analog_kidd

There is definitely an art to packing the bowl and keeping it lit. The "false light" Mike A mentioned above is a critical step. The tamping tool is a must. I usually pack the bowl a little at a time. Put a pinch in and pack it down with my pinky, and repeat. Once I get the bowl full, I light it once, adn the tobacco puffs up a bit, and it will go out. use the tamper adn pack it all back down again. It should stay lit longer now. You do have to kind of puff it several times a minute to keep it going. After a while, there will be some ash build-up. use the tamper tool to scrape off the top layer of ash, and keep smoking.   It always amazes me how stubborn they are to keep lit sometimes. I'll be puffing along, get a really good draw of smoke, and the very next draw its completely out.   For a really cheap, but good pipe, look at a Missouri Meershaum corncob pipe. I bought one as kind of a joke, but turned out that I really enjoy smoking it. Once you get it broken in, it smokes really well. Although, the pipe is a bit larger than I prefer. I tend to hold the pipe more with my teeth than in my hand, keeping my hands free.    My favorite pipe is my actual Meershaum pipe. You want to talk about stylish, and a conversation piece, these guys are it. You can get them in a million styles. You will instantly recognize them as the white stone pipes carved into faces. Get one that is carved from an actual stone, and not one that is resined together from stone powder. As you smoke it, some of the tobacco resin will seep through and give the outside of the stone a really nice patina. 

I did something really stupid with my wife's S&W .38. So stupid, I don't even want to mention it here for risk of being reminded again how stupid it was. Regardless, I had to have the gun taken in to be worked on, and the Smith sent it back to S&W to be inspected. S&W replaced the barrel at no charge, just to make sure the gun was safe.That's great customer service.

  That's an awesome post! When I did this on my computer, it also revealed a link that says "Find in another store." When I click that, it brings up a window with all the other WM's in the area and has the stock status for each.

One of the guys I always miss is Mouse Gunner, who passed away I think in 2011. I never met him, but I always enjoyed his posts, and his website was a great resource. I think someone took it over, but it doesn't look like it has seen much updating since his passing.

  About a year or so ago, I discovered Joe Bonnamassa, and that led me on a journey of discovering the Blues. Don't think I've listened to more than a few hours of my old standard: Classic Rock, ever since. I can't get enough. It's a whole genre I never really knew existed, and I love discovering new artists. It's like I just discovered music again. I'll turn on Pandora at work, and hear amazing songs I've never heard before. I love listening to the likes of Buddy Guy, Robin Trower, Jeff Healey, Walter Trout, etc.   It's funny, my favorite artists all my life have been Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. Now I see that they all have their roots in the Blues. So, I guess I've been a blues fan all my life, I just never knew it.   Another kind of odd choice of music I have been enjoying lately, and I don't really know what to call it other than maybe Rockabilly, is the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Big Bad Voodoo daddy, etc. It seems kind of Nostalgic to me.   Oh, and since we are confessing, the other day my wife was driving us somewhere in her car, and SuperFreak by Rick James came on the radio... and I liked it. Couldn't get that stupid song out of my head all day.

My wife says I have too many hobbies. She's probably right. I have so many I can never really focus on one and perfect it. They include: remodeling houses, wine making, photography (really suck at that one), computers, gonna start gardening and raising chickens this year, and backpacking. But my favorite hobby, and the one that really brought me to TN from Florida, is whitewater kayaking. Here's a picture of me running Bald River Falls near the Tellico River. Running it was easy. Hucking my boat up the rocks to get to the launch pint was the dangerous part.

Sorry to hear about your pooch. We have a "Weiner Dog" too, and I know what a great dog they can be.   I never would have guessed that I would be the owner of a Dachshund, but our has turned out to be a really good dog. They are loving and loyal, and a dedicated snuggle hound. Ours will burrow under the blanket on your lap and stay there for hours. He lives for the tennis ball. If you throw it, he will chase it; all...day...long! Of course the "Weiner" jokes abound in our house: "Hey, you wanna pet my weiner". Never gets old  :)   I'm sure yours was just as loving and full of personality. I'm sure you'll miss him.

The one time I called in 911 in the middle of the night was when there was somebody loading stuff into a  strange van at the end of my cul-de-sac at 2:30 in the morning. I called 911 and told them it was the white cargo van at the end of the cul-de-sac. Keep in mind there are 4 houses on the entire street. They came after a while, and with guns drawn, they performed some impressive tactical maneuvering - around the wrong house. They walked all around the FIRST house, testing doors, peeking in windows, all the while the white van was in plain sight parked in the street in front of the house 50 yards away. After they holstered their guns and went back to their cruiser, I walked outside and pointed them to the correct house. Oak Ridge police... gotta love 'em.   Turns out it was all kosher - the resident was in a band, and they had finished a late night gig and were moving musical instruments around.    The one thing I did learn from this event, was my cell phone would emit a loud beep every minute or two for the next half hour or so after calling 911. Supposedly it's a safety feature so that if you call 911 from an accident, paramedics can find you from the beep. I thought that it would be a give-away to your location if you are hiding in a closet. My wife and I turned that feature off on our phones. I highly recommend everyone see if their phone has this "feature".

