This is the thread where I say things and maybe other people say things too [Archive] - Page 26

Tom Servo

February 27th, 2023, 04:18 PM

So, again, probably being over-sensitive about it. We bought the new car and then got a quote from Carvana for $7,300 for the old car. I feel like I'm being a stickler for mentioning this, but both the RAV and the Volvo were purchased with my money - my wife has wanted to keep her finances separate after the challenges her parents have gone through, so we have our own accounts (technically mine's a joint account, but she's respectful of it) and she has her own account that I have no access to.

My dad brought up buying the RAV from us, but then suggested that he pay half and *we* pay half to gift it to my nephew. Now, that'd be a lovely gift, but it would be massively out of line for what you'd normally give a nephew. My sister immediately jumped in and said that she'd want to pay half and let my dad pay half and we'd just get the money, which to me made much more sense. As it was, my dad planned to gift his Volvo V70 to our niece, which would make a really uncomfortable difference in what we'd given the two kids.

Aside - we got a 5K discount on the MSRP for the Volvo, so we're already doing pretty good here.

We took the RAV in for maintenance and dropped $500 extra on replacing the rear brake pads and rotors. Told my sister that our mechanic thought it needed new front struts and rocker arms (it does have 125k miles) for a total of $1.7K that we'd be happy to take off the quote. My sister then asked that she be able to take it to her own mechanic for a once-over, which I thought seemed reasonable, and also asked that she ask for his estimate of work without mentioning ours to see if it came out to a similar amount or not, then just work that into the total.

In the meantime, I offered to take it to our local Toyota dealer to see what they'd offer, just to make sure the online-only offer from Carvana wasn't artificially high. The dealer offered 8K, so $700 more. I actually expected it to be less, the Carvana thing was just a quote over the internet, this was a guy actually walking around and taking inventory of the various door dings, cracked rear wheel cover, the state of the interior (especially the carpets), the damage from where someone just hit the car at the gym parking lot, I had gone into it assuming we would be lowering the amount we were asking.

Got home, told my wife that they offered 8K, that I figured I'd split the two offers as a reasonable compromise, and then that my sister could take the car to her mechanic and get his opinion.

Wife got super mad, yelling that my sister's mechanic should not be able to set the sale price. I told her that that wasn't the plan, just that he would say how much work he thought needed to be done. But the yelling about it just came out of nowhere, that's not at all what I said.

I feel like my wife just accused my sister of trying to cheat us. She was super mad about my dad's offer, which is legit, but I feel like it's carried on to both my sister and to an extent me, as I've been the one in charge of figuring out how this deal works and when I say what I think is fair (the lower of the two offers minus the cost of repairs...my sister is family after all) that I'm getting yelled at for not bleeding my family. I want the RAV to stay in the family and if it means we take a grand or two of a hit to have my nephew in a safe and reliable car, so be it. We have money, we don't need to get every extra hundred out of my sibling.

It bugs the shit out of me that I've paid for both of these cars and that she's trying to dictate that we should get as much profit as we can. We're lucky enough to be in a spot where buying the Volvo was not a major financial burden, so I'm not sure where this is coming from outside of being mad about my dad's initial numbskull idea. My only thought is that she's chosen to leave her job and does not have another one lined up so there might be some financial insecurity there, but we're honestly in good financial shape. We can last a few years in our current situation without her earning a dime, and if we just cut back on our spending we'd be fine for many years. If stock options at my current job work out, it may end up not being a concern at all.

So, I guess in the Reddit parlance, AITA?

I also hope that my soon-to-come therapy makes me feel more comfortable just saying "why did you get so mad about that?", but we're not there yet.

Cam

February 27th, 2023, 05:29 PM

Oof, sorry to hear that. It has been my experience that if my wife gets mad at me for some little thing, she's actually upset about something else, (often not related to me) which happened earlier. :shrug:

Tom Servo

February 27th, 2023, 06:14 PM

Yeah, and I think some of it might be from the way my dad handled things, but also I feel like that's been dealt with. She may not.

retsmah

February 27th, 2023, 07:11 PM

I think a therapist to really go into details with seems like it'll be really beneficial. I had a therapist for about a year back in 2015, and have been seeing my current therapist for almost a year and a half now. I think you're exactly right that the therapist will give you more confidence in asking the questions you already have, maybe with a little nudge in one direction or another.

My very non professional opinion is I think you're probably onto something with the financial insecurity around your wife leaving her job, and maybe it's worth revisiting how you handle your collective finances in this period where she's not earning as much money as she previously has.

Crazed_Insanity

February 27th, 2023, 08:47 PM

I also hope that my soon-to-come therapy makes me feel more comfortable just saying "why did you get so mad about that?", but we're not there yet.

I think your inner therapist knows exactly what needs to be done! Comfort could be a relationship killer. Often times couples might ignore things that feel uncomfortable, but problems won’t go away on their own. Sooner we figure it out and solve it the better!

Now, to help you feel better, my money is also our money and wife’s money is hers exclusively too! So I know the feeling… I’m also typically a problem avoider as well in the name of comfort or keeping the peace, but I’ve learned thru experience that delaying only made problems bigger. Sometimes a fight can help us understand each other better and consequently bring us closer to one another.

Anyway, you can probably afford to wait a bit longer so that you can hear what the professional therapist would say! :p

Tom Servo

February 27th, 2023, 08:58 PM

Yeah, I feel the same about the therapist. I hope that that will help balance things.

In the meantime, I turned my irritation into a 2 1/2 mile walk, which is probably a healthier outlet than usual, so I'm happy about that.

FaultyMario

February 28th, 2023, 05:51 AM

Yeah, and I think some of it might be from the way my dad handled things, but also I feel like that's been dealt with. She may not.

Com·mu·ni·ca·tion, Ese!

If that shit can work marvels with people who don't like each other, imagine what it does to people who actually enjoy shaggin'!

I only say that because recently I've been kind of in the middle between the wife and the kiddo, and it totally resonates with what Cam said, she's probable angry at something else and she's been triggered by something that family did. It almost always turns out to be something minor that can solved with talking.

But also remember that in-laws are competition and that it's always okay to scapegoat on them. :assclown:

sandydandy

February 28th, 2023, 06:40 AM

One of my son's friends is feared to have taken his own life. He posted a suicide note on TwitLonger which went up this morning. It was pretty grim stuff. Loneliness and depression were the general theme of it, along with no hope for the future. He gave out all of his usernames and passwords in the note. He's only 20-years-old.

My son got a text from another friend who saw the note, so he called the kid's mom right away and the police were also called. That was a few hours ago. So far we know nothing. The waiting and not knowing is agonizing. I'm checking in with my son every half-hour or so to see if there's any update. So far he hasn't called the mom back, nor has he heard back from her. He may drive over there. I told him to go with another friend.

Really hoping this kid didn't follow through with it...but if he did, hopefully he can still be saved.

*fingers crossed*

FaultyMario

February 28th, 2023, 07:22 AM

OMG.

Crazed_Insanity

February 28th, 2023, 07:59 AM

:(

That kid certainly has lots of friends who care for him. Yeah, hope tragedy can be avoided.

sandydandy

February 28th, 2023, 08:57 AM

Well, the last I heard he was found and taken to the hospital. His actual status is still unknown, so the anxiety from uncertainty remains. He could be recovering or be in critical condition. We just don't know. I really hope he pulls through and then in the near future gets the mental/psychological help he desperately needs. 20 is way too young to give up on yourself.

Tom Servo

February 28th, 2023, 09:11 AM

Oh man, yeah, I'm so sorry your family and your son's friend and his family are going through this.

Cam

February 28th, 2023, 10:15 AM

sandydandy

February 28th, 2023, 01:46 PM

Thanks guys. Looks like the kid will be okay. Latest I heard was they were waiting for him to wake up, which means he’s in stable condition. This is fucking terrifying for any parent to go through. I’m proud of my son for acting fast and calling his mother this morning, (who was at work), once he read the post. He contributed to saving his friends life. Apparently he was in very bad shape when they found him, and then rushed him to the hospital.

Crazed_Insanity

February 28th, 2023, 01:54 PM

Glad to hear. Your son is a great friend. Hope that friend will appreciate what your son has done...

retsmah

February 28th, 2023, 04:55 PM

Glad that he made it, and that your son was there to help him! I hope this is a turning point where he is able to get the help he needs.

FaultyMario

February 28th, 2023, 06:55 PM

Buy your kid a beer! ¹,²

¹ Or a couple of therapy sessions.
² Offer valid only in Mexico, Aruba and Dutch Overseas territories.

sandydandy

March 1st, 2023, 10:03 AM

Well it looks like the kid isn't out of the woods yet. Still hasn't woken up. They said he might be in a coma. Information has been very slow. Apparently he had no pulse when he was found at home, and if/when he does wake up will likely have brain damage. No word on exactly what he did...though it sounds like an OD on Xanax or something. That's what his cousins are speculating. Maybe he made it a cocktail with alcohol.

I have no desire to attend a suicide funeral. Went once in 1998 when my cousin shot himself in the head. It was the single worst funeral I had ever been to by an absolute mile. I really don't want to go to another one. I'm keeping the kid in my thoughts all day and hope he wakes up soon and is okay.

Crazed_Insanity

March 1st, 2023, 10:09 AM

:(

Will keep praying for him...

George

March 1st, 2023, 11:31 AM

Awful news. I can't imagine what his family must be going through.

We all know that kids need their parents. What I didn't know before becoming a father is how much parents needs their kids.

sandydandy

March 2nd, 2023, 06:51 AM

Well the facts are much more clear and the gravity of the situation is better understood now. I was wrong earlier in assuming the kid was in stable condition, no, he’s been on life support this entire time. Whatever he did to himself led to cardiac arrest, which then led to hypoxia I guess. He was being kept alive by the machine, but without brain activity as there’s no oxygen in his brain.

He’s essentially brain dead, so pretty much clinically dead. I heard they’re going to take him off life support to see what happens. Or I think they may have already taken him off last night. Not exactly sure. His mother is insisting on them running more scans but the hospital doesn’t want to do it, though I think they’re going to acquiesce to her demands. I can understand her desire for a last second miracle, but at this stage the probability is unlikely that he’ll regain consciousness. For all intents and purposes he has passed. His organs will shut down very soon eventually, if they haven’t already as of yesterday evening.

My son is taking it pretty hard. He knew this kid since grade 7 and they were good buddies. They’d go to concerts, play pool, chase girls and do a lot of other fun things together. Plus they were both interested in trading and would study together and confide in each other. Their friendship is eerily reminiscent of my own with my friend who passed away in 2018, (can’t believe it’s going to be five years this May), minus the suicide part. He’s been in my thoughts a lot recently.

This is going to hurt for a while. I’m in uncharted territory as a parent trying to console a young man who has just lost his friend. When my buddy died I was in my early forties, but my son is in his early twenties. Big difference in capacity to withstand pain and grief. I worry about his mental health. Apparently the kid texted him Monday night to talk, but he was asleep. The next morning he did the deed. He blames himself and thinks he let his friend down by not being available the night before, but it’s absolutely not his fault. This kid had a tough life and was messed up for years, and this thing was going to happen no matter what. :(

Crazed_Insanity

March 2nd, 2023, 08:00 AM

Don’t ever blame yourself for failing to do ‘something’ in order to avert this tragic outcome… that’s the key thing you need to help your son understand. Otherwise, it’s fine to just be sad with him… :(

FaultyMario

March 2nd, 2023, 09:15 AM

Such a heartbreak about all involved.

I can't imagine what his family must be going through.

What George said.

neanderthal

March 2nd, 2023, 10:10 AM

Sorry you're (your kid's) going through all this. It offers a good opportunity for you to talk to your kid and not only get to know them even better but to reassure them you're there for them, and that not all people can handle the pressures of life that they go through.

I'm one of them.

I'm constantly stressed, frequently despondent, almost always depressed, and oftentimes completely defeated, near on suicidal. Keeping myself mentally on the up and up is a daily struggle fraught with the hazards of physical inability, frustration, pain, and stress. The few sessions I had with a therapist gave me some tools and insight for dealing with this. In my case if i find myself sitting down and seriously writing out my will/ last wishes, going over the beneficiaries on my insurance, pension and 401k, deciding who gets my antique BMW 2002, my vintage 250TD Benz, my motorbike, my BMW etc, i'll know i'm right at the precipice of ending it all.

There was a time, several months ago, when I was mentally going over who my beneficiaries were, I had even decided how I was going to do it, and I had to stop myself from just being in my thoughts. However, I have to lose weight (15lbs so far, 20 to go) but can't really exercise so i walk, about 4 miles a day in two 45 minute sessions. That's a lot of alone in your head time.
What really sets me off is when the walking aggravates my back: I'm literally walking so I can get the back fixed. But doing what I should be doing to fix the problem, causes the problem to get inflamed, it feels like a never. ending. battle.

I'm getting mentally down writing this so i'm going to stop and go ride my bike. Wish me nice weather. It's supposed to rain today.

Crazed_Insanity

March 2nd, 2023, 10:18 AM

Fuck dude!

I need to stop arguing with you and pissing you off!

I'll just keep you in my prayers. Take care man!

sandydandy

March 2nd, 2023, 03:22 PM

He officially passed shortly after 3 pm. Really sucks. I was really pulling for him, but it wasn’t meant to be. He got what he wanted, he’s gone. I hope he’s found his peace.

I feel for his family, especially his younger sister who is 13 or 14. Of course I feel for my son who has lost one of his brothers. He’s putting up a strong face but I know he’s hurting inside. Now I just want us get through the funeral and then onto the path of healing. Life will suck for the next little while, but it will eventually get better. I know from experience that it’ll take a good 3-4 months to fully move on.

You never really “get over” a loved ones death, but with time you are able to effectively move them to the background and get on with your life. My son has a good network of friends and family who will be with him every step of the way. He’ll take it one day at a time.

Sorry you're (your kid's) going through all this. It offers a good opportunity for you to talk to your kid and not only get to know them even better but to reassure them you're there for them, and that not all people can handle the pressures of life that they go through.

I'm one of them.

I'm constantly stressed, frequently despondent, almost always depressed, and oftentimes completely defeated, near on suicidal. Keeping myself mentally on the up and up is a daily struggle fraught with the hazards of physical inability, frustration, pain, and stress. The few sessions I had with a therapist gave me some tools and insight for dealing with this. In my case if i find myself sitting down and seriously writing out my will/ last wishes, going over the beneficiaries on my insurance, pension and 401k, deciding who gets my antique BMW 2002, my vintage 250TD Benz, my motorbike, my BMW etc, i'll know i'm right at the precipice of ending it all.

There was a time, several months ago, when I was mentally going over who my beneficiaries were, I had even decided how I was going to do it, and I had to stop myself from just being in my thoughts. However, I have to lose weight (15lbs so far, 20 to go) but can't really exercise so i walk, about 4 miles a day in two 45 minute sessions. That's a lot of alone in your head time.
What really sets me off is when the walking aggravates my back: I'm literally walking so I can get the back fixed. But doing what I should be doing to fix the problem, causes the problem to get inflamed, it feels like a never. ending. battle.

I'm getting mentally down writing this so i'm going to stop and go ride my bike. Wish me nice weather. It's supposed to rain today. Sorry about your troubles, Mo. I hope you’re able to overcome your struggles.

I think suicide crosses everyone’s mind from time to time when things get tough. That’s why I never judge too harshly anyone who has acted it out, (aside from suicide bombers). Nobody really knows what it’s like to live in another persons shoes. I reject the argument of it being cowardly and the various religious arguments as well.

Not trying to encourage or give anyone my permission to off yourself, just saying I understand the pain. Even with this kid, I read the suicide note and it really just scratched the surface and a lot of it kind of made him sound lazy and unmotivated, but I have heard the deeper truths of what he was really going through. Years of getting emotionally beat down by his father, thus destroying his self-esteem and initiative was part of it. Plus he was used and abused by friends, and also had a disability that was crippling him. I think he had advanced carpal tunnel syndrome that was inoperable. Sounds strange to have at such a young age, but he used to be a furious gamer and played on his laptop which was on his bed and fucked up his wrists permanently. No surgeon was willing to operate on him because the risk of total bodily paralysis was extremely high. I believe they asked around and it was a hard no from everyone. So I can empathize with him about how he felt his future was hopeless. I just wish he didn’t do what he did.

