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Did my wally walk today, although it was modified heavily (is that legal? :P). I hardly ever shop at Walmart, and chanced upon an opportunity to perform a wally walk tonight. My mom visits her family in Vietnam once a year and spends lavishly on high tech junk for the little ones. Since I am the immediate tech junkie in the family, she asked me to come along with her to Best Buy to help her pick stuff out. For the record, I do not really like Best Buy...they usually treat everyone as if they are computer illiterate, I personally avoid shopping there. My mom wanted to use her 18 months 0 interest card at Best Buy though, so I agree to come along to make sure she doesn't get ripped off. I tossed on a Crossbreed Supertuck with my Glock 19. I wore what I wore the entire day, my work clothing. A black polo shirt with my company logo and a pair of khaki tru-spec 24/7 pants. I've crotch-ripped jeans in the past at my job working in a warehouse, so I added a couple of ripstop fabric tac-pants into my work clothes. The jeans brand were Arizona for the record...fits great, but started to rip after a year of rigorous warehouse ninja-ing.

I drove the cart while she went on her spree. I personally needed a new USB mouse for work, since mine started leaking (I used it for so long that the rubber grip gel wore through until the gel underneath was exposed, nasty stuff). I took the liberty of grabbing a new mouse from the highest shelf I could find it on. Spotted a blue shirt heading my way out of the corner of my eye as I reached up for the mouse. I hoped that he wouldn't come up to me with the obligatory "Hello sir, do you need any help?" at such an inopportune moment when I have my arm in the air. He breezed right past me to a computer nook to find a price for someone else a couple of aisles down. Paranoia? Or situational awareness? :P

Our stuff was rung up at customer service, which happened to be the busiest area right before closing. In-store pickups, returns, etc. I got a little nervous. The family next to us had a couple of little kids running around eye level with my CCW..*please don't run into me*. There are no food joints in best buys so I had to omit the eating part of the wally walk. We spent a good hour there, it was mostly Best Buy sales reps trying to feed my mom lies ("we took the liberty of creating a restore disc for you so we can charge you more money"), and me telling them we could buy this stuff elsewhere without the "extras." Well they took the restore disc back and sold the laptop at advertised price. What would mom do without me? She let me do the talking on the other laptop she wanted to buy. "Ok I want this one, but without any of that extra crap you try to sell to people...the optimizations and bloatware removal...I can do that myself." I'm not normally rude to people, but again, not a big fan of Best Buy or the extra crap they try to throw in with laptops/computers...and well, I don't want them to insult me by trying to sell me something I don't need/something I can do myself...for free.

On the way out, there was this smokin' cougar in a slinky dress in the cell phone section, lookin like she just came from somewhere fancy. Instantly caught my eye. And then her husband (dressed sharply as well) appeared to have caught me staring. Wewps. It'd be really embarrassing if he was a member on this forum. If you are...I didn't mean to stare, your wife is a fox! I'm digressing..

At the end of the evening, my mom drops me off at my apartment, along with her haul. She asked me to go through everything to function check them to make sure they're good to go, and that she'd come back to pick them up another day when I'm done.

Best part of the night? My mom didn't know I was carrying, nor did she notice. I did bang my holster/gun against the side of her truck while getting out of it, but followed up quickly with an "oww!" And in typical mom fashion, she says "be careful."

Manufacturing Pending still shows up on my login though, like a few others.

PLASTIC IN HAND!! I'll be honest, I didn't check the mail the last few days, but it was mailed on the 17th according to this postage stamp. What's one or two days when you've been waiting 40 anyway...did I just say that? lol.

sweetstevie wrote:Hello All,

I filled out the application on-line about a week prior to my class, which was on 7/10. The instructor hand-delivered The Packet and DPS confirmed receipt of same for 7/12. The last item outstanding, the BGC went to Completed on 8/7 and since that time my application is stuck on Manufacturing Pending.

If everything else (including fingerprints and BGC) is marked as completed does that mean I'm just waiting for the machine to grind?

I began to wonder if if Manufacturing Pending means "Sitting in a queue waiting to be printed" or "Pending further review / possible complications"

I'm only 35 days or in so, but I'm anxious nonetheless :)

My BGC was completed on the same day and I'm still in manufacturing pending as well. I haven't gotten mail since Friday the 13th :(

Everyone does, but I've found this is a pretty nice place to wait.

I tried to let the plastic "surprise" me after BGC completed but this surprise is taking a little too long!!!!

NitroGeezer wrote: Now, I know the status won't change over the weekend,

Actually, my BGC changed to completed on a Saturday morning. Well, I checked before going to bed Friday night around 9PM and woke up around 7AM to find it had changed. Very possible it could change on the weekend.

I went through pretty much the exact same procedure for my armed security commission a few years ago (50 rounds, background check, prints, passport photos).

I wonder if the faster BGC completions have to do with a more quick verifiable history than just lazy/slow DPS/Federal workers. For me it was 7 days between prints done to BGC done.

Xaved wrote:MANUFACTURING PENDING!!!!!!!!

Woke up this morning to BACKGROUND CHECK COMPLETE!! Manufacturing Pending!

I purchased a Kel-tec PF9 recently but have not had a chance to take it to the range yet. It's ugly as hell, but I did not buy it for the looks. If by 'quality' you mean fit and finish, it's non-existent. I'm going to go over the slide with Duracoat in the near future. I heard some people have had issues with sweat and humidity and their PF9. Me + Houston = plenty of both.

As long as it goes bang when I pull the trigger.

Everyone tells me it is no fun to shoot when you get close to about 100 rounds but I want to try feeding 200 in a day. So whenever I get a chance to pick up a few more mags (it only came with one and I am not about to put 200 rounds through one 7-round mag...or rather, I will not load 200 rounds through one mag) and have some time to send 200 down range, I'll follow up with my experience.

Xaved wrote:fingerprints complete now too.

Ditto, logged in this morning and saw prints completed. I was the most anxious about this one because I had it done old-fashioned and some of the prints looked kinda smudged. I'm 99.9% confident I can pass the BCG since I was able to get a TX armed security commission a few years ago when I worked as a security guard.

Now the worries are gone, the rest will just be more waiting

Hi, new guy here and a July applicant:

12/29/2009: Online application transaction
12/09-7/10: Procrastination
7/10/2010: CHL Class
7/12/2010: Packet mailed
7/13/2010: Packet received by DPS
7/21/2010: Online status available/BGC & Prints under review