Doc

Relative to official letters to corporations, legislators and such, your language expressions should mirror whatever importance you attach to the issue. Like it or not people do judge you by your language, and if you are serious about getting the kinds of responses you want, particularly issues of request or opinion, it's probably a good idea to use what you were taught.

Bad case of cabin fever setting in. I probably should have become one of those "snow birds" that migrate south every winter ....... lol. Always get a bit restless about this time of year. Not too much of a snow guy.

Lol .... I thought you were just going for a little comedic relief. I never thought you were really trying to make some kind of serious point. I mean if it wasn't meant to be funny, then it is all quite silly and irrelevant. But then most of this thread falls under that category, doesn't it? See, the problem with you guys is that you actually think you are going to change someone's opinion ..... lol. After all the volumes on this subject that have been written on this forum over the past couple of years, you don't really believe that anyone is seriously going to change their opinion do you? And if you don't believe you will change anyone's mind, then why are you wasting your time. It's all become like summer re-runs now anyway. There hasn't been a new point brought up on this subject in two years. Repeating the same nonsense over and over doesn't make any of it any more factual does it? By the way, what is this nonsense about you letting people shoot at you with a crossbow? Are you nuts?

Ok, I have a jillion slides from years ago that I want to put into digital media. I have a converter, but it does a very unsatisfactory job in terms of color matching, exposure and sharpness. I have also tried some of the printer/scanners with slide copying capability with the same unhappy results. I have been considering breaking out the old slide projector and using my digital camera for taking pictures of the screen image. Has anyone tried doing this? Any success? Any other suggestions?

I also am rebelling against high-tech hunting. I've already gone too far in that direction with the super bow that I bought almost 20 years ago ..... lol. But seriously, I want my success or failure to rely more on what I can do than what I can buy. I would just as soon get these electro-tech wizards out of my hunting.

As far as future hunting implements, tracking devices, scouting gizmos and bait-like items, new deer farming methods to create super-deer, and whatever other new technology that will be available to use against our prey, I doubt we can even imagine what 50 years of "progress" will come up with. But you can bet that over 5 decades, they will come up with things that make you shake your head ..... lol.

I would assume that most are in it as strictly a hobby activity. But I have seen some use metal detecting for finding gold. They were not getting rich by any means, but they were picking up some spending cash by playing with metal detecting as a hobby. Watching that program "Diggers" on TV, you have to sift through all the goofy BS, but I did find it amazing at how low a value is placed on most of what they find. Some of those old coins that you would think should really be worth a lot of money turn out to be only a couple dollars. A lot of the other stuff that they find are just plain "junk". However, when they are things that you have found yourself, they take on a different, non-monetary value. Depending on where you find stuff, it can take on a mini-historical value as you try to imagine the circumstances of who, how, when, it wound up where it did, and in some cases even trying to figure out exactly what a find really is can provide a little entertainment value.

Some time in the early 1900's, two of the finger lakes had all of the houses and cottages ripped down, leaving nothing but foundations. I went over there and scanned a few of the foundations and came up with nothing. Of course who knows how many had already been over those same foundations hundreds of times all ready. There was also an old foundation on a deserted road up back that yielded nothing. The reason? ..... All around the area was buried sheet metal roofing just about 2 inches under the dirt. Lot's of signals (everywhere!) but no way to isolate anything. I have another spot that I have to check out. Its the remnants of an old sugar-shack half way up our hill. I want to get out a lot more this coming summer.

Things are really getting out of control. The worst part is that these jerks really do believe that they are accomplishing something useful when they come down hard in these kinds of innocent situations. Is there really any wonder how these kinds of people go from gan-shaped pastries to the irrational thinking that the appearance of a particular weapon (so-called "assault rifle") should be grounds for banning? People are going goofy when it comes to firearms. And this episode is just the latest nuttiness that fits right into the rest of it.