When you commit suicide, most of the time the people left behind are traumatized and have to pick up the pieces, as his immediate family will. I’ve witnessed that with my aunt and uncle, (parents of my dead cousin who I referenced earlier), and their other son. It took over ten years for the glow to return to their faces. I can never live like that. If something happened to my kids I would be broken for life.

Tom Servo

March 2nd, 2023, 03:56 PM

Yeah, nobody knows what's going through someone's mind, and it always feels very easy to cast it as "the coward's way out." There's a lot of truth to the idea that if you do it, it's not you who suffers, it's your loved ones, but I don't think anybody who takes their own life hasn't, at least in their own terms, thought out that analysis and thought that they were ultimately improving the lives of their loved ones. It's an incorrect analysis, but it's not one they were in a mental place to spot the incorrectness of.

I often think of overpowered, if only that he lived so close to my parents and I had so many chances to meet him and never did. I have no idea what drove him to what he did, and I have no illusions that me meeting him would have changed that, but I'll always regret not doing so.

All you can do is hope to intervene early enough and in a way that the person will be receptive to, I suppose. Your son's struggles over missing the text are pretty much what you describe - that wasn't the straw that broke the camel's back or anything like that, his friend was already on that road. In the meantime, your son's friend's calculation that the world would be better without him was wrong, and now your son is one of the people who have to deal with that miscalculation. The only thing I can say is that it's gonna take time and you can't rush it.

I'm so sorry you and your son are having to go through this.

21Kid

March 2nd, 2023, 03:58 PM

:(

Damn. I haven't been here for a while and just caught up on all of that at once. I'm sitting here thinking about my 19 and 13 yr old kids and how that would effect them. It's bringing tears to my eyes just imagining what that could be like.

sandydandy

March 3rd, 2023, 12:19 AM

Just want to give a big thank you to everyone for your kind words of support. It’s been a bizarre and challenging week and the weekend may be even more so with the funeral, (which I’m guessing will be over the weekend or early next week). We’ll get through it.

I’m okay, it’s my son who I’m worried about. He’s going through periodic episodes of intense crying, which is to be expected, but it still saddens me to watch knowing there’s nothing I can do to help except try to comfort him. He has to let it out, release his emotions as opposed to bottling them up, but as long as it’s done in a healthy manner. This is a life changing event for him that happened so suddenly and is a shock to his system.

There’s a lot of healing that needs to be done in the next little while. I’ll be watching him closely to make sure he doesn’t slip into depression. He hasn’t been to the gym in a couple of weeks and I’ve only been once this year. I promised him we’ll go together again starting next week. There’s no greater cure for stress than exercise.

Crazed_Insanity

March 3rd, 2023, 07:20 AM

Yeah, it's perfectly normal to be sad... maybe for a while. I can't imagine how that would affect me if my childhood friend were to kill himself like that... :(

Probably worthwhile finding him a therapist to make sure that he can heal properly.

Tom Servo

March 3rd, 2023, 08:04 AM

The fact that you're this on top of it, and making sure you're there for your son...he'll be okay.

sandydandy

March 4th, 2023, 02:22 PM

Thanks guys. You’re absolutely right. I spoke to my doctor and he is willing to see him when the time is right, and my son is open to going. We were thinking of going today but he went to visit his friend’s family. He needed that. He’s been cold and distant recently, and it’s perfectly normal in the interim I suppose. Funeral is on Thursday which will be small and invite-only. My son will be attending and I’ll be in the parking lot waiting for him, (I’m thinking they’ll probably let me in too, but it’s not a requirement). Hopefully it’s the first step to finding closure. We were worried that he wouldn’t be invited, but the kid’s mother is grateful to him for reaching out to her the morning of the incident.

After the funeral I definitely want to take him to see my doctor. Probably next weekend. I’d like to see him slowly get out of this funk and back to his old self. It’ll take time but I know he’ll be alright. We all face tragedy in life, but for him it was way too early in his life to absorb something like this. He’s only 21.

Godson

March 4th, 2023, 03:37 PM

One thing I learned about suicide when my buddy shot himself 19 years ago, was that people who commit suicide appear to be happiest right before they commit the deed.

The process of deciding to do it, how to do it, and when to do it, are very mentally taxing. Once they have decided to go through with a plan of suicide, you probably won't ever know the person has planned it. Because they are at peace.

I say this because even though your son's friend contacted him the night before his suicide, he more than likely wasn't reaching out for an intervention.

Having been in the position as your son, I'm very terribly sorry.

Crazed_Insanity

March 4th, 2023, 11:44 PM

This kind of trauma is bad for any age… :(

Your son may be resilient enough to heal all by himself with support of family, but if you can find professional help, it’ll only help him heal better.

For now, just let him grief about the loss of his friend and just grief with him… it’s okay to be sad… this is not depression. This is normal…

George

March 5th, 2023, 08:55 AM

A brief detour from the current topic: I’m in the Charlotte airport waiting for a plane. I just went to three (3) different stores, including one called Queen City NEWS and Market.

Not one of them had a Sunday Charlotte Observer or any other kind of newspaper. No New York Times; no nothing. The first two said, “We don’t carry newspapers anymore.”

The third cashier I asked if they had any Sunday papers left rolled her eyes and said, as if she recited it ten times an hour said, “You won’t find them anywhere in the airport. They ‘discontinued’ them a year ago.”

What the hell? They still sell them in Denver at every shop, and not just the Denver Post, but also USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and more. I’ve been buying newspapers to read on airplanes my whole adult life.

More and more I feel like a time traveler from the past who doesn’t understand this strange new century.

speedpimp

March 5th, 2023, 11:35 AM

George, next time just tell them to get off your lawn.

George

March 5th, 2023, 04:22 PM

Well, I did shake my cane at Lunch Lady Doris behind the cash register at the third store. She actually looked up at the ceiling when I asked if they were out of newspapers already (it was mid-day). That suggests she is asked that question often, which means PEOPLE WANT NEWSPAPERS in airports.

Seriously, folks - no newspapers in the entire airport? Not even a newspaper machine that takes quarters? That sounds like they've were BANNED, not "discontinued" in mealy-mouthed wimp-speak.

Meanwhile, a dozen or so stores scattered around four concourses have floor-to-ceiling displays of paperback books and magazines. Why doesn't at least one these stores - presumably owned by different entities, whether corporations or individuals - that sells reading material have a standing sign out front saying "Buy the only newspapers in this airport here!" with one of those old-fashioned drawings of a hand with an index finger pointing toward the entrance?

Newspapers are still sold in quickie marts, grocery stores, drug stores, newsstands (which is, in my mind, what those stores in the airports are called), but not the Queen City NEWS and Market? (capitals mine)

It just ain't right, I tells ya. We still get the Sunday paper delivered to our house. Our friends right across the street get it seven days a week. I see plenty of newspapers in driveways when I leave the neighborhood early on any morning. Lots of people enjoy newspapers, especially when shoehorned into the Economy seats.

Why has this one airport BANNED them?

Oh, and get this: American Airlines no longer has their monthly magazine in the seat-back pockets. You know the ones: monthly column by the airline president, some feel-good piece from someone who works there who has a disability or other disadvantage (I'm NOT making fun of that), and then several articles with pictures about cool places to visit, and then floorplans of airports with gate numbers for each airport they serve.

At least they still have airsickness bags for those of us who are sick of seeing all the good stuff in life slipping away before our very eyes.

I haven't been living in a cave, either; it has been less than a year since I last flew. :smh:

dodint

March 5th, 2023, 05:10 PM

sandydandy

March 5th, 2023, 05:32 PM

I can't remember the last time I saw a newspaper. I don't even see the boxes anymore that you used to deposit coins in and take one paper, (even though you could take the entire stash and nobody could stop you). Nowadays the only thing we get resembling newspapers are flyers and junk. We used to use newspapers a lot at work for packing parts. They were pretty useful, but I haven't used them in a while.

George

March 5th, 2023, 06:33 PM

They're heavy. It takes a lot to get them in there (through security) and also to cart them away as trash. Especially for something that costs so little.

The other airports are operating less efficiently.

You're right, of course. And it never occurred to me that merchandise had to go through security, but I guess we've all seen enough prison movies to understand that.

On top of that, the airport probably pays by the pound (or the ton!) to have their trash and and recycling hauled away.

I get it. I just don't like it. It's another sad reminder that the world I knew in the first half (or two-thirds, if I'm lucky) is disappearing faster than I'd like.

I can't remember the last time I saw a newspaper.

I read USA Today cover-to-cover on an airplane Friday morning, and when I got home this afternoon, today's Denver Post was on the kitchen counter, courtesy of the neighbor who fed the cats while we were gone. :D

Love,

Loretta Watts ;)

P.S. I hope y'all will forgive me for turning the spotlight away from Sandy's son and his friend and Godson's friend and overpowered and all the rest. I just didn't have anything else to do while waiting for my flight. Of course, if I been able to purchase a newspaper to keep me occupied...

sandydandy

March 5th, 2023, 06:53 PM

P.S. I hope y'all will forgive me for turning the spotlight away from Sandy's son and his friend and Godson's friend and overpowered and all the rest. I just didn't have anything else to do while waiting for my flight. Of course, if I been able to purchase a newspaper to keep me occupied... No worries, man. This is the thread where we say things. :)

Crazed_Insanity

March 5th, 2023, 08:58 PM

Yeah, I have to say that I don’t remember when was the last I picked up an actual newspaper too!

neanderthal

March 5th, 2023, 09:49 PM

JoshInKC

March 6th, 2023, 04:14 AM

Yeah, I have to say that I don’t remember when was the last I picked up an actual newspaper too!

I usually buy at least 2 each summer, separated by roughly a month and local to where I'm working.
I read them the day after I buy, and then stuff it into my boots over night for the rest of the trip to facilitate drying. Moisture kills shoes over the long term, so when I'm wearing them for 9 hours a day 10 days in a row I need all the help I can get.

Crazed_Insanity

March 6th, 2023, 08:56 AM

Actually it think wife needed a bunch of newspapers for dehumidifying purposes as well for her gardening hobby, but we had a hard time finding newspaper around our neighborhood to buy. So we just stole some supermarket weekly ads at their store front! May God have mercy on us…

sandydandy

March 9th, 2023, 10:25 PM

So I went to the funeral today with my son. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It was kind of subdued, which made it easier to sit through. Obviously they’ve had a week to let it digest. Of course at the end when they closed the casket people started getting emotional, and especially in the crematorium which was the room next door. My son gave a touching eulogy, some nice words to honor his friend. I’m glad that he was able to keep it together and get through it. Now we focus on the healing process and moving on with life. It’ll take time. I’m sure he’ll be alright.

I almost didn’t go in. We arrived at the place at 1:00 and waited for the kid’s cousin to come, as he wanted to go in with her and her boyfriend. Because it was invite only with 30-40 people on the list, it was thought that I wouldn’t be permitted entry, and the kids were hesitant to ask because they didn’t want to bother the grieving parents.

So they went inside and my son said I should just go to a coffee shop or somewhere nearby until it’s over, so I reluctantly left. Got to the coffee shop and parked and just sat for a few minutes. I thought to myself do I really want to just sit here and leave my son to fend for himself in a funeral environment? I reasoned that most fathers would go inside to accompany their son and lend him support.

So I went back to the funeral and decided to just go inside. What were they going to do, kick me out? I met with an employee there and told him that I know it’s a private funeral but my son is on the list and I’d like to go in and be by his side so he doesn’t have to endure it alone. He told me to wait in the lounge while he asked the family. A few minutes later the kid’s uncle came out to greet me and said I can absolutely come in to support my son. I’m glad I did that or I’d be feeling like shit right now.

Now next step for my son is to find some closure and slowly get back to his old self.

Crazed_Insanity

March 10th, 2023, 07:58 AM

I think this incident probably brought back painful memories for yourself that's why you initially was avoiding the funeral? However, you know what's the right thing to do and then you pushed yourself to help being supportive of your son... that's very courageous man! Your son is lucky to have a dad like you.

Anyway, besides your son, maybe it'd be beneficial for you to talk to a professional therapist as well to help you resolve your issues or get your own closure?

I think one thing needs to be clear is that we can't go back in time... and won't ever be able to get back to our old selves regardless of whether if we've experience traumatic incidents such as the one your son went thru. Even after healing, there'll still be a scar. Of course hopefully our scars can help make us better persons. Good luck and take care man! You are already doing a great job!

George

March 10th, 2023, 08:52 AM

...I’d like to go in and be by his side so he doesn’t have to endure it alone.

Way to go, Dad. :up:

speedpimp

March 11th, 2023, 04:14 PM

This week was a bittersweet one at work as it marked the end of our relationship with Jimmy John's. As they(JJ) switch to a corporate wide affiliation with Produce Alliance we are on the outside looking in. This means only working four day weeks for the near future. As of late days have been anywhere from 12-16 hrs depending on the route. My Thursday route was almost 17 hrs and 360 miles. That was followed by a 13 hr day and that by a light 10.5 hr day. I'm going to enjoy the "shorter" weeks as things shake themselves out.
I've been back for longer than I was gone. I've been wearing a beanie with the logo of my last employer on it while wearing a weathered sweatshirt representing my current employer. I'm pretty sure that's creating some confusion with customers that use both companies. Yes things get awkward at times. To me it's the logo on the side of the truck and the name on the invoice that trumps all.
The night shift that loads the trucks is a rogue's gallery of misfit's. I refer to them as rodeo clowns in a goat rodeo. One of these rodeo clowns has a habit of meowing at people and (and at least one time) trying to lick the face of another person. I'll call him Mr. Meowgi. Well Friday night he was headed into work on his moped on a busy and well lit road when he was hit by a car. The driver who hit him claimed not to have seen him and told police "WTF rides a moped in March?"(Stat classy Michigan). Considering that he was hit in the front wheel and got tossed over the handle bars and lived to tell about it speaks volumes for his luck. He was sent to the ER just to get looked at(even though he wanted to go to work because he couldn't afford to miss).
I talked to his landlady today when she brought in his medical excuse paperwork. She seemed very nice(despite having a rough time figuring out how to open doors). As look would have it she had what was left of his moped in the bed of her Tacoma. After looking at the bike I know why he meows at people because he has to have at least nine lives(and I bet he's gone through at least half of those).
The good thing is he had insurance on his moped and the person that hit him had insurance. So at least he'll have a new moped by spring.

Cam

March 11th, 2023, 07:01 PM

Dang.

Crazed_Insanity

March 12th, 2023, 07:20 AM

Jesus!

sandydandy

March 12th, 2023, 12:37 PM

Crazy story, me bruv. I hope he’s okay and is able to ride his new moped soon.

I think this incident probably brought back painful memories for yourself that's why you initially was avoiding the funeral? Naah it’s nothing like that. It was just the circumstances. Being unsure of the proper etiquette, I guess.

Way to go, Dad. :up: Thanks.

Tom Servo

March 12th, 2023, 12:56 PM

I echo George's sentiment.

Crazed_Insanity

March 12th, 2023, 03:29 PM

Naah it’s nothing like that. It was just the circumstances. Being unsure of the proper etiquette, I guess.

One thing I’ve learned on my faith/psychological journey is that our internal issues inevitably manifest as seemingly unexplained pain/fear of somethings… 1st step to deal with it is to willingly facing our fears. Whether if you really have any issues unresolved or not, you’ve already chosen to overcome your fear out of love for your son!

Do things out of love usually won’t steer you wrong as you’ve already demonstrated! :)

Godson

March 14th, 2023, 04:19 PM

Way to go, Dad. :up:

This.

