In reply to Shadeux :
In the last few years, multiple mailmen have been mugged and had mailbox keys stolen. I've hit the point where I only drop bills in the mail inside a post office.
In reply to Shadeux :
In the last few years, multiple mailmen have been mugged and had mailbox keys stolen. I've hit the point where I only drop bills in the mail inside a post office.
RX Reven' said:I once heard a story about a civil engineer that designed an innovative new bridge and he invited the press to walk across it with him just before opening it to the public.
Half way across the bridge, a reporter noticed some creaking sounds and asked the engineer if there was reason to worry...the engineer said "oh no, you need to worry when you don't hear creaking sounds".
I've stopped making creaking sounds.
You alright?
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
First, I really appreciate your asking...this is an amazing community and I'm so grateful to be in contact with people like you.
I'm sixty, I set ambitious goals for myself in life, they've recently all been accomplished, and all I'm hearing is "keep it coming".
So, what I always thought would be a finish line full of celebration is turning out to be an unpleasant fight over setting reasonable expectations.
RX Reven' said:I'm sixty, I set ambitious goals for myself in life, they've recently all been accomplished, and all I'm hearing is "keep it coming".
Do you need to be heard?
Do you need help finding a solution?
Do you need help doing something?
Do you need to be validated that you're not crazy?
I see the above statement and have a number of questions and initial thoughts, but I want to know what's actually going to be helpful to you.
Why do they make stainless steel fridge doors but not stainless steel water heater tanks?
My middle sister's life is a bit of a mess, to put it mildly. She got married, split up with that guy, never got officially divorced, then moved in with another guy (Mike), had two kids with him, then they split up but she couldn't afford to move out, so she's been living with him for, oh, 7 or 8 years. Well, this spring he told her that he had stopped paying the mortgage on the house and the house was being foreclosed on at the end of the month, and my sister had to scramble to find an apartment to rent with about two weeks notice. She let him move into the apartment, with a time limit of a year to get on his own feet before she booted him, since he had let her live with him for a couple years. Things have gotten worse lately, with him just not involved or contributing at all, and she's thinking of moving that timetable up on kicking him out.
So, my family starts talking Thanksgiving (which is held at my house against my will) and my oldest sister and her family are going somewhere else, my youngest sister lives in Texas and never comes home for holidays, and my middle sister and her ex usually go to his parent's house. Well, this year she said "Nope, I'm going to my family with the kids." So you would think that he would go to his parents. Nope, he's coming with her to my house. Okay, pretty weird that your ex-boyfriend who you are kicking out and who doesn't talk to you or your kids is coming. Kind of awkward since basically my whole family dislikes the guy now.
Then yesterday my sister texts me, "Hey, if Mike's parents have nowhere to go, do you mind if they come to Thanksgiving at your house?" Wait, what the berkeley? Not only is your ex that you're kicking out coming, but now his parents. Why doesn't he just go over to his parents and you come here? This is just so berkeleying weird now.
Shadeux said:About two weeks ago I mailed out nine checks in one day, all going into a curbside USPS mailbox. Only one has been cashed, or tried to. It was originally a $34 check. Someone "washed" it, according to the bank, and they tried to cash it. The $34 check was changed to 18k and change. So now we have to close the account and make a new one, and follow up on the other late charges of the other eight checks. I cannot wait to call USPS in the morning about this. Got to be an inside deal. The Mail Cops do not play.
I hate to be the one to tell you but the Mail Cops do not care. Nor does anyone else who works for the post office or any other agency.
I've had checks disappear out of my business box multiple times. Paid $$$ for cancelation charges at the bank. Called the postmaster multiple times. Same song. Same dance. "We'll look into it." Then crickets. Like most bureaucrats, they are as useless as tits on a bull.
I have transitioned to online payments or wire transfers for all situations where I would usually mail a check.
In reply to NickD :
People are weird.
Sorry.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
I think you nailed it with "validation that I'm not crazy".
My wife is seven years younger than I and she's always subscribed to the work / life balance school of thought.
I, being naturally inclined to worrying and always wrestling with self-doubt, have spent my life focusing on income (get it while you can).
I've made all the money we need and I now just want to play...my life expectancy is 20.4 years with a standard deviation of 9.1 years so 16% of guys like me will be dead in 11.3 years.
SWMBO sez' she's retiring the "instant" I do which is fine by me except I don't think it's right to expect me to continue paying for her direct expenses such as her healthcare insurance. She inherited well into seven figures two years ago, I've completely supported her for over thirty years (100% of house, car, & insurance + 2K per month towards her CC)
I think its time for her to grow the berk up and take a little responsibility for herself...the gravy train is approaching the end of its line (toot-toot).
