CleverNickname

How much would it suck to have this shirt if your closet? Awwwwwkward.

We saw a baby beaver in Sapphire. It was so damn cute I peed a little. I'd never really spent time in the Appalachia mountains aside from Maine, but one thing I noticed is that holy shit people are so fucking fat. In Colorado and Washington/Oregon, people look ready and able to hike. Up in the GSM, people look 'bout to die 100 yards from the trailhead. Some look like stepping out of the car was a struggle. Clingman Dome was paved in the bloated corpses of its victims, red faced and panting. So many people on the way down stopped us to give us a pep talk. Like dude, this is a paved nothing burger. We got this. (of course National parks skew to the olds, but still). Also, we saw a ton of black bears. And I think my kids could have taken one when they were three. Now the pitties being hauled up the hikes in the national forest... those are some fucking beasts.

Just did a few days at GSM. Weather: rain every day. In the park: get up early for for Falls / Abrams Falls / Grotto Falls. Parking limited. My fav thing after a sweaty summer hike was swimming in the Little River between the Sinks and the Wye (near Meigs Creek). We did rafting on the Upper Pigeon Rover one afternoon- prettt fun. Near Pisgah you must definitely do Sliding Rock. We also hiked in Dupont Forest. Excellent waterfall hikes, do Triple & High Falls, then over to Hooker Falls where you can swim.. So yeah... basically every day we swam in the afternoon... because it's summer and it gets hot (mayne Clingman Dome is still cool later morning). The rivers aren't Rockies snowmelt cold, they are refreshing.

did some ranch puttering. Only 88 today, brrrrr! looking down: looking up:

I am pretty sure in 2024 Chris is a chick name.

I know it's 2024... but is Beryl a chick or a dude?

• Inside is 30"x48" made of 4x6s and 2x walls • currently about 11.5' • it is a little bit cooler/warmer or at least the air isn't • it takes a little bit to carefully climb ladder. I haul up buckets with a pully • I used an electric jackhammer if it's. shelf of rock. Otherwise a 48" bully digger, rock hammer, and chisel. I have a metal dog food scoop that is good for loose stuff. A hand garden fork is good for scraping walls. A couple of padded gardening kneeleres are nice. I have a 36" crowbar which is good in tight space. Two small shivers, one a round and the other a transfer shovel. • jack hammer comes out. Usually I leave the other stuff. • Sometimes a big piece of 3/4 ply covers it (atop some extra 4x4 pieces. I roll screen mesh over to try and keep bugs and frogs out. It's about a quarter mile from the road, and it was a wet May, so O let it air out this past couple of months. • Any larger and I'd need to divide the compartment in half or use 6x6s as the main framing. • Mrs doesn't mind. I come back happier amd less stressed. • I want to do at least 4 sets if 4' sections, maybe 5. I figure go down to 20 or 22 and then think about going sideways. I'd like to get deep enough and from there frame up amd pour concrete in lifts, building from the bottom up. I could remove sections. The wood is pressure treated, but it wont last forever. Maybe I'll even source basalt rebar. You need 2.5x tunnel height in overburden. So a 4' tunnel would need 10' (14 total), 5' = 17.5, and 6' = 21'. Six ft is probably overkill, but might be nice to have the option. Amd of course when I go sideways... mine cart tracks! • I'd go out the 48" side away from the road. Pretty much the only way to go. But I could put another hole after a ways!

been a long while, but other ranch projects are finishing up. Except the 6 yards of of 3/4 I've been spreading in ruts. finally started to timber the walls on the 2nd level (4-8 ft). Got a piece of lumber in all the corners, and completed one side. Put the next set of emergency ladder. Got me new (to me) taller ladder in.

https://www.theonion.com/hurricane-bound-for-texas-slowed-by-large-land-mass-to-1819594726

are any civ or RTS or 4x games any good on console, or is the lack of keyboard and mouse always a fatal flaw?

