Samson's Wig

My folks left town the day before and dodged the danger. Fires are not uncommon around there, but this one looks to do some serious damage to the city itself. A lot of friends and family have lost their homes and many more are in Roswell, or back in the panhandle with family, waiting to hear if their homes are lost. It's basically a satellite Texas town, for those who don't know it.

I was heavily involved in the wedding planning, as the maid of honor and mother in law were in another country. End result? We got married on a Thursday. Every venue you could possibly want is available on a Thursday, and will do it for peanuts. Same goes for photographers, bands, etc. etc. etc. This was twenty years ago, but I'll bet it still holds up at least to a degree. It's not as convenient for people who have to travel to attend, for sure, but if you want to have a blow out bash and pay pennies for it, get married on a weekday.

I remember watching that one roll in from the top floor of Moody Gardens in Galveston. Fun times.

Dell has had its fair share of sexual harassment/gender discrimination/unsafe work environment issues over the years. It seems like they've generally been able to manage them and move forward, though. I hear things are in much better shape in this regard than they used to be. It's amazing how many harassment lawsuits were filed over the last twenty years in the tech industry alone, but also not that amazing if you know people in tech. Elon is merely a byproduct of a much larger disease.

NM way too late to be responding to it.

Wait a minute, are you trying to tell us that Steve Gutenberg wasn't a printing magnate? Then how do you explain his constant whining about some dude named Fust? And also, how do you explain this image?

Gap kid is no monster. Aggies fall to their knees in fear and begin attacking one another at the mere sight of him, but that doesn't make him a monster.

Tribalism at its finest. I understand it's human nature and that a lot of people will simply never rise above it, but it's still disgusting.

As far as I know, yes. I highly doubt there are many Catholics under the age of seventy who follow that one, though. I'll ask my Catholic wife and get back to you. Like all religions, it's pick and choose what you like and ignore what you don't, because if you tried to actually follow every rule of any religion you'd go insane.

No true Scotsman, amirite?

God told the SBC that IVF is a sin today. Fuck those pieces of shit and anyone who follows their cult of hatred. All religions are a cult, most of them benign, but Baptists can get fucked twice on Sundays and again on Wednesday evenings.

I was also raised SBC and also gave it all up as a teen once the con/cult became obvious. I could have written this same thing just about word for word, so I don't think it was just your small town congregation.

That area of NM is empty as fuck. I grew up in the panhandle and drove through the Raton Pass all the time on the way to ski or do whatever in New Mexico or Colorado. I once ran out of gas in a new (to me) truck that turned out to have a faulty gas gauge. I think I was around 20 years old or so. I started walking and kept walking for a few hours when, out of nowhere, a school bus with about ten kids on it pulled over, picked me up, and dropped me at a gas station a good ways down the road. Those kids must have had one hell of a ride to and from school every day. I wasn't as lucky getting a ride back to the truck, and now I don't trust gauges anymore.

I hope my screed can assist in discussions with your partner about a different location.

State law enforcement, as far as I know, has done just fine, but it is tiny compared to the ABQ police department, as the vast majority of the state resides in Albuquerque. The ABQ police department was taken over by the feds not too long ago and was notoriously one of the worst departments in the country for years. I haven't kept up recently, so I don't know what things look like now.

No doubt about the art scene, and the LGBTQ+ community is definitely strong in Santa Fe. It's also quite prevalent in Albuquerque. That was the only community we found any welcome from in our time there. In fact, my very first client in New Mexico was the local drag show. My old law partner is a gay man living and practicing in NM and by all accounts is still happy there. If you ever want to talk shop with someone who is local about what practicing there might look like, shoot me a message and I'll connect you. I can tell you it can be rough, and I never earned much locally but fortunately had a nationwide practice.