When my buddy committed suicide nearly 20years ago, my dad was present at the funeral, but not with me. It was a VERY large funeral and damn near the whole HS came. His willingness to talk with me about it made a very big impact on me. I still think about it to this day, as he too was grieving the loss of a kid to who he was a Scout Leader towards.

neanderthal

March 14th, 2023, 10:22 PM

Leon

March 14th, 2023, 11:40 PM

George

March 15th, 2023, 05:51 AM

^ Hey, we have a different thread for that kind of talk, mister! :D

Hope y'all feel better soon.

Somehow no one in our household has gotten it, that we know of. I've had four shots and don't even think about it anymore as a threat.

That said, we had a company lunch two weeks ago to celebrate a guy's 25th anniversary there and two people were out sick with the virus.

Or, so they claimed. I don't know and don't care, but maybe they just didn't want to go sit in a room full of people and do the social thing after three years of sitting home wearing sweatpants.

-- Posted from my basement hideout while allegedly working and wearing sweatpants

Crazed_Insanity

March 15th, 2023, 09:06 AM

Yeah, apparently we have sufficient # of folks infected/vaccinated that we're no longer experiencing covid surges now. However, plenty of other kind of bugs are spreading around though. Wife and kid are both still sneezing or coughing but never tested positive for Covid. I suppose it's possible that Covid has mutated so much that the original tests can't detect the new variants anymore? ;) Anyway, likely some other bugs. Another scary bug spreading around kids' school is the stomach flu. Most of her classmates and even the teacher had caught it already. Hopefully she won't bring that home... so we're begging her to continue to wear masks and wash hands...

Luckily I'm still feeling fine so far. Fingers crossed.

Most of the time I'm still working from home, not even wearing sweat pants! :p However, yesterday I had to attend a meeting in person with a supplier and looks like they're all back to business as usual. I guess Covid is really over? So no more need for that other thread no more... ;)

Tom Servo

March 15th, 2023, 06:45 PM

Had my first therapy session today. It was really hard, but good. Tried to be really honest about things, my therapist ended up pretty quickly finding a few themes in my life that rung really true, so now the next steps are to figure out how to overcome those.

It's weird opening up to someone you've never met like that. I should mention that in my next session.

Unrelated, but her office is 1.5 miles from my house. But, because of the way Century City is constructed, and all the golf courses around here, my only biking options are either to turn it into a 4 mile ride by doing an end-run around Century City or to ride on one of two of the busiest arterials in the area that have no infrastructure. Yaay, Los Angeles!

sandydandy

March 17th, 2023, 01:22 PM

This.

When my buddy committed suicide nearly 20years ago, my dad was present at the funeral, but not with me. It was a VERY large funeral and damn near the whole HS came. His willingness to talk with me about it made a very big impact on me. I still think about it to this day, as he too was grieving the loss of a kid to who he was a Scout Leader towards. I'm glad your dad able to help you in your own grieving process. I hope I am having that same effect on my son. He tells me I'm the only one who understands, because I lost my own friend back in 2018.

He appears to be doing better this week. Joking around and teasing his little sister again, which is nice to see. He's still scheduled to meet with my doctor next week, and hopefully he can get some good advice on moving on. Maybe we'll look into proper therapy if things get tough again down the road.

Had my first therapy session today. It was really hard, but good. Tried to be really honest about things, my therapist ended up pretty quickly finding a few themes in my life that rung really true, so now the next steps are to figure out how to overcome those.

It's weird opening up to someone you've never met like that. I should mention that in my next session.

Unrelated, but her office is 1.5 miles from my house. But, because of the way Century City is constructed, and all the golf courses around here, my only biking options are either to turn it into a 4 mile ride by doing an end-run around Century City or to ride on one of two of the busiest arterials in the area that have no infrastructure. Yaay, Los Angeles! I wish you all the best. Opening up is hard with strangers, but in a professional setting with a therapist you have to have absolute trust that whatever you're sharing is in strict confidentiality. Keep working at it.

retsmah

March 18th, 2023, 03:43 PM

It's weird opening up to someone you've never met like that. I should mention that in my next session.

Unrelated, but her office is 1.5 miles from my house. But, because of the way Century City is constructed, and all the golf courses around here, my only biking options are either to turn it into a 4 mile ride by doing an end-run around Century City or to ride on one of two of the busiest arterials in the area that have no infrastructure. Yaay, Los Angeles!

I think you'll get used to it pretty quickly, my experience has been that regardless of how crazy something you are thinking or doing feels it's almost certainly not going to be that unusual to a trained therapist.

On the golf courses I appreciate that most of Portland's courses are publicly owned, which aside from making them affordable also means they provide paths for pedestrians and bikes through the courses.

retsmah

March 18th, 2023, 04:02 PM

On sort of a therapy related topic:

I've been feeling kinda dizzy on and off today, wasn't sure why, I figured it was maybe just because the weather got a lot warmer and I slept weird and who knows what else.

I've been taking Venlafaxine (aka Effexor) for anxiety for something like a year and a half now. I just looked at the little calendar I keep with the medication, turns out I missed it two days in a row. That probably explains the dizziness, which is a common withdrawal symptom. I've actually been thinking I'll try to stop using it in the next month or two, although the correct way to do that will be to talk to my doctor and taper off the dosage rather than just quitting cold turkey!

Good news is between working with a therapist and on some life style changes my anxiety has been quite low for the last few months. In the past there's been a couple times I've missed a day, and I'll really notice by the evening that I'm feeling more anxious, but that's not the case now, so that seems promising!

Tom Servo

March 18th, 2023, 04:28 PM

Nice! Yeah, anxiety was definitely something that came up for me, so here's hoping I can find some changes to help get mine down as well.

speedpimp

March 18th, 2023, 04:34 PM

Between Friday and Saturday I worked 27.5 hrs with 4 hours of sleep between the shifts. Add in some weird late winter weather and I'm ready for a nap.

FaultyMario

March 18th, 2023, 05:33 PM

Tuck yourself Rich, nothing like the big pleasures in life, and by that I mean a big sleep and a big shit.

JoshInKC

March 18th, 2023, 07:00 PM

Had my first therapy session today. It was really hard, but good. Tried to be really honest about things, my therapist ended up pretty quickly finding a few themes in my life that rung really true, so now the next steps are to figure out how to overcome those.

It's weird opening up to someone you've never met like that. I should mention that in my next session.
That can be pretty tough- on the upside, you can still get some good work done before and until you 'open up' (as you've seen with the 'themes').
I really like the lady I've been seeing for the past 8ish months, during which I feel like I made some good progress, but it's taken that long to get through various layers of thought,memory, and defenses to get to the real deep down root stuff. Hopefully, you won't have quite as long a journey.

Crazed_Insanity

March 19th, 2023, 07:10 AM

I haven’t had professional therapy yet, but my understanding is that these journeys do tend to be kinda long. Injuries can be inflicted quickly, but unless Jesus miraculously healed you, most healing processes do tend to take some time. Find a therapist you like and comfortable with and be ready for a longterm relationship with him/her. I pray that we can all be healed of our past injuries and become better versions of ourselves.

March 19th, 2023, 01:19 PM

Between Friday and Saturday I worked 27.5 hrs with 4 hours of sleep between the shifts. Add in some weird late winter weather and I'm ready for a nap.

Our truckers have tight max driving and min resting limits.
But that is for trucking only, nothing controls what happens outside of it.

speedpimp

March 19th, 2023, 01:45 PM

Tuck yourself Rich, nothing like the big pleasures in life, and by that I mean a big sleep and a big shit.

Well tuck you too, Mario. Tuck yourself long, hard and deep with the heavy weighted blanket you're covered up with.

No te preocupes. hermano. Dormí seis horas y obstruí el tazón.

neanderthal

March 19th, 2023, 02:29 PM

Finally got the 'Rona. Can't believe I've dodged it this long.

No mystery where it came from though, the better half went to a work do that had apparently taken out a significant portion of the attendees, and she has been sick since Friday. We both tested positive this evening having been sick all week.

Hard luck mate. I hope you feel better.

I've avoided it too, so far, but I am tripled vaxxed and still wear a mask when in public areas with lots of people. If there aren't that many, then i'm less likely to wear the mask.

It helps that i'm sore and miserable most of the time so i'm not going out much, if at all.

Leon

March 20th, 2023, 07:19 PM

I'm on the mend, can breathe through my nose again since Sunday morning, and I've had two days back to work! Just occasionally coughing up some rubbish, and I'm giving it a little bit of recovery time before I go back to the gym.

Crazed_Insanity

March 20th, 2023, 08:13 PM

:up:

Feel better 1st! I think exercises can wait a bit! :p

speedpimp

March 21st, 2023, 02:33 PM

Glad you're feeling better Leon.

Tom Servo

March 23rd, 2023, 09:48 PM

Likewise.

Phil_SS

March 24th, 2023, 07:07 AM

Same.

George

March 24th, 2023, 09:22 AM

Not me.

Just kidding! :)

retsmah

March 24th, 2023, 12:53 PM

As of like this week I'm getting a lot of ads, mostly via podcasts, for Ketamine. Which seems weird, but I guess I don't actually know much about Ketamine, I thought it was an illicit drug but I guess it can be prescribed and used as an antidepressant. The ads I've seen are for a website joyous.team (https://www.joyous.team/), which doesn't exactly come off as legit.

Tom Servo

March 28th, 2023, 08:45 AM

dodint

March 28th, 2023, 08:46 AM

There is a reason Pickleball is taking over the racket sports space. A lot less running. ;)

Godson

March 28th, 2023, 03:19 PM

Ketamine has many uses. However, it has many side effects from its uses...

Yw-slayer

March 28th, 2023, 04:37 PM

For horses and/or people?

Godson

March 29th, 2023, 11:07 AM

Pretty much any vertebrate

March 29th, 2023, 12:03 PM

George

March 30th, 2023, 12:41 PM

Michele and I just did our first tennis lesson today. The teacher was a lot more...stern...than I had expected, and there was a lot more running than I expected on the very first beginner's lesson.

I am now walking like I'm on stilts and mostly just softly weeping to myself.

I can remember playing tennis with my Dad when I was in high school, but he really got into the sport at age 65, riding his beach bike to the courts daily in the summer months. He'd have scheduled doubles matches with his regular group but also play pickup games with whoever was around. There were a lot of retirees in the area and he was the gregarious type. Thinking back now, he must have felt like a kid again, hopping on his bike to ride to the playground to meet his friends to play.

Somewhere along the way, he switched to Pickleball and played that regularly until he fell on the court at 78 years old and decided it was time to retire.

I keep reminding myself it's time to get active again. Working from home has been very conducive to sloth, at least for me. Only a few more weeks until Spring around here, and we have public tennis courts within easy bicycling distance.

Cam

April 5th, 2023, 05:12 AM

My wife had her gall bladder removed today because of gall stones that were bothering her lately. The procedure went as expected and she is recovering.

April 5th, 2023, 06:54 AM

So balanced humor then, if she's a humorist.

retsmah

April 5th, 2023, 02:32 PM

My wife had her gall bladder removed today because of gall stones that were bothering her lately. The procedure went as expected and she is recovering.

My fiance had hers removed back in July of 2022!

She was a little slow to come out of anesthesia, which was not surprising based on her previous experience. As a result it was an overnight stay at the hospital, but otherwise was good and the recovery was fine. Hope it goes equally well for you guys!

Actually the view from the overnight hospital room was pretty nice, my fiance couldn't see it from the bed but I liked it!

4062

speedpimp

April 5th, 2023, 03:51 PM

My wife had her gall bladder removed today because of gall stones that were bothering her lately. The procedure went as expected and she is recovering.

Glad she's ok. I had mine out when I was 23. I spent the night in the hospital and was off work for almost two weeks. The culprits causing the pain(the worst I have ever felt) were the size of a Buckeye. I wouldn't want to go through that pain again.

sandydandy

April 11th, 2023, 06:27 AM

My wife had her gall bladder removed today because of gall stones that were bothering her lately. The procedure went as expected and she is recovering. Glad things went well. This procedure is quite routine, and several people I know have done it, including my dad. Still must be scary going under the knife.

speedpimp

April 11th, 2023, 02:28 PM

My wife had her gall bladder removed today because of gall stones that were bothering her lately. The procedure went as expected and she is recovering.

Glad she's ok. Did they do it as out patient?
I had mine out when I was 23 in Oct '93. I was in the hospital overnight. Gall stones were the worst pain I have ever felt. They pulled out two stones that were the size of Buckeyes. I still have the stones.

SkylineObsession

April 15th, 2023, 02:49 AM

Good to hear it went well. Think my Dad had his removed last year. Or maybe it was kidney stones.

So to temporarily change topics for a second, thankfully my son seems to love all things powerful; cars, trucks and trains so far (gets hooked on seeing them in person, as pictures on our walls or on TV).

Exactly one week ago today we went to Australasia's biggest all wheel event for the third time in its three year history (first year had 12,000 people, second year had 24,000 people, this year there were 40,000 people attending).

More than 3,000 cars, trucks, tractors, bulldozers, scrapers, excavators, motorbikes, traction engines, loaders etc etc showed up. A lot of them toured the parade ground (flat bit of land surrounded by slopes either side to spectate from), competed in the tractor and truck pull event, were ripping/digging/scraping/loading/dumping etc earth in the earthmoving area and more.

So since bubs is thankfully into his trucks and stuff, we got a few pics of him with some beautiful (and huge) machines.

A local (to us) mining company took apart one of their huge Cat 777 (modified to a 789) dump trucks, trucked it 2-3 hours further into Central Otago to this show, reassembled it, and drove it around/let people climb onto it. It was so huge that it honestly looked fake, because it towered over literally everything. And then standing right next to it with the tipper up, it felt like you were looking at a skyscraper.
Here's me trying to get my son to look at the camera. :lol:
https://i.postimg.cc/44WvYQY9/DSC9432.jpg (https://postimg.cc/Bt1PyDcS)

Best pic i have of the scale of it.
https://i.postimg.cc/Nf40sdF3/DSC9424.jpg (https://postimg.cc/7f54XMg9)

Photobombing my Mack truck photos (Mack is my favourite brand)
https://i.postimg.cc/65Trn4Z1/DSC9520.jpg (https://postimg.cc/1fhVZtJp)

Nothing beats the sound of a Mack E9 V8. *drool*
https://i.postimg.cc/kGgxjBpG/DSC9527.jpg (https://postimg.cc/47j7yNZR)

Such a small bubbuh with such a big (and bloody beautiful) Mack. Thinking of getting this photo made into a block/glass/metal print to hang on the wall. Got a couple of annoying dots in the sky at the left upper side. Must be something in the camera or on the lens that i can't seem to find/clean off.
https://i.postimg.cc/QCYcvh2b/DSC9547.jpg (https://postimg.cc/QK5BTGx9)

I'll probably post more pics of the trucks later on in the photography forum if anyone is keen. Possibly pics from previous years too. Never, ever seen so many Mack trucks or International trucks in one place. :eek:

https://www.facebook.com/wheelsatwanaka/

speedpimp

April 15th, 2023, 11:32 AM

Please do.

speedpimp

April 15th, 2023, 11:43 AM

Wednesday night I got a message from my cousin saying that his dad didn't have much time left. I let my mom know(because it's her brother). He passed Thursday afternoon. No tears were shed. Friday night I get home from work and my mom tells me that she reached out to her grandson(my half sister's youngest) and let's him know about the passing. Cue said grandson's head exploding because he had no idea he had an extra grandma. He checked with his dad's mom(who had gone to school with my mom) and she confirmed his questions. Pretty sure there was an awkward conversation the next time he talked to his mom.

sandydandy

April 15th, 2023, 01:46 PM

My condolences, me bruv.

Kchrpm

April 15th, 2023, 03:37 PM

Skyline -
That's a cool event, and you got some nice pics! The little dots could be dust on the sensor, I have that issue with an old point & shoot. I fixed it once with a vacuum cleaner and hose attachment, but it just came back later and the fix didn't work a second time.

You can use a photo editing tool to blend the dots with the area around them to make them disappear, and if it's over a simple background it will be pretty invisible.

speedpimp

April 16th, 2023, 09:02 AM

My condolences, me bruv.

Something like that, bruv.

