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HRSchenker

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Posts posted by HRSchenker

  1. 9 hours ago, Zombie said:

    I ask this seriously. When I was kid, GHWB was President. My parents were fairly liberal Democrats, but they said he was a good man who meant well. It could be argued that despite all the terrible shit GWB did, he also meant well. Likewise, McCain was a proponent of some bad shit, but he probably wasn't much worse than hawkish Democrats at the same time. But Trump and his voters are a whole different animal. No matter how racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and dishonest Trump is, they don't seem to care. It appears, at this moment in time, that Republicans have a total absence of decency and morality.

    It really fucking disturbs me because when I was growing up I knew Republicans who I thought were decent people but just disagreed about what was a reasonable tax rate or other relatively innocuous policy disagreements. But now, every Republican I meet that supports Trump strikes me as an evil piece of shit and, I'm ashamed to admit, I fantasize about them dying a painful death for their evil and treason against Democracy and America. I'm just drunkenly writing my stream of consciousness, but I'm really disturbed by right wingers and I think we're in for some dark times because of their evilness. Maybe I'm being melodramatic. I hope so. 

    What better way to bring people together and convince others that your side is on the right side of history than by calling the other side "evil pieces of shit" and bragging about your fantasies of them dying a painful death? Yeah I hope you're being melodramatic too. 

    • Like 2
  2. 1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

    I find the whole thing a little bit Wild West.  How do you know that the stuff you're getting is legit?  There have to be 10,593 companies flooding my inbox and website ads selling this stuff, and the local Circle-K by my house even has a little placard at the register indicating they have both ingestibles and topicals.  I'm guessing some of these contain only "technically detectable" levels of CBD, and then some may have 10-50 times as much.  Very hard to know that from the packaging on most of it. 

    And then how do you know the proper dose you need it the first place?  What is the expectation in terms of effect?  Calmness? Slight relaxation of the neck? Near-catatonia? 

    Much easier to do the fun illicit drugs. You just stop when you're high enough.  Or not.

    We only carry brands that have third party lab testing results available to view. Kind of like @Bozo_Casanova we're only looking at California, Colorado, but we also check out Kentucky. You'd be surprised how many brands out there either refuse to provide lab results or have lab results that show an inconsistent amount of CBD in the bottle.

    Another interesting thing about the CBD market is that rogue advertisement has really been the only way they can get the word out. Facebook and Instagram flat out ban ads promoting CBD products despite their legality on the federal and state level. This now results in getting hundreds of phone calls and emails from companies just begging for me to accept some product samples.

    • Like 1
  3. 10 hours ago, Spankytoes said:

    Explain your rationale…

    A flight from DAL-LAX is $87.00 or 4,694 points on Southwest. That imputes a value of 1.9 cents per UR point. The same flight on United would probably be more expensive, but let’s assume that it was priced the same. United has a uniformed points redemption model. A domestic one-way flight is 12,500 United miles. So, at this valuation, you are receiving $0.007 cents per point. (Not to mention, United doesn’t fly this route direct from DFW) But let’s ignore that and say that the redemption valuation is identical at 1.8 cents per UR point. How is it better to transfer 12,500 UR points to United instead of 4,694 UR points to Southwest? You are expending an additional 7,806 UR points by going that route. Even if you are getting $0.02 per UR point based on the airfare cost, what advantage are you receiving by getting a better per points value when you are spending more UR points to achieve it?

    With regards to transferring to Hyatt or Marriott, I don’t understand how this could ever be a good value except in limited circumstances where you are a little short on an award stay and need to top off. Even at a 2:1 exchange rate, it would cost you 12,500 UR points to get one night at a Courtyard Marriott with a redemption value of 25,000 points per night. That’s enough for almost 3 segments of flying DAL-LAX based on the model above. Or, since the actual exchange is 1:1, 3 roundtrip flights from DAL-LAX on Southwest. (Plus an additional 3 tickets for your travel partner if you have a Companion Pass) Assuming that the room costs $200.00 per night, which is average for that redemption level, you are leaving a lot of value on the table. Hotels are slightly better redemption values than gift cards.

