wileecoyote

[quote name="vontar" post="1150766" timestamp="1400668070"]So, when do we find out what is in the pallets or do we have to wait until Christmas?[/quote] 7 pallets, 1400 lbs. each, about 78 inches tall X 48 inches X 40 inches. Order is being shared by about 30 people. We do this only once every 2-3 years, primarily to get the best stuff in the world at a steep wholesale discount which is about 50% of retail after freight charges. People come in from TN, KY, and AL for this. All but 1 are guys. That's all the hints you get, and if anyone guesses the product I'll give them a unit for free as a prize. :p

Similar story: military and black-ops friends of mine had pitched in to buy a huge quantity of ammo, like 1/4 million rounds. Ordered, paid, and had it shipped legally. On the day of the delivery, 4 black SUVs followed the truck to the destination and proceeded to cause quite a scene with felony search and interrogation, before ultimately realizing (after much heated discussion and legal maneuvering) that this was a legal transaction and being forced to depart. While it irritates me to see the government playing big brother, and they clearly handled this incident poorly, I don't really blame them in checking it out. Not too many times that private orders are placed for so much ammo.

I can see at least 2 sides to the story, maybe more. Unless the folks there are blatantly racist and have demonstrated this to other people in other ways, I would suspect the more likely scenario was that upon the first visit the clerks didn't know what to think since they've never heard of any such request or application before. Then after they had time to think it over and talk about it after you left, someone perhaps a little conspiracy minded or liberal got to talking about how unusual the request was, and visions of the numerous media reports of shootouts involving armor came to mind, so they just decided to be cautious. While I (or most pro-gun) people wouldn't have thought anything odd about the request, the average citizen who knows nothing of guns let alone armor would definitely see that as unusual, and it is actually smart of them to make the call from a liability perspective. If it were me I wouldn't have ever told them what the plates were, just said they are part of some machinery or samples to be used in testing. Discretion is often best in such scenarios, to avoid unwanted attention.

We finally found a solution. Spoke with a very nice lady who owned a small storage facility in Lebanon. Their parking lot was big enough with two entrances such that a tractor trailer could pull through in either direction. The owner said if they deliver while she is on site, she would open the main gate and lock it open plenty wide for the tractor trailer to back straight in. She has done this before with success. So our plan is to have the pallets dropped close to the storage unit via the tractor trailer lift gate, then I will have to rent or borrow a pallet jack to move them the rest of the way into the storage unit. Backup plan is to let the tractor trailer drop them in the main parking lot, and we could use the pallet jack to move them all the way back. If the pallet jack won't go inside the unit we can maybe use a thin board for a ramp or just unload the pallets into the unit manually. So all bases are covered, no extra freight charges, and the cost of the storage unit plus pallet jack rental should still be under our $200 budget. Might even have enough leftover to eat a good meal when it's all done. :-) Thanks for the help and ideas gang.

Scrappy hard at work. Malti-poo.

I've got an NRA license plate and a small graphic nobama magnet, but both are pretty subtle compared to the usual blatant tacky bumper stickers, so most people never notice either. I've also got a very unique high security system on my vehicle with active defenses. Anyone foolish enough to attempt entry will be in for the surprise of their life.

I've done a lot of work, complete teardowns and rebuilds, cleaning, and shooting on roughly two dozen TISAS, both 45 and 9mm. Never a single problem, good guns, good value for the money, same with RIA. If you want fancy jewelry buy a Dan Wesson or similar gun for 3-5 times as much, but if you want a basic no frills reliable shooter the TISAS is fine. Now if I was betting my life I'd still want something known to be of higher quality like a Sig or Kimber, but I don't believe in carrying 1911s or other single actions for defense.

Back in 2011 I organized a gun owner picnic in the Lebanon area. Advertised only on TGO and GOC. Rented an air conditioned hall with a big parking lot, gazebo, pavilion, and small park. Got numerous local gun dealers to sponsor it and donate door prizes. Everyone pitched in to bring food and drinks, we cooked on my big green egg grill, had enough to feed a small army with many taking home leftovers. Even had a dealer setup a gun display to do sales on site, and lots of folks brought their own guns or gear for sale or swapping. We had over 300 sign up, about 150 confirmed, and about 75 actually showed up. Was a lot of fun, I'd like to see us do it again even bigger if possible. Location would be key to getting lots of folks. I'd be glad to help organize if folks are serious.

