analog_kidd

We need some common sense legislation that will prevent this kind of senseless killing. The majority of Americans already agree with this idea.   I bet you won't hear that statement from Obama or Clinton about this tragedy.

I've made wine for years, but just got started in making beer. I had nearly all the equipment from the wine making, although I did buy a separate primary fermenter just to keep the buckets from imparting off flavors into each other. I just use an ice bath to chill the wort for now, but will probably upgrade to one of those chillers you attach to the sink faucet.   I'm sticking with the kit beers for now. They have everything you need, ingredient-wise, and they are pretty easy to do. If you just follow the directions it will come out fine. I'm doing a whiskey barrel stout right now that looks like it will be awesome when done. I like a dark, heavy beer, so this is right up my alley. Unless you like cheap beer, I'm not so sure there is much of a cost savings to making it from a kit, but the satisfaction of knowing you made a quality beer that tastes great make it worthwhile to me. I get the kits for about $50 and they make about 4 ~ 12 packs of beer. With my go-to beer of Sam Adams being about $13 a 12-pack, it's pretty much break even. Discounting my time of course.   Speaking of time, you do need to plan your time. Expect to burn most of an afternoon making the wort. And, importantly, read the directions and make sure you have time set aside in the future when you are supposed to bottle it. One of my times I got ahead of myself and didn't realize I was going out of town the following weekend when I was supposed to bottle. I ended up having to stay up late one night to get it all done in time.   It's funny, I buy beer from the store now based on what kind of bottle it comes in. I only get them if they can be re-used. I like Sam Adams, and they are pop off bottles so that works, but I find the labels a pain to remove. I'm kinda weird about wanting the bottles to not have old labels on them. I recently found Highland Brewing Co, a company out of Highlands, NC, and their bottles have a plastic label that easily peels right off, especially if you run some hot water over them. Plus the beer is good and about the same price as Sammies, so it all works out.   I have also bought empty bottles from Ferment Station in Knoxville. I think they charge about $12 for a 24 bottle case. I prefer to recycle my own, but I have two batches going on now and needed extra bottles. Walmart also sells 64oz growler bottles that are convenient, They are best for when you have a couple people at once enjoying a frost beverage, as you pretty much need to finish it when you open it.   Speaking of Ferment Station, they are great folks and have anything you need for beer and wine making. Not sure about beer, but they will even help you bottle wine, and have a filter if you want wine cleared up before bottling. They also have a nice room with a grain grinder if you want to make up your own beer recipe from scratch. I highly recommend using them. BTW they moved across the parking lot a few weeks ago, so if you are familiar with them don't freak out when you pull up and they are not in their old location. The new space is a bit larger and set up very nicely.

537 recovered guns seems like a lot to me. I doubt that 537 guns were sold illegally and then 100% of them recovered. Making a total WAG, I would assume maybe 10 - 20% of illegally sold guns are ever recovered. That would mean that the shop was selling upwards of 5000 guns illegally.   If there is any truth at all to the number when they say "537 guns were recovered at crime scenes" it was probably privately owned, legally sold private collections of people who were robbed. The police came to the house (crime scene) and found them safely locked in Joe-Bob's safe. Or they were stolen and recovered from pawn shops and returned to the owners. Heck, that could be like just 5 or 6 people if the robberies had happened in the TGO community.   :cool:

The whole episode I kept thinking they were luring them away to some awesome mass destruction. Then we find out they were just pointing them in another direction and releasing them. The first thing I thought was, well that's a pretty crappy thing to do to whatever band of survivors might be down the road. It would mean certain death for anyone in their path.   It was interesting too how in the trailers leading up to the episode, they made you think one thing, and the actual episode reveals something completely different. For instance the scene with Rick yelling "You think you can take this community away from me?" I thought was either Morgan, or one of the Wolves. Turns out it was much to do about nothing with the guy just talking tough.   I also thought the scene where they were building the walls along the road, and the walkers appeared was interesting. It showed the old locals how much they really need our rag-tag band. They were too scared to even shoot them, much less hand to hand combat. Not sure if Rick was holding back on taking action because he wanted them to learn, or at least try, or if he was wanting to make a point of what they were capable of.

Friends of ours have been to Thailand a couple of times. They say that over there they all use a "Squatty Potty", that was the term they used years ago, But it's a bit different than the video above. It's more like a little trough that you straddle and squat over. When you are done with your business, you flush and water runs thru the trough.   That video is pretty epic, though. Handing the kids TP to wipe their face with was hilarious.

Pretty stoked... I just got tickets to go see Joe B in Knoxville in November. It's been a long time since I've been to a bonafide rock concert, and this one should be great.

Yet, they will happily make and sell gaming consoles to the round-eyed devils.

I know someone who is a probation officer, and I think they typically wear those dressy tactical cargo pants with a polo that has their office label and logo on it. And they carry a sidearm. Pretty hard to not understand that they are some kind of law enforcement just at a quick glance.   The part of the story that gets me is the social media outrage. In his job, he is not there to protect anyone. The pistol is for his protection due to the criminals he interacts with each day. He has no more firearm / safety training each year than I do. Why is everyone outraged that someone like him can't carry into the restaurant, but nobody outside of TGO could give a rat's ass about any one of us?

