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RTDNTOTO 🐻 Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 19 (2024)

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arcplans said:
At what point do you stop helping your ex staff members? Every few weeks, they reach out to me for questions. Like, I left, for a director's job, that you evidently did see me filling, so why not ask your current boss direction versus your ex middle manager?
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I'd give them like a month because that's just the right thing to do, transitions are never seamless and sometimes those left behind just need to know where something is physically or what the status is. After that they've got to figure it out unless they want to pay you to consult. I'm a big advocate of not giving my time or work away for free. If you want to do pro bono work I'm sure there are more rewarding avenues for that.
 
jsk1983 said:
Is it normal to throw away pennies?
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You know when you're cleaning grit and garbage off the floor of a car or a spill in the garage and there is a penny, stuck in that muck? I would let that penny go with the grime right into the trash. My wife will free that penny from the tar and muck, take it inside, gently wash, scrub, and dry it till it is the shiny penny that the cosmos wanted it to be....and then drop it in the jar full of pennies that will sit forever unused in the kitchen cupboard. But she can't sleep if she thinks that penny was sad, sitting in the garbage. Like it would feel like we thought it wasn't a real penny.
 
ursus said:
You know when you're cleaning grit and garbage off the floor of a car or a spill in the garage and there is a penny, stuck in that muck? I would let that penny go with the grime right into the trash. My wife will free that penny from the tar and muck, take it inside, gently wash, scrub, and dry it till it is the shiny penny that the cosmos wanted it to be....and then drop it in the jar full of pennies that will sit forever unused in the kitchen cupboard. But she can't sleep if she thinks that penny was sad, sitting in the garbage. Like it would feel like we thought it wasn't a real penny.
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Ok. I might draw the line at that point.
 
ursus said:
You know when you're cleaning grit and garbage off the floor of a car or a spill in the garage and there is a penny, stuck in that muck? I would let that penny go with the grime right into the trash. My wife will free that penny from the tar and muck, take it inside, gently wash, scrub, and dry it till it is the shiny penny that the cosmos wanted it to be....and then drop it in the jar full of pennies that will sit forever unused in the kitchen cupboard. But she can't sleep if she thinks that penny was sad, sitting in the garbage. Like it would feel like we thought it wasn't a real penny.
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Mrs. Maister frequently anthropomorphizes inanimate objects and accords them human feelings. For instance, this year she put out a (kind of ugly) Christmas decoration that hadn't been put up since before 2000. I asked why she put it up and she said "I didn't want it to feel neglected or left out from all the Christmas joy."


:oops:

Indeed. Left out, you say? Wouldn't that tend to make the decoration, you know, feel bad?
 
There's a landmark on the bike trail. It's mine drainage with a substantial iron deposit. People take photos in front of it as though it's a natural phenomenon. It's a smelly relic of coal mining.

Someone put it on Google Maps and calls it the red waterfall.

On down the trail a ways is another mine drainage spot that leaves a deposit of aluminum. People call it the white waterfall. The only reason it's on Google Maps is because I put it there. I didn't think it fair that the red waterfall was mapped and the white one wasn't.

I hope this eased the white waterfall's pain of being left out.
 
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kms said:
There's a landmark on the bike trail. It's mine drainage with a substantial iron deposit. People take photos in front of it as though it's a natural phenomenon. It's a smelly relic of coal mining.

Someone put it on Google Maps and calls it the red waterfall.

On down the trail a ways is another mine drainage spot that leaves a deposit of aluminum. People call it the white waterfall. The only reason it's on Google Maps is because it put it there. I didn't think it fair that the red waterfall was mapped and the white one wasn't.

I hope this eased the white waterfall's pain of being left out.
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You gotta be mindful of waterfalls. They're notoriously thin skinned and easily slighted.
 
ursus said:
You know when you're cleaning grit and garbage off the floor of a car or a spill in the garage and there is a penny, stuck in that muck? I would let that penny go with the grime right into the trash. My wife will free that penny from the tar and muck, take it inside, gently wash, scrub, and dry it till it is the shiny penny that the cosmos wanted it to be....and then drop it in the jar full of pennies that will sit forever unused in the kitchen cupboard. But she can't sleep if she thinks that penny was sad, sitting in the garbage. Like it would feel like we thought it wasn't a real penny.
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A bookstore in a nearby little town has a concrete floor completely tiled in pennies of varying shine. They are sealed by this thick epoxy stuff so popular for bar tops. Makes a very durable floor cover.
 
jsk1983 said:
I found $500 in a book I purchased at an estate sale. Probably won't beat that anytime soon.
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What's the $500 composed of? 5 $100s? 10 $50s? 1 $500 bill?

