analog_kidd

My go-to beer for around the house is Yuengling Black and Tan. I really like that stuff. I like a nice dark, strong flavored beer. I can't much stand cheap beer anymore. The good thing about a strong flavored beer, is that most people who drink the cheap stuff don't like it, so guests don't drink it all up. When I go out and plan on having a beer with my meal, I usually try something new. The problem is, I can never find it in the store, or I forget what it was, or whether I liked it or not. I guess I have a bad memory. Maybe I should make notes in my phone.

Before we could get our drivers license, our father made my sister and me learn how to pump our own gas (we grew up when full service was the norm), drive a stick shift, and change a tire. For me I had to learn how to also change the oil, filters and brakes.Teaching kids how to do basic auto maintenance is one of the best things you can do for them. Sounds like you got an awesome young lady there. Keep up the good work.

Its a secret code, and only the cool kids can read it. Basically it says "Paul is dead"

We have a pack of them living in my neighborhood, right here in downtown Oak Ridge. There is a small greenway across the street. It has been coming into yards at night, and even in the day sometimes (I have a crazy neighbor that puts food scraps out for wildlife). I called the City to see if they would come take care of it. They said if it were a dog or cat, they would be out here lickety split to collect it, but since it is wildlife, they don't bother with them. I said that it could bite someone's pet or child, and they were uncaring. gave me the number for a local trapper that I would have to pay for. I asked if I could put a .22 in it, and they got really interested in who I was. The Animal Control in OR is a division of the police dept. After a bit of discussion they said discharging a firearm is illegal in the city. I called TWRA and they said that unless the coyote had actually bit someone, they couldn't do anything either. They recommended I buy a trap. I asked if they would come take the animal and relocate it once I caught it, and the y said I would have to dispose of it. I told them the city won't let me shoot it, and how was I supposed to dispose of it. I said What am I supposed to do beat it to death? She said clubbing a nuisance animal is a perfectly acceptable form of euthanization. For now it's not bothering anyone, so I guess I'll just leave it be.

Here is another sad elephant story that happened a little closer to home. Seems almost unbelievable... http://blueridgecountry.com/archive/mary-the-elephant.html

My son's friend works at a local airport, and says they take trashcans full of confiscated stuff and put them in the dumpster every day. Mostly bottles with liquids, but often times there are knives or tools that passengers have forgotten to stow in their checked luggage or are unfamiliar with the rules. There are no options for keeping your stuff, short of forfeiting your ticket and walking away. I got to thinking about it, and it occurred to me that the post office sells those "If it fits, it ships" boxes for $5, $10, $15. How much trouble would it be for the TSA to have these boxes available for purchase at the check-in areas? You could put your item in the box, put your home address on it and hand it to the TSA agent to drop in the mail. Seems like a simple thing to do that would go a long way toward making passengers a little happier. I would gladly spend the $5 to ship my $80 knife back home, rather than see them toss it in the trash can.

My new favorite overnight hike is now the Alley Ford trail. It is near Wartburg, and parallels the Emory River / Clear Creek. It is only 2.6 miles to the camp site. It only took us 1 hour a few weekends ago, but I was following a bunch of 20 somethings. The camp site is great. It is a nice sandy spot right on the river. There is a large campfire ring all set up and lots of places for tents. There is fish in the river if you want to toss a line in, and of course plenty of water for drinking and cooking. The trail is part of the Cumberland Trail, and runs through the Obed Wild and Scenic Park, so it is carry friendly. Just stay out of Catoosa, which is right there too. In fact if you stay on the trail past Alley Ford, you will be in Catoosa. If you can find your way to the Nemo picnic area, cross the river and turn right immediately into the little campground. Free parking at the information sign.

Arrgh, sorry for the typos in the title. I hate when that happens.

I saw where Lance Armstrong has given up the fight to prove he did not use performance enhancing drugs, so the Doping Agency has said that they consider that an admission of guilt and are stripping him of all of his titles and banning him from bicycle racing for life! Armstrong said he is done with the fighting, and just wants to focus on the future and his cancer programs. http://espn.go.com/o...-cycling-career

I rarely see anyone carrying, but a few weeks ago I did see a young man at the grocery store. It looked like he was carrying a full-sized Springfield XD-something, and was using the holster that comes with the gun. If you've never seen one, they are quite bulky and ride outside the waist band. To make it worse, he was wearing it at exactly 3:00 on his waist, so his hip bone pushed it out even further. He did have a cover shirt on, but with as bulky as it was, it stuck out pretty good, and his shirt kept riding up over the grip, so he kept fiddling with it. I figured he was a new gun / permit owner and would figure it out eventually. They are so cute when they're young

I've had good luck with this program http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/ to unlock the administrator account. It sounds to me like your best option is going to be to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the operating system. Hopefully you got the computer with the installation CD's. If so, just put in teh first CD and reboot the PC. It should boot from the CD and there will be menus to install a fresh copy of WIndows. If you don't have the install CD's then you'll need to procure some. If you want a free option, you could always go Linux. Get someone to download a copy of Ubuntu. If all you're doing is browsing the web, you'll be just fine with Linux. If you can get to Oak Ridge, I'd be happy to help you out and reinstall the O/S for you.