George

April 20th, 2023, 02:16 PM

I hated the NC DMV. I hated it even more when I got to Colorado, walked into a DMV office, and was immediately asked "may I help you?" I thought I was in the wrong place, since I was the ONLY customer there. :eek:

Well, you guys have probably heard me rant about the lack of traffic law enforcement these days and how scofflaws are driving around with expired, covered, and missing license plates without fear of consequences.

Yup, that's me up on that high horse, casting the first stone, and in a glass house, too.

My wife just got her registration in the mail and it's sitting on the kitchen counter to remind me to remove her plate and the 2023 sticker and put on the new '24 sticker.

My son came home from school and asked, "Why does Mom have a '24 sticker but you have a '22?"

:eek:

Now, in my defense, Your Honor, I pull forward into my garage and the door closes less than a foot from my rear bumper, so I don't see the license plate at home very often. And I back into a spot in the parking garage at work, so I don't see the rear plate there either.

Sure enough, my car's registration expired at the end of August, 2022.

I called the DMV and got a real, live person right away. That in itself was amazing. She said to go to any DMV office or a self-service kiosk in certain grocery stores (Really? Wow!) to pay and get my registration and sticker immediately. I drove the two miles to the nearest DMV office, went in without an appointment or anything, and was out of there in about fifteen minutes with my new registration card and license plate sticker.

Did I mention how much I like the Colorado DMV? They do it right! :up:

April 21st, 2023, 06:36 AM

Do you mean you all are pulling your plates off annually, around the re/dempublic?
We have digital system for taxes and analog(*) for inspections.

(*) pollution is digital.

George

April 21st, 2023, 06:51 AM

Do you mean you all are pulling your plates off annually[?]

No. I remove the license plate (and, on my wife's car, the license plate frame too) to clean it, remove the old sticker, and neatly apply the new sticker in the right place. That's just me. Then I bolt it back on to the car.

A lot of folks just apply the new sticker on top of the old ones. That's okay too, but I'm a weirdo. :)

Crazed_Insanity

April 21st, 2023, 07:04 AM

Yes, George is a weirdo!

I have like 21 stickers on the plate of my 2002 S2000 now. Doesn’t look too bad. Wonder how many years it’ll take to eventually look like a ‘stack’ of stickers…

JoshInKC

April 21st, 2023, 08:16 AM

My favorite version is people who just put a new sticker on, but don't cover the old one. Just pick some blank space and go!

Tom Servo

April 21st, 2023, 08:25 AM

No. I remove the license plate (and, on my wife's car, the license plate frame too) to clean it, remove the old sticker, and neatly apply the new sticker in the right place. That's just me. Then I bolt it back on to the car.

A lot of folks just apply the new sticker on top of the old ones. That's okay too, but I'm a weirdo. :)

I've always heard that once you get a good stack of stickers going, it's that much easier to just pull a chunk of them off and steal the yearly registration sticker than it is if it's attached directly to the plate. I have no idea if that's true, but I usually try to remove the old one before putting the new one on, and that usually requires taking at least the plate frame off.

Crazed_Insanity

April 21st, 2023, 08:47 PM

I’ve had my sticker stolen from my old civic before. Didn’t even know until cop pulled me over. He gave me a ticket but also taught me to use razors to cut my stickers into pieces so that thieves can’t just peel the stickers off entirely.

April 22nd, 2023, 10:32 AM

No. I remove the license plate (and, on my wife's car, the license plate frame too) to clean it, remove the old sticker, and neatly apply the new sticker in the right place. That's just me. Then I bolt it back on to the car.

A lot of folks just apply the new sticker on top of the old ones. That's okay too, but I'm a weirdo. :)

Here the first question is whether it can be unscrewed or not.
Then if police is the work force it will come off, one way or another.
If it's destroyed in the process then bad luck, buy a new one.

My mindset didn't even include stealing before Swervo brought it up.
When we had some of those they were inside a windshield.
It's also a bit outdated that something is actually based on something not digital database.
For example papers are not needed anymore, it's all digital, obviously some ID must be but that is all.

SkylineObsession

April 23rd, 2023, 01:39 AM

Please do.

Probably not the best solution, but for now i'll upload the truck pics (and soon my plane and train pics) to my photography page on Facebook (just gone back onto Facebook after three years or so after deactivating my account) and then maybe try get some of the better ones on postimage.org to put on forums.

Link should work if you're not on Facebook, and if nothing shows just refresh the page.

https://www.facebook.com/MoobleCrudbubbles/photos_albums

Skyline -
That's a cool event, and you got some nice pics! The little dots could be dust on the sensor, I have that issue with an old point & shoot. I fixed it once with a vacuum cleaner and hose attachment, but it just came back later and the fix didn't work a second time.

You can use a photo editing tool to blend the dots with the area around them to make them disappear, and if it's over a simple background it will be pretty invisible.

Bloody cool event, yes. Will upload vids of it to my Youtube channel one day, mainly of truck/tractor pulls and earthmoving machinery playing with dirt.

Yeah i already sent it to a camera shop a couple years or less ago to get a scratch removed, but they must have missed those dust particles - unless they are new ones. There's a few dots on the mirror directly in the hole the lens goes in, but can't seem to get them off it.
Only photo editing tool i have is Gimp 2, but i think i've done blending/cloning with it before so will have a go at it soon. Cheers. :)

And regarding rego stickers, i'm stating the obvious here, but you guys use stickers in the USA? In NZ we get hard paper/carboardy type stuff and slide it into a holder inside our windscreens, like on this F430. Then when it comes time to renew it, just pull out the cardboard and put the new one in. Or just pile them in there until it gets too big and breaks apart.
4078

And if you're wondering, the holders are usually made of plastic and depending on how much sun/heat exposure it gets they will start to warp and come unstuck, but they're usually free from most licencing places.

Tom Servo

April 23rd, 2023, 01:13 PM

Yep, ours are like this:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/9hQAAOSwfVVgBFqU/s-l500.jpg

The month one on the left basically just stays there forever, but the year sticker on the right gets replaced each year. It's a different color each year, presumably to make it easy for highway patrol/parking enforcement to spot out of date registration.

sandydandy

April 23rd, 2023, 01:54 PM

Annual sticker renewals were phased out here a couple of years ago. You still have to get them, but at no charge.

SportWagon

April 24th, 2023, 05:23 AM

But along with cancelling the fees, they cancelled the sending out of notices. Especially fun when you have/had the option to renew for more than one year. A weird thing is, they are expending money to increase automated enforcement (photo surveillance).

...

Link should work if you're not on Facebook, and if nothing shows just refresh the page.

https://www.facebook.com/MoobleCrudbubbles/photos_albums

... Oh. Eventually I realized you must have meant Link should work even if you're not on Facebook, not Link should work if, and only if, you're not on Facebook. Contemplating little things like that amuses me.

dodint

April 24th, 2023, 05:53 AM

No. I remove the license plate (and, on my wife's car, the license plate frame too) to clean it, remove the old sticker, and neatly apply the new sticker in the right place. That's just me. Then I bolt it back on to the car.

A lot of folks just apply the new sticker on top of the old ones. That's okay too, but I'm a weirdo. :)

We stopped doing plate stickers in PA a few years ago. I didn't like driving around with a 2018 (or whatever) sticker on forever, so I peeled it off. But the paint on the license plate came up in that area. So I actually took the time to remove the plate, mask it off, do an okay color match, and then paint it so it would be all one color. :lol:

I don't remember which car/plate that was so it must've worked well.

Crazed_Insanity

April 24th, 2023, 07:10 AM

Wow. Really had no idea other regions have already moved on from stickers! I was still putting on sticker while I was in CA in 2021 and WA uses stickers as well... so I really don't know what life is like without these stickers!

SkylineObsession

April 24th, 2023, 05:09 PM

But along with cancelling the fees, they cancelled the sending out of notices. Especially fun when you have/had the option to renew for more than one year. A weird thing is, they are expending money to increase automated enforcement (photo surveillance).

Oh. Eventually I realized you must have meant Link should work even if you're not on Facebook, not Link should work if, and only if, you're not on Facebook. Contemplating little things like that amuses me.
Ah, haha. Yeah english isn't my first language (gibberish/muttering/mumbling etc is). ;) :P

George

April 25th, 2023, 04:50 PM

...they cancelled the sending out of notices [of registration expiration]

Yup, here too. I told the lady at the DMV I was surprised not to have received a warning letter with dire consequences mentioned if I don't report to the DMV with my checkbook post-haste. She they don't mail reminders anymore.

Oh. Eventually I realized you must have meant Link should work even if you're not on Facebook, not Link should work if, and only if, you're not on Facebook. Contemplating little things like that amuses me.

That kind of stuff amuses me also, and I suspect most who spend time here. This is a pretty literate group.

I learned sentence diagramming in 9th grade English. It is helpful with stuff like that only if you're not on Facebook thing above.

My kids are that age now but apparently sentence diagramming, like cursive, is no longer taught in school (at least around here). They're both on the honor roll and are fairly well read (Asimov, Bradbury, Stephen King, Riordan, etc.) but they can't really explain to me things like adverbs or prepositional phrases or split infinitives. I mean, they're good guessers when I ask, but it's clear they haven't had what I would call grammar class yet.

But the paint on the license plate came up in that area. So I actually took the time to remove the plate, mask it off, do an okay color match, and then paint it so it would be all one color.

:up:

Suddenly I don't feel like such a weirdo.

Maybe we should start a License Plate Thread.

And regarding rego stickers, i'm stating the obvious here, but you guys use stickers in the USA?

Yes, in some states. I've been meaning to post a picture of an old plate of mine with a stack of stickers, although nowhere near twenty-one annual stickers on Crazed_Insanity's S2000. I might have six or eight on an old North Carolina plate formerly mounted to something far more boring.

In NZ we get hard paper/carboardy type stuff and slide it into a holder inside our windscreens, like on this F430. Then when it comes time to renew it, just pull out the cardboard and put the new one in. Or just pile them in there until it gets too big and breaks apart.

And if you're wondering, the holders are usually made of plastic and depending on how much sun/heat exposure it gets they will start to warp and come unstuck, but they're usually free from most licencing places.

Neat. Thanks for showing us that. I guess the "put the new one in" crowd and the "pile them in there" bunch will forever be as divided as we American sticker-stackers and clean-platers.

Do they show the owners' names and addresses on those cards, or just vehicle information?

I ask because apparently back in the 1940s or thereabouts, in at least California, if not elsewhere in the USA, registration stickers were placed on the steering column so they could be viewed from outside the car if someone really wanted to see them, similar to VINs on dashboards now. I can think of two examples of this from media of the time: the Old Time Radio police procedural series Dragnet (https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Certified_Dragnet), in which it is occasionally mentioned.

"There's a car parked in front of that house. Let's see who it's registered to." Or possibly, "See if that car is registered to this address."

The other is a novel from 1949 called Earth Abides (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Abides) by George R. Stewart, a favorite of mine. At one point, the protagonist finds an abandoned car in an interesting location and looks inside to see to whom it was registered and the home address. It's mentioned more than once, I think - I probably wouldn't remember it otherwise.

Both of these, one fictional and the other not, take place in late 1940s and 1950s California.

And we haven't even mentioned inspection stickers yet. :sadbanana:

SkylineObsession

April 25th, 2023, 07:29 PM

Yeah usually (when new) the plastic holders are quite tight, so the people who get multiple rego cards in there are doing quite well. ;)

No names or addresses on the cards thankfully, i'd say there would be a lot more car theft if this was the case.

At the top in the biggest font size is the day/month/year of rego expiry.
Then underneath that in small print is the year, make, model and sometimes sub model/trim (aka 2000 Nissan Skyline or 2000 Nissan Skyline GT-T).
Then in slightly bigger letters than the make and model is the cars registration plates.

But for a more detailed look, see here, as there's other info on them that i've not included: https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2011/0079/latest/DLM2938459.html

And our inspection stickers (warrant of fitness/WoF) are stuck to the inside top of the front window usually. They get taken off at every new passed WoF check, and sometimes leave a nice sticky placemark of where they used to be on the window.

Yw-slayer

April 26th, 2023, 05:57 AM

HK and Malaysia are similar to NZ. Malaysia has just introduced digital road tax discs.

speedpimp

April 26th, 2023, 03:42 PM

retsmah

April 26th, 2023, 05:57 PM

Obviously everyone won't have the same feelings, but as someone who has both purchased a new lawnmower, and moved into a house without a lawn to mow, I prefer the latter! :)

Cam

April 26th, 2023, 08:39 PM

Having mowed our yard today, I can confirm that lawns are for chumps. ;)

dodint

April 27th, 2023, 04:53 AM

I loathe inspection stickers. I never even got the M6 inspected in part because PA has the worst stickers.

Just tie the inspection to the registration. Boom, done.

Yw-slayer

April 27th, 2023, 05:57 AM

Lawns? Yards? What are these strange things of which you all speak? FAKE NEW??!?S?S

Cam

April 27th, 2023, 09:03 AM

The media outlets you view are clearly biased against lawns.

George

April 27th, 2023, 10:52 AM

Just tie the inspection to the registration. Boom, done.

They do that here, but only for emissions inspections. There are no safety inspections. Bald tires, no horn, illegal window tint, cracked windshields, broken tail lights, blinding aftermarket headlights, missing license plates, a still-burning joint in the ashtray, whatever...you pass as long as your car meets emissions standards.

George

April 27th, 2023, 11:01 AM

Nothing says you're a man of a certain age when you get great joy from buying a new lawn mower and then using it for the first time. I sat the old one out front with a sign on it that said the blade needed to be sharpened. A neighbor ended up taking it.

Glad to see the tradition continues. My Dad and I rescued a few such lawnmowers long ago. Usually they only needed fresh gas and the spark plug cleaned with a wire brush.

I figure most people putting them out by the curb know that. I've been thinking about it myself. I have a Briggs & Stratton push mower that has two wobbly wheels and the idle (or running speed) seems to drop a bit each year. The blade has never been sharpened in the sixteen years or so I've owned it, and the bag is starting to tear where it connects to a metal frame that clips onto the mower.

I've been coveting my neighbor's mower for a couple years now. He has an electric one that folds down and can stand up on its end, or side, in a vertical manner, and I assume there's nothing in there to leak. Meanwhile, my mower takes up a big footprint in the garage, unless I fold down the handle, but even then it's in the way.

I'll probably have to mow this weekend for the first time this year. Grass is greening up and sticking up on the edges like it does this time of year. We're starting to see some buds on trees too. Won't be long until it's green around here again and I can start griping about the heat. :D

dodint

April 27th, 2023, 11:06 AM

They do that here, but only for emissions inspections. There are no safety inspections. Bald tires, no horn, illegal window tint, cracked windshields, broken tail lights, blinding aftermarket headlights, missing license plates, a still-burning joint in the ashtray, whatever...you pass as long as your car meets emissions standards.

We kind of have the opposite. Everyone does safety but emissions is county-by-county. So the county next to me has different air, or something.

SkylineObsession

April 28th, 2023, 01:38 AM

I bought my first petrol mower a couple years back after finally giving up on the reel mower (our lawn is way too bumpy, and it was costing too much getting the blades adjusted after hitting one of the many stones etc lying around in the grass).

Old reel mower
4083

New motor mower, with mulching plug (helps keep the grass healthy and green).
4084

Section, lawn, path to clothesline (dug it up and re-paved it with proper tiles instead of concrete slabs) etc are a lot tidier these days, i'll try get better pics one day.

dodint

April 28th, 2023, 05:24 AM

Good deal, the new mower will be able to knock those stones into the neighbor's yard. ;)

George

April 28th, 2023, 05:44 AM

Nice yard. I like the clothesline, too. We had one when I was a kid but I've never had one as an adult. I can't remember the last time I saw one.

Crazed_Insanity

April 28th, 2023, 08:55 AM

Rain has finally stopped and I just mowed my front lawn for the 1st time this year too!

Great thing about electric mower is that it always starts, it doesn’t stink, no more messy oil and stinking gas, and saves space in the garage!

However, just like EVs, it has a range problem.

