Damor

BSWH system data: Fully vaccinated cases are almost universally immunosuppressed or other severe comorbidities. I've been working the evening shift for the last week, and it's just nonstop from the imaging standpoint, worse than anything from the winter in terms of volume, severity, and age. Trashed 30yo lungs are no longer a novelty, and have seen multiple young 20's and older teens with widespread lung disease. 30's and 40's on ECMO. I'm sick of this shit.

We didn't resurface, but we did Cooldeck on our new construction about 3 years ago. I love it. It does stay much cooler than other surfaces, is nonslip, and has stood up to derpy boys and a derpy dog. I really wish we'd done it on the porches instead of stamped/stained concrete, and may see if I can get it overlaid on that one of these days.

One of those piercing moments. I want to be The Grandfather when I grow up. Another is Herman Blume's haircut scene in Rushmore. The whole scene is just perfect, from the pin exchange to Blume's expression when he meets Bert to "Are you fond of that mustache? You think you wanna keep it for a while?" Same for the Jaguar Shark scene in Life Aquatic. I see why Anderson is so persnickety, because every little thing in those scenes is done for a reason and done to perfection. And one of the all-time greats: Even though I know all of these scenes by heart, every time I watch them I'm glued to the screen like it's the first time.

Lord Huron is my 13yo's favorite band, and as I posted in another thread, I'm pumped that I found tickets to see them at Red Rocks for his birthday. Hell, they might be my favorite band at present -- when they auctioned a bunch of stuff to support their crew last summer, I spent a stupid amount of money. They're definitely doing some different creative things. The "Alive from Whispering Pines" streaming shows they did were really cool, and worth checking out on Youtube. In other news, I heard this Vagabon track on KUTX a little while back, and damned if it's not still blowing my mind:

The 76571 agrees. 974240195_PXL_20210622_0233391252.mp4 974240195_PXL_20210622_0233391252.mp4

Well this looks interesting.

Lots of good advice here. A few more random things: Agree to oversize the garage and covered porches. They're never big enough. For cabinets, definitely soft close drawers. Get the drawings and label every cabinet with what you want to put in it, then make adjustments as needed. Get sliding shelves for larger and heavier cookware. We put trash/recycling bins both next to the main sink and the island prep sink, a small add which makes a huge difference. My wife likes to bake, so we put two stand mixer lifts in one of the cabinets. Be sure to put an outlet inside. One of the best bang-for-the buck small details we did was heated floors in the master bathroom. It was remarkably inexpensive for a pleasant luxury. We also put in a heated towel rack. Pro move: heat the master shower floor and bench on a separate circuit which you can operate at a higher temperature. Your wife will appreciate it, and will show you her appreciation. If you sized the master shower appropriately, that is. We put floor drains in the laundry room and the game room. Great for peace of mind in case something decides to leak one day. Put lots of quad outlets in. Both sides of the master bed for chargers, lamps, and, uh... etc. Lots of quads in the kitchen for small appliances, Google stuff, etc. Don't forget to put soffit plugs on a switch (smart switch is even better) for Christmas lights. If you are putting in a pool, make sure you have a hose bib nearby for filling and cleaning equipment (kicking myself over this one). We ran Cat6 from a homerun AV closet errrwhere. It may be overkill, but allows me to wireless backhaul my Google mesh and gets streaming devices like smart TVs off of wifi. Love our Blue Star gas cooktop. Be sure to get your vent sized appropriately, both dimension and volume. We put a warming drawer below ours, honestly could use another one. Best kitchen splurge was an undercounter pellet ice maker. Couldn't live without it now. The best advice we got on picking out anything cosmetic that matters to both of you was this: when you're looking at options/selections, don't pick out what you each like best and try to come to an agreement. Instead, cross off what you hate or is a no-go. Eliminate until you're left with stuff you both find acceptable, and somebody pick. We're pretty chill with similar tastes, but we found this really sped the process up and gave us a much more satisfying result. Good luck. We put a lot of thought into it and love our house, but I don't ever want to do it again.

Thanks @Valmy77, just scored tickets behind the dugout, row 5. Unbelievably excited to make it back to the Disch.

So what's the preferred source for good Supers tickets? I used to have really kick-ass season tickets until my boys got too busy playing ball themselves, but since the stars are aligned that we have nothing going on, I'd love to surprise them with our first trip to the Disch in years.

Forgot the frying pan action shot, but made some Ed McGill fried taters yesterday. Big hit with the family and a blast from the past for me. I might add some garlic next time, although that's not canon and too highfalutin' for Gramp's fishing trip grub.

He killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?

If you happen to take the more southern route and go through Post (my destination is more central CO), Holly's Drive-In has great burgers. And it may have changed owners lately, but we stumbled on English Field House in Amarillo last time we went through. Total gem for breakfast stuck in an odd place right next to the airport. Lots of military aviation patches/photos for you plane buffs, cool view of the airfield, and good food. I didn't realize that the Amarillo airport is a big fueling stop for private aviation, so if you're nice to the staff you can get some good stories about their frequent celebrity visitors. If you're really nice, they may let you admire Morgan Freeman's personal utensil set that he leaves there. One of the cooler road trip discoveries I've made, after having driving through Amarillo countless times growing up.