The other trick I use is to download a no ad hosts file and overwrite the default hosts file on my computer. The way tcp/ip works is, when I type in a website in my browser, it has to convert that name into an IP. It does that by using a DNS server. But, before it checks with the DNS server, it looks on your local PC for a file called "hosts". If that file exists, it will read it and look for the website name and IP. If that site is not in the file, then it asks the DNS server for the info. The trick with the hosts file is that for all of the ad sites, or malicious web sites, you point the name to your local computer's loopback address of 127.0.0.1. So essentially, the web browser goes nowhere for that link, and you'll get a blank browser. This is a favorite trick for malware too. It will edit your hosts file and put an entry in for say, www.mcafee.com to either go to it's own server or, go nowhere. Then when your PC tries to update it's antivirus, it can't find the site. I have used this to help friends block certain sites from their kids. Folks out on the internet have put together hosts files you can download, and they have thousands of malicious or annoying web sites already in the file. Just download one, and over write your own hosts fiole and it will start working right away. I'm always surprised how different web pages look when I go to someone else's computer and visit a familiar web site. for instance, Yahoo mail on my PC with a hosts file is nice and clean. On a friend's PC, it is full of annoying ads. Google search "No Ad Hosts FIle" and you'll find links to download a file, and more (better) descriptions than I just gave.

I run a virtual machine on my desktop. I set the virtual disk to non-persistent, so if I power off the VM, it goes right back to a clean system. Once a month, I'll change the disk to persistent and boot it up to let it get patches and antivirus updates. Then I shut it down and make it non-persistent again. Anyway, I use this VM to browse the web, especially if I'm doing random searches to unfamiliar sites. If the VM gets hosed up, it as simple as powering it off to get back to a clean system.

Ron Palillo from the 70's TV show Welcome Back Kotter has passed away from a heart attack. I'm sure there are many on this forum that have never heard of or seen the 70's show Welcome Back Kotter, Of course just about everyone has heard of John Travolta, who got his start on that same show. It was a great show back in the day. Oooh, Oooh, Mr. Kotter! http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/14/showbiz/obit-palillo/index.html

Real men should be able to make a fire. And they should be able to cook some kind of meat on that fire.

What the heck is the deal with every politician that is running for office, feels like they have to take off the jacket and roll up their shirt sleeves before a speech? It's almost like it's in a play book somewhere. I know that it's supposed to impart an attitude of "I'm ready to go to work for you". Right now, I just want them to impress me. Once they are elected, they can go to work for me. You rarely see an elected official with their sleeves rolled up. I guess that is supposed to tell me "OK, the work is over, let's relax."

I think he is a great pick. I went around the news channels today and both the left and right channels think he will be a strong candidate against Obama/Biden. He will smash Biden in any debate. What I worry about is that it renders an effective congressman useless. Typically, the VP is a figurehead who doesn't get much say in matters of policy. If Romney is smart, he'll let Ryan actually participate in economic policy making. We need intelligent, forward looking, fiscally conservative leaders in Congress. Hopefully this won't leave a void.

We have bought our home, and two rental properties, and refinanced most of them when lower rates came out. Each time we have gone through our local, hometown bank. They ultimately sell the loan to some big corp, like Chase, but who cares, the terms are set at my bank, and Chase honors them. I like my bank, they all know me, we talk about each other's kids, and drink coffee over the discussion of terms. I have shopped around and everyone else either matches or is worse than my bank. They win the tie every time. If you have a bank you do business with and like them, it won't hurt to have them give you a pre-qualification report. The one thing I like is they hold my checking, savings and HELOC accounts, so they just move the money around for me at closing.

Well, Rush is a controversial guy, who frequently makes statements that rile folks up. I would have figured they would have taken that into consideration before making him their spokesperson.

If you look back say 50 or 60 years ago, living together was looked upon by the majority of society as wrong. Because of the immoral stigma attached to it, there were very few couples who shacked up. It's a very similar situation as we have right now with gays. Fast forward to today where living together is common practice, and hardly an eyelash is batted when couples do it. In my mind, this is just another part of the moral decay of society. I don't have proof, but my gut tells me that this has led to having kids out of wedlock, which leads to a lot more broken families since it is even easier for one partner to leave the other. It also led us to accept promiscuity among adults, which led to promiscuity among teens, which is responsible for a lot of teen pregnancy. It also has caused the increase of the spread of certain diseases. I'm not a prude, and I'm not condemning anyone for living together. Heck, my wife and I did it. But the older I get the more differently I see things. All I'm saying is that these morality concepts, whether they come from the bible or where ever, protect us as a society. When one crumbles and the opposite of it is allowed to flourish, there may be unintended results.

True. One of the talking heads on TV was theorizing that Reid made his comments from the Senate floor, where he is protected from libel, to force Romney to take his focus off the real issues, leaving Obama to run his campaign appearing to not have a hand in the controversy. I'm not sure why Reid gets immunity from libel when commenting as a Senator on the floor, but I haven't heard him make comments outside of that protection.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/03/romney-steps-up-demand-that-reid-come-clean-about-attacks-suggests-white-house/ Seems like Harry Reid bought the story hook, line and sinker. He is making claims that Romney has not paid any taxes for a decade.

So, let me get this straight, Mexico keeps calling for us to tighten our gun control because guns are bad, but they now think it is OK to legalize their own drugs. OoooKayyy

The one in Knoxville is on Peter's Drive. We always call it Dick's on Peter's.Makes me laugh every time. Ours went out of the guns and ammo business a couple of years ago.I guess selling name brand clothes to the Yuppies was more lucrative than firearms.

Word on the street is they may only get charged with misdemeanor trespassing and vandalism. Which means another slap on the wrist and they can be back at it again in no time.