My WA house has a bigger yard than my CA home, so my current mower doesn’t have the capacity to mow the whole yard. So I only keep my front yard manicured regularly to keep HOA off my back and I just occasionally use the manual push roller mower for the backyard. Since spring is in the air, I thought I just continue to let the backyard grow for the benefit of the birds and bees for now… :p

Here’s what wife planted:
4089

Here’s what God planted in the backyard:
4090

speedpimp

April 28th, 2023, 03:04 PM

The new mower is a Troybilt. Back in March when I bought a new dryer from Menard's I got a rebate card for $95. I used that rebate card to basically score 1/3 off the price of the mower and will get another rebate card from the purchase of the mower. Menard's 11% back makes it worth it.

TheBenior

April 28th, 2023, 04:28 PM

Tom Servo

April 28th, 2023, 06:09 PM

They do that here, but only for emissions inspections. There are no safety inspections. Bald tires, no horn, illegal window tint, cracked windshields, broken tail lights, blinding aftermarket headlights, missing license plates, a still-burning joint in the ashtray, whatever...you pass as long as your car meets emissions standards.

Same in California. You can get pulled over for shit like illegal window tint and broken taillights, but the only thing you need to prove every few years is that you can pass an emissions test to keep your registration up to date.

Tom Servo

April 28th, 2023, 06:21 PM

Went to Miami for the first time ever for a work thing. My takeaways:

The temperature doesn't change. Highs were like 84, lows 79. Humid the whole time. Instant sweating the second you go out.
All restaurants are required by law to have thumping dance music. Upscale steakhouse? Subdued sushi bar? Doesn't matter, they are pumping up the fucking jams. Hell, I walked past a parking garage that was thumping.
Everyone in the city is desperate for people to notice them. Lots of lifted trucks (one complete with LED lights underneath and a liberally used boat horn), a Mercedes SUV painted to look more like a Maybach that had hydraulics, lots of rented Lamborghinis that rev their engines constantly, everyone dressed like they're on Love Island.
Needed a dress shirt at the last minute, so went to Saks. Found only gaudy Miami beach wear.
Miami airport is an outdated pile of shit. I can't remember the last time I waited that long for a checked bag, but that gave me plenty of time to look at all the postings on the internet about how incredibly long Miami takes to get checked bags out to baggage claim. Security seem to only vaguely know what's happening, and TSA precheck person hands you a flyer that is a promo for precheck. I joked to my wife that it seemed really dumb they gave us that only to have another agent explain that you need to keep that out or else they make you take your shoes off.
I'm used to 5k/10k/whatever runs being schedule for weekend mornings. They schedule them for 6:30pm on a Thursday, and the resulting traffic is insane. I am haunted by the cacophony of car horns.
Somehow a decent-but-not-amazing Korean bbq place gets a Michelin star there, despite not holding a candle to the best that K-Town out here has.
It's insanely expensive. I thought LA was expensive, but holy shit, the prices on everything there. An Old Fashioned at the Korean bbq place was $19.
For all the talk of unsafe cities in "blue states", Miami has an amazing number of neighborhoods where people tell you not to go through there. We found this out after my wife (who went with me on my work trip) walked through a part of town called Overtown, only to be told later that that's the murder capital of Miami. A highlight of the walk was a crushed rat swarming in maggots.

Not sure I can think of many reasons why I'd ever return there. I hope future work get-togethers don't happen there.

Now, we wait to see if I caught covid on the trip. Time will tell!

MR2 Fan

April 28th, 2023, 10:19 PM

I've lived in Florida my whole life and never went to Miami...only went to north Miami to look at an MR2 for sale once. I've heard things are a lot worse now, less nice on south beach etc.

Crazed_Insanity

April 29th, 2023, 07:32 AM

I was a huge fan of Miami Vice back then and was really looking fwd to visiting Miami few years back, but yeah, was pretty disappointed. I think I also made the mistake of visiting during the summer? Miami heat, the literal heat, was unbearable! :p

I think the only thing in Florida I’d revisit is Kennedy Space Center. Hope I can catch a rocket launch someday…

speedpimp

April 30th, 2023, 01:28 PM

I'm still using a Troy-Bilt that I bought in 2014. I'd like to get an Toro electric to have a quiet mower that shares batteries with my snow blower and doesn't leave me smelling like exhaust, but it's hard to rationalize paying the better part of $600 just for the experience. With my small lawns, I use maybe 5 gallons of gas per year. The other costs are half a quart of oil, an air filter, and a spark plug once per year. I had the pull starter reel explode on me last year, but even replacing that with an OEM starter, it's been less than $25 in maintenance per year.

The old mower was still rocking the oil that I put in it they day I got it. I replaced the spark plug and air filter a few years ago. When I put the Troy-Bilt together one thing I noticed on the oil container was "NO MORE OIL CHANGES!" We'll see how well the oil holds up after a couple of years. Between the mower and snow blower I might use 3 gallons a year.

speedpimp

May 13th, 2023, 02:57 PM

Potentially heavy shit contained within(you've been mother fucking god damned warned, mother fuckers).
About six weeks ago on a Sunday I got a call from the assisted living facility where my dad lives to tell me that they were taking him to the ER because he was complaining of being in constant pain. That was at 3:30 PM. I immediately headed to the hospital. Seven hours, blood work, an X-RAY and a CT scan later he was released with no diagnosis for the pain(other than degenerative lumbar and sciatica. The ER doc gave him a prescription for Norco. On Tuesday afternoon I received a call from my dad's residence telling me that he had fallen while walking down the hall way. On Wednesday evening I received a call from the residence telling me that he had fallen while walking down the steps. They wanted him to go to the ER(which he refused), but as seeing that I am his power of attorney I told them and him that if he falls again he was going to the ER no matter what.
The next day I called him around 8am and asked him if he was trying to purposefully hurt himself. He said that he wasn't. He sounded normal.
Cut to noon the next day.
I get a call from his residence telling me that they were rushing him to the ER because his girl friend found his unresponsive after he'd fallen asleep. They thought he was having a stroke.
Mother fucker. I was two hours away and felt helpless as all get out.
I made some quick phone calls to arrange the day off while not letting anything show through to my remaining customers.
As I got to my next to last stop the hospital called me to give me an update. Because of the Norco they gave him TWO doses of Narcan and he was still unresponsive. I thanked the doc and finished up my route.
The next morning I talked to my dad and he sounded out of it, but at least he was conscious. I took him a few things and talked to the doc. They did a CT scan and there was zero evidence of a stroke, but there were signs of other issues.
I visited him on Saturday and Sunday and late Sunday afternoon they called to tell me that they had found a skilled nursing facility to send him to for physical therapy. I met the ambulance at the rehab facility and as we walked in the first thing I noticed was a strange odor upon entering the lobby. As we progressed further into the building that strange smell gave way to the unmistakable "Nursing Home Smell"(i.e. urine). He got settled into his room and on Friday of the next week he called me to tell me that he was changing rooms because his original roommate had went home and the new roomie was yelling and hollering nonstop.
Two days later he called to tell me that he had slipped off of his bed. I started towards where he was. Five minutes into my drive I got a phone call from the facility informing me that he had fallen. I get there and he is doing as good as he can be and I get to speak to the nurse. She also informs me that he had fallen in the shower the previous day(but no one called to let me know). I brought my dad a rollator(a spare one of my mom's) to use instead of a walker. I half hugged the nurse in thanking her for caring about my dad.
Also his TV didn't work(this will become a recurring theme) and my dad not being able to watch TV(especially Bluebloods) is like watching a person going through withdrawals. For the next three weeks the non-working TV would be his biggest issue(other than the four falls in two weeks).
On Wednesday of this week I get a call from the case worker at his rehab facility informing me that he isn't participating in his therapy sessions. They also wanted to do a meeting to discuss his discharge. I setup a conference call for Friday(yesterday). After I finish with the case worker I call my dad and go off on him(without really thinking things through). After that I call the facility and talk to one of the actual physical therapists and find out that not only is he participating in his sessions, he is there BEFORE they open up. Cut to Friday and the conference call. They said he has progressed nicely, but has a few impulsive habits that are too far ingrained to work out. They want to discharge him the following Tuesday(and since we're on speaker phone I hear him say he wants to go home that day(Friday)) and they tell him that they don't discharge on Fridays. Then the case worker asks what time would I like to pick him up. WTF? I tell her that where he lives has a van and they could be able to transport him home. The case worker then asks me if I want her to call them. WTF? I reply "Yes!" and she says she'll get back with me if she hears anything from his residence.
During all of this my step-sister asks if she can post about it on Facebook because she can wrangle up some "Prayer Warriors". I told her to go ahead and do that if it will make her feel better.
I visited him today to give him some money and a big hug. Good thing is they fixed his TV, but said the other one was bigger. FFS dad. At least he's content(and motivated AF to get home).
That is dad, now onto mom.
Last June she had her left knee replaced and spent six weeks in a rehab facility after coming home and thinking she'd be able to drive herself to therapy. That lasted four days before she had to be rushed to the ER because she was in severe pain. Cut to her spending her time in rehab and then coming home(after contracting COVID and being isolated for two weeks) for two months of in-home therapy(which she excelled at). But during the time of her recovery she compensated for her weak left knee by putting more weight on her right leg...flash forward to this past Monday when she had her right knee replaced. She said that she knew what to expect this time around and wouldn't need to go to rehab. Best laid plans of Mice and Men, innit.
The surgery came off without a hitch, but when she was in recovery she complained about pain in her right leg and she asked both the nurse and therapist if her leg was wrapped too tight.
She came home and she was taking extreme care in her movements...
Around 3am Tuesday morning I heard her pushing her rollator down the hall and arguing with the cat. The next thing I hear is "HELP!" and she's half on her rollator and the floor, I help her back onto the seat of the rollator so she can rest. She slips off of the rollator and slides onto the floor with her right leg at a funky angle. I call 911 and ten minutes later an ambulance and a fire truck show up. They help her go potty and then put her on a gurney and head for the ER. A little while later they do an X-ray(on a portable machine no less) and I peep the pics and it's not good at all. The new knee was displaced.
After a few hours I hear from mom and she tells me that she broke her fibula just above the knee joint. They redo the surgery on Wednesday afternoon and start fielding referrals to skilled nursing facilities. Flash forward to Friday(but before the conference call for dad) and I hear from two places. On the two hour drive back I call mom and tell her that I heard from two places(and this was news to her) and that her insurance covered either one. This morning she calls me to tell me that she's going to one of the places at noon and she gives me a list of stuff she wants brought to her.
Flash forward a few hours and she's in her bed trying to get comfy and when she asks them if they have a bedside toilet they tell her they would have to order one for her and then she asks them if she can transfer to another facility. I bury my head in my hands and tell her to deal with it for now. I go to Walgreen's and find a bedside toilet for $85(but with a $25 coupon it's $60). It gets rang up as the original price and since Walgreen's has online only coupons it doesn't apply. Whatever. I take the potty to her, put it together and place it exactly where she wants it.
As if that wasn't enough, I got home and went to do some dishes and the hot water is fleeting. I checked the hot water heater and it's not leaking, but the button for the pilot light won't go down.
So that's just one more thing. Appointment made for Friday.
So how are things going for you guys?

Tom Servo

May 13th, 2023, 05:10 PM

Fuckin' A man, that's rough. Sucks that you and them are all going through this.

JoshInKC

May 13th, 2023, 05:12 PM

Wuf. Those're some tough situations, Rich. I support you and wish you the best of luck dealing with both of them. I'm not quite there yet, with my dad being in very good health. I did get a dose of it this winter when my mom got a compression fracture in one of her lumbar vertebrae while staying with us for christmas. What had been 2 weeks turned into 7, so that was a whole thing.

Yw-slayer

May 13th, 2023, 05:45 PM

Take care, bruh Rich.

FaultyMario

May 13th, 2023, 06:22 PM

The motherfucking warning did not cut it, that is some nerve-wrecking stuff Rich.

Cam

May 13th, 2023, 07:59 PM

Dang, bro. :(

sandydandy

May 13th, 2023, 08:37 PM

Really rough situations, me bruv. Take good care of yourself so you can be strong to take care of your folks.

Crazed_Insanity

May 13th, 2023, 11:27 PM

Yeah, aging parents can certainly cause hearts to skip beats! My dad was sent to the ER after falling off the bed in a nursing home as well on Friday…

I’ll spare you the details, but we can pray for each others parents for speedy recovery!

speedpimp

May 14th, 2023, 03:30 AM

Hope your dad is better, Billi/y.

Thanks guys.

Yw-slayer

May 14th, 2023, 03:52 AM

I agree with rich.

George

May 15th, 2023, 06:28 PM

Crazed_Insanity

May 15th, 2023, 07:09 PM

Yeah, it's really tough, but no point feeling too sorry about it. We ourselves are getting older and weaker too! :p

Life is precious whether joyful or sad... and we ought to cherish every moment and minimize regrets. :)

Hope your dad is doing better Pimpie?

George

May 17th, 2023, 06:33 AM

On to sillier things for a moment, I must say I've laughed out loud a couple times now when I've scrolled past this and just had to say so.

All restaurants are required by law to have thumping dance music. Upscale steakhouse? Subdued sushi bar? Doesn't matter, they are pumping up the fucking jams.

Hell, I walked past a parking garage that was thumping.

:lol:

Humid the whole time. Instant sweating the second you go out.

This is the single biggest reason not to live in the east.

speedpimp

May 17th, 2023, 02:38 PM

My dad was discharged Tuesday morning and got to return to his apartment. I went over there after I got off work to drop off his keys and take a hot shower. As I was leaving I realized that his TV wasn't on. I asked him about that and he said he was going down to his girl friend's apartment as soon as I left. I gave him a hug and he was on his way. LOL.

speedpimp

May 17th, 2023, 02:55 PM

So sorry to hear these stories about Rich's parents (both horrible situations; I read every word) and Billi's Dad too.

It is hard to see our strong parents grow weaker. Enjoy your time together with them.

Thanks George. Dad is 76 and mom is 75. I've got two older sisters(58 & 55), one is slightly in the picture, the other has been out of the picture for 40 years. At least my mom is organized. If she needs something she can tell me exactly where it is and I can bring it to her. My dad, OTOH, I've been his POA for almost the last two years. It has been an interesting journey from getting him from my niece's house to my stepsister to his own place.
Interesting side note, when my mom's younger brother died in April she reached out to my half sister's son on Facebook to tell him to tell his mom that her uncle had passed. Cue explosion sounds because the kid had no idea that he had a third grandma. Cue awkward interactions between said young man and my sister. Haven't heard anything since. Heh.

Crazed_Insanity

May 17th, 2023, 07:17 PM

My dad is scheduled to be discharged later tonite. Glad everyone’s dad is okay for now…

As we all get older, don’t fall! Lift some weights to help increase bone density so hopefully you won’t break anything when you do fall. Old folks falling and break bones is really not good. Dad became way more frail after his 1st fall during the pandemic. Everything has been going downhill ever since… to the point of not sure what to pray for?

Anyway, yeah, I suppose cherish every moment is probably the best I can do now.

George

May 17th, 2023, 07:57 PM

The Unknown Third Grandma (hey, that could be a book/TV show/movie title) is a heck of a story. As an only child in a family without such (known) "complications," it's hard to imagine the relationships and the reactions to the news, especially for the younger people involved.

But, I guess as more people get into DNA testing, finding new family members isn't exactly unheard of these days.

My Dad would be 90 now. Mom would be 86. The were married for fifty-one years and left within fifteen months of each other in the late twenty-teens. Both were mentally sound and fit enough to maintain a house and a yard and still drive in their early/mid-eighties, and be good grandparents, too. I was beyond lucky in the parental lottery.

I wish you guys and your parents nothing but health and happiness for as long as possible.

Crazed_Insanity

May 17th, 2023, 08:08 PM

Thanks!

Yeah, life is like a box of lottery tickets! You never know what you gonna get! Win lose or draw, cherish the opportunity to be able to play this game of life! :)

speedpimp

May 18th, 2023, 01:52 PM

sandydandy

May 18th, 2023, 02:19 PM

Glad to hear your dad is out of the hospital, me bruv.

Same good wishes to your dad, Billi.