it'll park over western Iowa for 4 days, because this year: Fuck Sioux City

I've lost about 10 lbs in the past month (228 to 218). Mainly through sheer willpower and embracing the hangry. It sucks, but the results feel great. I have always been a big breakfast eater, so controlling that is key. Sometimes I do a packet of sugar free oatmeal plus a cup of light cereal (~250 cal). Most days I try to do poor man bulletproof coffee (a little pat of butter and black coffee) and that seems to even out my cravings and hunger til noon. If I want a big brunch, I do 1.5 cups of fajiata veggie mix and eggs. I have been buying lots of celery sticks ams celery, and drinking lots of water. Smaller apples seem to help satisfy, too. Cut most carbs, not to be keto, but because they are such calorie sources. Probably why civilization is built of grains and rice! So far been able to avoid overeating days. I think my stomach has begun to shrink or at least I feel full faster. Maybe I'm dreaming that. For meals I am doing a lot of lentil soup + a can of French cut green beans, other soups, or else basically a texmex bowl. I am probably eating a 14 Oz container of pico de gallo every other day. A bagged Ceasar salad, using half the dressing, and add chicken goes hard. Sometimes I just break what used to be one meal for me (2 morning star chik patties on toasted bread) into two meals, hours apart. With kids spring sports over I have time to walk on treadmill or run pretty much every day. It's easy to walk 4-6 miles zoning out on Jim Baird canoe videos, or the Trek Planner. Or just podcasts. So much podcasts. I'm beginning to have opinions on NBA 2nd round draft picks. Among contenders, go for those 23 year olds who can play right away. Giannis ain't getting any younger. And free Jarret Allen. Downsides: sometimes eating different than the family meal. I can't be trusted with spaghetti or tortellini. This past week I think the calorie restriction has tanked my libido. Taking magnesium, B vitamin, etc to help. And generic vitamin V. Plus now I'm like Henry Rollins and am so sexy I can jerk off looking at myself in the mirror.

Keep us posted, OP. I have some ranch acreage, and in 20+ years my kids may have to deal with it. Back when the land had low value, it didn't seem like a big deal. If my son wanted it, he could take less of the rest of the estate. But prices jumped over Covid, and now it's worth something. Enough for me to plan better. I'm thinking about getting a new plat/survey done and recording it as 2 separate tracts of roughly similar value. That way the kids can decide (if they dont want to keep it whole) to sever into already logical "faolir" parts and go their separate ways.

And I'm a little worried I might get pregnant!

I think it raises some weird questions about free will and the brain.

my take: calories and how they are calculated are all based on very old studies supposedly burning stuff. Those old numbers are now just in reference books, and now things often calculated based on ingredients (Atwater system). It is not clear if all those reference numbers are actually accurate to how the human body utilizes food. It might be a lot of seemingly precise numbers based on a century of bullshit. Likewise, I'm not certain calorie meters for exercise is not 90% bullshit. And estimates of baseline metabolism are probably blshit, too. So yeah, I think a person could add up food calories and compare to supposed basemetabolism calorie load and exercise expenditure and the math simply not math. Because all those numbers are bullshit, and [Bullshit1] - [Bullshit2 + Bullshit3] is just bullshit with a huuuuge inaccuracy factor. Even if the math added up, the body is dynamic. A hungry person might extract more calories from food, baseline metabolism might slow, and... well, exercise machine calories estimates are still bullshit.

random shot. Way in the corner is the leaf diverted and the vertical pvc is the first flush. I should have the tank right there, but instead I have these aqueduct to take the water to the 1550 tank. It used to be a straight shot, but I built a carport to park a kawasaki mule. Next Pic shows tank. The bulkhead and important buts are in that wood box. Inside is a ball valve. The pipe goes to a hole in the screw top lid. There is a screen there. Overflow goes to a trough. Lil oak is in the wire cage. Temp piping because O was building the carport amd it started raining on me. Thumb top left.

We collect 2/3 of the ~1000 sq ft cabin roof (barndo) into a 1550 gallon poly tank up at the ranch. Backside goes to a separate 550 gallon tank just for wildlife waterer trough. It is our sole source of water. Cabin was off grid for a few years. Still haven't done a well. Plenty for quick showers and toilet flushes on frequent weekend visits. It is pretty simple. A 12v RV water pump moves the water via underground pipe, plugged into a cheapo 110v inverter. Can still plug into 12v marine batter as backup. I unplug the pump when I'm gone so that some leak doesn't flood everything and drain the tank. No major freeze damage to the tank bulkhead, but the pipes after the manual cutoff have burst if not drained adequately. Rear tank is just a 550 tank on 4 courses of cinder blocks (28 total, 7x4). Enough height to trickle a wildlife trough about 75 feet away. Rainwater gets into tank after going through leaf catcher and filling pvc first flush. I don't really water much with it, but I do douse with bleach every so often. Don't drink or brush teeth with the water. Sometimes I fill a 330 tank with overflow or pump into it and have a watering timer keeping a Monterey oak alive through the summer. I think all my parts were just home depot 3" Pvc and assorted special bits from rainharvest.com. And those were just a downspout filter ($50) and a first flush T and float valve ($50).

