Brew

Sanibel, off Fort Myers.

We have to run 60+ miles to get close to 100 feet of depth. I have pretty well given it up and only fish inshore. It’s easier to drive to Miami and charter out of there than make long runs.

Sucks for the banks ultimately, tying up capital in a timeline that is constantly adjusting and should have been cleared last fall for everyone based on the original premise. Instead they are 14 months out on our loan when we filed forgiveness on the first possible day. The fees don’t look as good when you get into year 2 of holding the debt.

257 days in the portal and finally received notice of round 1 forgiveness. Glad they stuck with that timeline in the bill.

When we stayed on Chalk Sound, we ate at Las Brisas and Chinsons pretty much every meal. Both were excellent. When we moved over to the Gansevoort, we ate on site every meal. The restaurant on the beach was really good for a lunch place. I don’t have much else other than that.

Smoke and mirrors for most and mainly a kick to the nuts of Ireland. Edit to add: It is a nice change for the US to be leading discussions rather than acting like a petulant child in the corner though.

I can’t speak for F500 companies because I don’t do any work for them, I can speak on what I see in the 7 - low 9 figure valuation companies as they are where I spend most of my time. I don’t know that I would say the people that run those companies are necessarily smarter than 99.99999% of the population, but I would say they are smarter/more astute than a large percentage of the population. Most have made bets and taken risks that most “average” people can’t fathom and that is worth something substantial. I don’t know what that number is, but I see the high side on companies I deal with in the 100:1 to 300:1 range top to bottom salaries in the larger operations. Honestly, most I see are 10:1 to 50:1 until they get well into the 8 figures in revenue. I don’t know where the magic line in the sand is where it becomes excessive, but I don’t think that is it. Others would probably say that no one is worth that much though. I can tell you with 100% certainty that the number of people that work for me that could do what I do, put in the hours I do, oversee the growth we have had in the last 5 years, etc. is pretty fucking slim. They don’t have the drive, the interest in giving up their family time, the wherewithal to deal with client issues, etc. to ever be able to do it. They are excellent at what they do, but I’m better at what I do and that’s not a knock on them at all. We couldn’t do what we do without them, but this doesn’t exist without a few of us. What’s that worth? I don’t have an answer, but there are definitely people out there that operate under a different mindset than the average person and are financially successful because of it. I’ve read things on Jeff Bezos and that dude is in that .0000001% of smartest guys out there doing things no one else could think of, but I’m still not buying shit from his companies because I think it’s bad for the people I do business with and the country at large. I also don’t eat at anything other than local owned restaurants, shop local as much as i can, etc., so everyone has some version of some weird ass principles they live by.

Do you ever add anything useful to a discussion, because I’m pretty sure I’ve only seen you being a douchebag for the most part in threads? This thread is more cloakroom than most cloakroom threads at this point. The art of discussion and disagreement is pretty well gone at the moment which hurts discussion in the CR. Throw out a viewpoint that JJ doesn’t agree with and you’re a Nazi. It’s fucking stupid and lazy, but it’s where we are at even though I’m sure he’s the first one on the bus to deride Trump for his name calling. The R party is in a world of shit at their own making, but there are plenty of R’s that realize that. There are also plenty of shitty ones, but those two groups aren’t necessarily the same. There are a lot of opinions I do and don’t agree with in this thread, but for the most part does anyone really fall 100% on one side of the fence at this point? For me the need to try and end the Trump cycle outweighed my other viewpoints on things so I voted D. I expect that to continue for some period, but I wouldn’t say I identify as a D at this point nor will I going forward. However, people I know have marked with me with the scarlet D because of my vote and there are several I don’t have to worry about talking to any further. When you live in a state that goes 80% R, it is what it is.

Hey now, don’t get carried away. I’ve got a new boat to pay for.

Bought the bottom expecting it’s normal bounce, it did not. I have more shares of this than I originally planned, but whatever. It’s going to roll at some point.

Just seems much simpler to stay offsite and drive in and park. We have done it every trip to both sets of parks and their parking system is so easy I don’t mind paying. They tell you where to park, the shuttles are running constantly, you never have to wait on the tram more than a couple of minutes, do it in reverse at night with no wait for buses, etc. Get a private house, stay in one of the time share resorts if that’s your preference, etc. We do stay onsite for Universal (usually the Portifino) because the perks make it worth it.

