke alarm. If it goes off, you've already got a problem. I have a big problem with companies that claim that their credit monitoring "prevents identity theft". It doesn't. You might find out about it faster than you would have otherwise, but you're still on fire. 2. Don't pay attention to the monetary guarantees if they fail to fix your problem. It's marketing smoke and mirrors. All of these companies pay a very few "fixers" to recover people's identities if there is an out of band problem. These are specialists who WILL get you back to what we call a pre-event status. No one has ever paid out on one of these. Ever. Some of the class actions out there concern this. 3. Really only one thing matters when you've been hit. That is, "who can recover my identity for me the fastest, and with the least pain." There are a a couple terms you should know. Partially managed, or assisted recovery and Full recovery. Partial or assisted recovery is the rough equivalent of calling AAA when you have a flat, and them telling you how to change a tire. The FTC reports that it takes the average consumer 110-130 hours to recover their identities. You don't want to deal with this. You want fully managed recovery. This is just like it sounds, you call them, they verify that you've been hit, and then they take care of it. There are no silver bullets. They sit on hold with the banks instead of you. If you are going to pay for an identity theft recovery service, make sure it's fully managed. The way to tell is to ask if they require a Limited Power of Attorney. Without it, you aren't getting fully managed recovery. Other than that, the biggest things you can do are as follows: 1. Open you bark statements and credit card statements every month. Review them. You are protected by Federal law from loss so long as you report it within a certain period of time. 2. Get your free credit reports. Again, by law you are entitled to one a year from each of the bureaus. If you play it right, you will review one about every 4 months. Go to annualcreditreport.com as opposed to freecreditreport.com. The site you see in the commercials is going to try and sell you a bunch of stuff like your FICO score and monitoring. Annualcreditreport.com gets you your reports as required by law - for free. 3. Make sure you are on the do-not-call list - http://www.donotcall.gov 4. Opt out of junkmail - here's a link https://www.dmachoice.org/dma/member/regist.action - Direct Marketing Association http://www.valassis.com/consumersupport.html - Red Plum /ADVO www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm - Val-PAK 5. Pay Attention - If you are doing business with a company - pay attention to how they treat your data. If you look across a desk and see a big pile of other customers' information, yours is going to be in that stack when you leave. Do business with companies that earn your trust. Finally, don't forget the elderly and children. As soon as you are born today, you go into the SSA system. If you have children, or care for elderly parents or relatives, help them with this stuff. One of the most prevalent targets of identity theives is the elderly - because they don't have anyone looking out for them. Good luck

Ughh. How frustrating. Sorry.

No, for the most part companies that you already have an existing financial relationship with are not affected by the freeze. They can update information on you, and also still see your credit.

That is crazy. All I can think about is the flower pots that I've accidentally kicked over the years and broken. You've got to appreciate the guy's vision. I'd have given him the $2, too.

A credit freeze is a good idea, as a creditor (bank, car dealership, etc...) is prohibited by lay from opening any credit account in your name while a freeze is on the account. Essentially, when a creditor pulls a report on you, the report will come back saying the person has a credit freeze on their account. They won't be able to pull credit until you remove the freeze. The (possible) downside is you going to apply for credit and forgetting you have the freeze in place. It takes a couple days to process the information, so you may have to wait while it's lifted if you forget about it. In Tennesse it costs 7.50 to institute a freeze, and is free to lift it. If you are an identity theft victim, it's free. So, for instance, if you have received one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield letters recently, you can get it for free. You have to apply with all three bureaus - Transunion, Equifax and Experian. Don't go with Lifelock, they are a waste of money and currently involved in several class actions regarding the legitimacy of their product. PM me if you have questions. As a forensics specialist, this is something that I am involved in a lot. I'd be happy to have you give me a call and point you in the right direction. Here's a quick link to Transunion's information TransUnion Personal: Security Freeze ? Freezing Your TransUnion Credit File

That's funny.