Thanks for all the suggestions. Sounds like there is plenty to do. I'm definitely looking forward to the whole weekend.   My wife got us set up in a Bed and Breakfast place about 6 miles SE of downtown. We'll probably just use Uber on Saturday for the sightseeing tour. Looks like we can buy a parking pass for $30 at the stadium parking lot for game day. Is that a good idea? How long will it take us to get out to the Interstate from there? (does it get all jammed up?)

I heard some advise a while back: Ride a motorcycle like you're invisible and everyone else is drunk. I try to keep this in mind while riding, especially in heavy traffic.   And... I'm holding out for hovercrafts as opposed to self driving cars. I think they would be way cooler.

Was the whole "Open your mouth to reduce the pressure, or you'll pop a retina" thing nonsense while shooting the 50 cal, or can that really happen?

I grew up in South Florida and the Miami Dolphins have been my team that I hate to love over the years. I always hope for a repeat of 1972, but they never even get close to delivering. Now that we are Tennesseeans, I'm all for the Titans, but I still have that soft spot in my heart for Miami.   My wonderful wife, for my birthday, bought me a pair of tickets to go see the Titans and Miami play in Nashville.Every year since I turned 35, I've been saying as a joke "well, I'm too old to play pro football now, but I can be President." So for my 50th she got me tickets. I've never really been to Nashville, aside from just passing through, so we thought we would make a weekend of it. We are going to head over there early Saturday, and spend the day/evening seeing the sights.   I'm looking for recommendations on the "must see" places. I'm not so much into Country Music, but I do love the Blues. Are there any Blues restaurants or clubs that are great? Also, what are the best tourist places to visit? We'll likely Uber our way into town from where we are staying, so we'll mostly just be walking around the down-town area.   I'm really excited about the whole weekend, and want to maximize the fun. Thanks

Once again, Tennessee snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Not going for 2 points after that last touchdown, was just bad coaching.

I was watching an episode of Stossel on "Borders" and they had a section about state borders. The guest said that in the early 40's there was a movement to separate off the norther half into another state, and it was just about to be approved, when the Japanese attacked. WW-II started and the nation lost interest.

We opened up a 2nd checking account at our bank just to use with a debit card. Whenever we want to buy something online, we'll transfer the money into the 2nd account and then use that to pay. If the card gets hacked, they'll only get what few dollars remain in the account.   I also got one of those Google Wallet cards. From the app on my phone I can easily transfer money from my main account into the Google account and I can pay using either use my phone or the debit card they sent me. I got it because we have done the Dave Ramsey method of only using cash to pay for daily items. Paying for gas is such a pain when using cash. You have to go in, wait in line behind the guy getting lotto tickets (who can't make up his mind which of the 586 different scratch off's he wants), pay more than you think you need so you can get a complete fill up, pump the gas, then go back in to get your change, but first you have to wait in line again. With the Google card, I just transfer my week's worth of "allowance" into the card and use that at the pump to pay. My phone keeps up with the balance almost immediately, so I know how much money I have on hand at any time.   Again, with the google card, I usually don't have more than $100 loaded in it at any time, but usually way less. If it gets hacked, that's all they get.   With the Google card, there is only one card issued per Google account, so only I can use it. With the 2nd bank account, I have multiple (me and my wife) debit cards from the same account. The problem we have hit with the 2nd account is not coordinating with each other when buying stuff, and the account gets nearly overdrawn.   And using an ATM is just a bad idea in general. Plan ahead, and get money out at the bank ahead of time. My wife has a routine of going to the bank every other Friday to get out the money we will use for the next two weeks for groceries, dining out, gas, pocket cash, etc. If the money is gone before the two weeks is up, we just do without. It's a self discipline that we have imposed upon ourselves. Funny how you only do without once or twice before you start to plan a little better.

One report I heard said that the crane got hit by lightning. So, a mosque full of Muslims gets hit by lightning on the anniversary of 9/11. Sounds like someone is trying to get a message through.   The thing I thought was interesting, when 9/11 happened, there was celebrations and dancing in the street by Muslims and their leaders. This tragedy happens and we send condolences. 

The friends we went tot he Chattanooga Escape with, told us yesterday they went to the Knoxville one recently. They said it was fun, but not quite the production of the Chattanooga one. Maybe over time it will get better. Still they said they would go to the Knoxville one again when they update to new scenarios.

We went this past Spring and did the other one they had. Forget the name of it, but it was the Mad Scientist plot. It was a lot of fun, we had most of it figured out, but did not finish. Part of our problem was we had 8 people total in the room and it was chaos. Someone would figure out a clue but not share it with everyone.   I heard that there was one coming, or already in Knoxville.

