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BearSchlong

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Everything posted by BearSchlong

  1. Oh please, those same countries own the refineries that produce your gasoline and liquefy natural gas for export from Texas.
  2. Excellent points. If I'm alone I can also focus on an audiobook or podcast which seems to make the time pass faster. Or make phone calls. My main use of WN is nonstop flights from HOU, and since I live 90 minutes away I will pick the earliest flight and go over the night before and use my seemingly unlimited hotel points to get a good night’s sleep. But 75% of the time I'm taking the 6am AA flight from BPT. 10 minutes from home, parking 75 yards from the TSA, at DFW by 7:30 and the next nonstop to wherever, especially if it's on my employer’s dime.
  3. I did use WN drink coupons as stocking stuffers this year.
  4. Whatever ax you have to grind, that shit happened years ago. Like any company of that size, there are bodies buried everywhere. I've heard lots of IBM mafia stories. Maybe you're right and Wall Street analysts are wrong. I'm not defending their virtue, I'm just saying the 2nd part of your original statement is factually (and logically) incorrect.
  5. The 2nd part of this is incorrect. Much of IBM’s business plan is helping clients modernize monolithic applications to run on hybrid cloud at the risk of cannibalizing the mainframe business in the belief that if they don't, the competition will.
  6. AA is pretty automated, cancelled flights get automatically rescheduled IIRC.
  7. I work for a major WN technology supplier and all I hear is how their lawyers want to spend 18 months in red lines before engaging in actual modernization projects. We provide the exact same service to AA, Delta, Frontier, and every other major global carrier so it's not us. This shitshow is completely preventable.
  8. My SIL is a fantastic entrepreneur. She was having custom menorahs made and stumbled across a unique design. First they were being machined from wood, then my Stepbro sent some schematics for some lucite candlestick holders (very modern, non-menorah) to a few factories in China and one day he woke up to 100 emails from factories practically begging to make them for pennies. Some deals were cut, she put up a website and it went viral on Instagram and she sold 20K of them @ $100 - $250 ea. She just happened to be driving by Waffle House when a sign crew was taking the letters down. She called their boss, they were going to throw them away as soon as the demo invoice was paid. He sold her the lot for like $50. Add some LED lighting and boom- iconic pop art.
  9. Ditto. My sons’s new job comes with a deployment to Kuwait and they are going to start trying upon his return.
  10. I'll see if I can get the brisket recipe, but I'm telling you, a properly prepared Jewish brisket is like witchcraft. All you taste is the meat and subtle spices, served with sour creme and apple sauce garnished latkes and bacon-wrapped almond-stuffed dates. Our mixed non-kosher family dinners are the highlight of my year. Well, that and the Greenberg smoked turkey and Rabideaux sausage gumbo. Headed to the range today for more training with my daughter. Ain't it cute? Also they closed the Waffle House on the freeway at College and my SIL salvaged the letters from the sign from the demo company. She’s selling them for $150 each. (paging Mrs. Cumstein). This piece of pop art looks great in the sunroom/bar room, dontcha think? (first letter of their last name)
  11. Need ocugolf’s cousin to get back from holiday PTO so she can get out the laser pointer and distract him from the send button for a while.
  12. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Best: new bromance with my son’s FIL. We were at H-E-B buying cilantro the other day and were playing the get to know you 20 questions game. “My guilty pleasure is Kelly Clarkson.” To which he answered, “mine is George Michaels.” Then we agreed that our biggest regret was not attending more RUSH concerts. My son hit the gold mine with his in-laws; they are a blast, all of them. Great family. And the more I get to know my daughter-in-law, the more I love her. That and my stepbrother made the brisket using a recipe first scribbled down in Hebrew centuries ago. It crushes anything cooked in smoke. Worst: 1st Christmas without my dad. We are going to his house for Christmas/Hanukkah brunch with my stepmom. Last night at my stepbro’s house, she looked like you would expect a widow to look on the first Christmas after he soul mate's death. She was staring off into space. Heart-wrenching. Funniest: everyone took off their shoes last night and were comparing feet. My 13 yr old niece looked at her mom’s, grandma’s, and Aunt’s feet and burst into tears and exclaimed, “My feet don’t look Jewish enough!!” Poor kid lost her grandfather and two great-grandfathers this year. Creepiest: took my wife, kids, DIL, wife’s BFF, and her daughter to dinner at a well-known west-end neighborhood restaurant. There’s this guy, in his late fifties that I see around town all the time hanging out in the bar sections of all our local restaurants. He and I have, at best, a nodding acquaintance. Anyway he and his buddies (all nearing 60) are eating at a table near ours, and towards the end of the meal, his friend walks up to my wife’s BFF’s 21-year-old daughter, who graduated from college last week, hands her his friends business card, and says “my friend over there thinks you’re hot, give him a call.” I take the business card, take a photo, and text it to my SIL (they are in the same industry and serve on several committees) with a WTF, this dude is a perve; he just hit on Br** in front of her mom, at my family dinner.” SIL is all, “this will be fun for a long time; I’ll be asking why he interrupts my family’s dinners to hit on young girls, and I’ll wait to ask in the middle of an important board meeting. Probably start calling him Jeff Epstein, too.” Poor girl just sat there with a glazed look in her eyes, muttering, “I cannot believe that just happened. . .” Merry Christmas, everybody. About to wake up the family.
