Man I wish I invested in some VPN stock a few years ago. I’m sure they’ll be making a killing with all the us porn bans and now this.

Good thing we live a country with plenty of good honorable ISPs. Xfinity, Verizon and uhh… What’s that other one that offers 10mbps for $200/m?

I’m usually rushing out somewhere when I leave the house and a few of my neighbors are talkers, which I normally don’t mind at all. But sometimes it makes more sense to just wait inside for a minute rather than get stuck in a 5 minute conversation.

This is how my job is. If something goes horribly wrong after hours we get a text, but if I’m not at home doing nothing already then it has to wait and I’ll get to it when I can, and that’s expected.

In exchange we get to sort of do what we want and leave early whenever. Yesterday I took off at lunch and went sledding with the family. I only ever use my PTO for actual vacations or days where I’ll be completely unavailable.

I personally love it, I would love on call pay too but that freedom to take my son sledding on a snow day without having to lose pay is incredible. There’s only ever been 1 emergency issue in the past 2 years that I’ve had to hop on after hours to take care of.

Fireworks are very illegal in my state.

My first Christmas living here when the fireworks we’re going off in the middle of the night I called the cops for the first time in my life. Turns out Joe used to be a cop in the next town over and all my neighbors already knew he was basically immune. I ended up getting a noise complaint because of my dogs, as the fireworks were still going off on the street behind me.

I for the life of me don’t even care about 4k. 1080p to me is as good as it gets, sometimes I watch shows in 720p and occasionally even 480p if it’s a significantly smaller file.

Every holiday with fireworks I have to stay up ridiculously late to keep the dogs calm and soothe my toddler back to sleep multiple times.

We had a crazy thunderstorm until about 11:30 that kept my son up extra late. I hate thunderstoms but thought at least there won’t be fireworks. 11:31 ole reliable firework Joe around the corner was out there doing his thing and it seems like he doesn’t plan on stopping soon.

Also firework Joe sets off a ridiculous amount of stuff at 12am on Christmas eve.

A few years ago I went to visit my mom around Christmas, I picked her up and we were heading over to my grandmas. On the way, while my 1 year old is screaming in the back seat, she asked if she could run into a store on the way.

When we got to my grandmas she gave me the bag that she had just bought, store logo on it and everything, no hiding a thing, that contained 1 roll of camouflage themed duct tape, and a pack of trash bags.

I had told her earlier in the year that I was using trash bags and duct tape to block the windows in my garage while I was doing some renovations in there, and so she got me trash bags and duct tape, almost a year later…

I still appreciate that she got me anything at all and there was at least a thought behind it even if I don’t understand that thought.

The chicken looks pretty cool too, like he’ll steal your wallet and your girl in between puffs before you even finish coughing.

I look forward to missing you at next months meeting.

I hate fireworks and always have. I get people like them, but I wish they didn’t go all night from every direction. If each area had a central park/spot where they did a big firework show for everyone for a little bit I wouldn’t mind it as much, but now every street has they’re own fireworks that go off randomly through the night.

Also something I don’t think a lot of people think about. In my old neighborhood a lot of us had varying forms on PTSD and couldn’t deal with the loud bangs. Holidays where fireworks were heavy were treated as a ceasefire/peace day for the most part since basically everyone who had been involved in a shooting was a mess, which was almost everyone. Others took the chance to disrespect that and use the fireworks as cover, they weren’t treated well.

I’m sure most veterans feel the same or worse.

It’s not just dogs who lose it at fireworks.

This is why whenever my toddler asks for Mac and cheese I give him a dry salad. Gotta build that character.

If I wan unemployed and had no savings and no other job offers, of course I would take whatever job I could get. I hear the market is shit right now but still, it was never that hard to find a remote job if you’re qualified at least as a software dev.

Also my wife would let me turn down whatever job if it didn’t feel right as long as we’re covered. I turned down a job for ~60% more pay that would’ve required 2-3 days in the office about 40 minutes away for my current job that’s fully remote and let’s me make my own hours. I spent a couple nights working on my couch watching movies and working last week so I could take Friday off with full pay and go to a water park.

You cannot replace that freedom and extra time.

Although there are circumstances that could make me consider going into an office, they would have to be dier.

When I was looking for a new job a couple years ago I turned down a lot of on-site and hybrid job for the sole reason that they weren’t fully remote. Some of the jobs actually interested me and I would have loved to take at the time. And I can assure you I am far from wealthy.

Working from home I get to see my wife during the day, play with my son whenever I want, make my own lunch in my kitchen, water my garden during the day, work outside if I want to.

The peace of mind that it brings me is worth $400k. That’s the minimum I would take to go into the office no more than 30 minutes away once a week at most.

I know that’s unrealistic but so is making employees go into the office for something they’re fully capable of doing at home.

Back in the day I had a friend who ran essentially a fish dispensary and had a good connection on quality fish antibiotics. I would stock up on a bunch of stuff whenever they were making an order.

My numbers are surely off but I was paying something like $5 for ~500 amoxacillan, where at a rite aid or CVS you’d be paying, what $50 for 14 pills. The same ingredients, the same markings, the same thing. Just a lot cheaper for fish.