Looks like they cut down the bullet to reduce weight and recoil energy, and possibly handloaded the shell for a reduced load. No point in that, you can do more with the S&W 500 and the ammo is much cheaper. :-)

Suggestion: could we add a photo to the first post showing what the knife will look like? I've seen several similar knife photos in all the different group buy threads, and am confused if this Godfather knife is going to have a black or silver blade (satin finish could apply to either). I'm in either way, but prefer the silver blade similar to a photo that I saw Willis post but can't find at the moment.

I'm in for one. #22 if available #27 second choice #50 third choice

Also late to the party, but if any extras become available I'll definitely take 1, and possibly as many as 5. I am an instructor and students would love to see this, and I have several close friends who would likely give a body appendage to have one also.

[quote name="Dane" post="1149802" timestamp="1400374678"]That's exactly why you are having such a problem. It really isn't worth the time or liability (mainly the liability) for these warehouses to take on this shipment. $200 to a facility that moves millions a year - hardly worth considering. If you follow one of the links I posted earlier you can rent a pallet jack for $25. This might help if you can find a place you can offload. If you encounter a problem like you said with the lip on the unit pm me and I will tell you how to get over it very easily.[/quote] Yeah, I didn't expect to find a major warehouse or high volume terminal that wants to deal with such a small short term storage job. I have been trying to find a residential storage unit that can allow drops from a tractor trailer, or a small warehouse where the owner has idle space and could use a few hundred dollars for such a simple favor. I only started checking with larger freight companies and warehouses when the other options didn't work out. I did check that link you sent and it looked like pallet jack rentals were $100. I can buy a used one for not much more, and I really doubt the pallet jack would work with most of these storage facilities, but at this point the jack is the least of my worries as I can't find a storage place that has room for 7 pallets and can take a drop from a tractor trailer. If I don't find something else by Monday I think I will pursue one of two backup plans. We are running out of time and need to get this stuff shipped. Thanks for the tips.

Good lead, thanks! I will contact them on Monday morning to see. I did speak with ABF which is a similar business right near TCW on Visco Dr, and they were able to receive and store the pallets for us, but they didn't want to be bothered for such a small shipment. They offered to do it for us if we let them truck the freight from Maine, which we agreed to do, but then their price quote came back $500 more than our current freight quote from Estes, so once again we would have had to spend $500 more just for short-term storage of a few pallets. What really kills me is that there are a TON of warehouses in the Lebanon area, many of which are not high volume and probably have a lot of extra space just sitting idle. I just know they could do it easily for us, but you can't get those places to give you the time of day unless you know someone that owns or manages the place. That's why I was hoping to find a lead from this forum, to get a small warehouse that would help us out with minimal effort and pocket $200 for doing so.