Well, we haven't officially cut DirecTV, but we use a free program called Kodi to supplement it, and I'm pretty close to being able to pull the trigger. The main thing holding me back is watching Fox News and Monday Night Football live.   Kodi is an amazing piece of software. It runs on Windows, Linux, Mac and Android. I have a Windows PC connected to my TV running it. IT will find and play any kind of audio / video media that is on your PC, or network. We rip all of our movies to MP4 or MKV format, and Kodi can play them.   The beauty of Kodi is that it supports third party plug-ins. There are plug-ins for many of the channels I find on DirecTV. The plug-in connects to the content provided by the channels on their web sites and plays it over the internet. There are also lots of silly plug-ins created by people to broadcast their own crazy content. Some of it is actually pretty good. There are even a few legit plug-ins that play some older movies and TV shows. Search hard enough and you'll probably find a plug-in to watch just about anything you want.   There is even a version of Kodi written for the Raspberry Pi computer. I bought a brand new RPi with everything I needed (power supply, case memory card, wi-fi etc.) for $50 on Amazon, and installed the O/S found on the OpenElec Website. It runs amazingly well. I put one in the bedroom and we use it to watch movies stored on the PC in the living room, and shows that it can stream from the Internet.

Didn't one of the theater shooters go outside to get his guns? How easy is it to park around back, enter the building carrying nothing, then exit the door inside the theater and prop it open while you go get the guns and bring them back? 

I agree that the certs are becoming less of a thing for employers. I'm a Windows Server guy, and probably half of my team have any kind of cert at all. My company is sending us to advanced VMware training and going to foot the bill for the certs, so I'll certainly go for those tests, but they hired me this year, and my MCSE is in NT4, with maybe one or two MCP's from the last decade. So, they didn't really care about my certifications. What they were interested in was what I knew.   I think I recall you do a helpline of some sort, right? You might want to send a resume here http://www.sciworld.com/careers/ They are the company that runs IT at the plant in Oak Ridge. I know they just had a couple of HelpDesk folks move on, they have a Desktop position open and I think they may have a server position or two open up recently. There have also been a few jobs posted at the lab recently as well. If you have not already, open an account at the ORNL careers site and check the listings regularly. Either of these will be the best options salary wise with remaining in your area.   If you haven't already, get a linked-In account and sign up for new job alerts. You'll start seeing jobs show up that don't appear in the paper.   The usual progression that I have seen is Helpdesk to Desktop specialist to either Server support or some specialty application, like SharePoint or Web design. If you have been in HelpDesk, you easily qualify for a Desktop type position. That would give you the opportunity to move around, meet folks and make a name for yourself. Find the people in the area you eventually want to be in, and start making contacts. Be the go-to guy and you'll get noticed among your co-workers and management.   The big areas I see right now that I would be focusing my career on if I were looking to move up are Virtualization (VMware or Hyper-V), anything made by Citrix, Cyber Security, or Networking (Cisco). On a desktop side, you should know Win10 and Win7/8 inside out, as well as Office. Practice installing and customizing these. Maybe even get certified in a few of them, if for no other reason than to get the training. The certs are a bonus.   The thing you gotta do is be constantly moving toward your goal. Every Monday ask yourself, what did I do last week to get me closer? Every week, do something... Put in an application, go on an interview, read a book, set up a new PC, learn a new feature of Windows. Picking on you a little, I recall you being irritated with your job several months ago, and now I hear you say you are going to wait until Winter to get really motivated. There is no time like the present, start now!   Good luck

Sean Penn is the one I can't get past separating artist from politics. His antics have left me to the point that I can't even stand to look at him.  He may make the best movie ever, but I couldn't stomach spending two hours looking at his face.

Ana Popovic has become one of my new favorites. She plays a mean guitar and has that raspy, bluesy voice.    https://youtu.be/GHIEpKopqWk?list=RDj5CLzJcfDss    

When I turned 16, my dad bought me a '72 Pinto for a few hundred bucks. He figured it would keep me out of trouble by keeping me in the garage working on it all the time. Ha, the car ran great and never gave me any trouble until the end. It leaked a bit of oil, but I kept a few quarts in the trunk, and would top off the oil when I filled up the gas tank.   The car had an AM radio, with some kind of add-on FM converter that played over one of the AM channels (so no stereo) and used the dash speakers. It also had an 8-Track player completely separate from the radio, and played through the rear speakers.   The car ran great for several years, until one day the transmission completely locked up one day on the way to work. I went skidding across the road until I pressed the clutch in, and coasted to the side of the road. Tried getting it out of gear, and the shifter fell right out of the tranny. I tossed the shifter in the back seat and hitch-hiked into work. I think I sold it to a friend who used it for part for his Pinto.   I had a lot of great times as a teenager in that car. Again, more proof that God watches out for fools, as I should probably be dead several times over for some of the antics we did back then. I also think the Pinto got a bad rap for blowing up. It happened a few times, and Ford did a recall and fixed the problem.

One of the admins  at work has a sign on their door. It's circular with arrows pointing to each phrase around the circle:               Replace User -->  Try Again  -->   I also use the (say the letters) "Eye Dee Ten Tee" code all the time for some users ===> id10t