Speaking of dads, my dad had a scary incident at work in 2021. He tripped over the hand/pump truck and landed chest first onto a steel cage and began wailing. It was scary. He was 77 at the time. We picked him up and walked him to the office and sat him down at his chair. Gave him water and it looked like he was passing in and out of consciousness. We got scared as he appeared to be nonresponsive for a few seconds and decided we had to call 911. I picked up the phone and literally as I dialed 9-1- he stopped me and said he was okay. We had to double and triple check to see if he really was okay and he said he was. My son came to pick him up and took him home shortly after. He went to the doctor the next day and got x-rays done, but thankfully it was all clear. I think he just got winded, but damn it was scary.

I was actually the one who was moving the pump truck around and positioned it behind him briefly as I was trying to get past him. His movements were unpredictable because he was fixing something, so I had no idea he was going to abruptly turn, but he did and tripped and fell hard. These days we’re more cautious around him in the shop and make sure there are no hazards in his path, as he just doesn’t look where he’s going.

In recent news, his older brother (in his mid-80s) fell down the stairs earlier this month and was hurt very badly. He’s in the hospital right now and will likely remain there for a while. He sustained multiple fractures, the most concerning being one to his skull. I think he broke his collarbone too. He’s awake and is communicating. He said he doesn’t remember how it happened, but his wife said that he wanted to go outside for a walk but it was raining, so decided to go to the basement instead to just walk back and forth. I think he blacked out on the way down the stairs. He’s apparently fallen multiple times in the last year or so, but this one was bad.

My dad is pretty close with him so he’s visited him a few times in the hospital and says he’s making improvements, but it’s still a long road to recovery. I might visit him soon.

speedpimp

May 19th, 2023, 03:15 AM

Thanks, me bruv. Glad all is well with your dad and hope your uncle makes a full recovery.

Tom Servo

May 26th, 2023, 06:48 PM

IRS sent us a letter. Said that Michele made significantly more money in 2021 than was reported and that we owe another $4k. Somehow they have two W-2s from the same job, not a W-2 and a W-2c.

Our accountant is looking at it, but not great to suddenly get something from the IRS claiming you owe a bunch of money.

Cam

May 26th, 2023, 07:10 PM

Oof.

21Kid

May 27th, 2023, 02:38 PM

We got a similar letter from the IRS.

George

May 30th, 2023, 12:41 PM

My son got his learner's permit today, meaning he can legally drive a car with me or his Mom in the car for the next year.

Stay off the roads! Run for your lives! :eek:

Tom Servo

June 1st, 2023, 09:02 PM

If all goes according to plan, I will meet some capybaras on Sunday.

FaultyMario

June 2nd, 2023, 06:44 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksnoM1FQnWY

Tom Servo

June 2nd, 2023, 06:53 AM

I expect the experience to be very much like that.

sandydandy

June 2nd, 2023, 11:23 AM

speedpimp

June 3rd, 2023, 09:47 AM

My daughter just turned 16 last week and got her learner’s permit (called a G1 license here). I took her driving on the same day and boy was she nervous. So was I. She’ll definitely need lessons, of course.

Congrats on not pulling out your hair, me bruv.

Not sure about CDN, but in the US "Student Driver PLEASE BE PATIENT!" stickers are showing up on cars, and the cars aren't driven by teens, they are being driven by (mostly) middle-aged ladies.

My dad has been back in his apartment for about three weeks and he's doing good. Last Saturday he had a mishap when he fell when going to use the bathroom and he got his feet caught up in the legs of his Rollator. He was okay other than some gouges on the palms of his hands(because he never trims his finger nails and they tend to resemble talons and they dug into the palms of his hands when he fell). I saw him today and he's fine and definitely making up for lost time with his girl friend.
Last week my mom had half of the staples removed from her leg, yesterday she had the remainder taken out. She's still wearing the knee immobilizer for the next few weeks, but she is motivated to begin her therapy in earnest so she can get out of there.

Tom Servo

June 4th, 2023, 03:51 PM

I befriended a Trump supporter in a roadside bar in Ventucopa, hung out with some goats, pigs, and chickens, fed a capybara and gave it skritches with a back scratcher, fed a giraffe, and saw a wallaby with a joey's legs poking out of its pouch. And ended up in a total "Get Out" meets "The Shining" moment with a red-pilled winemaker that we feel lucky to have escaped alive.

All in all, a nice long weekend near the Carrizo Plain.

Leon

June 4th, 2023, 05:36 PM

Sounds ... an experience?

Tom Servo

June 4th, 2023, 05:50 PM

That is an extreme understatement. I am seriously considering writing a short story about the wine tasting.

Yw-slayer

June 4th, 2023, 08:44 PM

I've experienced quite a few different types of wine tasting. Do let us know about this particular one.

neanderthal

June 4th, 2023, 10:14 PM

My son got his learner's permit today, meaning he can legally drive a car with me or his Mom in the car for the next year.

Stay off the roads! Run for your lives! :eek:

I taught my nephew how to drive in my 1991 Mercedes 250TD which is a 5 speed. I think my blood pressure is only coming down now, from 2021. I might still need a stiff drink from those lessons though.

neanderthal

June 4th, 2023, 10:15 PM

I taught my nephew how to drive in my 1991 Mercedes 250TD which is a 5 speed. I think my blood pressure is only coming down now, from 2021. I might still need a stiff drink from those lessons though.

The only reason I did it is because I had just had foot surgery so I had time, and serious cabin fever. His younger brother is 16 later this year, and yeah, ... not going to happen.

June 6th, 2023, 06:57 AM

Not TitDronic 5 speed, eh.

I had once a V6 Ford Granada, sloppy all the way but with real floor stick.
So just grab the stick and feel the balance.

Tom Servo

June 6th, 2023, 03:51 PM

I've experienced quite a few different types of wine tasting. Do let us know about this particular one.

Here ya go.

Not the short story version I’m thinking about, but here's the wine tasting thing. Sorry, it's long. I'll put a TL;DR at the end.

First, a bit of background. October 2020. Pandemic is in a bit of a lull before really taking off in the first covid winter. I've been laid off. We take a long weekend in a forgotten old oil town called New Cuyama. A place to get away from it all. The town takes maybe 5 minutes to walk across in one direction, 7-8 in the other, though oddly has an adjacent runway long enough to handle small jets next to it, presumably to allow Arco execs to drop in and check on operations back in the day. There's a little old motel called The Cuyama Buckhorn (https://www.cuyamabuckhorn.com/) that has new owners who are trying to turn it into a bit of a destination, and that's where we're staying.

To get there from LA, the easiest way is head up to the town of Ojai, then take CA-33 up through the Los Padres National Forest, dropping down into the town of Ventucopa (a portmanteau of Ventura and Maricopa, population 92), until the end of 33 where it meets up with CA-166. There's not a lot in Ventucopa, except there's a roadside bar called "The Place." We decided to stop there on our 2020 trip. We're from the big city wearing masks and when we walk in, the place is packed with elderly cowboy types who are emphatically not wearing masks. It's the kind of scene in a movie where you hear a record scratch and everything stops. We order a couple of beers and go to sit outside, then head to the Buckhorn. After that, we had a great trip exploring the Carrizo Plain and hiking the San Andreas fault.

Fast forward three years and we thought we'd try to go there again to hopefully catch some of the superbloom that's happening this year. The plains are famous for flower blooms, and this year promised to be pretty special. Sadly it apparently was incredible but also incredibly short-lived due to a heatwave that hit right as it started, so we missed it. Also annoyingly, due to the incredibly rainy winter we had, CA-33 had experienced significant roadway damage and was closed in the forest, so you have to drive around the mountains to get there.

We knew we had to visit The Place again, so we swung by there after arriving at the Buckhorn. The closure of CA-33 had really taken its toll -- nobody's driving that stretch anymore so nobody's just dropping in. No groups of motorcyclists or sportscar clubs these days. We get there and there are only four patrons plus the bartender. We walk in and everyone looks over at us, and one guy says "Hey, welcome! Just so you know, there's a special on Bud Light!" and everyone laughs. (For those not terminally online, Bud Light ran a sponsored post with a trans actress where she showed off a one-off can with her image and now a lot of far-right people are super angry about it). There are a few more terminally online right-wing jokes here and there, but we end up chatting with a guy for a while about the land he'd bought and what he was building, his beehives, and the watering holes he'd set up with trail cameras so he could see all the wildlife (foxes, bears, a mountain lion). Thankfully the conversation veered away from politics and we actually had a really fun, if extremely weird, time.

There are a couple of wineries out in the Cuyama valley. When we went in 2020 we had some wine from Condor's Hope, which was pretty decent, so when we were looking to do wine tasting this time and my wife asked me to pick, I figured we might as well try the other one, Sagebrush Annie's (https://www.independent.com/2009/06/16/say-howdy-sagebrush-annies/). Turns out it's about .1 mile from The Place. From the picture in that article, it's already a little hard to make out that the sign says "SAGEBRUSH", but now it basically just looks like some random lines an angry chicken may have scratched into the facade. We drive past the place figuring that it can't be it, but sure enough the navigation in the car says that's it, so we u-turn and head into their "parking lot", which is basically a bunch of dirt and overgrown weeds. There's a Mercedes Sprinter tour van there loading up and as we wander a little aimlessly trying to figure out where to go, some of the people getting in the van point us in the direction of the tasting. We probably should have picked up on the fact that a few of them were giggling and one of them said "good luck!"

We go into the tasting room and it looks like an old bordello. We are the only customers at the time, so it's just us and the proprietors. Larry is an 88, soon to be 89, year old man and his wife Karina is in her early 70s. Larry's not moving so good these days, but seems mentally there, though any time he starts talking his wife takes over the story and he looks 10% annoyed, 90% resigned to the fact that that just happens. Karina tells us all about how she used to travel to Europe on her own, "ate her way from Moscow to Crete", lived in France a couple of times, and loves to cook.

Now, here's the good part. At first when Larry bragged about all their wines having won gold medals I doubted the veracity of that, but the wine was actually fantastic. We had three cabernets from 2014, 2016, and 2017, as well as a 2017 Zinfandel. The 2016 and 2017 cabs were brilliant. Really great wines, we bought a couple bottles of each.

Michele asked Larry about how he got into wine making. He told us about how he used to live up in Bakersfield but when his kids were old enough to start going to high school, he wanted to move them to a smaller school district, mentioning something about "race issues" in Bakersfield. This should have been a red flag.

Later in the conversation, Karina explained that Viktor Orban just wants to preserve Hungarian culture, and what's so wrong with that? Then she talked about a couple they'd been friends with for 20 years, and how incredibly offended she was that when her friends were retiring, the woman said that their plan was to "go back to their home country" (said in a very bad Mexican accent) and how outraged she was that this woman didn't consider America to be her home.

Karina bragged that they have no cell phones, internet, or TV, that they just "read books and actually talk" as a couple. She later mentioned a penchant for listening to talk radio, so apparently the previous statement wasn't entirely true. Michele asked her what books she was reading. Candace Owens' book was the first one, where we learned that we can better understand the state of things for Black people in the US "from an *actual Black person*". Next up was RFK Jr's book "Real Anthony Fauci." Also on the table was some book about George Soros (which I am so sad I did not catch the title of), and I had it explained to me that Soros "isn't really a Jew, did you know that?!?"

It was all the greatest red-pilled, melted-brain conspiracy theory hits of the past few years. Covid was invented by the Chinese to "cull the herd" of men after decades of families only wanting sons, which has left them without wives. The government tracks everything you do through your Amazon purchases. 5G and vaccines.

I shamefully just tensed up and did not know what to do. I think Karina and Larry thought us politely just being like "huh, yeah, okay" to some of their earlier stuff might have given them the impression that we were of like minds. When it was becoming clear that we were not, Karina was getting more and more aggressive as she talked to us, leaning more forward in her chair and her voice raising. I should also mention that she was drinking wine along with us, and I'm not sure how long she'd been doing that that day. Larry makes an aside to me asking me if he should bring over the bottles we wanted to buy, and I got the impression that this happens a fair bit and he knew it was time to break things up. (continued)

Tom Servo

June 6th, 2023, 03:51 PM

When she started telling us about how great Trump had been for the country, Michele just said "You know, I think maybe we should be leaving," which Karina took as a challenge. "Tell me something, tell me what you think, why I'm wrong."

Michele handled it great. She basically said "Look, we've had a nice time here. We've enjoyed talking to you, we've had some great wine, and I don't want to ruin the experience, which I think is what will happen if we continue this conversation, so I think it's best if we just go." Karina's attitude immediately changes and she seems apologetic. She started pleading with us – “Don’t leave, tell us how you met!”, which made it all that much harder for us to extricate ourselves. Once she had us ensnared again, she ended up insisting that we see their old dining hall. Around this time, we go to use the restroom. Mine is full of extremely large and scary spiders.

Afterwards, we meander a bit while Karina figures out where the keys are so she can open the dining hall. I realize that the area on the other side of the restrooms used to be an outdoor dining/tasting area. It's got a 2-3 foot stone wall around it and there are some picnic tables, but the grass is now 4-5 feet high and the tables are rotted and collapsing. I look around and realize that this place probably used to be really nice, but it's in a state of complete disrepair and neglect.

Karina finally figures out where the keys are and leads us to the dining hall. It's behind two 12-foot tall wooden doors that are padlocked shut. She opens it up and it is honestly amazing. Probably seats 200 or so people. Three-sided wooden bar front and center. Grand piano. Beautiful huge windows that open out to the countryside with a gorgeous view of the mountains. Absolutely perfectly-laid flat brick floor that Larry himself put in, just shy of 15,000 bricks.

Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust, it's clear nobody's been in here for years. Dead spiders and such on the tables. Karina shows us a menu from back when they used to have events here. A line-up of French dishes that she cooked - she and Larry generally were the only staff, they would hire one other person to work as a server on busy nights. She's half showing us the room and half reliving the place's glory days.

Covid clearly harmed their business, the tasting room was shut down for quite some time, but things were already going south by that point. Larry could no longer harvest the grapes and make the wine himself, so they were surviving off selling the old stock they had. Nothing was newer than 2017. Reviews online from back in 2016 are mostly people asking if the place is still open, as nobody seems to be there and they never answer the phone. Karina explained that the extra staff member once asked for a share of the tips and how incredibly offensive that was, so I have a feeling they were facing an uphill battle hiring people to help out.

We finish up the tour and Karina insists on hugging us. We get to the car, get out onto CA-33, and fucking floor it. As luck would have it, Larry and Karina then went to the Buckhorn, where we were staying, to have lunch and follow it up with a few hours at the bar, so we basically snuck around trying not to be spotted. We ended up talking to some other townsfolk -- turns out everyone in this town knows each other. When we mentioned that we asked what books they were reading, someone said "What'd Larry say, Mein Kampf?"

There was part of me when all this was happening that was worried that these people are armed, there's nobody else around, and this is getting really scary, really fast. There's also a part of me that honestly thought they might just be poltergeists, haunting their old tasting room. The dining hall bit felt like the scene from the Shining when Jack's at the bar. I fully expect at some point to find a picture of Michele and I, dressed to the nines, holding up wine glasses surrounded by hundreds of people in that dining hall.

Our conversation keeps going through my mind. I think about how RFK Jr. also says that anti-depressants lead to school shootings or how Anne Frank had it better than us when it comes to the covid vaccine. How if American culture hadn't changed in the past 100 or so years that Karina couldn't vote and that they would be forbidden from making, selling, or drinking wine. About the sheer number of antisemetic tropes assigned to George Soros. Would she react to a Norwegian flag on my car the same way she did to her friends still connected to their home country of Mexico? What would my experience there be like if I weren't white?

I left with the kind of feeling you get from a zombie movie. These folks are too far gone. They were already on the path and covid just accelerated the brain worms, which have now taken hold completely. We took our wine and ran. Of course, we’ll be burning sage over the bottles we brought home.

So yeah. Don't go to Sagebrush Annie's.

TL;DR - went for wine tasting, got trapped in a place with red-pilled racists who may or may not be undead.

Tom Servo

June 6th, 2023, 04:05 PM

First time I've hit the character limit on a GTX post.