First Snook of the summer in shitty beach conditions, hopefully the water improves in the next day or two. Still beats sitting in the office the next couple of months.

Bourbon, but the concept is the same.

Hit the stores that aren’t directly on the interstates in small towns. I’ve had plenty of luck finding decent bottles on the shelves. Pappy, no. Others lower on the totem pole, yes. If nothing else, you can buy all the ER and BT you want. I picked up a GTS for a decent price and several other things close to retail on my last trip.

This dog is like having a baby, throw him in the car and he’s out. 6 hours in and besides a couple stops, he’ll pretty much stay there wedged up under the seat in his bed.

You’re in the redneck riviera and pretty much the heart of it as other areas have tried to go more upscale. It is what it is, but the fishing is great out of there. We looked around Perdido before we bought in SWFL, but it was not our scene even though the drive would have been much better. If you figure this tournament fishing out and need some people, I’m always looking for a way to blow some cash. Best plan is buy a boat, hire a crew, and spend some serious coin I would imagine.

That’s part of the reason it’s taken me so long to find something. All my boats have either been white on white with an accent color or white and black exterior with white interior. Same for vehicles (except for they are white on grey), I’m as vanilla as they come. I also wanted a standard windshield. This one has a light gray interior with black accents which took some getting past, but I think I may end up liking it better than white because it should hide spots easier

Flew to Chicago for a couple of days last week for the first time since all this started. Airports were great with traveler counts down, flights on time, boarding/deplaning organized, etc. We go to Chicago a couple of times a year normally. It’s been hit hard, lots of closed places but the ones we frequent were still there. Police presence downtown was extremely high. Heading out for South Florida tomorrow, be interesting to see how the community we are in down there is dealing with this since we were there at Christmas. Bunch of old people, so it has stayed locked down for the most part.

Picked up yesterday, a little lighter in the pocketbook now. Going from a rotation of boats from the 2000’s to a 2020 was a little eye opening today. The sales guy looked at me funny when I asked where the key was at. Everything is touchscreen which is going to take some getting used too. My wife asked me this morning if this ended my hunt for a bay boat, nope. You can’t have enough boat options although I may be looking a little older and cheaper for that one.

So what you’re saying is you prefer to be on the boat by yourself. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Had to push pickup of mine until this Saturday because they didn’t have it ready last weekend. Looks like I should have upped my budget and gone electric. https://nautique.com/models/super-air-nautique-gs22e/overview

2.0’s don’t have a remote reservoir, 2.5’s do. The issue with Fox’s/Icon’s etc are that you really need someone local that does rebuilds to keep them any length. They require rebuilds at max 50k miles (40k on Icons) and if you have to send them off they can keep them for weeks. The last set I had was a cluster because the fronts went early and now this shit with the rears blowing at 7,000 miles. I prefer the ride quality on the performance shocks, but I’m going to look for other options. Luckily my shop still had my rears, so he put them back on which saved me some dollars. My main issue with Fox is their customer service sucks donkey balls. He called yesterday and they just said pull them off and send them back and we’ll get to them when we can. He asked them to send out a replacement set since the mileage was so low and they wouldn’t even consider it.

Fucking hell, I said numerous times in this thread I would never own another set of Fox shocks. Then I traded last year and the first thing I did was put a 2.0 set on the new truck. Fast forward 7,000 miles and a few months and I started hearing banging from the back of the truck when I hit bumps. Take it in and both rears are blown, I guess from the pictures a page or so back of me using the truck for truck like things. We have to pull them off and send them to Fox to be rebuilt with an unknown timeline, so I have to buy another set of shocks to use while those are with Fox for who knows how long.

Before every start, that should be sufficient. If we’re changing out riders, I just leave it running while we sit.

Most people buying trucks buy for the size. Ford probably isn’t designing this for fleet usage, it’s for people that like the thought of a Tesla but prefer the size of the truck. They just drive around town and rarely tow and this works perfectly. It does not work for me, but the concept makes sense. Even the towing issues would be fine for most people that are running back and forth to the lake, Home Depot, wherever that is inside of 50 miles from their house.