DuneSoldat

Rolf, I have been off the boards for a while, but I read this today and could not believe it. My wife and I have a three month old little girl, and I can not imagine life without either one of them. My wife is seven years younger than I am. My heart goes out to you brother. My prayer is this will work itself out of you and that your son will know the love you have for him. God Bless my friend.

Rolf, this looks awesome! This is a great thread, and like many have said already, makes me want to get some more armor! Keep with the great work,....and the pace!!

I have ordered from them before, no problems at all, especially if you are going to dye them black.

Very nice work Mike, excellent job!

Yeah, I second that. Plus, right now, $65 would buy you two gallons of gas...I kid, I kid. I understand they are but they are like $65 bucks. I don't know about you but that is expensive for a tee shirt to me.

Are these available anywhere in the States?

Well, since we are showing off Chazz's work, here is what he did for me. Thanks to Chazz for the weathering. He does a fantastic job....and is AWESOME to work with. Thanks to Seth for the backpack parts and pauldron. The BP parts assemble easy, and it was fun to put the pack together. This is the first time I have put my pics on the board. The only thing I need now is a BFG and I will be ready for deployment. I have the shoulder pouch, but I haven't attached it yet. Thanks! However, I have KP duty under control....

I am late to the party as usual. At any rate, Mike asked me to chime in here due to my profession, and I would have earlier, but I was out of the country. What I am commonly asked by my clients is "what should we do now?" Great question, but I generally ask them, have your objectives changed? Meaning, just because the market isn't so great right now, should that change your objective. For most of us, the answer is no. So, lets see if we can't skim the surface of some of the issues mentioned.... Not to get too deep, but the financial media is the devil. If you listen to the financial media, you will feel the world is coming to an end, we are in a recession and you need to position your financial portfolio so that you will be able to take advantage of the upcoming recession (for example, go from stocks to bonds). Well, by definition a recession is a decline in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for two or more successive quarters. To my knowledge, that has not happened. And if you were going to go to bonds, I would say that April of 2007 would have been a good time to do that. Also, keep in mind that Wall Street gets paid on the spread, meaning they are one big used car lot. If you are willing to sell your investment portfolio (or any item for that matter) there is someone on the other end of that transaction that is willing to buy what you are selling. In order to get you to sell, they have to make you uncomfortable enough to get out of the market. The financial media is that tool. If you do that, regardless of market conditions, they make money. It boils down to business, and they are not a non-profit organization. Secondly, lets talk about the value of the dollar. Yep, it is less than it has been in the past, but nothing new there. Our money is worth only what we agree it is worth. There is no backing other than faith. So, should we buy gold? I wouldn't, but that is just me. There have been a lot of good points made in this thread about why we should/shouldn't buy gold, but the bottom line is gold does not keep pace with inflation. And after all, why do we invest, to keep pace and beat inflation so our dollar has purchasing power. Mortgage issues. This is a touchy subject, but one that is in the forefront right now. The reality is that only 5% of the mortgages in the U.S. (according to the Wall Street Journal) were impacting by the sub-prime meltdown. The problem is that this took place at the same time as housing values were peaking. So, the banks were left holding the bag on this one. Good for them. They have made enough money on me lately. The problem is that the government wants to bail them out on this....not good. Let things take their normal course so we don't experience this again. If you can't afford a $250,000 home, there shouldn't be financing available for you to get one. However, this is America, home of Instant Gratification. Gas crutch: Yep, gas is getting more expensive, and I don't know where that will take us. I was recently at a gathering of well-known economists that said gas prices had peaked....that was December 2007. It just goes to show you that no one, and I mean NO ONE knows where the market is going. There is always talk of alternative fuel sources, and if you look hard enough, you will find cars that are in production that run on everything. Check out www.teslamotors.com as an example, but does anyone have $100,000?? Also, keep in mind that oil is BIG business and not one that the government is going to let go of easily. Check out Exxon's profits for last year. Also, high gas prices are nothing new. Does anyone remember the Oil Crisis years of 1973 and 1974? Odd and Even Days? The market lost 40% respectively during those years; however, the economy grew at a rate of 5% during the same time period. The rest of the decade was a great time to be an investor. Seth makes some great points about what change is needed in order for things to happen. The best point he makes is that nothing will happen that does not line the pockets of politicians or big business. That is unfortunately true. However, if that was not the case, the higher expected return would not take place due to the fact that we would not be operating in a free market. I tried to keep from editorializing as much as I could, but sometimes I couldn't help it. I know some of you might agree with me, or disagree, and that is cool. I am just glad that we have a forum that is open to this kind of discussion. I love talking about this kind of stuff, so feel free to shoot me a PM with any questions or comments.

Congrats Mike. You deserve this opportunity and I am sure will lead this detachment honorably.

Great job Rocko, looks really awesome, thanks for the update!

Seth's annual April Fool's joke came early this year. All kidding aside, Seth thank you for your leadership and willingness to help me out with any questions I have had in the past. I am sure Mike will carry forward, and keep us going in the right direction. Thanks again.

This is total preference, but what I did for mine was add a piece of thin plexiglass inside the canvas belt. It is important if you want to hang stuff on the belt and will help the belt hold its shape much better.

Rolf, I use this one with my TD and I really like it. One on each side. I was able to find them on ebay for $2 each, and I used dye per Mike Harrison's instructions. Works great! Check out this item number on ebay: 110184783035.

Has he tried clonetroopers.net?

I am by no means an armor expert, but some pieces look like TM (chest piece), and then other pieces look like my FX kit at home. Interesting find Rolf.