Kchrpm

June 6th, 2023, 04:23 PM

Awesome story! Wild and a little sad.

FaultyMario

June 6th, 2023, 07:23 PM

thread robot, remind me in 10 hours.

Crazed_Insanity

June 6th, 2023, 09:55 PM

Awesome story! Wild and a little sad.

Totally agree. Great, wild and actually kinda sad story.

Fortunately it was not the hotel California and you were able to leave.

Leon

June 6th, 2023, 10:15 PM

First time I've hit the character limit on a GTX post.

Well worth it! Sounded like a hell of an experience.

Yw-slayer

June 7th, 2023, 03:12 AM

Damn. Good thing I didn't go there. That said, on the wine tastings abroad we usually go via a tour group, and it sounds unlikely that any group would have taken us there.

The craziest one we went to was a place that I won't name here, but which was in Paso Robles. The group leader hinted with a smile that it was "different" from all of the others.

We walked in to the "tasting room" which is really a bar next to a massive gift shop with fliers, cut-outs etc. for their cruise with unlimited wine, and a few arcade machines (I think Daytona or something similar). An ebullient bartender introduced himself as being a "Guido" from NYC, alongside his colleagues. He asked members of the group where they were from, and when he got to me and I indicated we were from "Hong Kong" he clasped his hands together, bowed, and said "Konichiwa". Everyone was then offered shots of tequila, which we drank, and wine, which we drank and which was not as good as the tequila. We didn't buy any wine and would not visit again, but it was certainly "different" and, in a way, worth visiting.

Still very far from Shining/MAGA-territory though.

MR2 Fan

June 7th, 2023, 06:28 AM

...he clasped his hands together, bowed, and said "Konichiwa".

:twitch:

Tom Servo

June 7th, 2023, 07:39 AM

Heh, we have extended family in Paso, I may have to try to track this place down.

Crazed_Insanity

June 7th, 2023, 07:41 AM

Typical americans are just not good with geography and the fact that he actually is willing to speak a language that's not English was already a nice gesture! No need to raise the bar too high too quickly! :p

Anyway, given my username, I have to speak for crazy people a bit... you know, crazy people are people too! :p

Yw-slayer

June 7th, 2023, 07:48 AM

:twitch:

Exactly.

Swervo, I’ll DM you the name of the place.

FaultyMario

June 7th, 2023, 11:30 AM

Great read.

A question sprung up as I was reading, but by the time I got to the end I'd forgotten it.

Yw-slayer

June 7th, 2023, 06:43 PM

Great read.

A question sprung up as I was reading, but by the time I got to the end I'd forgotten it.

Read it a bit at a time?

speedpimp

June 8th, 2023, 03:25 PM

For some reason I prefer my wines to be drier than my sense of humor.

Tom Servo

June 8th, 2023, 07:12 PM

Big Cabernet Saguaro fan, eh?

speedpimp

June 9th, 2023, 11:58 AM

Never tried it, let alone heard of it before now.

Tom Servo

June 9th, 2023, 03:37 PM

Saguaro are cactus, was a "dry" joke.

FaultyMario

June 9th, 2023, 06:55 PM

The last three jokes on this page were a bit, um...

https://img.ehowcdn.com/630x/photos.demandstudios.com/getty/article/117/29/86493380.jpg

desert?

FaultyMario

June 9th, 2023, 08:22 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB0gmvY-u58

sandydandy

June 10th, 2023, 07:55 AM

Congrats on not pulling out your hair, me bruv. What hair, me bruv? :lol:

Glad your mom and dad are doing better.

Here ya go.

*insert long story*
Crazy story, man. I’ve never run into any true “red-pilled” person here, but one of my friends is going down that road. I’ve mentioned him before. Actually talking to a real person espousing those views must’ve been surreal, as opposed to just reading people’s opinions online, which we’re all mostly desensitized to.

Anyway, around here breathing seemed to be a privilege this past week because of the wildfire smoke from Quebec and northern Ontario. Ok maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, they said it only really affected the elderly and people already struggling with respiratory issues. I saw it affected New York City as well, as their air quality was among the worst in the world. Earlier in the week I noticed I had to breathe deeper than usual, and even experienced a slight bit of pain if I breathed a little too deep. I couldn’t understand why until I read about it online. That was just one day. You could also smell the distinct aroma of something burning in the air, especially in the mornings. I haven’t noticed anything since yesterday, so it appears that the worst is behind us. Though I believe the fires are still raging. Actually I don’t know. It rained a bit on Thursday and smelled foul.

Tom Servo

June 10th, 2023, 12:06 PM

Earlier in the week I noticed I had to breathe deeper than usual, and even experienced a slight bit of pain if I breathed a little too deep.

This is a fun thing when people who are younger or recent transplants here complain about gas prices. What you describe was *common* when I was growing up. There would be days that were so smoggy that if you took a deep breath, it literally hurt. You'd get at least 15-20 days like that every year, often more. California passed a bunch of laws about both the type of gas sold and mileage goals for cars and now it's pretty rare.

But yeah, being under the big smoke plume from a major fire is really unpleasant. We've had that a few times, I'm sorry you're going through it too.

sandydandy

June 10th, 2023, 12:59 PM

Regular smog is a normal thing but it hasn't been bad here in years...decades even, except for those rare really hot days. I can remember back in the 80's and early 90's when it was a big deal. Goes to show the advancements in cleaning up the air by creating less polluting vehicles are quite real, but I don't think it'll ever be enough to satisfy the hardcore environmentalists.

This forest fire smoke thing is a first for me but today has been quite pleasant, and hopefully it stays that way.

MR2 Fan

June 14th, 2023, 05:03 AM

Crazed_Insanity

June 14th, 2023, 06:58 AM

Yeah, I think it was hard enough growing up learning just to be either male or female… now kids have to have infinite options! :p

I think I can ‘relate’ from a political perspective. I self identify as a nonbinary, neither conservative nor liberal. I like little bit of both! I don’t see why I must register as one or the other.

The main thing I agree with the article is that regardless of what you’re registered or born or self identify as, are you being nice?

Tom Servo

June 14th, 2023, 07:31 AM

I suppose I get it about the same as I get other things that I personally have no experience with. I figure for me, it's not a requirement that I'm able to relate, just that I'm willing to be of the mind that someone else is probably a better judge of their gender situation than I am.

FaultyMario

June 14th, 2023, 01:18 PM

same here.

21Kid

June 15th, 2023, 07:24 AM

Whew, this article. I try really hard to understand and be open-minded to many things people want to be identified as. I have several gay and a few trans friends/acquaintances and for the most part it makes sense to me.

Then I come across "non-binary" and this article specifically and it makes things way more confusing than less:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/12-things-people-get-wrong-about-being-nonbinary?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I WANT to be understanding, I WANT to be open-minded but this just makes them come across as confused and not wanting to conform to anything, which by itself isn't wrong in any way, but it makes it really challenging to relate to.
My oldest kid is non-binary. He was born female but doesn't feel like a girl. He also doesn't want to transition or be a boy either. He doesn't like any of the 'boy' things like cars, sports, camping, etc... We tried using they/them for a while but it didn't work out. He'd rather go by he/him even though he sometimes wears girly/cute stuff. It's all about what he feels comfortable with. <3

JSGeneral

June 15th, 2023, 09:31 AM

Inspired by an author I read for the first time:

Just as the previous mornings, I slowly entered and sat in the jacuzzi and let the jets do their work. An opaque surface-froth blocked the view of my offending body. Unseen below, warm water pulsed over aching bones, joints and muscles. Above, only my head and arms were visible. I hid behind sunglasses and a paperback I held open, parallel and close to my face. My armor was complete and I could be alone for the next hot hour. Not to say that there wasn’t company the past week.

Twice, a duo of women joined me in the spa. I gently nodded to them and then went back behind my book. They saw the title. They only spoke with themselves. I was happy with that decision.

Once there was a young father with his four-year-old daughter. He placed their towels over the “No One Under The Age Of 8 Allowed In Spa” sign. They would play in the pool and afterwards both entered the hot tub. He said little because she said much. Half-laughing, she would gleefully cheer out phrases the entire time. “Daddy, throw me.” “Daddy, do it again.” “Daddy, I’m cold.” “Daddy, this water is warm.” “Daddy, I have to go potty…” Upon hearing the last statement, a blind man could have seen my eyes roll from behind my aviators. The father quickly and quietly gathered their things and then they left to take care of their business.

One day, no one showed the whole time I was in the pool area. That was a nice day.

Today it was a pair of surfers. They entered the area donning wetsuits and carrying longboards after a successful early morning soiree in the edge of the Pacific. One of them called to me. “How do you like that book?” I thoughtfully paused before responding. “He’s pretty raw.” The two of them entered the bubbles as he replied. “Yeah, he’s good but probably very controversial these days.” I was more immediate in my defense. “I dunno. It’s a collection of fictional tales based on how people dealt with various traumas influenced directly and indirectly by the Great War. It makes me wonder how modern soldiers will go about their lives after something as horrible as what is going on in Ukraine finally ends.” My too-heavy-introspective-volley was a successful warning shot. He nodded and the two returned to just speaking with themselves. I returned back into my armor.

In my youth, I invented a doctrine to personally avoid works by creatives who had forfeited their own lives. Perhaps they unlocked some unacknowledged truth that led them to go too far. Perhaps that novel idea could inspire my own despair that I’ve been always aware of, but never wished to empower. Naively, I concluded it was best to then avoid them. Early into my reformation, I was not listening to Kurt. In recent years, I added Sinead and Whitney to the list. I even avoided watching the brilliance of Heath or Robin anymore. It was a philosophy of being safe. Sitting sore in that hot tub this week, I was compelled to wash in some genius.

I’d read passages where individual sentences could speak paragraphs. I’d spend minutes on a single page with sweat beading on my face and dripping behind my lenses, pouring over content and being enlightened often with new meanings and imagery. He was a compelling voice in the first-person narrative. It was a collection of grit, a stew of mostly unrelated characters:
- There was a love story of a hospitalized vet and his nurse. At the end, he went home, was sent a Dear John letter and then received gonorrhea.
- There was a tale of a young boy who witnessed his dad get rich fixing horse races as a jockey in Europe. His dad dies in a race accident and two spectators walk by the lad and the corpse calling his dad a cheat.
- There was a story of a well to do lady who was unaware that her husband who she doted on was ignoring her, and unaware that the hotel manager who she ignored was doting on her.
- One-page vignettes sobered the reader between each story. Each described a unique horror that the author supposedly witnessed during and after the war. A mass exodus of refugees gone awry. An execution by firing squad. Another by hanging. A bullfight where the bull dies. A bullfight where the matador is slain.
- A few stories sprinkled in were about a biographically fictional protagonist from the Upper Midwest during different events in his life in the early 20th century.
- Nick as a kid, where his country-doctor father takes him to an Indian camp. Showing off to his son, he performs a necessary Cererian using unnecessary logging tools. The kid ignores most of this and instead witnesses another in the cabin who took his own life.
- Nick and a childhood friend sneaking liquor and getting drunk during a storm.
- Nick encountering various people as he trainhops.
- Nick and a college friend on a ski trip in Europe before going their separate ways in life.
- A two-part tale where Nick hobos another train for a solo fishing trip to try and forget about another fishing buddy who left him after striking oil riches, and tries to convince himself he doesn’t need alcohol.

In every short story, the author ends with the main character left dealing with some personal loss and feeling alone, either physically, mentally, or emotionally. It was written beautifully and also at times, stark. For all its careful wording, only the color brown is called out exclusively. Used often as a description of several instances of whisky and liquor located within its pages. Near the end, the color is called out describing nature, and possibly alluding back to liquor at the same time. The tales near the beginning of the book use the color as a derogatory identifier for a different race.

The racism was rampant. Is this possibly excused because it’s not the author’s voice, rather it’s the characters first-person voices? Seemed like a lazy excuse. Similar to witnessing dialog in a Quentin flick. Perhaps he was inspired by this author? This theory makes Quentin lazy to me. Still, the second war commenced around racism. Perhaps the author was brave to testify aloud to ideas that others would bury, hide and deny they existed at all. I don’t want to excuse what I cannot fully understand. I’ll leave it at “He’s pretty raw.”

Looking away from my book, I now noticed that the surfers had left the spa by now. Subconsciously moving my hidden ankle directly in front of a healing jet of pressure, I reflected on their last topic of conversation. They were humblebragging to each other about how much their kids each read. How much their family enjoyed reading instead of playing games on their iPads. They were exaggerating. If they were having this conversation 20 years prior, it would have been tales about their nights out the previous weekend. 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have experienced what happened to me last weekend either.

Finishing road races like this countless times, I knew the routine. Several hours in, yet a few miles left, runners would be spaced out. Little islands scattered haphazardly over an asphalt ocean. Each one displaying a lone, tired palm tree drooping. Each one unknowing of the other. Experience taught me how to navigate this drudgery and find the finish…

The assault from my thigh was sudden.

In an instant, a pain never possible to endure shot through my leg and seized me. I stood there terrifyingly confused. Any attempt to move the stick of dynamite propping me up would explode into an agony that makes molars shatter upon each other. I had no idea how to deal with this. No tool in my 25-year-old toolshed. I started to massage the storm in my upper leg with little effect. I was also now afraid to move. Panicked, I became aware of many runners passing me in my paralysis. I was no longer even an island; I was now Tom hiding in his cave. The pain, the hurt, the disappointment, the fear that I may not finish crashed upon me. Right then, a different thought occurred…

The jacuzzi timer ended and the swirl of the water subsided. I could now see my entire body again. I ladled myself out of the small pool and enjoyed the sensation of relaxed muscles in the cool air. Placing the book away in my bag, I collected my things and headed back to the rental apartment. I knew that my wife would be finishing up her remote work soon. We’d then spend the rest of another great day vacationing along the beach together. “Ernest got it wrong,” I said to myself. Invigorated, I smiled as I headed back to clean up and get ready. I didn’t want to keep her waiting again.

George

June 15th, 2023, 12:16 PM

Good stuff JSG.

I haven't read his work yet, but have always known I should.

Tom Servo

June 15th, 2023, 02:19 PM

Nicely written. I've read some of his stuff, but not nearly enough. Then again, I'm reading a book by Will Sommer about QAnon, and I only have so much time in a day.

George

June 15th, 2023, 02:25 PM

I'm listening to the audiobook of Alex Trebek's memoir from the library. It's called The Answer Is...Reflections On My Life. All the chapters start with "The answer is..."

Alex reads some of it, but I'll give you guys one guess who reads most of it. Often I think audiobooks are even better than "real" ones.

Tom Servo

June 15th, 2023, 02:29 PM

Please say it's Gilbert Gottfried. Please say it's Gilbert Gottfried. Oh please oh please oh please.

TheBenior

June 15th, 2023, 06:34 PM

Whew, this article. I try really hard to understand and be open-minded to many things people want to be identified as. I have several gay and a few trans friends/acquaintances and for the most part it makes sense to me.

Then I come across "non-binary" and this article specifically and it makes things way more confusing than less:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/12-things-people-get-wrong-about-being-nonbinary?utm_source=pocket-newtab

I WANT to be understanding, I WANT to be open-minded but this just makes them come across as confused and not wanting to conform to anything, which by itself isn't wrong in any way, but it makes it really challenging to relate to.

It often comes across as not being content with not meeting very rigid, traditional sex stereotypes/ideals that exist in their minds, or believing in a gendered/agendered 'soul' that belies biology.

I'm an atheist who isn't rebelling against a Christian upbringing, so I don't have a religious void to fill, and I'm willing to accept gender non-conforming females (like say, my butch/stud lesbian sister-in-law) under an expansive umbrella of 'woman.'

