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I personally learned all I needed to learn about Home Economics while being raised by my Mother...I've done fine since. What I really needed was a machine shop course! I took metal shop when I was in middle school, I really loved it even though I didn't get to make a whole lot of stuff...my stuff was better than everyone else's though...my perfectionism came through even as a pre-teen! LOL! I have considered taking some college machine shop courses since I am into guns and I have realized how much more I could do with the knowledge of using a lathe and/or mill, but as always, it's a question of leisure time. But one day, I hope to gain a little basic knowledge of machine shop essentials...just enough to be dangerous!

Ah yes, some people I know think I am an alumnus of the Lorena Bobbit Charm School...I don't know why I didn't consider that abrupt alternative for Advanced Member removal. I guess I wasn't violated by it, therefore I felt no compulsion to whack it off and chuck it into a field! No pun intended here, but, thanks for the tip!

Thanks for the advice, swamp thing...I will do just that (leave CA) in a matter of time, however, in the interim, I am trying to figure out whether this Advanced Member thing is removable, and is it a snap off, or twist off? Forgive me but my experience is limited!!

OK, Karl the King, c'mon over, I'll whip up some peanut butter and bacon sandwiches for ya, with a barbituate chaser and you can sing to me! Then you'll leave and I will get to say "Karl has left the building".... Can I have your scarf? Can I, huh?

Yeah, I just noticed mine...and from previous experience on a purely observational perspective, it IS advanced! How do I get rid of it? This is ruining my chances for a date...excepting a couple of total freaks! Maybe in my case it's just a phase...at least, that's what I am hoping, I can't imagine being stuck with this for the rest of my life!

Karlunity! OK, OK, I'm very sorry that I have inspired you to report me to ShooterTom. I guess I should be banished to a ghetto.

From the female perspective, I need to share this with you irregardless of the consequences, I love the references to all things tactical.

I'm sorry (that's an apology, and a sign of my weakness), but TYRVR's comment about our language no longer resembling the King's English, unless it's M. L. King was great! Thanks for the education around the word "ghetto", Karlunity, I have never had occasion to find out it's origin, so your brief lesson was most welcome.

ShooterTom -- Do you drink a lot of the Cabernet at a time? Or, I guess what I am asking is how long a case lasts you. Maybe if it lasts for a while you can find a TJ's closer to you and be able to replenish your supply of TBC before you run out. How close are you to Santa Fe, New Mexico? LOL! That's the TJ's I will be going to, and is the only one in New Mexico currently. I would think that TJ's would do very well in TX...I wonder why they aren't there...maybe they will be one day! Hope springs eternal! Back when my Dad still lived in OK (a dry state), he used to travel to NM to visit my sister and to buy alcohol instead of paying the state stores' outrageous prices. I mean the man bought cases and cases of beer and wine at a time! With TBC you would definitely get more bang for your two bucks in cases! Plus, you could pick up a cheesecake to give you a nice sugar high for the drive home! LOL! I haven't been to the Huntington Beach TJ's, but as I have been to about 10 different stores all over CA, I can totally imagine the Huntington Harbor crowd you mentioned...and your "wind tunnel" descriptor is spot on...that cracked me up!! As for Sonic's tater tots...I never gave it much thought, but is there anyplace else that has 'em? I usually have to be in the mood for tater tots, but I'll tell you, right now, at almost 1AM, they sure sound good!

fritz -- I, being from Oklahoma, have way too much knowledge of what tornadoes are like...I used to live in Moore, OK, which is like the ultimate tornado magnet. The tornadoes would pass through our apartment complex and mess up everything at least a couple of times every spring. In my experience, tornadoes "roar"...just before they come on, it is dead silent and still all around, then the funnel comes down and as the tornado approaches, it roars mightily! I guess the sound could easily be likened to the sound of a big rig engine, or a train. And yes, the sound is much worse when it is 'amplified' in a house. I guess the sound created could be related to the size of the tornado...and there are all sizes!

donmarkey -- If you go to Trader Joe's I hope that you find the experience as wonderful as I do! I can't say that it will appeal to all tastes, but generally speaking, there is almost always something to try in the store that will hook ya! Just be aware, no matter where I have gone to a Trader Joe's, there are always mega-yuppies stalking the aisles and they feel that they do own the whole damn place! fritz -- Sonic has always reminded me of a couple of drive-in restaurants that were in OKC when I was growing up...only with Sonic, the food is more consistent as is the service. And three words: Diet Cherry Limeades! I have heard that there are Sonic restaurants in Bakersfield, CA but I haven't gone up that way recently enough to find out. Even if there are, it still isn't enough to keep me here in CA!!