Special seasons weapons and regulations: It is possible that 50 years from now there will be no bow season. It will become something that they might call a "primitive weapons season" where bows, crossbows, and muzzle loaders, and perhaps even black powder pistols and maybe even atlatyls (sp?) and possibly even weapons that we haven't even considered will all become combined. These weapons will be allowed in an early season, right through a much longer "rifle, pistol and shotgun season" and into what we now consider the "late season". Bag limits for all seasons will be increased significantly as the hunter numbers shrink to the point where they cannot adequately control deer populations. There will be increased experiments with alternate wildlife population control. They probably will be unsuccessful, but with the ever-increasing pace of technology .... who knows? Pistols may have to be excluded from hunting seasons depending on how successful the anti-handgun groups and politicians are.

How many of you people own and use a metal detector? Have you ever found anything of any value (other than lost aluminum arrows ..... lol)? What are your most targeted places ... foundations, old abandoned houses and farm buildings, playgrounds, beaches, parks, etc.?

Now again remember that this is an exercise in imagination and may or may not be based on any actual fact. But anyway, let me try my hand at some of this. I'll have a go at future hunting opportunities: State land will be the only land available for free open public hunting except for the commercial fenced hunting preserves. The state lands will have heavy regulation and perhaps even a drawing system in order to maintain a huntable supply of game because of the increased volume of hunters. The fees on leases and commercial hunting preserves will remain exhorbitant and even rise as a percentage of income. Private land that is not being used as hunting preserves or heavy-priced leases will be owned by hunters who keep the land for their own use or will be broken into small parcels or non-hunters who keep their land heavily posted. Farmers will continue to go out of business and will be breaking up their holdings into developments so those lands will go out of hunting opportunities. And so, the bottom line is that access for hunting will continue to be restricted, scarce and expensive to obtain, moving well out of reach for those of moderate income. Much of this will be causing management problems, and some areas will be over-run by deer until the devastating forces of nature begin to be the only population control.

So, let your imagination run loose for a moment. What do you think hunting will be like 50 years from now? What changes do you envision as far as weapons, seasons, regulations, game availability, etc.?

That's the one that counts!

Many years ago (58 to be exact), I climbed the hill behind the house with a hammer and chisel and carved my initials and the date into a huge old granite boulder that some farmer from long ago had dragged over to the edge of the field. I'm thinking that some day somebody will run across that and see perhaps the only thing that is left from me ..... ha-ha. I picture them looking at this carving and trying to picture how that came to be there. It is kind of like an old beech tree about a 1/4 mile from my house that I call the initial tree. It is a huge twisted old thing that is about 4 to 5 feet in diameter and is covered with old initials. One of the initials is R.C.A. with a 1913 date. It is Ruby Allen from a family that owned our old homestead years ago. She carved her name all over the place in our old barn and apparently this tree got in her way too ..... lol. The lines of the letters had grown to about 1-1/2 inches wide, but the whole carving was still very readable. The entire surface of the tree was covered with the initials of a whole bunch of people (probably all neighbor kids) that left their sign of passing there for people of the future to read. Of course mine is there also from back when I was a kid. Today, the tree is dying and probably will be down soon.

That's amazing. The fantastic stone-work and the time and effort put into these structures is unbelievable. I do seem to remember an out-flow of water on one of them. Isn't it something how you can run onto so many things that are long-forgotten, but were so important to the individuals that put them there. It's a rare gift of historical minutia when you stop to contemplate the lives of the people that actually used the land, you can concoct some amazing mental images of these people who were born, lived out their lives, and passed without leaving a trace except for these random item scattered through the woods. One thing it always does for me is to put in perspective all those things that seem so damned important and earth shattering during our lives, and the fact that they too will all eventually fade into nothingness and of concern to absolutely no one.