Tom Servo

June 15th, 2023, 06:53 PM

Yeah, I hope this doesn't come across as being shame-y or whatever, but I feel like it's similar to previous iterations here. Like, I don't really "get" being gay because I have no attraction to men. I also don't really "get" being trans because I am pretty comfortable in my dudeness. So, like, I don't really "get" a lot of it, but also the people I know who are gay and are trans are that because that's who they are, and often have subjected themselves to at the bare minimum a fear of being ostracized by those they love to express who they truly are. I don't "get" it because I honestly can't relate, but I can't imagine someone's doing it other than that's who they are and how they feel, and it's no skin off my back. I feel like that extends to basically anyone or anything that doesn't directly harm another person - no matter how much I may not get it or understand, it's also not necessarily a requirement that I get it or understand. Just be like "cool, you do you."

I don't really know any "non-binary" people, but I also didn't know a lot of trans people until a few years ago. A coworker of mine came out as trans at our company Christmas party, and I could tell it took a ton of nerve and she was really worried about how we'd all react. Nobody's doing that if they don't really know that's who they are.

Crazed_Insanity

June 16th, 2023, 07:54 AM

In reality, have we all really figured out who we are? No more surprises at all? Can’t possibly change anymore?

Life seemingly is in a forever discovery mode. Macro level externally in our universe or microscopic level to subatomic particles. Even introspectively within ourselves… I suppose we could get old and sick and tired of discovering further… but my point is that I believe who I am is never a set thing. I’m here now and will likely be different the next minute…

Rather than the self identify as such and such, I think it’d probably be better to just know your preference. We all get ‘turned on’ differently. Both genes and environmental factors could influence our preferences.

If you love playing games, should you self identify as a gamer or just say you love playing games?

In a slightly worse light if you’re sucked into substance abuse, should you self identify as an addict and will be one forever and ever or believe it is possible for you to kick it?

Now, I’m not saying LGBT folks need to kick their ‘preferences’ because they’re bad, but I am saying that perhaps we shouldn’t have such rigid thinking by identifying ourselves by our preferences or professions?

I love engineering stuffs but am I really just an engineer? I can’t do other things anymore?

I suppose those non-binary folks really do want to keep their options open! ;)

But then again, ever since we’re born, our options are limited though. Richer folks could buy more options I suppose.

Michael Jackson could choose to make himself more white. However I think most would agree that it’d become silly for him to self identify as white and join white pride parade… anyway, maybe that’s be fine if there are no white people in the world and one has to come out of the closet to be a white guy?

Anyway, so many unanswered questions and difficult to relate situations…, but the key is that we ought to respect other people’s choices and be as nice as possible even if we don’t understand. It’s just too bad humanity often turn mean when faced with folks who are different.

MR2 Fan

June 16th, 2023, 10:44 AM

My oldest kid is non-binary. He was born female but doesn't feel like a girl. He also doesn't want to transition or be a boy either. He doesn't like any of the 'boy' things like cars, sports, camping, etc... We tried using they/them for a while but it didn't work out. He'd rather go by he/him even though he sometimes wears girly/cute stuff. It's all about what he feels comfortable with. <3

Definitely understandable.

Maybe I've always thought of men and women or masculinity and femininity already have a very wide range, so there wasn't "need" to decide to be gender netural/non-binary, but again this is coming from someone who's a straight male in his mid 40's. I feel like I'm pretty much the average male, not super masculine or feminine, etc.

On that note, I wonder how many people in the past several decades, even famous people would have decided to be more of their true selves if it was socially accepted at the time. People still have trouble even coming out as gay, even though that shouldn't be stigmatized. Don't even get me started on the recent attacks which seems to want to put every person in LGBTQ+ together as if they're all some kind of singular mentality where there's no differing opinion about things, but that's going back into the politics topic.

Just briefly...it seems the GOP wants to attack anyone in the LGBTQ+ community for the idea of trans athletes or trans children. Instead of debating the merits or not (example, if there are advantages to athletes or at WHAT age children should be aware of what they prefer), they decide, because it's super convenient to group everyone in that community together and attack all of them.

TheBenior

June 16th, 2023, 12:06 PM

Just briefly...it seems the GOP wants to attack anyone in the LGBTQ+ community for the idea of trans athletes or trans children. Instead of debating the merits or not (example, if there are advantages to athletes or at WHAT age children should be aware of what they prefer), they decide, because it's super convenient to group everyone in that community together and attack all of them.
This is an issue with lumping wildly disparate groups together under "LGBTQ2SIA+", both from within and without.

There are transwomen who can be thought of as an extreme form of homosexual males. There are transwomen 'lesbians' who reject homosexuality as same-sex attraction and say that lesbians attracted only to other females are TERFs and bigots. 'Maybe you haven't had the right dick yet' from a queer theory angle rather than a regressive one.

We see the same thing from the progressive attempts to include everyone who's not white Christian conservatives under the Democratic party umbrella. Chicago had a fairly heated, racially polarized, aldermanic ward map fight last year. The polarizing aspect was no longer about black/white issues; it was black politicians clinging to power in the face of a Latino population share that now outnumbers the black population. American Muslims largely shifted to the Democratic Party after 9/11 after the increase in mostly right wing bigotry; that alliance has been showing cracks over LGBTQ2SIA+ issues.

MR2 Fan

June 16th, 2023, 12:54 PM

I think it's just the worse part of human nature that people from different backgrounds or ethnicity or religions, etc. etc. will have a push to maintain things for their "own" people.

Being progressive is more difficult than being protectionist, and it's really easy to manipulate people, especially when it's a group that you may not encounter often.

"People fear what they don't understand...Hate what they can't conquer. Guess that's just the theory of man...became a Monster" - Nas

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” - Yoda

TheBenior

June 16th, 2023, 01:40 PM

Human nature is inherently tribal, which is logical given that the vast majority of our history involved hunter gatherer groups involving populations somewhere between small bands of 30 and large tribes of 2500.

That being said, some of the worst of human behavior occurred between groups that led very similar day-to-day lives in spite of different religions or slightly different languages. Hutus/Tutsis, Pre-WW2 German Jews were largely assimilated, former Yugoslavian groups, etc.

speedpimp

June 16th, 2023, 02:33 PM

Dealing with the past few months life has been intersting

Crazed_Insanity

June 16th, 2023, 03:02 PM

Yeah, I think it’s important to understand the limitations of human nature and try to work around that.

When faced with people who are different, confusing, unrelatable, we can always still try to be nice and kind if possible. If not possible, then maybe at least stay away and cease engagement. No need to let those ‘weird’ folks rile yourself up too much. Absolutely no need to be mean and unkind. I think conservative Christians who justify their hatred by hiding behind the Bible is BS. Likewise liberals justifying their hatred by saying that it’s okay to hate haters is BS too.

We can hate problems or bad outcomes, but hating people is probably the least productive thing we can do. Not only does such hatred not solve any problems but will likely cause additional problems.

Anyway, on the flip side, for those people who are ‘different’ or ‘weird’, it also important to realize that others are not obligated to like you and accept you. We shouldn’t be doing things to gain acceptance from others anyways. We have only one life to live. It is precious. Live and choose wisely!

Tom Servo

June 26th, 2023, 08:03 PM

Went with Michele to Chicago to meet up with a bunch of her old Ticketmaster coworkers. It was fun - I didn't have much to talk about with most of them, but that meant I got to spend my time taking in the city, which was pretty cool.

Had a layover in Minneapolis/St. Paul on the way back, and our second flight got cancelled. Delta found a way to blame it on weather, which meant they didn't have to compensate for anything, so we were on our own to figure out accommodations for the night.

Nice to be at the point in my life where I'm like "okay, if this night is going to suck, at least we'll stay somewhere nice and not on the floor in the terminal" and have the credit card to make that happen. Found this super cool brick & old wood hotel in downtown Minneapolis. It was tremendous. We got a suite for the same price as the closet we stayed in in Chicago. Free coffee in the morning that was far better than the $16 for two cups coffee we had in Chicago. I honestly wish we'd had more time in Minneapolis just to hang out at the hotel and check out the area.

It sucked because what should have been a four hour flight ended up taking twenty-seven hours, but it also didn't. We're now seriously considering a trip out to Minneapolis so I can finally take Michele to the House on the Rock. I'm almost glad Delta didn't offer to put us up because it would have been in a Courtyard by Marriott next to the airport. It's nowhere near the Östersund adventure we had a number of years ago, but it's still an adventure and I'm always kinda happy when we end up with a story out of one of these trips.

At any rate, it was my first time being stranded overnight by an airline. It could have been a lot worse.

dodint

June 27th, 2023, 04:46 AM

Minneapolis is great, and don't overlook St. Paul as well. When I went to law school in St. Paul we'd blow off steam at a really cool arcade bar in Minneapolis called Up-Down, fun way to spend an evening: https://www.updownarcadebar.com/minneapolis/

If you decide to go and need more recommendations, particularly on the St. Paul side, let me know.

Tom Servo

June 27th, 2023, 06:30 AM

Will do, thanks!

Cam

July 4th, 2023, 05:35 AM

There I was mowing the lawn. I got a sudden stinging sensation in the back of my leg, like I was stuck with a needle. I was like, "Ah! Ah! WTF?" I rubbed the area for a moment wondering what it was. I did not see anything out of the ordinary, so I kept mowing. Then I started to get a burning sensation radiating down my leg and into my crotch. It was quite uncomfortable, like I was getting stuck with a bunch of needles. I felt like there were ants crawling all over my left leg. I could not see anything, so I kept mowing assuming I was stung by something. The sensation lasted about ten minutes. I now have a welt on my hamstring and still have a bit of a tingling sensation in the area. Obviously, I was stung by something. I've been stung by wasps and bees in the past, so it's not a big deal for me. I just forgot how uncomfortable it can be.

sandydandy

July 4th, 2023, 06:28 AM

Hope you’re okay, Cam. I’ve never been stung by a wasp or a bee, but it’s something I’ve dreaded my whole life. I know they’ll eventually get me one day. :eek:

Cam

July 4th, 2023, 08:03 AM

Unless you are allergic, it's not that big a deal to get stung by the usual local species. I'm pretty sure I don't want to get stung by a bullet ant or an Asian giant hornet though.

Tom Servo

July 4th, 2023, 07:37 PM

A few years ago on a bike ride we saw this gnarly looking wasp that we couldn't identify. It was just flying/wandering around where we were standing. Didn't seem too aggressive, so we didn't run from it too far.

Found out later that a) Tarantula Hawks exist and b) they exist near me. This was upsetting news.

FaultyMario

July 4th, 2023, 07:52 PM

I've read that the largest arachnids in my area are about 6 inches.

BS! back when i used to ride more i remember seeing a tarantula crossing the road that was the size of a small roadrunner.

Cam

July 5th, 2023, 06:05 AM

Turns out I was bit twice or got bit and stung by two different things. I developed an odd lesion to the left of my crotch on my underwear (briefs) line. That explains why I thought it radiated to my crotch. I was actually bit near my crotch. :lol: I don't know what it was, unfortunately. Hopefully, not a brown recluse or something nasty like that. I still have the red spot on the back of my leg too. They are not painful and I have no other symptoms otherwise.

JSGeneral

July 5th, 2023, 10:08 AM

We are witnessing the origin story of the future hero, Spidercrotch.

FaultyMario

July 5th, 2023, 01:16 PM

Peter Pecker?

Crazed_Insanity

July 5th, 2023, 02:19 PM

:lol:

Cam

July 5th, 2023, 02:36 PM

:lol:

MR2 Fan

July 5th, 2023, 07:57 PM

There's probably a better thread to put this in but it kinda covers a few different segments.

Reading things about Zuckerberg's Metaverse and others like Decentraland (The metaverse for cryptobros) having practically no users, it is obvious they aren't learning from the true metaverse success story IMO.

Feel free to disagree if you think this is inaccurate, but the extreme success of this metaverse should be studied....it isn't even known as a metaverse, but it IS the #1 most profitable entertainment venture in history.

I'm talking about Grand Theft Auto Online. Yes, it's mostly targeted toward a specific demographic, but it's made $6+ Billion with no outside corporate sponsors to support it and millions of people volunteer to spend money in this virtual environment to interact with others in a virtual Los Angeles. The ability to do something similar, with lots of activies for a wider demographic THEN make it VR compatible and with high quality....well, everything would go a long way toward being sustainable.

Kchrpm

July 6th, 2023, 03:09 AM

Fortnite is also an example of a metaverse success. Companies are definitely trying to study them and copy them, but it's hard to do, and very clear that VR is not a necessary part of the equation.

dodint

July 6th, 2023, 04:48 AM

I thought Google Plus was going to dominate so I'm not the right person to ask.

MR2 Fan

July 6th, 2023, 07:27 AM

Fortnite is also an example of a metaverse success. Companies are definitely trying to study them and copy them, but it's hard to do, and very clear that VR is not a necessary part of the equation.

While I haven't played Fortnite I would tend to agree from what I've seen. So the best metaverses are the ones not called metaverses.

I saw the lengthy video about Decentraland which is fascinating if you have the chance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiZhdpLXZ8Q

To me it's basically a step by step guide on how NOT to start a metaverse unless your only goal is to get people to invest in the crypto backing it....but you'd do much better if you actually put a hint of effort into it.

Tom Servo

July 6th, 2023, 01:01 PM

I feel like VR will absolutely not be a metaverse until you can figure out the motion sickness thing. Like, GTA V as a VR metaverse thing would work as long as you're never allowed to leave your car, but otherwise it's vomit-city.

dodint

July 6th, 2023, 02:25 PM

Sign me up when it gets to a Ready Player One level.

MR2 Fan

July 12th, 2023, 12:18 PM

I've never been officially opposed to the idea of cruise ships other than the known issues with easily spread illnesses aboard and more recently quite clear issues with how much they pollute (Though probably a very small factor in the grand scheme of things).

Then I saw this new world's largest cruise ship and something kinda set it off for me............ the question of "WHY?". Other than the cruise line's obvious bragging rights and media attention, and sure it has a lot of fancy things aboard but I suppose I have a lot of questions about why we need all of this to be on a boat that goes somewhere.

If there's so many cool things to do on board, why would you care too much about where it docks?

I think the idea of a "land cruise" (not sponsored by Toyota) would be an interesting concept as I think I mentioned about the whole Star Wars hotel but done as a regular cruise ship style.

I feel like this is just overdoing what used to be about the actual being on the water experience into something that you could do just as easily on land without the negatives.

It could also be that this thing looks........kinda overdone and ugly

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230626081600-01-icon-of-the-seas-sails-exterior.jpg

https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/07/12/the-icon-of-the-seas-will-soon-be-the-worlds-largest-cruise-ship---heres-how-much-it-costs-to-get-aboard/?sh=1c9823718c61

Crazed_Insanity

July 12th, 2023, 12:56 PM

I really quite enjoy cruises. Getting onboard and off can be a real pain, same as getting on and off planes..., but the cool thing is that it's so convenient during the cruise. You don't have to rent a car, reserve hotels or worry about what to eat. Everything is all inclusive. Don't have to worry about pack/unpack to a new hotel room or worry about driving directions. You sleep and wake up to a new destination. Yeah, if you're bored, there are plenty to do on a big ship, but usually they're super crowded, I'd rather just stay in my room and chill and enjoy room service and the scenery along the way.

In a way, it also kinda fulfilled my fantasy of able to explore strange new worlds... to seek out new race and new civilizations... and to boldly go, where most people have gone before! :p

Granted, this big ship probably pollutes a lot. Not to mention the flight there..., but, financially, we always find good deals so pretty much all cruises we've been on were way cheaper than if we were to actually book flights/hotels/rental car/meals ourselves.

Of course since pandemic, we've switched to land cruises with RV. I missed having people who'd make up your bed and cook for you everyday... and I can't go very far nor across oceans... and I can't just sleep and wake up to a new destination totally refreshed, but then I get to play 'captain'. When I say 'engage'... I have to also play the navigator to lay in correct coordinates and be careful to not exceed warp speed limit... I also have to play engineer when shit breaks down, I also need to get my hand dirty and to fix things. Our cheap RV is really cheap. Manufacturer specifically warned in the manual to not live in it full time or else risk voiding warranty! :lol:

Anyway, point is there's no perfect way to travel. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

I'm hoping we can have space cruises within our lifetime... so my ultimate fantasy can really come true! ;)

You won't ever complain to the Federation that their starships are too big, right?