peejman

I've also eaten a few weird things, but the only one that hasn't been already mentioned is horse. I ate a bacon-wrapped filet of horse while on a business trip in Italy. It was excellent. The texture was a little more grainy than beef with a little different flavor. But honestly, if I didn't know it was horse, I would've thought it was beef. But the weirdest thing by far... McRib. Or maybe cafeteria food in high school.

I'll agree with the above in that organization is key. Knowing what you have and how to use it is probably more important that having every possible doodad. Remember this little oops? An excellent example IMO.

It sure seems quite close to the SR9c... 1" shorter overall, 0.5" shorter barrel, a slightly narrower grip, -3 capacity. I guess I'm curious to see if that small reduction in size really turns it into a "pocket pistol". Otherwise, hard to see that there's market for both this and the SR9c.

According to this, yes. http://www.handgunlaw.us/states/mississippi.pdf

Some of the comments are hilarious!

Same as my post in the other thread.... Cornered Cat - Rack the Slide

+1 ... Cornered Cat - Rack the Slide

In my experience, management couldn't care less about my bottom line, so long as theirs is where they want it. A couple of my projects saved that company $200,000 to $500,000 annually. The raises I got didn't even cover my healthcare premium increases, but they sure got their bonuses (25%-50% of my salary). Forgive my cynicism.

Exactly... When you're making 2% margin on 2,000,000 widgets per year, a small increase in volume or margin means you make big profits. As we learned (repeatedly) at my former employer, a small decrease in volume or margin also means you lose lots of money. It's fine line to walk.

The highlighted statement above is the root of the problem IMO... bean counters running the show who don't understand the why's behind it all. All they know is balance sheets and income statements. In my experience, it was the bean counters who demanded perfection and failed to recognize the cost. We (engineering) had to make the argument to prove to them that in some cases, it's cheaper to make a few scrap parts than it is to fix the reason you're scrapping them. The mathematician/physicist/bean counter asks.... "How good is it?" The engineer asks... "Is it good enough?" We all work toward perfection, but when perfection isn't value-added... why bother?

I'm not necessarily a detractor... Six Sigma is an excellent statistical problem solving tool. But it's really just a buzz word that corporate business people have latched onto.. it's the latest in a long history of acronyms that all accomplish the same thing. An engineer should already know how to do that. They might not know all the buzz words, but the basic problem solving process is there. If companies took the money they spent training the bean counters and hired more competent engineers into their quality organizations, they'd be better off in the long run. In my experience, the smaller the company, the bigger the margin. I used to work in the auto industry where we threw a party if we made 2% gross margin. I then worked for a smaller industrial products company followed by a yet smaller aerospace company where anything less than 20% gets laughed at. I'll agree that the Six Sigma stuff makes you more marketable and can command a higher salary. The trick is finding somewhere in this job market that'll pay it.

Austin's is good. My wife sounds similar to your friend. Just to gauge her interest, I sent her to the "Women on Target" (NRA Sponsored) course at Gunny's and she really liked it. A little googling tells me it's not offered anymore. CCA also offers several courses. Coal Creek Armory Handgun Courses Frontier Firearms lists a "Women's Handgun Fundamentals" Course... http://www.frontierfirearms.net/gpage5.html

The value of the Six Sigma stuff is highly dependent on the environment you work in. High volume manufacturing operations think it's the solution to all the world's problems. (I think that's mostly because once the CEO's realized how much they paid some consultant to train all their engineers to do stuff they should already know how to do, they had to make it gospel so they didn't look like total morons... but that's another topic. ) Smaller volume operations could care less about it. I'd put near zero value on it in academia, unless needed for consulting.

What's your purpose for having the safe? Is it to help prevent theft if someone breaks in, or is it just to keep the firearms out of sight from house guests or kids? If you want to prevent theft, you need one of those monster 500lb safes. It needs to be so big and heavy as to be more trouble than it's worth. A light-weight safe will either be broken into or torn from the studs/floor and opened later. If you just want to keep your goodies out of sight, the light-weight kind is fine. I have the simple Stack-on key-locked safe for rifles (with trigger locks on all rifles) and a small electronic locked pistol safe for those that stay loaded. I have no illusions that either will deter theft. My only goal is to keep them out of my boys hands when I'm not around.

You'd have to get an extra loud siren. In our old house, my wife set off the alarm while I was in the shower and I didn't hear it. It was loud, but not unbearably so. It wasn't audible beyond 10 ft outside the house. OTOH... the siren in my parents house is absolutely deafening and audible a good 150ft from the house... though their nearest neighbors are 1000 yds away. That must be new. The system I had was installed about 6 years ago.

I've used several hundred rounds of FMJ ammo from WWB, Blazer Brass, American Eagle, Lawman, and Remington UMC with no issues. Unless you're buying bulk from somewhere online, WWB at walmart is as cheap as anything. And I continue to lust over an XD45 Compact. I'm curious to see when the XDm45 Compact comes out.

Heh, mine said... "Unless you have Girl Scout Cookies, I don't want what you're selling." ADT's alarm systems may be "state of the art" (I had one in my previous house), they're still rendered useless in less than 1 second. Disconnect the phone line and it's just a noise maker. No one pays attention to noise makers until they've gone off for at least an hour these days. I pointed that out to the sales rep. He said... "um, I guess you're right. I never thought of that."

If you intend on staying in academia, the the PhD is definitely the way to go. Not a requirement per se, but it will give you more opportunities. Just be prepared to move. I did my share of 18hr semesters. But honestly, the worst one I ever had was 12hrs in a summer semester, all engineering classes. That sucked.

I dug into building one about a year ago, but decided to build an FAL instead. At that time, the only reliable package was the Colt, which was more than I wanted to spend. Some rifles built by people worked well with little issues, some had major teething pains and required skilled hands to get them to run. Feeding, bolts, and mags seemed to be big problem areas. I'd still like to have one.

Congrats and excellent choice on the MBA. It'll help open lots of career doors for you. Be a little wary of the PhD... it tends to pigeon-hole you somewhat. Jobs become very few and far between, unless you intend to teach (and great if you do). I have a BSME and MSME and would like to pursue an MBA but haven't found the opportunity. When I was in school I was asked about continuing on to a PhD. My response was... "A PhD? I don't need one, already know how to use a Post hole Digger."

Technically, an AR-15 is the .223 (5.56) rifle while the AR-10 is the .308 (7.62x51) rifle. AR-10 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia AR-15 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ah and agreed...

I'll agree with this analogy assuming that everyone who carries a gun practices with it for about 2 hours per day (which is the average time a person spends driving).

Nice new toy. Just curious why you chose this model instead of the compact if concealed carry was the intent?

My wife and I celebrated Christmas at 12:00:01 with a very, very fussy 2 week old in my arms. He finally settled down about 1am only to wake up hungry at 2am, 4am, 6am, and 8am. Around then, his big brother woke up and we commenced with the present opening. About noon we headed to my in-laws to celebrate with her side of the family. Back home around 6pm with a very, very tired almost 3 yr old who didn't get his customary nap because he was far too busy playing with new toys and entertaining the family. We ate a simple dinner and got big brother in bed. Little brother must have been a little tired too as he went to sleep at about 10:30pm. (But was back up hungry at 12:30am, 3am, 5am... but technically that's the day after Christmas). A good, if very tiring day. But they're all tiring these days. The white Christmas was a nice bonus. Snow is like crack for our dog.