If you have a single $500 bill, you've likely got more than just $500 there as such individual bills are rather collectable on their own.
 
mendelman said:
What's the $500 composed of? 5 $100s? 10 $50s? 1 $500 bill?

If you have a single $500 bill, you've likely got more than just $500 there as such individual bills are rather collectable on their own.
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They were five hundred dollar bills from the 90s... Don't think I've ever seen a $500 bill in the wild.
 
Made my quarterly trip to Walmart today. Don't know if I should laugh or cry.
 
jsk1983 said:
They were five hundred dollar bills from the 90s... Don't think I've ever seen a $500 bill in the wild.
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Must have been a pretty large book - 500 $1s is a good 4" thick, maybe a little more.

Meanwhile, someone is going "WHERE did I put that $500?"
 
WT is up with this
Taylor Swift - Travis Kelce - NFL Super Bowl conspiracy ?
 
In our new location for city hall, we share the kitchen and break area with another company - I need to get in the office earlier because whomever is making that first pot of coffee keeps using flavored coffee :fail: :coffee: :fingersdownthroat::ttth:
 
Remember CBS "In the News" mini segments they used to show for kids between commercials on Saturday mornings during the 70's and early 80s?


Okay, Swiss Miss. You rock, girl.
 
luckless pedestrian said:
In our new location for city hall, we share the kitchen and break area with another company - I need to get in the office earlier because whomever is making that first pot of coffee keeps using flavored coffee :fail: :coffee: :fingersdownthroat::ttth:
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That's grounds for building a wall in the break room.

I used to work in an office Out West where only I and one other person (let's call her Margaret, because that was her name) were coffee drinkers. The whole building was a planning department but when we moved in, Margaret came with the building. Her department had been dissolved out of county and moved into state government, but she didn't want to go with them, being only a year away from retirement, and wanted to keep the office she had been in for the last two decades.

Anyhow, being a good new Englander, if I got in first I made the coffee- strong enough to stand a spoon up in, as it should be. If Margaret got in first, she'd make the coffee. It would be this sort of weak tea-colored substance I can only imagine was born of her Minnesotan-transplant skinflint frugality. It was awful. We never got to any middle ground, but had someone else shown up and thrown flavored coffee into the mix, I think Margaret would've put the six-shooter she kept in her desk (she was a former public defender and never knew who she was going to run into day to day, and this was, after all Out West) to use.
 
If I'm out and about I always stop to pick up change of any denomination (if I'm running, I'll skip the pennies if it's just one by itself, but I grab them if I'm out on a walk).

I cut through the student parking lot at the high school down the street a few times each week. On any given day, at any given time, I can pretty much guarantee that I can pick up close to $1 in change walking through there. Kids, and especially the kids in this neighborhood, seem to have no appreciation for that money. A couple weeks ago I was walking through there early on a Saturday or Sunday morning and actually found a $5 bill frozen solid under a layer of ice. I had to walk over to the curb to find a rock to use to break the ice to get at the money but it paid for my fancy coffee on my walk that morning!
 

Did you know you can actually use those Morton salt containers as a shaker (instead of pouring it out in your palm and wasting salt)? It seems you can. Now that you've seen this hack, I bet your miserable lives have more purpose now, don't they?
 
Maister said:
Did you know you can actually use those Morton salt containers as a shaker (instead of pouring it out in your palm and wasting salt)? It seems you can. Now that you've seen this hack, I bet your miserable lives have more purpose now, don't they?
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You used the word "hack".

Tom Hanks Soul GIF

dead to me GIF
 
luckless pedestrian said:
I found so much money in my Mom's house after she went to assisted living - it was crazy
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I likely was not expecting to find anything as my grandparents lived in the same 1 bed/1bath house for over 60 years. The basement was approximately the size of 1.5 parking stalls. He was a bus driver and she was a VA canteen worker so discretionary spending was not the norm. We rented a 4-yard dumpster and filled it several times after after packing everything down. Tried to look through what we did not keep but likely missed something. We did not expect to find plundered Spanish gold but we all had the thought of "what if?"
 
luckless pedestrian said:
I found so much money in my Mom's house after she went to assisted living - it was crazy
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We didn't find cash when we cleaned out my mom's place, but she was a Depression era kid and because of that, she had like two dozen bank accounts. We guessed it was "just in case" one or a couple of the banks went belly up, she wouldn't lose everything.
 
JNA said:
flavored coffee is just not right.
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Some, yes. I did find dark chocolate huckleberry in Montana. Bought beans and ground and I do like it but Mrs. STTG does not. I cannot take black coffee unless the only option; I at least need creamer and sugar.