I've earned it, time to play, berk off world!
In reply to NickD :
I think a lot of people just don't understand boundaries and think that everyone thinks the same.
Or they are taking the new mantra of society ( What Can I Get Away With? instead of What Is Right?) to the limit.
Or they really don't hate the ex and just like to bitch about them to you.
If it was me I'd nope out on the ex or the parents thereof. It's a situation ripe for recrimination.
My rant: if I could stop being berkeleying sick or hurt, that would be great
Literally the last month has been me either being sick or hurt near constantly. I took some time off work to get projects done, not lay around dammit
In reply to MadScientistMatt :
They do actually, I have one. It uses hot water from the boiler inside a stainless steel pipe run in a corkscrew pattern inside the tank. The tank itself is stainless steel with a connection for an anode rod and a small handhole access for service. I drained it last year at 12 years old to replace the anode rod and clean out the sediment at the bottom. Once I was done sucking out the sediment with my shop vac and flushing it the inside of the tank and the heating coil looked as good as new.
They are a bit spendy though. 
(I remember mine being about $900 when I bought it, basically the same as the one in the link)
This is the first time I've flown in about 5 years.
Turns out I didn't miss it.
RX Reven' said:In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
SHMBO sez' she's retiring the "instant" I do which is fine by me except I don't think it's right to expect me to continue paying for her direct expenses such as her healthcare insurance. She inherited well into seven figures two years ago, I've completely supported her for over thirty years (100% of house, car, & insurance + 2K per month towards her CC)
I think its time for her to grow the berk up and take a little responsibility for herself...the gravy train is approaching the end of its line (toot-toot).
I've earned it, time to play, berk off world!
She hasn't worked at all for over 30 years?
Has she been doing other unpaid work to contribute to the household? (E.g. Raising kids, shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.)
What happened to the money she inherited? Did that not go towards joint finances?
I'm not sure about the above things, but it sounds like you absolutely deserve to enjoy a well-earned retirement. Is she trying to pressure you into working for longer?
stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) said:
The local energy company has begun replacing old utility meters with smart meters. You should see all the uninformed, panicky conspiracy theories being thrown around on the community FB page. It's sad. I wish being that dumb and/or gullible was illegal.
People don't know the difference between "radiation" and "ionizing radiation".
Guess what. Your lights emit radiation. Your space heater emits radiation. Your body emits radiation. None of it is ionizing radiation.
Beer Baron 🍺 said:RX Reven' said:In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
SHMBO sez' she's retiring the "instant" I do which is fine by me except I don't think it's right to expect me to continue paying for her direct expenses such as her healthcare insurance. She inherited well into seven figures two years ago, I've completely supported her for over thirty years (100% of house, car, & insurance + 2K per month towards her CC)
I think its time for her to grow the berk up and take a little responsibility for herself...the gravy train is approaching the end of its line (toot-toot).
I've earned it, time to play, berk off world!
She hasn't worked at all for over 30 years?
Has she been doing other unpaid work to contribute to the household? (E.g. Raising kids, shopping, cooking, cleaning, etc.)What happened to the money she inherited? Did that not go towards joint finances?
I'm not sure about the above things, but it sounds like you absolutely deserve to enjoy a well-earned retirement. Is she trying to pressure you into working for longer?
With the exception of taking two years off during the height of COVID, she has worked continuously for the 30+ years that we have been together although I make 3X+ more than her.
She has focused on raising our kids and has done an excellent job (led to Girl Scout troops etc.) but our two daughters will soon be 17 & 20 so that role is winding down.
"Cooking, Cleaning, etc."...bhahaha, let's just say not so much.
She pays for all of the utilities including telcom and generally pays for groceries / toiletries so say 28K per year but I've been throwing 24K per year towards her CC since we got married 22 years ago...I finally cut her off a year ago after she had plenty of time to reconcile her inheritance.
Bottom line: She wants me to keep working because she has six more years to go to get the 35 years of work history Social Security takes into consideration...essentially, she's hoping to collect 1/2 of mine rather than all of hers which won't be as much.
She's basically saying that I can't retire because she's too young to retire.
Bull$hit...she needs to work a few more years or start drawing on her inheritance (I don't care either way). My function in life is not to be her ATM machine...the fact that I've given her a free ride for over 30 years doesn't obligte me to continue until I drop dead.
wae said:This is the first time I've flown in about 5 years.
Turns out I didn't miss it.
The last time I needed to fly, I drove. There is too much to miss at 30k feet.
The blower motor in my R53 hasn't worked since I bought it. I have a spare, got motivated to fix it yesterday. I knew there was a possibility that the motor was fine and the issue was elsewhere but it's only 3 screws and a connector to replace right?