  13. Well I jumped into the semiautomatic pistol playground today with my starter gun, a Sig Sauer P320. Spent 2 days at the range with 1st LT BearSchlong jr and figured I’d start off with a gun identical to his issued sidearm. Put 200 rounds through his Springfield Hellcat and it was a little too sporty so I decided to go full frame with something modular I can customize before I go full bore obsessed with building a collection. I’ve always been a rifle, shotgun, and revolver guy but here goes. I’ve enjoyed lurking on this thread for years. My daughter put 100 rounds through a half dozen guns and decided on a Walther CCP 380 for her CC weapon. Surprising her with it tomorrow.
  14. Expectations are premeditated resentments. You’re not responsible for hers. A parable - one Tuesday, after I was 5 years sober and divorced, my then ex wife yelled at me for 2 hours because I would not do what she wanted. She cried, screamed, cajoled, insulted, belittled, and even said that my sobriety in AA was an escape from the reality of life and that she wished with all her might that I would do her a favor and go get drunk and die. The 2nd hour of that phone call was like a sunrise, a world coming into focus, when the darkness and shadows lifted and revealed the stark truth that trying to meet her expectations and specifications wasn’t possible. Anger and frustration yielded to laughter when I realized how preposterous it was for me to attempt such an impossible feat. What had once been a formidable opponent morphed into a caricature. Some people are incapable of being happy and content. And the only perception that matters is mine. Death is inevitable, suffering is voluntary. Yesterday was wonderful. I spent the morning at the gun range being coached by my son, whom our government pays to be an expert in that venue. And the afternoon playing darts and listening to country music in the garage with my daughter, who proclaimed it to be in her “top 10 list of dad memories.” And then we watched Zoolander as a family and laughed and laughed. Spiritual progress, not perfection.
  15. This is going to sound a little harsh, but hear me out - why do you care if she hates you? Do you ever feel like you’re trying to live up to her expectations? If so, do you feel like you’re failing?
  16. This is the answer to your post on the divorce thread. Others have said therapy, but as you’ve probably guessed my recommendation is going to be to find a hard assed sponsor who will see through your pride and ego and help you make a thorough effort through the 12 steps. Think of it as a cleanse. It will give you newfound clarity on the rest of your relationships, and you’ll be able to make decisions with confidence. It’s not your job to make your wife happy. Sure, you have to handle your side of the street but that’s the limit. Not knowing you IRL, and just by reading your posts it is my (possibly incorrect) opinion that you suffer from self-pity and are in a profoundly codependent marriage. I had the luxury of divorcing my completely psychotic emotional black hole of a wife and when the steps and AA prepared me for another go at a relationship the new priorities were discussed. 1) sobriety and serenity and staying spirituallly fit. Everything in my life flows from this well. 2) my children - do no damage, make maximum efforts, and give them a ton of space and grace. 3) my marriage - I’ll post my very custom non traditional vows but let’s just say that we promised to accept each other “as-is” even through change, to give each other space, to show daily affection and tenderness, and all the other things that our first marriages lack. Like I said, I had that luxury. So last night my 25 year old son and I were on a road trip and he turned to me and said “thanks for continuing to make the effort even when I was being gaslighted into hating you when I was 12.” We see eye to eye, because he also had to end his relationship with his mother purely for self-preservation. Think 10 years down the road one day at a time, no matter how much right now hurts. Ok
  17. I am headed to CS tomorrow to hang out with my son, DIL, and her family. Immediately upon arrival, my daughter, son, and DIL will take off for Waco to visit my ex-MIL. Intel confirms ex-wife has left the country, so grandma was “advised” today that her Christmas will be tomorrow or never. They are so angry at my ex (their mom) that the non-contact will continue indefinitely and perhaps forever. I still almost regret my parting words to her; “you’re going to die alone.” Mainly because that spiteful, angry prediction is proving likely. She took active measures to destroy my son’s marriage and is neck-deep in the FO phase. In the 5-6 hours it will take the kids to do the CS-Waco RT, my wife and I will be chilling with my son’s MIL, FIL, BILs, and dogs. I’m sure we are going to have a blast. The women plan to get shitfaced and laugh. So that leaves me, my son’s FIL and his sons to cut up, chill out, and throw tennis balls to the dogs. Maybe burn meat, pee in the yard, and talk about Jimbo’s plan to turn it around. Eventually my son and I will return to Beaumont in one car while the women follow in another. Later this week we’re going to the gun shop and shooting range to evaluate, practice, and buy more pistols. The women have decided it’s time to start carrying. And I’m looking forward to getting refresher training from a current US army shooting instructor. I’m supplying the guns, he is contributing the ammo and the expertise.
  18. Best part about lignite mining is the ever changing pastoral landscape scenes, amirite?
  19. Important question for you. Highway 7 or 164? Best woody's was the early '90s version, east side of 45 only, little wooden smokehouse with a counter, no bathrooms, hell, I don't even think they sold cold drinks back then. And Texas Burger had the blue bell scoops.
  20. Nah, that's not personality disorder stuff, it's just high-functioning autistic shit. Personality disorders would burn the place down whereas I think Elon actually has some degree of self-awareness. He really is a visionary with concepts, it's the execution that's so horrendously awful.
  21. The ones at Costco this morning were “peeled” and choice was $22.95 and prime was mid $30s. Choice New York strips were $8.99 and ribeyes $12.99 IIRC. I’d verify but they are in the cooler buried under all the Christmas gifts, but I’m grilling them tonight. They also had rib roasts which looked good. I’m doing steak for 10 on the 30th but didn’t source those yet. I don’t drink but my wife picked up half a case of the Kirkland brand Prosecco.
  22. The very trimmed choice Tenderloin was $22.95 a lb at the one in Houston last week; I can’t do Austin but I’ll be at the Houston one in the am.
  23. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/16/us/politics/jan-6-defendant-assassination-plot.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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