Walser

WUT. Point me in the general direction and we will have some words. And by words I mean I will bar egress before I torch it. In all seriousness I cannot imagine the backlash those Orcs would receive here in Austin.

For what it is worth the two youth pastors I had growing up were quality individuals. Or maybe I just didn't have the right equipment. The vitriol from the Right towards drag queens or whatever is beyond ridiculous to be sure.

My friend in Ukraine let me know about a Year One documentary locally produced there that was released yesterday. It is lengthy, but the quality is good and it has English subtitles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhssmUtN874 - part 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlkzADUfb3s - part 2

I speak weekly with a Ukrainian student learning conversational English. We have weekly lesson plans on various subjects but we are free to deviate from these. She is in her twenties (no pics) and her maturity and English comprehension is quite good. Better than most of us fucksticks. Delicate subject but talk of the war has started to take front stage. She is not shy nor traumatized and speaks freely. She has been sharing some humor, news and stories. A couple quick ones: She lives well outside the war zone but in the first days it was naturally very scary for everyone. She said there are naturally Russians spies around and the rumor was they would paint the roofs of houses for the Russian planes to bomb. People would be checking their roofs every day and put flour on the stairs to detect anyone using them. Often the police would get called by neighbors on other neighbors reporting spies on their roofs. Nothing ever came of that danger where she lives. She said in addition to normal taxes everyone she knows donates what they can to a general military fund. I find that very admirable; these people are all-in. That's all I got. If you got a particular question I can try and work it in during our next session.

Bless your heart.

Thanks Biff. I have had the good fortune of driving around a lot of the country. I remember the big ass confederate (battle flag of Northern Virginia) practically flying across the Interstate in Tennessee. I was not gruntled.

Do you mind sharing where these were? Asking for myself.

Report on a volunteer organization: If you are like me you have looked into ways to support Ukraine but are scared shitless to donate to anything for fear of getting hookwinked. (Please tell me World Central Kitchen is legit) I volunteered for https://www.enginprogram.org/ . Conversational English volunteer opportunity. I went through my interview, training materials, training classroom sessions, and had my first one-on-one conversation with a Ukrainian English student. Program seems legit. Student was a twenty-something professional (no pics) looking to advance her career. I managed to not bring up Texas football in our introduction session. The program is Ukraine-focused and based in the US, though there are volunteers from all over.

Knock at the Cabin yesterday. Another big idea out of the M. Night franchise having just a mediocre execution. Not terrible but not worth the price to see in the theater.

We are wasting time.

Big thanks to SL and Miller and the rest educating us. This is my go-to for catching up. Which is nice because I got awhile sitting in an airport lounge because yet another flight of mine got cancelled. Someone mentioned a while back that this is about good vs evil. We’re not aggie so we can appreciate nuance and that the world is varying shades of gray most of the time. But this is about the closest thing I can remember of obvious good vs evil. So I agree with this characterization. I’m our local Uke cheerleader so I gotta watch myself so my friend group doesn’t get too irritated with my daily updates. I have also found, unfortunately, almost nobody cares about what is going on there. I am surprised about the level of cooperation the West has reached in opposition of the Orcs. But we need to go all in. These half measures are going to get a lot more people killed. Let’s fucking get after it.

No. It is different.

what's a dark brandon

I'm done. We all know where this is going. Supply Ukraine with every possible munition. Train Ukes throughout all NATO bases. Move multiple carrier groups into the Med and Baltic, potentially to enforce a no-fly zone. Open war is upon us, whether we risk it or not.

Haha I got the best opportunity to use that line. I picked up a dog that had just gotten hit by a car and was obviously a stray. The injuries were severe but she made it. Now, it turned out she had been chipped. But they only info they could get was the name of the dog and a phone number. The vet was not eager for me to contact the wildly negligent owner but I felt I had to. I wanted to tell them they were not getting the dog back. Anywho, turns out her name was "Bella". The vet techs told me that I needed to give her a new name for her new life. So I said "Why should I change her name? They're the ones that suck." I'd always liked that name for a dog. /csb

I only mostly despise you. BTW, I had a CT scan and ultrasound, and who knows what number of blood tests. Apparently I showed some markers for a fatty liver. The way the doctor explained it to me that a fatty liver can heal, but once it gets really bad to cirrhosis there is no cure. I don't want to find out if anyone likes me enough to donate part of their liver. To those on the fence about how to classify yourself and your relationship with alcohol...just stop for a period of time. You will find out.

Once you get it working again establish a baseline. From the command-line do "ping -t 1.1.1.1" so you can get a measure of latency and any packet loss. There should not be any. You can also have your ISP run an intrusive stress test on your line. Do some speedtests https://www.speedtest.net/tr to determine throughput. You want to see consistency here. I know this is redundant but update the firmware if you can. Google fiber mesh has been golden for me. Good luck.

Have you tried rebooting it three times?