Trader Joe's is an excellent, happy place! There are very few things that I can get there that I don't enjoy, but when something is bad...it's REALLY bad! LOL! I like the "Two Buck Chuck" a lot! Come to think of it, if I drank enough of that first, maybe the bad Trader Joe's stuff wouldn't seem so bad after all! The amount of shopping that I do at Trader Joe's is definitely going to justify my 140 mile round trips to lay in supplies!

ShooterTom, that's a good question about what I will miss...though, I don't worry about it too much. In-and-Out Burger...I haven't ever been there, so I won't miss it...besides, where I am going there will be SONIC!! That's the best as far as I am concerned...I grew up with Sonic drive-ins...it's a good fit! Trader Joe's...I actually had a momentary panic over this, until I realized that there's a Trader Joe's about 70 miles from where I will be moving, and while that's a serious trip, I will just be certain to pick up all the stuff I could possibly need in one shot at a time! I will have to make do otherwise. However, I have considered the matter fairly exhaustively and have concluded, like others who have left CA, that the benefits...at least at this point in my life, far outweigh the "sacrifices" I will make. There are probably some things I haven't thought of yet, but if I can't think of them, maybe they're not all that important!

FC and Doble Troble, I agree wholeheartedly with your comments, and I have thought essentially the same things that Doble Troble mentions in his post. I figured that ezBoard basically "allowed" the catastrophic failure to occur, thus clearing the slate in various ways...getting rid of boards that were inactive, while having already collected the funds charged for them, then with the coup they created during the "hacking incident" they collected even MORE funds via the community chests, which they conveniently don't/won't refund. In the meantime board owners are leaving ezBoard, without having used up their remaining "credit", and there's some more moola for ezBoard! Wow, how'd that happen? LOL! And you're right about something else...in your world and mine, what ezBoard has managed to get away with is something that should be considered criminal. Unfortunately, ezBoard knows a couple of things about human nature, one thing is that the public has a short memory...those owners who stick with them are going to practically be praying (and paying!) to avoid another catastrophe, and those that leave to create new boards elsewhere won't really affect ezBoard's user base...since they're gone. Any newbie owners starting up are probably thinking that lightning won't strike twice.... All of these things could just work to ezBoard's advantage. Isn't that sad? I had at one time considered starting my own board, and I figured that I would do it with ezBoard. But not now...not a chance!

FC...I'm intrigued, what makes you think that there wasn't a hacker? I have been wondering about whether or not this was the case as well. As for Bill's allegiance to ezBoard...I can't comment on his motivation, though, I guess maybe he's just trying to get ezBoard to uphold their end of the bargain. Everyone has their limitations though...if he doesn't get satisfaction from them, I am guessing that he cares enough about the board to move it to another hosting service, or perhaps it's own server.

fritz -- I'm not sure, as I wasn't in the military, but I think the form is a DD 214, Report of Separation. The form you have described sounds like the very form you'll need to reclaim your money! I don't know if your SS benefit will increase any due to your service, as I think that the SSA only pays out special benefits for certain WWII veterans. Click on this link to the military section of the SSA site and see if you can find out what you need to know...I hope it helps! SSA - military

If I may comment on some of these things, as I am a moderator at Parallax Bill's site, I would be happy to offer a little rumor control. First, I can't swear to this, but I suspect that the need to be a registered user at Bill's site is to reduce the number of users who peruse the boards and basically cause the site to rack up charges. In my opinion, it's not the lurkers who bear the costs of ezMoney's services, it's the regular members who cough up the dough for the community chest and become ezSupporters. If that's what's happening at Bill's site I think it's long overdue, and maybe it'll prevent the costs for running the site from escalating. Second, yes, ezMoney lost Bill's site a whole lot of posts...supposedly by switching to another server, and the natives are restless. Many, many folks are very unhappy about the way that ezMoney is screwing this up. Entire months of posts gone or in some weird queue that no one understands...all the stickied topics posted by moderators/hosts in their assigned forums either gone or misplaced. No one at Bill's site is happy about this and we try really hard to encourage patience in this transitional process, but it remains to be seen whether people will stick around for what comes of it. If that were my board I would probably have run out of patience long ago and either switched to another hosting service, tried-and-true or not! Or I would be screaming non-stop at ezMoney's staff. So, it's probably a good thing that it's not my board...I don't have the calm, inner peace that most board owner types have. LOL! I do feel that a lot of valuable information was lost across many ezMoney boards due to the hacker incident, and now due to this server-switch. EzMoney has said that they've done all they can to restore boards from the hacking, and as we all know, it was hardly satisfactory...I am hoping that once the server-switch is done things will get back to normal, but that too remains to be seen. I still think that FC did the right thing by dumping ezMoney...I would encourage more people to do the same...that'd hit ezMoney where they live!