I'm going to try Hims compounded oral (or another telemetry outfit) when it's available in Texas. I'm out at >$300/mo, but if it's more like $100 I will try it. I'm 5-11, weighed 227. Just enough to put me into obesity. Nothing special to my story. Weighed maybe 190 when I got married. Kids and the usual +0.5 lb per year caught up with me. BP controlled with men's, hypertriglyceridemia (meds), and now just too fat, outting me into pre-diabetic. Thats 3 reasons to try it. My GP wants me to try and diet first, but said a semaglutide was not out of the question. Basically implied with my insirance out of pocket telemed probably cheaper than going through a conventional pharmacy. https://support.hims.com/hc/en-us/articles/25901088679707-Where-do-you-offer-your-Compounded-Semaglutide-GLP-1-treatment

Amazon has workbooks. Probably aimed at homeschooling, but the same kind of desk work we did all the time as kids. But you'll have to grade it (answers in back, etc).

Base maverick, 12 ft metal panels

In our 401k/403b/457/Roths we are 99% in Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund or a similar target fund (fuck Empower). We could probably be more equity tilt, since she has TRS (and can do social security, since AISD pays in, so no WEP) and I have ERS. Both are effectively non-COLA fixed coupon bonds. Both Rule of 80, 2.3%; both eligible ~2032, age ~52. Might switch to a 2050 target fund, but if you look 2040 is like 90/10 and the 2050 is like 91/9 this far out. Both have pretty good international exposure - to our detriment this year. In retirement, travel 2 years, then see about part-time employment. She could be a permanent sub (get Sept/Oct and May off for prime National Park time), and I could probably get a new statey gig. Maybe I would sub with her. Or just dig holes. We can probably retire at 52 (2032) and live solely on my pension, and bank her pension. Gov't FIRE. Do a 457 withdrawal if we really needed it early (no < 59.5 penalty) but mostly use SS as a COI kicker on our state pensions down the line. Draw on 403b when the inflation eats the pension income into a lower tax bracket pr RMDs start. Roths are house money for grandkids or just inheritance. Would like to downsize the house, depends on where kids land and put down roots. If that's out of state, sell the ranch (51ac, optimistically 300k, yeah right) and buy a new tract to putter on. I want to move to the Western Slope, but I know will probably end up near a kiddo helping with childcare. Might last a little longer than 2032, depends on how much the 529s have packed for the college. Realistically it might be more rational to take the golden ring, and then come back and grind as a retire-rehire in a lesser position. More time for our sex cult, thank you Hims. Less stress, the same or more annual pay. I know a thing or two about life insurance. Been around it about 20 years. There are only 2 products I tell my friends to consider: 20 year term life or 30 year term life. Twenty if your spouse works and yall have a start on retirement savings, definitely buy 30 if they SAH or your kids are more than 5 years apart. Buy em just before you have kids, ideally before you get fat and blood pressure spikes. But never variable life, whole life, variable annuity, indexed linked life, universal life, CDA, etc. Straight immediate annuity if inheriting a windfall, maaaaybe. I bet the higher interest rates means there are some better offers now. The last 10 yrs of zeros had been hard on life insurer actuaries. For a while you couldn't even really purchase a COLA adjusted immediate. Fwiw immediate annuity quotes are a good way to ballpark the value of a pension. I think they are a great was to think about safe withdrawal rates too. Those actuaries probably smarter than me on selecting reasonable variables for PV or FV calculations. In theory a deferred annuity should make sense, and yet they never do. Seems everyone gets cold feet and buyers remorse, and the surrender chargers have bite.

the Colorado river basin doesn't go but a few miles east of 183. So it's already now halfway Lampasas / Brazos. But it will take some time for the creeks to run on down past the gauge in Bend. I was up in Mullin last night and it was all very green and moist. Should be good for a lot of runoff.

western Mills County and the Pecan Bayou keeps getting hammered. Hopefully more streamflow to Lake Buchanon.

a 6000btu widow unit for a bedroom and a 2000w generator would be under $1400 and would enough to keep comfortable for a couple of days. But I'm a cheap mofo.