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I just took a massive dump. It felt like giving birth.

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GasBandit

Staff member
I stubbed my toe getting into the shower and it hurts like I broke it, but I don't think I broke it.
I actually stubbed my toe the worst I have ever stubbed a toe in my entire life just last month. When I fly, I just wear my adidas sandals to speed up the security process. I was getting on a little turboprop puddlejumper, and I stubbed my little toe on the metal staircase going up. It hurt like crazy but I figured my toe was just being a drama queen like it always is when stubbed, so I didn't mess with it until the flight was over.

Upon later inspection...
I found that the toenail had basically been lifted off like a chest lid and was only connected at the cuticle, and a chunk of flesh about a half-square cm was sliced off the tip of the toe. The nail still hasn't grown back all the way, there's just some scab left over the exposed undernail at the end.
 
I think I have a stress fracture in my left foot from working out too strenuously or poor technique. It hurts to shift gears, walk, stand, and hurts like balls to do foot fires or any sort of cardio. Le sigh.
The docs on campus are chumps, so I won't be seeing them; to pay them to tell me what I already know.

In other news, the weather has been fantastic this winter. No snow, no ice, mild afternoons. Woo!
 
I have a new job screwing up the scholarship applications for graduate students. Oh, the heady power of it all.

I also adopted two new doomweasels. The apocalypse starts soon.
 
We've nailed down our preferred city to move to now, and it looks like we're moving to Louisville.
Louisville?! Oooh... you were so close. About 60 miles to the east...

In all honesty, great area to be in. First thing you'll have to learn is all the different ways you pronounce Louisville. I prefer to go with LOO-ee-ville. Some prefer LOO-ville. Then there's LOO-uh-ville. But its never ever ever ever ever.. LOO-wis-ville. Oh, and their college basketball team sucks ;)
 
Moving stuff
So, I have to ask. Are you and your wife outdoorsy people? Cause, my wife and I love to camp, and hike. We are thinking of heading up to the NW for biotech jobs and for the mountains and trees and rivers.

I don't see how you can get bored with Pac-NW. Though, I have never lived there. Just wanted to know what you were bored with, and what you expect to find in Louisville. Social stuff or outdoors stuff?
 
So, I have to ask. Are you and your wife outdoorsy people? Cause, my wife and I love to camp, and hike. We are thinking of heading up to the NW for biotech jobs and for the mountains and trees and rivers.

I don't see how you can get bored with Pac-NW. Though, I have never lived there. Just wanted to know what you were bored with, and what you expect to find in Louisville. Social stuff or outdoors stuff?
The short answer is better cost of living and four distinct seasons every year. We are both outdoorsy people, though I have a lot more outdoor experience being an Eagle Scout than she does, and have hiked and camped and fished and enjoyed the beaches out here as much as we can without getting into extreme backpacking and mountain climbing (which we're not into). The other issue that we have with Washington is that while parts of her family are out here, none of my family is and she wants to get away from her mother. We figure 2600 miles ought to be far enough for a while, and at the same time we'll be 8 hours from my parents, 11 hours from my family in Iowa, and however many hours from my family in Pennsylvania.

Also, it's easy to get bored with the Pac-NW when you've been here for 31 years (for her) and for 25 years (for me). There's a lot of beautiful scenery and beautiful places to visit and hiking and camping and wilderness areas, but when you've been heavily involved in scouting it doesn't take long to see most of the accessible areas and quite a few of the less accessible areas.

But really, the biggest issue is cost of living. In the greater Seattle metroplex, we will never be able to afford a house. We will never be able to afford to retire. The cost of housing is so inflated over here, even at the deepest level of the crash, that if a house hasn't been repossessed and listed for sale by a bank, we can't even consider putting down a payment on it. In fact, it's so expensive for the two of us to live where we are, that we can barely afford to move out of where we are. Now, part of this is our fault. Neither of us has stellar credit, so our car payments and insurance each month are equivalent to one full paycheck. Now, living on two biotech paychecks, if you can get decent jobs with good companies, you should be fine. We have a good friend working the biotech field and he's doing just fine living over here.

And then there's the traffic. It would take way too long to explain why the traffic alone is enough reason to move out of state, so suffice to say, it's bad news man.

Unfortunately, after taking a good hard look at our finances for the upcoming 5 months we'd have to save for a cross-country move, there's just no way I can make the numbers work. So, we'll wait another year, find a comparably priced apartment complex closer to where I work so as to save fuel expenses, and plan on moving out of state next year. And maybe, just maybe, if we dedicate ourselves to the idea of being able to get out of this damn state, and really watch our spending, we can buy a house in KY within a year or two.
 
Louisville?! Oooh... you were so close. About 60 miles to the east...

In all honesty, great area to be in. First thing you'll have to learn is all the different ways you pronounce Louisville. I prefer to go with LOO-ee-ville. Some prefer LOO-ville. Then there's LOO-uh-ville. But its never ever ever ever ever.. LOO-wis-ville. Oh, and their college basketball team sucks ;)
Heh. I already know how to pronounce Loo-uh-vuhl, tyvm.
 
