Rob Boudrie

"gunshop" works better than "mall"

It's not always easy to get them to talk. I had the privilege of knowing a WWII vet and war hero for about 15 years and served with him on a local gun club board for several of those years. I knew he was a WWII veteran, but didn't know about the extent of his exploits while he was still alive. I regret that I had to wait for the book to come out after he died to realize that this rather modest individual was the "real thing". (http://www.amazon.com/My-Fathers-Secret-Wa...7536194-3636138

I've noticed there is a very strong correlation between a company's sponsorship policy and its attitude towards customer support. Although there are exceptions in both directions, companies that tend to be generous with sponsorships show a similar attitude when a customer has a product problem.

Toshiba service is interesting. I bought a copy of the book "The World is Flat" by Tom Friedman when I faced a rather long flight - (most interesting since much of the book was about my destination - something I didn't notice when buying the book), and got to the chapter on Toshiba laptop repair. Laptops are sent to Toshiba by UPS, so they figured out a way to cut out the middleman. The laptop you send in for repair never gets to UPS - it arrives at the UPS depot, and is taken to a nearby UPS computer repair facility that fixes it under contract to Toshiba and sends it back to you. No, I don't think any gun companies are doing this. Yet .

There is some bad news about Kentucky. Handgun Control or the Brady group recently rated their gun control laws "F" rather than the previous "F-". There is some hope that Kentucky will get its minus back.

This es exactly what US elections need - a candidate labeled "none of the above". If "none of the above" wins, it's time for a new election where "none of the above" will be on the second round ballot. Could make things interesting.

RIO staff has been in touch with me regarding results. They scored the match using EzWinScore V2.2x rather than the just released Version 3.0 (that has added proper support for IPSC matches). They used USPSA divisions as a temporary "hack". I have provided some assistance in converting the database to Version 3.0 format with the proper divisions, and sent it back to the match staff about an hour ago for follow-up, so I expect "proper, IPSC rules compliant" results will be posted. I have been told that those registered in "Limited 10" were actually "IPSC Modified". I assume, but have not been told, that those registered in "Limited" were actually "IPSC Standard". It is also worth noting that, as an IPSC match rather than a USPSA match, USPSA classifications are not used so everyone, or nearly everyone, at the Rio match should appear as "U" in the official results. I am not match staff, so I can't speak for the match - I'm just providing some assistance with post match data massage.

Spilling water on a laptop keyboard is similar to hitting a solid object with the bumper of your car. Would the state be all over you for refusing to replace a fender free of charge if one of your customers whacked it in a parking lot?

Not a rebuttal, but a pointer to information you may wish to research. The COMPUSA terms are posted at and the relative part would appear to be: If these are indeed the terms to which you agreed, it may be an uphill battle proving that spilling water on the keyboard (if that is what really happened( is not misuse, abuse, neglect or accidental damage. My guess is that a commissioned salesperson lied about what was covered to close the deal.

The copper base of JHP will prevent the lead buildup in compensators.

You can see squadding (first names + lst initial only) on www.uspsa.org/squadding If you know someone's member number you can confirm it's "that Jim" by clicking the member name and looking at the number.

The section of law to which you refer in NY penal code 265.20(13). The exemption covers +/- 48 hours surrounding a match approved by or under the auspices of the NRA or IMHSA. The NRA will grant "special match status" to USPSA events in NY at no charge, and even grant recognition on one form for a club's entire season. If you're running a match in NY, it's worth doing this in case anyone is victimized. It cannot offer any assurance against abuse, but I'd bet someone would be in a much stronger position if the affidavit taken at attest time contained the statement "possessed pursuant to NY penal code 265.20(13)." In fact, I wrap the gun up in this section of the law, a copy of the NRA recognition paperwork, and that chapter of NY law when traveling through NY state.

One important thing to ask about established business is what premium over the value of the buildings, land and inventory you are paying for the name and reputation. (Plus, you get stuck with all the old inventory that hasn't sold for years)

I was doing some work on the USPSA classifier system and accidently left the "TESTMODE" flag set when I uploaded the files. If you uploaded classifiers from late April 8 until mid early afternoon on April 9, you may have submitted payment in TEST MODE (which means the charge was not processed - you may have noticed TEST MODE in red on the top of the payment page). If you are a stats director, you can see if this happened to you by visiting www.uspsa.org/club_services/cl_stat.html and using the provided link to pay for the classifier if a charge was not processed (of course, you still have the "mail a check" option if you prefer). If the classifier shows up as UNPAID, it means you either did not submit credit card payment or did so while we had the system in "test mode". No classifier scores were lost, however, the system won't send out the usual automatic emails for classifiers submitted in this window. This "test mode" issue impacts only classier payments, and not any other aspect of the on-line commerce system on uspsa.org.