Copy that! That is the very bit of advice that you offered just after your move to TX that I consider every single time I pack up a box for donation, or even for relocation to someplace else in the house...I have no idea what your voice sounds like in real life, ShooterTom, but that's the voice I must be hearing, cracking the verbal whip! LOL! A year or two ago I was practically kicking myself thinking that I was going to need to hire a bigger truck to move my possessions when the time came for me to move, but now, I am thinking that by the time I get stuff packed up, sorted out, donated, sold, etc., I may be no worse off than when I moved down here in the first place...if I do it right, there may even be far fewer items to take with me! Thanks for that advice so far, ShooterTom, it's so simple to understand, but I think that most people hit a snag in implementation, don't you?

Ah, obsessive...a far more eloquent (and probably descriptive...) word than masochist! It's hell getting old...not being able to remember the proper words for things! LOL! Yes, like I said, I knew nothing at all of the stuff mentioned around machining in that link, but it seemed that at least a couple of the people there were able to successfully counterbore their rifles, and didn't one of them mention having done so to a FAL? Man, I would be far more likely to experiment with counterboring a crappy-shooting Mosin-Nagant than a FAL, but maybe that guy was more confident in his abilities than I am! I think it's great that you are willing, even wanting to do the extent of work that you want to attempt on your 91/30, Doble Troble. I'm pretty obsessive/masochistic (lol!) about some things, but nothing at all like that! I really do hope that you'll post your results, because no matter the outcome, your experience will likely benefit someone else here who may confront some similar situation.

swamprat -- Nope, the I. Q.s won't go down around here when I leave, remember, we still have Karlunity, Sailormilan and I am sure that I have forgotten others (please forgive me!)...so the continued intelligence of California is assured, such as it is! No disrespect to members here who are in CA! I like that saying of Will Rogers...another fine Oklahoman! However, the saying that I will adopt as applicable to my move is this one: "Heaven doesn't want me and Hell's afraid I'll take over."! I'll leave it to you good people to decide which locale is heaven or hell! LOL!

What happens, Doble Troble? Expect to hear this: "My, that's a lovely wallhanger you have there....". Just kidding. If I understand this stuff right, counterboring may just solve the problem handily for you. I have heard of many, many people who have counterbored Mosin-Nagants and they are able to shoot them accurately, though perhaps not AS accurately as a Mosin with a pristine barrel, but then that wouldn't be unusual. However, I don't know that any of the folks I've heard of have counterbored their own Mosins, I think that's how they arrived or were purchased. I would think that somewhere there's got to be someone who's done it themselves. Ah, here's link to something that might be of interest to you...I can't make sense of it, but maybe you can? Home counterboring I don't think I have it in me to remove a barrel from a Mosin-Nagant...but if you think it'll be fun, I say have at it! Are you a masochist? Good luck!

FC, thanks for the complement on my 'way with words'...ya gotta love a dictionary! LOL! As has been amply pointed out by a couple of native Californians, I am not a Californian, I am an Oklahoman who has lived in California most of my life. But if being a Californian means developing such a pompous attitude and while at the same time feigning contentment with a boot across my neck, then, OK, I'm PROUD not to be a Californian! I figure that when I leave CA I will have sold my home to some fool who's going to pay me a boatload of money for it, and then move somewhere where I can use that cash to purchase a house outright and if it works out properly, I will pleasantly gloat over the idea that I will never be able to afford to live in California again! At some point soon, if ShooterTom ever forgives me for hassling him nonstop, I hope to be able to pick his brain about the logistics of relocation from CA. Frankly, I'm looking forward to leaving...as the time gets nearer, I find my tolerance of the people here lessens daily!