    My big point goal has been to save up enough to get business class to Hong Kong. I took 3 SWA flights since January 2018. Just assume that they're all wanna get away fares at $87 or 4694 points. That's $18,776 that I have to spend to make up the point difference on my CFU for everyday spending or $9,388 on my CSR for restaurant/travel. So I could pay $522 for 3 roundtrip flights and not have to worry about making up that ground or I could use points to pay for the SWA trip and either spend my way to business class at a price of $8900 or push the flight back 10 months. I'd rather pay $522 and redeem a business class flight for 5 cents a point than pay $8900 and redeem 3 round trip economy flights for 1.8 cents. 

  4. I just looked up a random flight. DAL to LAX. 4694 points or $87 so 1.8 cents a point. I'm getting 8-9 cents a point when redeeming through United or transferring to Hyatt or Marriott. So I think it depends on your end goal. I redeemed a flight from DFW to NRT at about 7 cents a point so I'd rather pay cash for southwest flights and earn points through the CSR rather than redeeming at a lower rate.

  5. 1 hour ago, 4th and 5 said:

    This is terrible advice. 

    I transfer UR points to SWA all the time.

    I earn points at 2-5x on Chase cards and then transfer. Coupled with my companion pass, we travel the US free whenever we want.

    Why would you want to accumulate 1x points on the SWA card when you can multiply and transfer?

    There are only 2 reasons to use a SWA Chase card:

    1. to run the CP scam

    2. you fly SWA for business frequently

     

    I think it depends on what your end goal is with UR spending. I save up for bigger trips so I can fly and stay at hotels essentially for free. SWA doesn't get me enough $/point to be worth it so I look at point transfers to that airline as being a waste of money.

  6. On 6/30/2019 at 2:50 PM, Murfdogg21 said:

    This thread is incredibly insightful and useful. I wish I had a lot of this knowledge a year ago. 

    For a few years, my wife and I had our own SWA premiere cards, but with my work travel (2-3x per month mostly on SWA) my card was sufficient for status, companion, and necessary points to book recreational domestic travel. We canned my wife’s card to avoid the annual fee and put her as an AU on mine to get more spending points going to my RR account. However, I changed jobs in late 2017 with significantly less business travel, then lost SWA companion status starting 1/1/19.

    I contemplated canceling my SWA card, waiting a month, then reapplying for a new 50k point bonus, but the stupid bitch at Chase told me my wife could open a new card and direct all points to my RR account. 60 days later, we see the bonus hit her count and we were like WTF? Chase says the first lady was incorrect and points can only go to account with same SSN between card and frequent flyer holder. Now we are almost halfway through 2019 and I don’t think I’ll hit companion soon, so might as well wait to run the “SWA scam” in early 2020 to get companion through 1/1/22. 

    We plan to continue taking ~4 domestic trips per year for us and our two young ones between family visits and vacation, but we are completely reassessing our credit cards right now from ground zero. We don’t put a lot of travel expenses on our personal credit cards, but we do eat out a fair amount, so not sure about CS/CSP/CSR. The conservative play for our lifestyle seems like a cash back card like Freedom or some Discover card. I have always enjoyed Southwest, and would do the personal and business SWA cards if I get the full bonus (when I called this year for a business one, and I have a legitimate but very small $ consulting business, chase gave me shit about not having an LLC # from the State of Texas and wouldn’t issue the card. How do you normally deal with that to get a business card?). Or are we better off doubling down in the “Thunderlounge” method and applying CSR points towards our SWA travel? Most of our trips will be for 4 people, not 2, so companion only gets us about 25% free airfare (before cashing in points) and limits our travel to SWA (probably our favorite airline so not a deal breaker).

    I have no new issued credit cards in >3 years and have never had a Sapphire. My wife’s only recent new card was the SWA (above) that she had for less than 90 days, we tore Chase customer service a new asshole, then they closed the account, refunded her the annual fee, but let her keep the 40k SWA points for the trouble. We have pretty evenly distributed expenses between dining, grocery, department stores, and shit off Amazon. From 2013-2019, we had traveled for free solely off SWA points (and free Marriott nights via business trips). Should the wife and I divy up the Freedom, FU, and CSR between us and can the SWA?

    I know this is a very late reply BUT I would never use UR points for SWA flights. Get the SWA card and earn miles through your spending on that card. With UR points you will lose a lot of value by wasting them on southwest flights. 

