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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

  • Just finished Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Service Model”. It was excellent. But be warned, if you’re looking for military, adventure sci fi with snarky AI’s this will not be your cup of tea. The author takes on modern societal issues in the setting of post collapse human society. Yes, I’m aware of the dichotomy there.

    If you do want snarky AI’s and adventure, then I recommend the following series:

    “Backyard Starship” series. I think it’s up to book 17 so far and the quality of the books have stayed pretty consistent. The prequel series “The Peacemaker Wars” is also pretty good.

    “Expeditionary Force” The quality does NOT stay consistent in this series and quite frankly, it’s not very well written. However, it’s like Lofthouse cookies, a lot of mediocre ingredients come together to make something great. I am a die hard fan of the series and highly recommend it if you want something that just removes you from reality for a while.




  • I was getting ready to leave my girlfriend’s apartment. We had gone out for a walk and ended up having dinner. It wasn’t a formal date or anything, we had been together, officially, for nearly 6 months by that point.

    We hugged and just kept hugging. Not petting or getting frisky, just holding each other and enjoying each other’s company for the final few moments of the evening.

    It just came out, I said “I love you.”

    She tensed and was silent for what felt forever. Long enough to start thinking I just either ended our relationship, or caused serious damage.

    Just when I was about to disengage from her, she relaxed looked up and gave me a very very nice kiss and said; “I love you too.”

    At the time I lived nearly 20 miles away from her and I do not remember the drive at all.

    That was 21 years ago. We have two teenage boys now and happier now than we were back then.

    In case someone wonders why I didn’t stay with her that night, it was a weeknight. We both had work the next day and she had an earlier morning than usual. The following weekend we spent the whole time together.


  • As a parent myself, might I suggest using that as her middle name.

    When we named our two boys, we chose classic yet timeless names for their first, but did have some fun with their middle names. (and NO, they are not named “Ben” and “Will”. My god, I actually know 6 families that have two boys with those names). That way, we got to name them something fun, but they had good classical first names they could go by through out their lives. Our boys were born during the height of what I call the “din” period. Where a lot of babies have names that ended with some derivation of “din”, “dyn”, “den” or something along those lines.

    There is a very good reason why there is an entire subreddit on that other site called “/r/tragideigh”.






  • This goes back over 30 years. Was at a bar with friends after our volleyball league. The bar had two levels, with the second basically a large balcony that over looked the lower floor. We were on the upper level and arranged where I could easily see the tables on the first floor.

    A couple caught my attention, as I was people watching and it looked like there was some tension between the two. The woman got up to go the restroom, just as their drinks were being delivered. As soon as she was out of sight the guy put something in her drink. I immediately got up and headed for the restrooms and waited for her to come out. Fortunately, the restrooms were out of direct site of their table.

    When she came out I approached her and of course I received the standard; “I have a boyfriend.” I told her I didn’t care about that, but that I witnessed her “boyfriend” putting something in her drink. Then handed her $10 to buy a replacement on me and told her she needed to buy a new drink and not let it out of her sight and that I would not approach her again. I went back to my table.

    About 10 minutes later she showed up at my table, handed me my $10 back and told me I probably saved her life. The guy she was with was a new boyfriend and she had been getting bad vibes about him. She pretended to take a sip of her drink, then handed it to her “boyfriend” for him to try it as it was “sooo goood.” He flew into a rage, the got into an argument and he left her at the bar. He was driving. I offered her a ride home. No, I didn’t stay with her, two other people were riding with me that I also had to take home.

    She and I did become good friends. She asked me out and we dated a few times, but it was pretty obvious to both of us that it would never work. We stayed friends though and she did meet her husband in my friend group. They got married had a couple of kids, whom I was an official Uncle to. Both their kids are now married and have their own kids (yes, I’m old).

    The old “boyfriend” never showed his face again. So I have no idea what happened to him, if anything.


  • I have flown into OGG twice. First time was on my honeymoon back in 2005, the second was two weeks ago. My wife and I brought our two teen boys on a family vacation.

    Both times, my first thought after landing was that accident flight. Got to wonder what the crew and passengers were feeling. I also hoped that CB never actually knew what happened to her. Personally, I think it is very doubtful she felt anything, but will never know for sure.


  • I doubt C.B. was alive after she was thrown out of the plane. At the very least she was not conscious. The decompression also happened very quickly, so if she felt anything, it was only for a moment. A halo of blood with the shape of a head can be seen on the side of the aircraft. It is believed that is when she died or at the very least knocked unconscious. The force needed to cause that pattern of blood splatter is immense.



  • I was 31 when the attacks happened.

    While I do think that there was an awareness that an attack was possible, or even in the works. I sincerely doubt that anyone truly thought that 3 airplanes were going to be flown into buildings on that day and one crash in a PA field. The US had the attitude that we were isolated and well defended enough that such attacks were unthinkable. The complete one sidedness of Gulf War 1 really gave the US an out of proportion notion of being invulnerable. Even though the WTC was bombed 9 years prior, two years after the end of GW1.

    Conspiracy denotes malicious intelligent intent. The reality is closer to stupidly complacent. Sometimes the two are hardly indistinguishable.



  • Never do anything permanent to my body, unless it is medically necessary.

    People come in and out of life… Let them.

    Do not date at work.

    Under absolutely no circumstance do I mess with people in relationships.

    Friends that are dating:
    If they break up and I’m interested in her… I give one month per year of time, one month minimum, before I approach her. That helps prevent hurt feelings, it also prevents being the “rebound”. Although, one time it cost me a possible relationship as she broke up with her fiancee’ and immediately approached me. Unfortunately, she never came out an positively stated they were broken up and it caused quite a bit of awkwardness on my part. She ended up hating my guts, but honestly I probably just dodged a bullet.

    Give yourself the respect you deserve. Corollary: Behave in a manner that you can respect.

    There are more, but this is what I have time to type out right now.


  • 54M with a L4/L5 bulge here. Happened 4 years ago.

    Been on 900mg Gabapentin ever since. The bulge is non-operable as it is not large enough. I know what you’re thinking, if it’s so small, what’s my problem? The bulge is sitting perfectly on the nerve (sciatic?) going down my right leg. Ever since, my right leg has felt partially asleep and with out the gabapentin I get a lot of lower back pain.

    I have a few other issues due to it as well. Using the full strength in my right leg results in painful cramps throughout the entire leg. I don’t have the full control over the leg. Walking over rough ground can be interesting, because the leg isn’t doing exactly what I tell it to do. It’s not enough to stop me from doing things, but it can make hiking interesting at times.

    Yes, I did physical therapy. Even to this day, I still do the exercises the therapist had me doing.

    I’m about 15 pounds overweight, but I am active.

    This is the way I’m going to be for the rest of my life, barring some procedure being developed that makes correcting a bulge like mine safe to correct.