Well, don't make a habit of getting the warm, fuzzies with me...I hate to have to think about that when I am trying to go for the jugular! Yeah, feeding the snakes was cool...I would put the rat in a bag and then stun it by bashing it on the counter, and drop it into the boa's enclosure as the boas liked to eat living food, but my friends didn't want their snakes bitten by the rats. As I lived near the pet store where my friends usually got their rats, on occasion I would stop by and pick up the rats for them. Once the store was out of rats and I substituted a teddy bear hamster, that didn't go over real well with one of my friends...personally, I didn't really see that much of a difference, and as fast as that boa ate it, clearly the snake didn't either! I think that if women are going to go all queasy around the feeding of snakes, they shouldn't have them. I certainly don't mean your wife, with whom you have reached a compromise, I actually mean my friends! LOL!

We here in CA have a very liberal, anti-gun Attorney General who with the CA-DOJ enforces all the restrictive laws that are piled upon the books by this vast, roiling sea of stupid sheeple. Anyone with sense spends a lot of time fighting these laws, including the proposed AB 352 and SB 357, but the support they garner by politicians pretending to act in the public's best interest seems to swallow us up in a tide of idiocy and we can barely catch our collective breath before the next wave crashes. Yes, the Constitution is being violated, under the guise of state law superceding federal law. No one REALLY wants to step up and challenge anything around this, no one feels like committing that kind of political suicide after all the years of clawing their way up to the top of the dungheap. I am not silent with regard to these people or these laws, but there are many, many times when I feel like this: And it is in those moments when I understand completely why so many folks that used to live here have long since voted with their feet and have gone on to other places. I too will leave CA in less than a year, and without having really changed anything, but it wasn't from lack of trying....

Gothmog -- Somewhere else here on this very site I detailed my own personal method for cleaning and refurbishing stocks that are fairly bad...like this Enfield's was. Interestingly enough, I didn't even mention that I used the same method on this Enfield, and it was one of the very worst stocks that I ever had to clean, the Cosmoline saturation was very heavy. I didn't work to raise the dents or anything, there weren't a lot of dents or gouges anyway, and there was a number painted on one side of the buttstock that I chose to preserve, so I didn't have to do a lot of sanding either...I just cleaned the poo out of it and used a clean bone to burnish the stock, then filled the grain with very thin applications of tung oil cut with mineral spirits...in the case of this rifle, I think I applied 6 coats or so. After that, I waxed it, and this is what I ended up with! I am happy. I once joked that when I opened the box containing this Enfield I thought I was looking at a rifle hospice! The original finish was black paint, and it was so badly applied that there were even fingerprints in the paint on the magazine! It was really bad and I thought I was in totally over my head (which wasn't hard as I had zero experience with many firearms at that point). I just did the restoration very slowly and methodically and figured that if I made a mistake it would be a learning experience and if I couldn't recover the rifle from my mistakes, I would make it a sporter! You know, "necessity is the mother of invention". But I'm glad that it came out the way that it did, and that I didn't make a lot of mistakes, the blue is cold blue, and I did a few 'trial and error' approaches to that to get a finish that I could live with, and thus far, it's been more durable than I expected. Horsefly -- Enfields are excellent guns, the action is very smooth, fluid-like even. It's my understanding that of most Enfields, the Longbranch version is one of the most desirable, but I didn't care when I got my first Enfield...I just had to have one! I have heard that the .303 cartridge was developed as an anti-aircraft round, so it's powerful, but in anything but a No. 5 Jungle carbine, the recoil is manageable...I think. These guns can be kind of heavy, particularly the No. 1, Mk IIIs due to the full-length stocks, but the No. 4, Mk I is almost the same. My .410 bore shotgun is a sporterized No. 1 Mk III, and it's pretty light after all the excess hardware and wood was removed, so as a sporter project, you could produce good results with an Enfield I imagine. Historically speaking, there have been some complaints over the ergonomics of the Enfield buttstock, some soldiers didn't like them...personally, I do, but it's all a matter of taste and what you can live with. Oh, and they are very, very accurate too! My No. 4 Mk I has the flip sight, which is sort of porthole-ish, and I would like to change it to the micrometer sight at some point, but even so, after I fire a few flyers I can generally get down to some decent shooting pretty quickly, and if I can do it with my marginal markswomanship, anyone can!! Get at least one if you can...you won't be sorry!