I have called quite a few similar places, however many of them DO NOT offer a receiving service to accept and store 7 pallets for only 2-3 weeks. They are looking to do the pack, move, and hauling parts of the job as well (for a lot more money of course). And many of the moving companies don't actually have warehouse storage for individual pallets, they only store full trailers which are dropped and parked until delivery time. The few such places that did have pallet receiving and storage capability were not setup to allow multiple individuals to come and pickup the pallet contents from the warehouse via multiple trips over several weeks, as their warehouses were not segmented or designed for self service access. I agree there must be dozens of warehouses which could easily handle this request, and should be willing to do so at a reasonable rate, but I have made a LOT of calls and not found any yet.   I too know how to use Google, and have beat it to death. I have probably called at least 50 places in the past week, and looked at hundreds of locations on Google. There is a lot more to it than just finding a storage place, of which there are thousands. Most residential-type storage places DO NOT have enough room for a full size tractor trailer to pull in, back around, drop off, and pull out safely. Virtually all residential storage places DO NOT have a loading dock. Photos on the web can be deceiving, especially if you have never driven a tractor trailer. When you actually call these storage places many of the owners will tell you horror stories about how they have attempted tractor trailer deliveries in the past and failed miserably. And the shipper of these goods has handled thousands of tractor trailer deliveries via many LTL carriers for customers all over the US, and they report that in many cases the trucking company ends up charging extra fees for delivering at such places which presented hurdles or were more difficult or time consuming for a number of reasons, the most common of which is the absence of a commercial loading dock. Once a storage place is found that might be able to handle a tractor trailer delivery, the next hurdle is typically availability. ALL of the very few storage places I found so far that could accommodate a tractor trailer delivery were completely SOLD OUT on storage units, or they only had small units with doors so narrow that you couldn't even fit a single pallet through the entrance. Once a storage place is found that can take tractor trailer delivery and has an available unit to hold 7 pallets, the next problem is how to transport the pallets from the truck to the storage unit. In most cases the truck would have to drop the pallets quite a distance from the actual unit which is available to rent, so you need a forklift or pallet jack to move the pallets. The trouble with using a pallet jack is that most storage units are on raised cement slabs with a 3" lip at the entrance, so the pallet jack will not roll the pallets into the unit, and none of these storage units have pallet jacks or forklifts on site. Renting a pallet jack costs almost as much as buying one, which adds to the cost of the storage unit, and still wouldn't work at most storage places. The tractor trailer will have a pallet jack on it at delivery time, but the driver will not allow you to use it or take it out of the truck, and if they have to do so then they charge you quite a bit extra for their service. When you actually talk to the owners of these storage places they will tell you that others have tried pallet deliveries and it usually is not feasible in their locations for a variety of the reasons noted above. And there are some oddball problems too, such as the place that did have a forklift but it was too big to fit through the entry doors and thus could not take any pallets inside to the storage unit locations. Or the place which had smaller than normal access doors which would not accommodate the height and width of the pallets. The solution we need is someone which has a small or medium size warehouse with a loading dock that routinely handles tractor trailer drops, with enough space to receive and store 7 pallets, with their own pallet jack or forklift on site, and the willingness to do this for just 2-3 weeks while giving us access to pickup the contents over several visits. We are willing to pay for this service, and we did find one such place that was able and willing to do it, but they wanted to charge $525 for the 3-week period and this was just too much for our budget. We are only paying $757 to have the pallets trucked from Maine to Tennessee including pickup and delivery, so we didn't budget that much for storage. Most storage places rent a 10'x15' unit for $70-$140 per month, and we are willing to pay a little more for the receiving service, but we need to get this done for around $200 or less, and we just haven't found any solutions yet.

Yep, it is coming LTL via Estes Express. They will let me pick it up from their terminal, but that is not helping as we need a place to store 7 pallets for 2-3 weeks so that we can make multiple trips to carry away the contents until all 7 pallets are empty. Estes included delivery to any location we specify in the Nashville area, but they require the receiving location to have a loading dock or be able to move the pallets once they deliver them to the ground via a lift gate. I have found hundreds of storage units but none of them have a loading dock, none of them have driveway areas big enough to allow a tractor trailer to enter, and none of them have a pallet jack of forklift to carry the pallets from the road to my storage unit. So we are still stuck trying to find a place that can accept delivery of 7 pallets and store them for 2-3 weeks max. They must either have a loading dock for a tractor trailer, or a parking area or roadway big enough to allow a tractor trailer to drop the pallets on the ground, and a pallet jack or forklift to move the pallets to the storage area. This is such a common thing I can't believe there aren't more options out there. I must be looking in the wrong place or searching with the wrong terms.

Great lead, thanks for this. Spoke with your uncle and he is able to handle the storage, although I am not sure this will work for the group due to the cost. I am going to check a few other options and maybe we can work it out. Any other suggestions or leads are appreciated.

Still looking to pay someone good money for a short simple job of receiving and storing 7 pallets for 2 weeks. Had a place lined up but turns out they couldn't fit the tractor trailer in there.