I'll write you a dissertation at some point if you like, but the short of it is that it's a lovely place to visit and a terrible place to live, especially if you're still in your earning years. I still miss the weather, the landscape, and even the food, but I do not miss the people. We left in large part to get our children away from the default attitude of "given up" that 90% of the population lives by. I seem to recall you mentioning having kids. Do not move there and put them in public school if you expect them to know anyone who will ever do anything with their life. The state's horrible policies drive a lot of this. A classic is that property taxes never go up so long as a house stays in the family - sounds like a nice policy until you realize it incentives generations of people to do absolutely nothing because they can live in the same house great grandpa built in 1902 for about $50 a year, so no one is incentivized to do anything beyond the absolute least possible to get by. The end result is New Mexico competes year after year with Mississippi for the poorest state in America. There are a small handful of people working their assess off to improve the place, and they are met with a state taxing department that treats them like a piggy bank and commits some of the more egregious government overreach I've ever seen. It's straight-up criminal, with no exaggeration, but you will be living in an essentially lawless place, so what is criminal, anyway? If you own a business, bring your own tub of lube. Reason, rationality, and even the law do not factor into any interaction with state tax and rev. If you are deemed to have something beyond a mere subsistence existence, they will try and take it from you until you're broken like everyone else there. This is why the wealthy folks in Santa Fe don't actually reside in New Mexico, they just fly in from somewhere else to their second or third house. They still get dinged at every opportunity by tax and rev, but not nearly as bad as residents. You see the upside-down attitude of punishing people for trying to do better pop up in lots of places. New Mexico has one of the highest (maybe the highest) rates of uninsured motorists in America. Do they step up enforcement? No, they just charge the people doing the right thing more money. Stealing a car wasn't even a felony until around 2011. Each neighborhood in Albuquerque has a state senator. So whoever has the most relatives in a zip code gets elected. And despite this rather quaint state government, the oil and gas industries really run everything and pay nothing into the system for it. It's a mess of a place with corruption that makes Illinois (or Texas) look like candy apples. The other aspect that can be really tough there is New Mexico is one of the least hospitable places I've ever been. People keep to themselves and their own group. Almost anywhere I've ever been in the world you can walk into a pub, strike up a conversation, and end your experience with some new friends. That is an extremely rare occurrence in NM. I never really figured out why, but people are not interested in meeting new people in that place. Santa Fe is a bit different as it's filled with tourists and outsiders how spend only part of the year there, but the rest of the state would just as soon you not be there. So this turned into a poorly written dissertation after all, but in summary, New Mexico is a great place if you're independently wealthy and can shield your assets from a taxing authority that operates more like a Mongol horde than a government department. If you have kids that are still being raised or intend to earn money in the state, run as far away as you possibly can. If you're thinking of retirement, then sure. But know that you'll be surrounded by some of the most corrupt and some of the most sadly beat-down people you'll ever come across. Texas pisses me off all the time, especially the politics, but New Mexico gives me the shivers when I think about it. It's a place to give up. It's not a place to live.

Speaking from experience. Do not fall for the New Mexico trap.

Every short-term rental that gets turned into a long-term rental space for actual residents to live in is a win. If they're sold to a resident/owner, even better.

Then please also note your obtuse comment didn't merit a reply, hence the weak attempt at comedy, but okay here's a response: Sure, small and middling PE firms fail without fanfare. No one said they didn't. I never wrote that any PE firm, even a large one, would actually be bailed out, which seems to be your misguided point of contention. I merely laughed at the notion that they wouldn't try, and your lack of reading comprehension and irrational level of defensiveness on this subject took care of the rest. I wasn't even engaging with you, and have no real interest in doing so moving forward. If you don't think a PE firm the size of Bain Capital, The Carlyle Group (both clients of mine), or BlackRock wouldn't seek assistance were they facing insolvency, you're merely highlighting that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. And while we're at it, I'll go ahead and point out that your earlier comment about TARP making money is complete bullshit, although commonly touted bullshit among investment bankers thanks to a false Treasury Dept. memo that still gets passed around, as TARP managed to net out about a $15B before you factor in inflation, but since, you know, inflation exists, the actual number is a loss of ~$24B. But why get caught up on numbers, right? Was TARP necessary? I think so, but I'm also tired of listening to know-nothing mid-level investment bankers and low-level VPs at PE firms spewing similar rhetoric as you have in this thread. You probably also think it was Andy who went to pieces when it was clearly Buddy.

I have to stop reading shit like this or my house will be on the market and my kids will hate me for taking them away from their friends.

I'm sorry, but I can't take a part-time airline mechanic and full-time daredevil seriously on this topic.

You need an explanation as to whether they might ask for a capital injection if their businesses are facing failure? I mean, I guess you're right to be dubious as we've never seen any other industry do this before with success.

Some of the comments in this thread help me understand how so many of the dvoryanstvo never saw it coming, despite all the obvious signs.