Dammit, whose avatar was that?

Add Flaming Hot Cheetos for a $4 upcharge. Or Takis if it's an authentico kind of place.

I grew up putting salt on grapefruit, thought it was weird to see people put sugar on it. That's also what we left out for Santa instead of cookies when I was a kid. Dunno if that was a South Texas thing or a weird family thing. And yeah, my grandfather's idea of lunch when fishing was invariably Vienna sausages on saltines. Sometimes accompanied by half an onion, eaten like an apple. Fortunately, he usually redeemed himself at supper with T-bones and what he called "Ed McGill Fried Taters" after his old fishing buddy: sliced potatoes and onions fried in a skillet with tons of salt and pepper. Damn, I need to make me some of that.

Very nice, clear explanation. The mRNA vaccines are beautiful in their simplicity. This is well outside my area, but my primary concern for any long-term effects would be something related to inducing an unexpected, as-yet unknown autoinflammatory immune response (immune system, you scary). But having anecdotally seen a few cases of MIS-C, I would much rather take that chance with just the S protein than the entire virus. So my 16yo is fully vaxxed and my 13yo got his first shot last Monday.

My 16yo got his second dose through school today. He didn't notice anything with the first round, we'll see how the second goes. Waiting for them to open it up so we can get our 13yo vaxxed and put this shit in the rearview.

Statistically and historically speaking, the most likely location for uncontrolled rocket re-entry by far is @South Austin's mom.

Funny, because it seems like a lot of my reading lately has gravitated toward religious discussion. I don't know this book or its central argument, but what I understand of Hitchens is that a large part of his outlook is that science and religion are incompatible. Here are a couple books I have really enjoyed lately which speak to that, and address some of Hitchens' arguments specifically: Francis Collins' The Language of God This is well written for an intelligent general audience and has the further benefit of being written by someone who, like CS Lewis in Mere Christianity, began from the atheist perspective. It makes some very interesting arguments from Collins' own experience with genetics, as well as addresses some more universal issues (literally). One thing that I find very refreshing is that he not only makes cogent arguments for the existence of God in opposition to atheism, but also spends a very significant amount of time calling out the anti-intellectualism and ignorance of fundamentalism and young Earth creationists for the damage that they do. Really great read IMO. Stephen Barr's The Believing Scientist I'm pretty sure it was someone on a previous iteration of Surly/Shaggy/Shitty/Whatever who turned me on to Barr's Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, which is a really outstanding book but can get very technical (especially if, like me, you have little understanding of particle physics or quantum theory beyond Schrödinger's Cat). This is a collection of essays which largely distill and shorten those arguments so that they can be digested in smaller bites. As such, it can get a little repetitive and can be a little superficial, but it's still a very interesting read. If you were to read this and like it, I'd strongly suggest following it with Modern Physics and Ancient Faith, where he fleshes out a lot of these concepts much more fully. I just started in on a biographical novel about Pontius Pilate which looks to be good, but these might be more relevant to what you're talking about. BTW, this is one of my favorite threads on the site. Thank y'all for all the contributions.

@Dbeasy We rented a jeep from Colorado 145 in Telluride and did Imogene in July of 2016. They were very well reviewed, and we had a great experience. Their website has a list of trail conditions that gives you a brief summary of each. We did a 4-door jeep since our boys were smaller back then. Do you think your crew would be amenable to that? I think if your two more adventurous guys were driving, Imogene would be fine, but asking your old or pregnant person to drive is probably a recipe for unhappiness. Of course, cramming them into the rear of the jeep may be just as bad or worse. I don't recall a lot of bad drop offs or anything super intense on Imogene, but the early part of the descent has some pretty steep sections where I had to get up out of the seat to see over the hood: (I know that's hard to show with photos) "Which is better, 1?" "Or 2?" The worst part of the day for me was turning around at the parking area at the top of Bridal Veil Falls, because I have a heights thing. Ugh.

The key is in the squishy word "should." I should do a lot of things.

I've already signed my 16yo up. School nurse will be administering them in a couple weeks. Hoping it will be available for my 13yo before school starts.

Lord Huron re-rescheduled their 2020 Red Rocks show from June 2021 to now June 2022. Just bought tickets because why not.

@wood and you other Ixchel frequenters, do any of y'all have a preferred/trusted renter for a 2bdr unit? I'm getting some minor runaround off of VRBO, and seeing prices vary about 10-20% across booking sites including the hotel website, hotels.com, Expedia, etc. Just want to be sure I'm covering all my bases, feel free to PM if more comfortable that way.

Somehow I ended up with time off after Christmas again this year (almost never happens), so I'm deciding between a return trip to IM or trying out Holbox. Lots of stuff is already booked up in both places -- I get that's probably one of their busiest weeks, but geez. Southwest hasn't even opened those flights yet -- I'm banking on them having something reasonable, as prices on other carriers are stupid. I guess this is why we don't travel much during those times, but since I only get so many more trips with our boys before they leave the nest, I'm not turning down any opportunities. Especially when chilaquiles are at stake.