Started more than 30 years ago with disposable Bic yellow sensitive skin safety razors and any thick white shaving cream in a can. Rotated through all combinations of brand and blade style, numerous safety blades, creams and gels, went back to the Bic yellow as the best disposable and regular thick white cream. Then switched to a very expensive vintage straight razor (no changeable blades) which was hand made in Germany. Had the whole setup including cup, bristle brush, lather cakes, and leather strop all imported from the same place my favorite "old guy" ethnic barber got his stuff. He did everything with that blade even after it was no longer legal, including hair cuts, thinning, facial hair, brows, ears, neck, you name it. He worked magic and taught me how to get started but I never could do it anywhere near as good, and that razor was so sharp I was afraid to slip and end up dead. Still got it all, just never use it. Then switched to electric shavers and tried every style and brand out there. They did hurt at first and took many passes to get a perfect shave but after a month or so your skin gets used to them and it doesn't hurt, only minor razor burn similar to disposable blade shave, which is easily remedied by showering after shave or using a hot towel. My favorite was Remington titanium dual foil, but replacement foils and cutters are $15 a set. After trying it all, I still use the Remington titanium foil shavers, usually their most expensive model, which I replace or upgrade every few years. As long as you stick with it and don't try switching back and forth to blades, the electric does great and can be used while driving or without a mirror. And it doesn't really take any longer than a blade shave, and you don't get any nicks and cuts by hurrying. Only thing I dislike is using electric on a several day old beard, it's like grinding down a stump and takes many more passes, but it still works good. They trim nicely too, so it's my best overall choice.

Praying now, and again at Sunday mass.

Scrub with simple green, rinse in hot water, shake dry, then towel dry. Rinse with 91% isopropyl alcohol to totally de-grease and absorb any hidden water droplets, air dry. Apply EEZOX as general lube and cleaner, best rust preventative on the market. Store in dry safe location with dessicant and/or dehumidifier.

[quote name="bersaguy" post="1147946" timestamp="1399826244"] I just don't think that yelling out loudly from a safe room would be my choice in this situation because if the perp / intruder / intruders are armed the might just begin shooting into the room endangering you and your loved ones. I am going to be the one that begins sending hot lead down range first and letting my firearm do the talking and then if they are able they can run or do what ever they are able to do at that point. I by all means want the be the one that shoots first and a lot to protect my family.....jmho[/quote] Like I said, you stay in your safe room quietly, listening and waiting to see what happens, with 911 on the line recording every sound you hear. Then if an intruder comes anywhere near your room, you yell out the warning (before they get inside the room), and if they persist to advance on you by attempting entry into your room then you defend yourself accordingly. They are more likely to leave, and you are less likely to be in a gunfight, and if you do have to shoot then you are much less likely to face charges or lawsuits when the 911 recording shows you being reasonable and taking every step to avoid a shooting. And I didn't say you have to gather the family into your safe room every time you hear any noise whatever, only when you have good reason to believe there is an intruder or threat present. Sure, we all get strange noises now and again that turn out to be harmless, but the safest way to investigate those is by simply waiting, watching, and listening from a safe place (inside your locked home). If it's a squirrel, the wind, water heater, etc. then it will go away, but if it's something bad then you don't go head into it exposing yourself needlessly. That's also why I have several layers of security in place, external and internal, so I will know what is going down way before anybody even makes it to my house, let alone inside, and I can "investigate" without leaving my recliner. To each his own.

Not bad at all, considering the current market. But I wouldn't call them "bricks", a brick is 500 rounds.:rolleyes:

Lots of good guesses, but all wrong... :rolleyes:

If you have any reason to believe someone is already in your house (in which case you failed to have adequate security measures in place), you immediately get yourself and any loved ones to the safest place possible (such as a barricaded locked room behind proper cover), and then arm any adults that are properly trained / equipped, and then call 911. Inform them of your address, describe the situation (including location / description of all family members, and who is armed), and you wait on the phone while guarding your safe room entrance(s). You don't go searching the house looking for trouble, and you don't leave family members unprotected. You also don't go outside or move through the house unless you can establish it is safe to do so, as additional or unknown threats may be waiting. If a threat emerges or advances near your safe room, you call out loudly that you are armed and will shoot to defend yourself if needed, ordering them to leave immediately, and that police are on the way. If the threat persists or escalates then you do only what is necessary to defend your lives, not to protect property or chase them out or advance on them or capture them.