If you don't have the funds to upgrade to Win7, then I say stick with XP, but follow a few simple rules.   1. Make sure you have a good Antivirus, and keep it up to date. MS Security Essentials is a great, free A.V. but it won't be supported on XP anymore either.    2. Don't open email attachments you aren't 100% sure about. If an email even looks a little bit suspicious, don't open it. get a 2nd email account and use it just for signing up for stuff on the Internet. Give out your real email only to friends that you trust.   3. Don't go anywhere stupid on the Internet. Pirate sites, Porn, Anarchist, etc. These places are a cesspool of malware and you will get a virus from them. Just stick to TGO and you'll be OK.   4. Google "no spam host file" and install a custom hosts file. This will prevent your PC from even being able to connect to a ton of bad sites.I do this on every PC I'm ever asked to fix, and on my own PC's, and most people never have to bring them back.

My wife, who says that "All Zombie shows are stupid", got sucked into the series this season. She would never watch it, but then sat down in the living room to read a book while I was watching an episode, and is now hooked. She wants to go back to the beginning and watch all of them from the start. I guess that's what I'll do until season 5 starts.

  I'm waiting on some myself.There is a local beekeeper that raises queens and sells nucs. He was expecting them to be ready about now, but the weather and temperatures didn't cooperate with him somehow, and now it will be the end of the month before they are ready.   I've never raised bees before, so this is a new experience for me. I brought my hive over so that he could put the nuc right into my own equipment. While I was there he invited me into his bee yard for a beekeeping 101 lesson. Very cool. Took me a little while to resist the urge to swat the bees buzzing around the veil.

Living in Oak Ridge, it is also illegal to shoot any type of gun in the city limits. We had a nuisance coyote in the neighborhood greenway. I called the city to see if they would take care of it. They said they don't do wildlife. I asked if I could shoot it and they said definitely not! In fact they wanted to know my name and address at that point.   I called TWRA and got the same answer about them not doing anything with it. I asked what I could do with it if I trapped it, and they said I could club it to death.  :stunned:     My son called even more recently for a skunk problem, and TWRA told him to trap it and drown it in a barrel.  :stunned:  :stunned:

  For those of us that watch the show, missing a week is not an option.  :up:

Here are some beekeeping clubs in your area. A hobbyist beekeeper will gladly come take your bees for free. Found the info here: http://www.tnbeekeepers.org/bee-clubs/     Washington County Beekeepers Meets: 1st Tuesday of the month at 7:30 p.m. Location: Boones Creek Christian Church - Fellowship Hall Christian Church Road Gray, TN Contact: Wendy L. Brown 423-502-8475 postie@hotmail.com     club@wcbeekeepersassociation.com http://www.wcbeekeepersassociation.com         Tri-Cities Beekeepers Meets: 2nd Thursday of each month, 7pm Location: Civic Auditorium 1550 Fort Henry Drive Kingsport, TN Contact: Isaiah Hess 423-247-6626   David Hess   dthess@embarqmail.com

Personally, I thought season 4.5 was pretty good. It got back to surviving against the Walkers, something they started taking for granted in the prison. They were getting too non-chalant about the Walkers.   I also thought it was interesting last night flashing back to when Rick was farming and trying to provide food for the group. Flash forward to Terminus, where we are suspecting that this group is providing food for themselves.   I suspect that Rick taking charge during the gang fight, and gutting that last guy like he did, bought back some of his respect points with Carl. Although, now Carl seems like he may be afraid of Rick. There is no pleasing that kid. He must be a teenager.

I saw an interview of this guy on the news the other day. He said his lawyer at one point leaned over to him and said, "Clearly, you are the most knowledgeable person regarding guns in the courtroom." One of the jurors admitted she had no idea what a muzzle loader was. I think he said the judge wasn't sure either. How can clueless people be the deciders of your fate? What happened to a jury of your peers? Could you even find "peers" in DC?

I say we call them "The Fish Formerly Known as Asian Carp" and give them some sort of undescernable symbol as their real name...   ... or maybe a symbol of a fish with slanted eyes.

Well, the ruling was a bit too late for me. My wife just got her 4th ticket for one of those things!  :wall: I keep telling her she needs to slow down. And, it's not like she doesn't know where they are.   Anyway, I'm glad they are going away. BTW, Oak Ridge Mayor Tom Beehan, Mayor Pro Tem Jane Miller, and Council member Charlie Hensley voted in favor of the extension, if you are wondering who not to vote for next election.

Knox Rail Salvage has all kinds of reduced building materials. They have two locations in the same neighborhood. You need to go to the one not next to the bus station. I'd be very surprised if they didn't have what you are looking for at a very good price.

This story reminds me of Johnny Cash's " A Boy Named Sue." 

It's the cover of one of my all-time favorite albums: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

I've always said that churches and their members should support the 2nd amendment, because if the Gov't can take away the 2nd, the 1st is not far behind.

First, find out when the delinquent tax sale is, and keep checking to see if the property is still on the list. A lot of time the owner will pay it at the last minute.   If it is still on the list, show up at the courthouse with the money in hand. They won't take a promise to get a loan. You have to pay it in full that day.   They will start the auction price at the amount of tax that is owed, and bids will go up from there. Even if you win the bidding, and pay for the property, it is still not yours for one full year. You legally can't even visit the property. if it is a house, the owners can even continue to live in it. The owner / heirs will have that year to pay you back, with either a 10% or 15% (I can't remember) interest payment. If nobody pays you back in that year, the property is officially yours.   If it is a house, with occupants on the day you own it, have the local police / sheriff pay them a visit and inform them they need to leave immediately.

:woohoo:  :up:   My favorite time of the year!

A friend of mine showed me this method of shucking corn. I've been using it ever since, and it works great.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juE7jmEm0H4