The short answer is better cost of living and four distinct seasons every year. We are both outdoorsy people, though I have a lot more outdoor experience being an Eagle Scout than she does, and have hiked and camped and fished and enjoyed the beaches out here as much as we can without getting into extreme backpacking and mountain climbing (which we're not into). The other issue that we have with Washington is that while parts of her family are out here, none of my family is and she wants to get away from her mother. We figure 2600 miles ought to be far enough for a while, and at the same time we'll be 8 hours from my parents, 11 hours from my family in Iowa, and however many hours from my family in Pennsylvania.

Also, it's easy to get bored with the Pac-NW when you've been here for 31 years (for her) and for 25 years (for me). There's a lot of beautiful scenery and beautiful places to visit and hiking and camping and wilderness areas, but when you've been heavily involved in scouting it doesn't take long to see most of the accessible areas and quite a few of the less accessible areas.

But really, the biggest issue is cost of living. In the greater Seattle metroplex, we will never be able to afford a house. We will never be able to afford to retire. The cost of housing is so inflated over here, even at the deepest level of the crash, that if a house hasn't been repossessed and listed for sale by a bank, we can't even consider putting down a payment on it. In fact, it's so expensive for the two of us to live where we are, that we can barely afford to move out of where we are. Now, part of this is our fault. Neither of us has stellar credit, so our car payments and insurance each month are equivalent to one full paycheck. Now, living on two biotech paychecks, if you can get decent jobs with good companies, you should be fine. We have a good friend working the biotech field and he's doing just fine living over here.

And then there's the traffic. It would take way too long to explain why the traffic alone is enough reason to move out of state, so suffice to say, it's bad news man.

Unfortunately, after taking a good hard look at our finances for the upcoming 5 months we'd have to save for a cross-country move, there's just no way I can make the numbers work. So, we'll wait another year, find a comparably priced apartment complex closer to where I work so as to save fuel expenses, and plan on moving out of state next year. And maybe, just maybe, if we dedicate ourselves to the idea of being able to get out of this damn state, and really watch our spending, we can buy a house in KY within a year or two.
Thanks for the feedback. I've got to wonder why folks stay in places like southern California, Pac-NW, Austin, NYC, when it sounds like cost of living is killer. I can't see myself retiring in those places, but we would like to live in one of those places for awhile, maybe an exit strategy is important to have.

Good luck! Make some goals on cutting out unnecessary things. I gave away/threw away so much crap when I got married. At first I felt bad about, but now I feel kind of free. I still have 6 boxes of comics and multiple boxes of collectibles that I need to sell/trash. Anything that had been sitting for 3 yrs w/o opening, I considered it expendable.
 
Yeah, we need to seriously pare down the amount of stuff we have. We currently have 5 distinct sets of dishes, complete with bowls, cups, coffee cups, plates, salad plates, and in some cases even smaller saucers. We also have 4 distinct sets of pots and pans, multiples of the same kitchen appliance (in most cases we don't use any of them), clothing that we haven't worn in years or sometimes decades, and probably 10 - 15 boxes of books that we haven't even seen since we moved into our current apartment. Then there are the 3 or 4 boxes full of VHS tapes, the DVD cases that we never use because all of our DVDs are in leather-bound zipper cases. And finally, there's the electronics... we have two PS2s, the Wii Fit Plus with the balance board, and an Xbox 360 with a Guitar Hero guitar. We have two TVs, one of which is a nice flat panel TV and the other which is a 19" TV with built in VCR that was already a couple years old when my wife moved into her college dorm in 1998, not to mention the two separate desktop computer towers in various states of disrepair, one of which is the "printer server" that we can't actually use because Win 7 and Win XP don't get along well when it comes to printer drivers, and the other is the computer that we want to replace our printer server with, so it can act as a printer server because it's Win 7.

Honestly, I think if Dave Barry and Patrick F. McManus teamed up to write a story about the worst non-hoarder pack-rats in America, they'd write it about us. And the worst part is - we don't want most of this stuff, we just really suck at getting to the Goodwill. Hell, most of this stuff we didn't even buy or ask for, it's just stuff that her mom didn't have any use for, but she can't bear the thought of throwing stuff away (or apparently, giving to charity) so she just passes it off to us.
 
S

SeraRelm

Had another weird dream last night. This time I was a martial artist living with my rich martial artist gf and we got in a fight that was epic, then she said some truly horribly hurtful things and we broke up. I felt very sad all day because of this dream.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
Had another weird dream last night. This time I was a martial artist living with my rich martial artist gf and we got in a fight that was epic, then she said some truly horribly hurtful things and we broke up. I felt very sad all day because of this dream.
I hate it when bad feelings from dreams stick with you all day. I've had a number like that in recent months.

My dream from last night stuck with me all day, thankfully it was a good one. I dreamed I was on vacation when I ran into two of my favorite cosplayers, and we became fast friends. I was up early and one of the girls and I lounged on a couch talking, with her head on my chest, while we waited for her friend to get up for the day. It was just this comfortable friendship thing, and a warm fuzzy feeling has been hovering around me all day because of it.
 
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