Many hours later I'm worse off then when I started and the motor wasn't the problem at all. But I have to keep going to get it reinstalled so I can fix the real issue.
One of these days I'll learn to do all the proper diagnostic work I know that I should before replacing parts.
EvanB said:One of these days I'll learn to do all the proper diagnostic work I know that I should before replacing parts.
Just did this last weekend with my daughters car. Thought I was hearing brake pad wear indicators, went out and bought brake pads. Turns out it was just the backing plate contacting the rotor. At least pads are cheap, and I know she will need rotors next brake job..
In reply to stanger_mussle (Supported by GRM undergarments) :
My sister is one of those who takes things as gospel without real consideration. She's maybe not that gullible, but she has her moments.
She used to walk up to young women carrying their phones in their bras and tell them that the radio waves would give them breast cancer and they shouldn't do that.
It took me way too long to explain that the phone was an omnidirectional transmitter designed to reach cell towers that could be many miles away, and that being 2 feet farther away from boobs makes zero difference when it is flooding your entire body with RF any time you are in the same room as it is.
RX Reven' said:Bottom line: She wants me to keep working because she has six more years to go to get the 35 years of work history Social Security takes into consideration...essentially, she's hoping to collect 1/2 of mine rather than all of hers which won't be as much.
She's basically saying that I can't retire because she's too young to retire.
berkeley that noise. I would understand if this were a case of, "I want to retire early so that we can both enjoy your retirement together." But expecting you to keep working past when you planned to retire?!? That's bullE36 M3.
If she inherited 7-figures, WTF happened to that money? Why did that not become a joint thing?
That seems pretty crazy.
...
I'm trying to imagine her side, because my wife is 8 years older than me and makes roughly double what I do. I can totally see myself wanting to retire early to have more years enjoying retirement together. Depending on the numbers, I could imagine a scenario of floating the idea of her working 1-2 more years if that made the numbers line up better or something. But that would be the argument of, "We're not really free to do whatever we want, if one of us is still tied to a job."
We also manage our finances differently from you. We've got our personal accounts and a joint account. We each contribute roughly 2/3 of our net pay (after health insurance and retirement accounts) to the joint. I also do a lot of things like meal planning, maintenance, etc. that save money, and a number of other things that have saved us substantial amounts of money. She also likes to spend more doing things like going out to eat.
11GTCS said:In reply to MadScientistMatt :
They do actually, I have one. It uses hot water from the boiler inside a stainless steel pipe run in a corkscrew pattern inside the tank. The tank itself is stainless steel with a connection for an anode rod and a small handhole access for service. I drained it last year at 12 years old to replace the anode rod and clean out the sediment at the bottom. Once I was done sucking out the sediment with my shop vac and flushing it the inside of the tank and the heating coil looked as good as new.
They are a bit spendy though.
Thanks, I suspected such a thing might exist if I looked hard enough. Since I had a water heater with a 6 year warranty fail just before 7 years last Saturday ,I just had to get what was in stock at the big orange store on Sunday if I wanted a shower this morning. They had plenty of stainless steel fridges, but no stainless electric water heaters.
In reply to Beer Baron 🍺 :
"If she inherited 7-figures, WTF happened to that money? Why did that not become a joint thing?"
She's hording it...this is an all too common theme in the Reven' household of "what's mine is communal and what's hers is hers".
Honestly, I'm in line to inherit more than she did so treating inheritance as separate technically works to my advantage but it's very hurtful.
Anyway, thank you so much for the...
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
Had to stop arguing with idiots and a riding gear manufacturer on ADVrider.
Gear MFG was selling heated gloves that they claim produced "low infrared" instead of heat to warm your hands which made their carbon fiber heating elements far better than just a heating wire buried in the glove.
The anxiety is especially bad today. This is getting really old - it is like I have two options: either I have extreme executive dysfunction where I have demand avoidance or ADHD paralysis, or I can get stuff done but I feel like curling up and crying the entire time. A single negative - or even just not-positive - event will derail me.
I need a new psychiatrist, but all I've found that are both (a) in-network, and (b) accepting new patients are either rushed, burnt out doc-in-a-boxes who don't listen or care, or docs that just go along with everything I'm saying without providing any constructive feedback or pushback.
And, I've just never found counseling to be helpful. Every time I try, I end up not getting anywhere after months or years of effort. It seems like it just isn't for me, but I know I need to keep trying... It is just deflating after so many "wasted" attempts.
The one good piece of advice that I've gotten from a counselor, who sadly (for me) has retired, is that PTSD needs to be thought of as a traumatic brain injury. That thought helps me give myself grace. but it doesn't help me get my E36 M3 together.
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