If you hate it so much, why not start your own forum? Cost is minimal - if you're willing to live without a dedicated domain name you can get a site with Invision powerboard for $10/month from Invision Power Services http://hosting.ipslink.com/community.html (this is the approach IPSC uses) If it takes off, you could set up your own site with the Invision software and you own dedicated domain name (the approach used by the Enos and the USPSA forums) Of course, you'd be stuck with the moderating duties, but I expect the shooting community would react positively to a review forum. The problem is how to you filter out shills for companies, or n'er do wells posting unflattering comments about competitors?

Don't worry - when he gets older you can buy him a new limited gun and he might let you borrow it.

The mere threat of net action can get results. Although not gun related, I had an experience when this technique got results where previous polite requests fell on deaf ears. I needed some follow-up repair to a roofing job from a large and generally reputable local firm. I repeatedly left messages and was told to expect a call back which obviously never happened, or I wouldn't be posting this. I made a final call, which went something like this: Me: I've left several messages and promised callbacks that never happened. Operator: Someone will call you back. What is your number? Me: Got a pen ready? Operator: Yes Me: Write this down because I'm only going to say it once. My number is ...... Tell your president that I have tried for several weeks to get a call back with no response. He has exactly one hour to contact me. If I do not hear from him within that timeframe I will register a website which contains your company name, details the lack of after sale service, and will be designed so any Google search from prospective customers will find it. The time is now XX:XX and you have one hour. Got that?" Operator: I'll pass it along Three weeks of repeated calls - no callback. Dropped the I-Bomb - call from the president in under 20 minutes, repair crew on-site two days later, job done to my complete satisfaction.

We had one of these at the local club for many years. The only thing is that he was the real thing and never spoke of his wetwork - I had to buy the book about it published after his death (My Father's Secret Way, by Lucinda Franks) to find the real story about one of the old timers who I served on a local club board with.

What is the EXACT club code you are entering? If you enter a "NE-19" it won't work, but "NE19" will. I just tested it with several clubs. Rob

I stand corrected - thanks. 4/2 was burned into my brain since I'm going to the MT match and had to make sure mind got to HQ in time. And, even with the MT match, things could move a bit sooner if some good citizens with unused slots send them back instead of just waiting for them to expire.

Once it hits "0" (assuming it's not a case of bad data and you're really at the top of the list), you are next in line to be offered a slot. When you are offered a lot, a link allowing you to pay for your slot will appear on your USPSA classification record. You should see the # ahead decrease as time goes on, but this won't really start happening in any serious way until after 4/2 which is the duedate for the outstanding slots (those not returned are voided).

The display of position was temporarily disconnected in the display page; it's back now (it was just a display issue, the data was still there).

With the exception of a very few URLS like "www.uspsa.org/members" and "www.uspsa.org/ezwinscore", "deep linking" is at your own risk as there is no assurance we will not change address - sometimes as part of general cleanup; sometimes for technology issues (for example, changing index.html to index.shtml or index.php).

I am grateful for everyone's understanding, and the complete lack of whining and petty complaints. My thanks to all of you.

A bit of info on what happened last night - A waiting list request starts on the USPSA server, moves to a credit card server and moves info about the transaction back to the USPSA system. This is done for security - we do not handle credit card numbers on the USPSA server. When the USPSA server became non-responsive, some transactions did not make the round trip back to USPSA.ORG and into our database. Fortunately, a record of the transaction was created in our account at the credit card clearing house. I have recovered from this manually, inserted missing transactions into the USPSA database, and taken the necessary steps to make sure nobody is double-billed. It was somewhat inconvient, but the waiting list is intact. My apologies to those of you who had difficulty signing up. I don't have the details worked out yet, but we will find a way to avoid this problem next year. As a result of this "manual recovery" you may have seen your spot in the list shift. If you moved down a place to two it was not because someone got a favor, but a result of the manual restoration of the transactions not transmitted to us by the credit card system. There were absolutely no favors, special treatments, or manual adjustments to the order not justified by transactions in the credit card processing system. I am most grateful to two friends in particular who have places in the waiting list that are in the 70's due to the slow response time issue for not asking me to handle them outside of the process.