This! I have been into birds my whole life, particularly raptors. This is my fourth decade in Austin. Came for UT. I distinctly remember noticing all we had were vultures soaring or red-tails above the Missouri-Pacific line. But since I'd say maybe around 2008 I started to see more. I saw my first Coopers, then Sharp-shinned, Red-shouldered, Great-Horned owl, Ferruginous, Bald Eagle, etc. I saw a white Goshawk in a tree in Dallas. No question. There is definitely some improvement in the diversity! Saw my first wild Golden Eagle last week. I was in the southeast part of Colorado. A pair was sitting in the middle of the Comanche Wild Grassland on a telephone pole! As I was still far away I remember thinking "why are transformers there?". I knew they were too big to be Turkey vultures. I'd always thought they were roughly the same size for some reason. 100% Golden Eagle- Bucket list item. Anyway I don't know if they were a mated pair or one was just a juvenile still trying to suckle that teat. I have some pictures but they are from an iphone from the driver on a 2-lane highway. They ain't great. BTW, I heard a talk from a Cooper's Hawk reseacher a few nights ago and he mentioned that the population of Golden Eagles is dwindling. The primary cause is they are simply being shot. Most all other raptors are thriving. I've been to two Falconry conventions, NAFA and Texas Hawking Association in the last month and will post some pics. I'm no Swayze or DougO, etc, but it is quite something to see a fully-stocked weathering yard next to a parking lot on the Texas Tech campus.

I had my sister take me to the ER just so I could get hydrated. And yes, it was detox from going cold turkey. I wasn't actually feeling all that bad. The staff recognized my symptoms right away and basically said no more alcohol for you. I said OK. Over the holidays I had started to become a day drinker. Work was really slow and I had all this time off. Plus all the absolutely pointless bowl games. I'm a weirdo and enjoy watching all of them. Working out was non-existant but I ate fairly healthy. I *think* you would have to be an every day drinker of a decent amount to get to the stage I was at. I did not have seizures, but did have the shaky hands and cold sweats. To answer you directly I had become a functioning all-the-time drinker. I do like the idea of "dry January" or whatever. Observe the effects. While going dry cold turkey can technically kill you, it's not likely unless you basically have Duff beer going directly into your veins. Note: I am not a doctor! I also think it can't hurt to start accurately measuring drinking (was that a single or a double) and maybe keep a journal. Went to my second AA meeting tonight with my cousin. I don't know if I just got lucky, but this group is great. Well run. I hang on every word. Got a line on a sponsor that I will talk to tomorrow.

No, happy to share. Day 2 of no alcohol I started getting cold shivers first thing in the morning while somehow managing to lightly sweat. I would eventually just get up and start my day. Later that day I had what was seemingly spontaneous vomiting; like I wasn't particularly feeling nauseated and there was a little warning. Eventually I was able to keep fluids and solids down. Day three was worse and there was no keeping anything down. Food, fuhgeddaboutit. But was ultimately did it for me was the inability to hold down simple water. On an empty stomach I could drink a small bottle of water and it would all come back up within 15 minutes. So obviously hydration was a big worry and I was not keen to experiment with butt-chugging. At the ER the shakes were so bad I could not really fill out the forms. After I got all my vitals taken (way too high BP, heart rate) and got a drip for hydration and a cocktail of drugs to basically calm me down. It worked. I would have been able to orally drink water except they wanted me to go through some tests first. I was getting damn thirsty at the end. My treatment was three days in the hospital with constant checking of vitals, reducing number of pills and saline, and discharge. If you are interested I can look through my paperwork for the exact chemical treatment. Oh, and I feel lucky. I went to AA this last Wednesday with my cousin and spent the whole weekend mountain-biking with family. But man do I miss drinking; and by that I mean just having something to drink! My family filled my fridge with a wide variety sparkling waters, fruit juices and soft drinks. I prefer the flavored sparkling waters. So it feels like habit for me; I don't seem to have a physical urge,,,yet.

I agree with atomheartbravo. And Experience counts for a lot. Let's compare and contrast previous Allied/American amphibious assaults with those of China. Just off the top of my head: -Crossing the Delaware to attach the Hessians (sorry, couldn't resist) -Marine landings of Japanese held islands in the Pacific -WW2 landings in Sicily -WW2 landing at Salerno on the Italian boot -WW2 D-Day -Korean war flanking landing at Inchon ------------------------------------------------ Now the Chinese: Fuck-O ------------------------------------------------ Getting a viable army to establish a beachhead is super difficult. atomheartbravo has already delved into those details.

Newly-minted alcoholic checking in. Always been a prolific drinker, but wrenched my back after Thanksgiving that turned it up to 11. Pain just laughed at the meds from the back specialist. So holiday heavy drinking followed by the decision to just stop on Christmas landed me in the hospital for three days with heavy withdrawl symptoms. Fortunately I responded well to treatment. I am very thankful for the excellent staff and the almost smothering of family support with whom I was totally transparent with about my condition. But I am most thankful that the doc signed me out in time to watch the New Years Eve bowl games. The TV in my room was laughably small. (bad joke) My social worker, father (MD) who lost a stepson to this, and others are helping me devise a plan to move forward. Not gonna waste any time getting my checklist worked. In-patient care is on the table. I have no desire for a drink right now, but sounds like will change at some point. I will be starting at the beginning of this thread to read your experiences. I also welcome any suggestions. 2023...starting now!