  7. 1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

    Homeowners and neighborhoods don't want housing or shelters for the homeless built near them. It's the perfect example of NIMBYism and it makes it extremely difficult to come up with solutions for getting the homeless off the street.

    This is the same issue in Dallas. It's why the homeless problem in Austin is just something yall need to embrace and get used to as the new normal. Drive by the bridge homeless shelter and the area looks like a total dump. Neighborhoods in the area would rather have the homeless spread around from deep ellum to uptown all the way to lovers lane than have a shelter in their backyard that will hurt their property value. Trust me when I tell you that this homeless ordinance is coming to DFW very soon. Lots of folks will be upset but they'll be outnumbered by the NIMBYs.

  8. Watching that video is tough. I remember Daniel posting a ton of stuff in a Facebook group both of us were in. All of a sudden he stopped posting and his wife told us what happened. Crazy to see how big the story got and how he died. One thing that comes to mind when watching the video: wouldn't he have been better off ignoring the police commands? Instead of doing this simon says stuff just lay on the ground with legs crossed and hands on head? 

  9. I'm hitting the stall for this month. Went from 231.9 to 226.6 in the previous month and my weigh in today is 226.1. Ouch. Still an overall improvement but I need to keep pushing. I'm staying steady at 4 days a week at the gym with 2 days cardio and 2 days weights. I think my next move is to examine the diet. 

    I've finally hit that point where going to the gym doesn't feel like a chore. I actually like going and it's not an interruption in my life. Plus the wife likes it when I come back sweaty as hell with testosterone flowing through my veins. Feels damn good guys.

    • Like 1
  10. https://www.tampabay.com/business/usf-coach-charlie-strong-buys-south-tampa-house-for-32-million-20190709/

    Quote

    TAMPA — University of South Florida football Coach Charlie Strong has some posh new digs — a nearly 7,000-square-foot waterfront home in South Tampa.

    Strong and his wife paid $3.2 million this week for the Mediterranean-style house, which was on the market for just one day. Located in Beach Park’s Pirate's Cove area, it has five bedrooms, six full bathrooms, a four-car garage, a pool and a covered dock. Construction of the house began in 2006; the sellers acquired it two years later for $1.8 million in a pre-foreclosure sale and completed it in 2013.

    Pretty ballsy to buy a home in an area where people want your ass fired.

  11. On 7/1/2019 at 9:41 PM, Gil Bang said:

    Update:  so, the condo was listed at $359,000.   I told her to offer full-price, but she listens to her dad, the retired truck driver (no hate there, my dad is also a retired truck driver) and her brother, a flooring guy.    She wants to write at 350, I tell her it's a waste of time and she agrees to write at 355.   Listing agent calls me today and says hey gil, I want to work with you on this, but you are way off.  We are at 365.   If you write at 368 you can get this deal.     So, I call my buyer who has stewed on this for a few days, and she's decided that she really wants it.  So, we re-write at 368 and get the deal, and I'm betting that the appraisal won't come in over 360, based on a week-old comp; the only sale in this complex in a year. 

    So, here's the dilemma we face;  do I advise my client to walk away from a place she really loves that's perfect for her because she may overpay to the tune of 50 bucks a month?

     

    You said that SD is at the bottom of the market so I say fuck it just bite the bullet. About the bolded stuff, man I deal with that on a daily basis. You'd be surprised how many people think they're experts at things they know nothing about. The classic example from my line of work is an elderly patient who is very compliant with her medications until a younger family member comes back into their life and totally screws it up. I had one lady who gets 9 meds every month but they're synced up so instead of picking up 1 here, 2 there, 2 here, or 2 another day she gets all 9 on one day. Then her daughter in law (an electrician) comes into her life and sends everything to Walmart. Supposedly going to save her money. Well Walmart doesn't give a fuck about her or her meds and they split everything up over a month. Daughter in law goes back home and then the patient transfers back so I have to start the process all over again. You know this kind of stuff happens all over the country and I wonder how many people have died because granny couldn't find her warfarin thanks to the non-expert family member. 

    Anyway back on topic. Chase is offering me 4.05% to refinance my mortgage. I'm at 4.375% right now and just hit my mark for no more PMI. Is it really worth it to refinance or should I wait for rates to drop even more?

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