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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2024

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  • Best bet short term is to rig something that dulls the noise. A few insulated panels would do, so long as the heat isn’t too intense, but will have the unfortunate effect of reducing the heat to your residence, so you’ll need to augment that somehow. If there’s air in the line, then it’s probably not working to its fullest potential anyway.

    Long term, I agree with everyone else. Have the super hire a professional. This is not one you want to DIY, especially while it’s operational. I’ve done carpentry, wiring and plumbing. I’d never touch steam, doubly so while it’s running.



  • Beans and rice has been the poor man’s nutritional meal for millennia. Throw in a plantain or chicken or tofu occasionally for supplemental nutrients / protein. Add hot sauce for heat. Don’t forget to add salt to taste.

    It’s cheap, nutritional and has the added benefit of being tasty.

    Chili is another option - tomato, beans a can of pumpkin as filler, maybe a sweet potato. Pepper and onions for taste and some TVP or Beyond Meat crumbles for some chewiness…or ground Turkey if you eat meat. It’s simple and can sustain you for a week. Spice it up with chili powder and cumin, maybe some garlic salt and a lime. I made a crockpot full the other day. There’s a reason cowboys out in the prairie ate this stuff.












  • 4/5 - coming of age film about a scrawny, scrappy poor kid. Opening shot is a fight against other kids in a trailer park to level up in status. Or maybe even earlier to my mom standing there pregnant, and then her mom punching her in the stomach upon finding out her teen daughter, though as much as she had tried to shut her away, had somehow gotten herself knocked up. And then following the resulting trail of blood. Regardless, it starts out by getting the shit kicked out of me a few times.

    Sprinkle in the multiple times I almost died, slipping on wet cement that had just been coated with muriatic acid, that time a demented kid tightened a noose around my neck, the countless nights I’d wake gasping for air with my chest heaving because we had a cat urine and roach problem and couldn’t afford an inhaler. That one time two girls thought it would be funny to see how long they could hold me underwater, at a pool, of course unsupervised, and only stopping just so as things faded to black and all I heard was this saint of a kid saying to them “Stop! He’s dying!” Nary a parent in sight.

    The sex, the drugs the drinking all at 13.

    The divorce, the handoffs from family member to family member moving each year. Finally settling into a mountain town in rural Appalachia. Having a town general store purveyor of goods taking me under his wing. Learning a passion for the outdoors and skiing.

    Going mudding in a Honda Accord with a bunch of other delinquents. Going streaking after we got stuck. Flash forward to a court house and nearly going to jail for vandalism and other stupid teenage mistakes.

    Going back to the area I was raised and finding that everyone had 2 kids and a drinking problem…or worse.

    Flash forward to the struggles of leaving my past behind. Failing out of university after 9/11. Constantly watching those two planes smash onto the twin towers in a dark dormitory until it was etched into mind.

    And then more struggle to leave my past behind as I sought out a soulmate. Dropping out of the Peace Corps due to it.

    Quitting my job and finding a love for cycling. Being given a dog who hated wheels, but even she eventually fell in love with cycling. The smartest, best damn dog in the world.

    Nearly dying another handful of times. Motorcycle in the mountain roads of Tennessee, more motorcycle, sliding in the snow with a big rig behind, that time wrecking it the one dumbass time I went for a joyride after drinks. Being on the 3rd floor of a house as it collapsed on a rainy day in high winds and walking out mostly unscathed.

    Discovering a love for travel. Still trying to escape my past, but working on it, like really really working on it. I try not to die anymore.

    Could call it something like “The dirtbag’s field guide to survival, part one.”




  • There are all sorts of classes available at top schools via opencourseware. You can take the highest tier courses that the US has to offer, and become educated. While not degree offering, it still would look great on a CV, if you can somehow prove you did the work.

    Free books. A few years ago, I read a free electrical engineering book available on the internet, which I found fascinating. It has been a little helpful in practice as well, but I think it’s just cool to know how capacitors and motors work. Public libraries exist for a reason. Gutenberg is another option.

    Many 2 year community colleges are now free tuition if you reside in the state.

    And of course, there are still ways to get a degree cheap, if the paper is important to you. I finally landed at WGU 15 years ago and it was very reasonable, and has paid dividends on my original investment.



    1. Amendment to get rid of gerrymandering. Districts will be drawn up by statistical models that emphasize culture, values, demographics of the district. Every citizen also gets a vote by mail ballot.
    2. Amendment to implement sensible gun control. Not ban guns, as people need some way to fight back against a tyrannical government. And some people truly do need to keep themselves safe from wildlife, crime, etc.
    3. Amendment to bring in Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states in the union. If Texas wants to split into East TX and West TX, I’m fine with that too.
    4. Law to require 2 years voluntary service. Meals, food, housing, recreational stipend will be provided. Similar to CCC, you’ll learn a trade and build up a camaraderie that will last a lifetime. As a citizen in a country, you should have skin in the game, it gives you a sense of ownership . Bonus is infrastructure gets kept up and senior citizens are cared for. Volunteer groups can be unionized.
    5. Gas tax goes up significantly. Seriously, Europe pays $8/gallon. Why the hell do we need to keep it at $3? Tax will pay to build out much needed public transportation and sustainable energy grid infrastructure. We need trains people. If China can do it in a country much more mountainous than ours, we can do it.
    6. Wealth tax. Anything over $100 million earnings is taxed progressively at 70% anything above $1B is taxed at 90%. Tax on unrealized gains, but can be balanced by unrealized losses.
    7. Abolish tax exempt status for churches. You can be nonprofit, but you will still be taxed. No more slave owning mega-pastors.
    8. Amendment to overturn Citizens United. Political contributions will be limited. You want your money to be speech? Sure, do it the old fashioned way and convince enough people to align with your cause.
    9. Federal Healthcare for everyone damnit! What the hell is wrong with us!?
    10. Give more power back to the states. There will be some cohesive things that we all agree upon that keep the tether of our society together, but New York is not Oklahoma is not Colorado is not Alabama. States should have more power to govern themselves. Think of it like Catalonia in Spain or Scotland in UK. States are the test beds of democracy.

    Would I get a second term? Hell no. I’m a change agent technocrat. People like a showman. There’s a reason city planners are divorced from mayors at the municipal level. I come in like a four mile freight train then I go home. Some populist demagogue would probably replace me.