NightSG

Suggested New Year's Resolution; move to a non-alimony state before you start looking for a new woman.

I just keep waiting for someone to find that lost text where Jesus walks up to some random Roman, drops a cross at his feet and says, "want to try that again, bro?"

The Resurrection then, was the ultimate act of civil disobedience.

It's generally the best method for any Apple product.

I make it a point not to trust people who are in the process of stealing from me. Especially if what I'm trusting them not to do is hurt or kill me.

For the most part, the guy who walks up and sticks a gun in your face is an amoral coward. He wants to take your stuff by force, and wants to stack the deck in his favor. He's also generally not terribly bright, or he'd have found a much lower risk way to make a lot more money. He's going to want you to reach into your clothes or purse, (unless you carry your wallet taped to your forehead) so you'll have a chance to draw. Once your gun is clear of the holster, you should be firing faster than he can respond. He's not expecting effective resistance, or he would have picked a softer target. Therefore, you're putting him completely outside his OODA loop, and you need to use the delay while he reorients to the change in the situation. It's the same reason we practice disarms in martial arts; if the guy was expecting that sort of resistance, there's no way he'd be holding a gun on you from within hand-to-hand range. If he really expected you to be armed and resist effectively, he'd look for an easier victim.

Always seemed to me like the 25-30 year old YSAs have a lot more in common with the mid singles than the younger YSAs anyway. Especially the ones who have kids already, and so have difficulty with YSA branches/wards' lacking provisions for kids.

Can you name another easily portable means of defending effectively against a criminal, who by definition doesn't follow laws, armed with a gun?

Losing the ability to "provide the necessities of...protection" for my children isn't important?

Hold the link where you want to post it, place the point of a nail against it, and use the iPod to bash the nail firmly in.

Direct enforcement, probably not, but it's one more line item to show she's ignoring the court's existing orders when you go back because she keeps screwing up on other things. Of course, it all depends on the state and the judge; in my case, it's almost certain that any future hearings will be before the same judge, and he's known for an attitude of "if you had a problem with it, you should have spoken up then, not just started violating it after you agreed to it." He's also Southern Baptist, so not a fan of drunks or cohabitation.

Which is why I would generally say to get all the little clauses in there from the "easy to get" category as possible; the one about not letting your date stay the night while you have the kids is generally a shoo-in, because if she objects to that in court, it presents her to the judge in a bad light. Another that's fairly easy is no alcohol within x hours (usually 24, but again, this one is rarely enforced to the letter; what you want is a prior agreement you can use against her if she shows up tipsy to pick them up, or you find her drunk while she has them...especially if she gets picked up for DUI or public intoxication during her parenting time) before having custody of the kids or while they're in her custody. Look around online and you should be able to find plenty of full texts of both state standard custody agreements, and clauses that have been approved in other divorces. Pick and choose what you want; preferably clauses you don't mind being bound by as well, as requesting the restriction on both of you shows you're interested in the kids' well being rather than looking for ways to be petty to her. For me, the no alcohol and no unrelated females in the house overnight were no brainers; I don't drink anymore (and the WoW is only one of several reasons) and the former Sunday school secretary lives close enough to see my driveway, so I'd probably be getting a wake up call from the bishop if someone was there overnight.

Have you talked to your bishop? If not in your ward, there's probably a lawyer in your stake who would advise cheaply, and maybe write a letter or two for just enough to cover his expenses. Sometimes just a "move it along before we get angry" on law office letterhead gets things going.

I would also strongly recommend making sure there's some language in the custody agreement that prohibits her from having the kids in a house with any non-family male outside of 7AM-10PM. You would probably have to have the same restriction regarding non-family females, but it's mainly to keep her from taking them and shacking up with the boyfriend, or having him stay over while she has the kids, and may result in you getting a lot more time with them if she decides she'd rather party or have him sleep over. (Mine technically says 8AM-9PM, but in talking to the judge, he's stated he would never enforce it if I had a date stay until 10 to finish watching a movie, or come in for breakfast when giving me a ride to work at 7:30AM; only if she actually stayed the night in the house. Both of the above situations arose with a woman I dated shortly after the divorce, so it's worth asking and/or adjusting the times. I'd say having the restricted time be midnight-6AM is perfectly reasonable, covers any overnight guest, and is very difficult to write off as "just lost track of time." You can name specific people it won't apply to if there's a distant cousin she treats as close family, for example.) If it results in you having them significantly more than half the time, document that to death, and you might be able to go back to court to have the custody adjusted to match the reality, (meaning she can't change her mind and go back to 50/50) and possibly get some child support since you'd then be bearing the majority of the costs.

I should mention that I live in a college town of 18,000 (plus 9,000 students) surrounded by farmland, and most of my travel is through an hour or more of rural area before getting to any major cities. My "bug out" spot is my mom's house, ten minutes from town. Thus, wilderness survival is a primary concern; whether it's because the car broke down in the middle of nowhere and I just need to sit it out without the heater until someone can pick me up in a few hours, or something goes wrong and I need to get out of town for a few days, (last ice storm a couple years ago became a mess, with lots of college kids running 4WD trucks into yards and houses while playing on the ice) being prepared to "live off the land" relatively comfortably for a day or two regardless of weather (granted, it wouldn't have been fun in the ice storm, but I do keep a dry firewood pile in a sheltered area at the back of mom's property in case her power goes out - no fireplace, so a well constructed debris hut might be warmer than her house if the power goes out) is comforting.

Mine is a cheap WalMart daypack that stays in the back seat of the car. Additionally, in the trunk there's a canteen, a couple of bow saws, (doubling up tools where practical comes in handy if you end up hiving others along, as well as providing a spare if you don't) kukri, hatchet and e-tool. Any or all of the trunk gear can be quickly attached to the pack or carried separately as needed. Beyond the first day, water plan is strain and boil.

I was thinking more along the lines of "fine carbon particles, somewhat radioactive, but so widely dispersed as to be of little concern."

Try wine, condoms, duct tape and a softball bat at the same time. No matter what else you have in the cart, that combination looks bad. Shopping for three different people who live 30 miles from Walmart since one of them was taking me to dinner that night. Next time I'll remember to look at the list as a whole, because I'm sure that looked like a fun date with a backup plan.

But do keep a close watch on them; it's a common tactic to grab half the balance, then try for the other half on the settlement. If caught, it's generally "oops, I forgot I already did that." If not caught, she walks with 3/4 of the money instead of half.

Forget the good attorney. You want one that Lucifer goes to for advice on how to be more evil. If Bibles don't burst into flame in his presence, you need a meaner lawyer.

Hard to say, since I'd say about 80% of the times I get asked "Why don't you ___?" the answer is, "That's not us; you're thinking of the JWs." Really makes me think we should ditch the white shirts on missionaries and have them wear, say, bright red dress shirts so people will have something more obvious and memorable to distinguish them from JW missionaries. Well, it would be better than silly hats.

Apparently that's what it would take to get a few two steps to be played at the singles dances. Forget Independence; let's build a temple in Branson and get this thing started.

The Church will be reconsidering its position on sin.

“A man with no enemies is a man with no character.” - Paul Newman"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill

Not intentionally. Speaking of rings, I guess that's what I'm going to be doing with my next bonus. No, not the fun kind. The oil control ring in the number 4 cylinder seems to be shot. At 306k miles, I'm probably due for the valve cover, intake and head gaskets to be changed out anyway, so I'll be most of the way to the rings already. Definitely need to swap the motor mounts while I have the motor somewhat lightened anyway.