Maister said:
Remember CBS "In the News" mini segments they used to show for kids between commercials on Saturday mornings during the 70's and early 80s?


Okay, Swiss Miss. You rock, girl.
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That intro music and the spinning grid globe brought back memories.
 
Gedunker said:
We didn't find cash when we cleaned out my mom's place, but she was a Depression era kid and because of that, she had like two dozen bank accounts. We guessed it was "just in case" one or a couple of the banks went belly up, she wouldn't lose everything.
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When my maternal grandmother was on the decline and they took over her finances they spent weeks hunting down different bank accounts and annuities and CDs. My grandma was the same way and would open up accounts at a few banks around town, just in case. In her later years, she would read the paper and if she saw an add for a bank or credit union advertising a CD or IMMA at even a 10th of a percentage point higher than she was getting at one bank, she would transfer them some money and open an account there, but she kept doing that without closing out accounts so my dad said they found something like 25 different CDs of just a few years old, all with just about $500 - $2,000 in them (whatever the minimum was to get that rate). She died in 2018 and even now my parents still get the occasional statement from a bank or broker that they didn't know about. Unfortunately, no giant unexpected windfalls were found anywhere but it is always fun when I go over to my parents house and my mom hands me a check for $43 or something - my share of whatever account they recently found after being divided up between 9 surviving grandchildren.
 
We have some new "across the greenspace" backyard neighbors named Sanchez. Two cute little kids, too, which has been fun. I heard the little girl yesterday evening in their little back yard. Their dog must've gotten into the trash or something because I could hear the mom yelling to "take her outside!" I could hear the little girl scolding her: "You are a bad dog! A very bad, bad dog!" and then she paused a long time and said "But I love you a whole, whole lot anyway."

I'm not ashamed to say I cried. I love dogs and little kids a whole, whole lot. :)
 
ursus said:
You know when you're cleaning grit and garbage off the floor of a car or a spill in the garage and there is a penny, stuck in that muck? I would let that penny go with the grime right into the trash. My wife will free that penny from the tar and muck, take it inside, gently wash, scrub, and dry it till it is the shiny penny that the cosmos wanted it to be....and then drop it in the jar full of pennies that will sit forever unused in the kitchen cupboard. But she can't sleep if she thinks that penny was sad, sitting in the garbage. Like it would feel like we thought it wasn't a real penny.
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Look at Mr. Moneybags over here with pennies for his muck!
 
One of the cats keeps going into the daughters purse and steals whatever money it can find. He is very proud of his money stealing abilities, but I'm afraid he's just going to spend it on hookers and blow.
 
I'm posting this primarily for ursus' benefit so he can use it as background music for his office, but wanted to say this is like the best video game music out there. I could see just chilling out and listening to this without the game.
 
DVD said:
One of the cats keeps going into the daughters purse and steals whatever money it can find. He is very proud of his money stealing abilities, but I'm afraid he's just going to spend it on hookers and blow.
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DVDs cat wandering down the hall - "Where's the catnip man?"
 
Maister said:
I'm posting this primarily for ursus' benefit so he can use it as background music for his office, but wanted to say this is like the best video game music out there. I could see just chilling out and listening to this without the game.
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It makes my heart hurt I love this music so much!!!

I also used to play Tropico....and Pharoah.....and a couple of others I forget. The only one I still play is RollerCoaster Tycoon: the greatest PC game ever made. And before anybody says it YES that still applies even though my sons have had me try Destiny and Baldur's Gate.
 
TOFB said:
I may have bought the last box of checks in my life.
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That actually seems entirely possible. My current checking account was opened in 2015. It's been over 8.5 years and I'm on Check No. 113. That's starting from 100. I've moved a couple times since then but I just paste one of those address labels that certain non-profits always mail to you so it could be another decade or more until I need more myself.
 
MD Planner said:
That actually seems entirely possible. My current checking account was opened in 2015. It's been over 8.5 years and I'm on Check No. 113. That's starting from 100. I've moved a couple times since then but I just paste one of those address labels that certain non-profits always mail to you so it could be another decade or more until I need more myself.
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I don't even bother with the address (we moved 6 years ago).
 
MD Planner said:
I'd give them like a month because that's just the right thing to do, transitions are never seamless and sometimes those left behind just need to know where something is physically or what the status is. After that they've got to figure it out unless they want to pay you to consult. I'm a big advocate of not giving my time or work away for free. If you want to do pro bono work I'm sure there are more rewarding avenues for that.
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I have been gone 12 years from a job and I answered a complicated question from new planners in that department so you never know - I was kind as it was a project that was important to me

@arcplans
 
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