+1 on D.M. Bullard - I've got multiple versions of his IWB tuckable and Dual Tuck He's a great guy, makes a great product - and delivery is pretty close to what he advertises - 30 business days. I carry my PPS daily in one of his holsters and always tuck my shirt in. He makes a great belt, too.

Welcome to TGO

Nice trip. Thanks for sharing.

Here's a link to the Cylinder and Slide Safety Fast Shooting system for those who might be interested. I had never heard of it before: Cylinder & Slide's Safety Fast Shooting Kit

Welcome to TGO

Welcome from a fellow Eagle Scout.

There were two buddies shooting in two different lanes. One had the DB, one had a G17. Both seemed to shoot the G17 fine. Neither could seem to hit anything consistently with the DB - one of the shooters was definitely better than the other, but neither posted great results. It reminded me of a little Tomcat .25 a friend of mine used to have - he could go through a whole box of rounds at 15 meters and maybe put one on target. Sorry to hear about the FTF/FTE issues, Lowbud. There is nothing more frustrating than getting something new, only to have it fail to work reliably. Let us know about their customer service and follow up on fixing the issues.

Those are really cool David. I really like the ones of your Grandfather in the B-24. One of my favorite memories ever, both as a person and a pilot was getting to fly with my grandfather in a B-17. He flew over 300 missions in one during WWII in both theaters, and though he hadn't flown one in over a half century, seeing him with the CAF pilots up on the flight deck it was like he never left. Those 30 minutes spent flying over Percy Warner with him in that plane is to this day one of my favorite memories. Thanks for posting these pictures.

That's great. Nice work on being a great dad!

I fired a 500S&W at the range recently that had the smoothest, lightest trigger pull I have ever felt. It was like you could just think about that pistol going off, and suddenly BOOOOM - it would. No perceptible increase in pull before the break.

In our prayers. Be safe out there, and thanks for stepping up to help out!

Welcome to TGO.

No AKs or ARs. I wouldn't say they are overpriced, but you'll be hard pressed to find any real deals on firearms. For my money, I would head the same distance in the other direction and go see Joe down at Hero-Gear. The Outpost at exit 89 has a bunch of EBRs, too. The only big box store I know of in Nashville that carries ARs is Academy Sports down at Cool Springs.

You wouldn't want to try and reload it in a fight. I have several cylinders that I'll take when I go to the range. I can put all 5 rounds into a good group a 5-7 yards in a couple of seconds, but changing cylinders is clunky at best. If you end up having to use this thing, when it's empty you are going to want to ditch it for something better.

Are you sure you are talking about one of the NAA's? The mini's that I know of don't have a half cock position. They have safety grooves between the cylinders that you set the hammer in to carry it safely. I don't know if this has always been the case, but mine rides in my pocket daily, and neither the hammer or cylinder have ever moved without me purposely doing it.

I've got the 22 mag version, sans folding grip and carry it almost all the time. I ended up making a pocket holster that holds both it and my multitool on my weak side. With a little practice, they are suprisingly fast and accurate. The NAA stuff is great also because it's inexpensive, but by no means cheap. It is a well made product that I have no issue carrying in my pocket.

It really doesn't matter what the manufacturing cost of an item is. There are too many other costs associated with getting an item to the shelf. If, as a manufacturer, you can't sell an item for roughly 3x what it cost you to make it, you're going to go out of business. Manufacturing costs are really only a pretty small part of the overall cost of an item unless you are running a really lean operation. That said, I think one of the great things about most of the vendors on this board, Hero Gear especially is that even if they could get away with marking a $20 wholesale item up to $100 retail, they wouldn't. They are honest people first. They know how a customer wants to be treated second. And they're smart, third. The Internet has made the world a much smaller place. Anyone who price gouges these days is going to eventually go out of business.

People make it out to be a lot more trouble than it is. Pay attention to the instructions and you''ll be fine. I recently broke mine down to do a detail strip after ~1400 rounds. I am running a suppressor, so I get some blowback, but I was suprised at how dirty it was and the junk that I cleaned out. It's probably a matter of preference, as they seem to keep running okay even when they're pretty dirty. I'd go for it, though.