The Iranians have had decades to buy, steal, and be given assistance as an oil-rich predominately war-trained entity. If we ever found ourselves in a situation of sudden government oppression, we will find ourselves without the war-focused infrastructure that Iran has. As far as our technically trained civilians, of course given enough time they could figure out these things by reverse engineering them. And then perhaps the opposition will allow enough time to train operators. And then maybe they would let you take the one unit that you captured on-site to a location where you could operate it for a minute or so before they blew the unit up along with any personel near it. Another thing to keep in mind is that we are getting real big in the area of unmanned warfare. That is where the focus is today and will become the wave of the future. Think about that for a bit when you are talking about a civilian uprising. Look, I can daydream right along with the best of you. But when the thinking gets out of the comic-book stage and enters a bit of reality, there is nothing wrong with understanding the realities of your situation. Less time fantasizing and more time thinking of real solutions is probably a lot more sensible. There may be preventative measures that we should be focusing on right now rather than trying to find comfort in fantasy. It is a lot of fun trying to write the next movie depicting how our fantasy war with the government will go. But we have real problems facing us that will need real solutions. coming up with these feel-good solutions is great for entertainment, but right now we should be focusing on political solutions to avoid the apocalyptic scenarios that we are entertaining ourselves with. I keep getting the feeling that there are way too many who are saying, "Look at us. We are invincible. Never mind all that political stuff, If anything ever happens, we'll just smear up our grease-paint, grab up our deer rifles and take care of it". I'm simply saying, don't get all caught up in that nonsense. There are some real political actions that are required, not this useless fantasizing.

Look, don't get mad at me for adding a little common sense into the conversation. If you and others choose to view yourselves as some kind of Rambo-types, don't let me interrupt your fantasies, but I will tell you that only a tiny number of people are savvy enough to operate most of the military weapons of the day. And I am honest enough to admit that if you walked me up to one of those drones, or the patriot missle system, I would definitely not be able to operate even if I had an operating manual in front of me. I can't picture too many of us that could jump in a tank and even get the thing to move. That's not condescending .... that's just plain old horse-sense.

It is a fact that short supply and high demand will be reflected in the prices when all this craziness shakes out. Both the manufacturers and the retailers understand that. Neither the retailers or the manufacturers can do anything about the demand, but they sure do have control on the supply side of the equation, should they choose to use it.

Lol .... It's real hard to imagine that goofy-looking piece of wood being mistaken for or intended as any form of a rifle type stock. My comment about the illegality of "mean and dangerous" looking firearms was a facetious remark relating to the current criteria for determining what guns should to be outlawed.

So what's your best guess as to what these things are. I can't even imagine what the purpose could be.

Funny stuff .... lol. But you didn't finish it: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take the bipod off the bow ..... Well, that rifle and that crossbow have one, but I can't find it on the bow. Take the stock off the bow ..... That's funny, I don't see that either. What no trigger or safety on this "bow"? ..... Oh, that's right there's nothing to mount it on. Ok let's benchrest this bow on that fallen log over there. .... What? You can't do that. That's too bad, I can do that all day long with my crossbow and rifle. Love this nice 4x scope. I wonder how I can stick that on that bow over there .... sure would be nice to have a stock to mount that on. I don't understand why they have come up with all these neat accessories for crossbows and nobody has figured out how to attach them to a bow. Geez, they've had these things for rifles for years. What? Draw that bow while there is actually a deer there? .... Hah, don't have to with my crossbow. Pretty much like my rifle. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well anyway, I hope you didn't mind me adding a few thoughts on the end of your list. It just didn't seem quite complete. Now back to the guys arguing about their dictionaries.

Ha-ha .... Would anyone know which end of the system to sabotage, or even have a clue as to what to do with a captured one ..... lol. Yes, this stuff makes great fictional movies. Heck, all we need is a couple of Rambos to take on the government. Throw in Bruce Willis and Jean Claude and how could we lose ..... lol.

I think I wouldn't be at all surprised if Cuomo doesn't have a battery of lawyers busily writing up an alternate law just in case their current law does get shot down. It probably will be introduced the same day that the court renders it's decision. The only thing is that I would guess that the next vote may go a lot different than this midnight raid on the Constitution did.

And I repeat, the next conflict will not be muskets against muskets. Kind of different when you are aiming your 30-06 at a battery of Patriot missles, or an unmanned, armed, drone aircraft. Do you see a "slight" difference? I do.