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

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SlaveToTheGrind said:
1980s tv 80s GIF by absurdnoise
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We aren't in Springfield anymore.
 
Today is supposed to be a really bad day for the #davisfire. They have expanded the evacuation warning area well into the city. Very strong wind forecast for today.

We go camping at the campground where it started almost every year.

(Highway 659 is McCarran Blvd., our beltway loop . . . the very top of the zone is Lowe's and Barnes & Noble, two places that know me well. Lots of office buildings around that area too.)



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DVD said:
My oldest just moved out. She no longer wants to associate with anyone because she knows how to do it all without our help. The youngest in now learning to drive. It's going to feel weird in a couple years when the youngest leaves.
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My understanding is that kids these days aren't really in a hurry to learn to drive.
 
jumbach said:
My understanding is that kids these days aren't really in a hurry to learn to drive.
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My oldest wasn't in a hurry because it meant working at something, mostly taking the written test. Then she started driving and realized the freedom she would have no longer subject to the parents schedule.

The youngest got her learner's permit right away because she knows she can be free of parent time schedules and just drive herself to school and back and of course to Cane's for chicken.
 
DVD said:
My oldest wasn't in a hurry because it meant working at something, mostly taking the written test. Then she started driving and realized the freedom she would have no longer subject to the parents schedule.

The youngest got her learner's permit right away because she knows she can be free of parent time schedules and just drive herself to school and back and of course to Cane's for chicken.
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I think Cane's would have been a motivating factor here, had they had restaurants in this area. 😆
 
kms said:
All it takes is for one friend to get their license. The others will want to drive.
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My 14-year-old never expressed an interest in driving and seemed indifferent whenever the conversation happened to come up (though, that really wasn't too frequently to begin with) until last week when she learned that a couple of her friends who just turned 15 have already begun drivers training. Now she's already planning for when she'll be old enough to begin training next summer and hoping that she can squeeze it in between band camp and the start of school.

I don't recall that we were even able to take drivers training until we were just like 90 days out from our 16th birthday or something like that. I haven't looked too much into it but I think in Michigan now you are supposed to have a bunch more time driving on a permit with an adult than what was required years ago so the change is probably a good thing.
 
The Girl got her leaners permit on her 15th bday & drivers license on her 16th bday because she understood the freedom she could have.

Like Father, like daughter too by the way.
 
Planit said:
The Girl got her leaners permit on her 15th bday & drivers license on her 16th bday because she understood the freedom she could have.

Like Father, like daughter too by the way.
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I didn't get my license until I was 18, because I had a bus pass to get me where I needed to go.

I was driving the Alaska outback at the age of 12, though.
 
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WSU MUP Student said:
My 14-year-old never expressed an interest in driving and seemed indifferent whenever the conversation happened to come up (though, that really wasn't too frequently to begin with) until last week when she learned that a couple of her friends who just turned 15 have already begun drivers training. Now she's already planning for when she'll be old enough to begin training next summer and hoping that she can squeeze it in between band camp and the start of school.

I don't recall that we were even able to take drivers training until we were just like 90 days out from our 16th birthday or something like that. I haven't looked too much into it but I think in Michigan now you are supposed to have a bunch more time driving on a permit with an adult than what was required years ago so the change is probably a good thing.
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They can start drivers training at 14 years and 9 months.
 
Driver's license question to those that posted earlier, or anyone, are you kids enrolled in driver's ed in high school or do they go to private school to learn? I did driver's ed in high school fall 1986 with one day of class, one day of simulation (caught me speeding), and one day or driving. License at 16 in January 1987. In Iowa at that time, permit was available at 14. My three kids also did driver's ed in high school but believe they had the option to pay for private.
 
I didn’t get my license until I was 21. I lived in an area with good and cheap public transit. My mom taught me how to drive when I was 15 as I did have a learner’s permit. Since I couldn’t afford my own car or insurance I didn’t bother with the license until later. No driver’s ed course was required then but the high school offered a summer class.

NJ does things differently. You aren’t eligible for a permit until you are 16 which falls under the Special Learner’s Permit. You have to be enrolled in a certified training course which has 6 hours behind the wheel instruction. The certified trainer obtains the permit on behalf of the learner once they pass the knowledge test (high schools offer a knowledge course and can administer the test) and vision test. After that it’s 6 months of supervised driving with a licensed adult-a log must be kept with dates and times and when 17 pass the road test and get a probationary license. A red decal must be on the license plate any time a minor is driving.

If you get the permit when you’re 17, then you can skip the 6 hour behind the wheel training but still need 6 months of supervised driving. Most parents opt for their kids to go through the behind the wheel training due to nature of our highway system.

My oldest got her license when she was 17. It’s a life skill I feel that it’s important. She doesn’t own a car and mostly uses public transportation since she commutes to NYC. She uses my car or her boyfriend’s car on weekends to run errands.
 
Both The Girl & I took it during the summer @ the public high school we attended.

In two different states with her in 2017 & me in 1975.
 
Growing up in NJ, I was
driving at 17
drinking & voting at 18
I was born in the gap years - missed the Draft & the Registering
 
I had driver's ed in HS, but because my birthday was toward the end of the enrollment cut-off, I hadn't had driver training when I tested for my license in the summer of '77. Hell, I had only ever practiced parallel parking one time, about an hour before I went for the test. Because I had earned my license, I was able to skip regular driver training, but I did take my HS advanced driver training and that saved my parents a lot of money on auto insurance (which was stupid expensive for a male in NJ). It also came in handy the one and only time I had a front tire blow-out at 75mph on the Garden State Parkway.:wow:
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
1975-16(?) = 1959. 2024-1959=65...do you see retirement down the road or just prefer to mentor the young whipper snappers entering the field?
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15 at the time.

Could've retired years of service wise, but kid late in life & now in college is keeping me going & still (mostly) enjoy the work right now. I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.
 
Gedunker & kjel might react to this -
part of my driver's ed was a round trip on Route 22 to Newark Airport.
 
JNA said:
Gedunker & kjel might react to this -
part of my driver's ed was a round trip on Route 22 to Newark Airport.
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If you can handle Route 22 traffic in our old haunts, you can handle just about anything (except, maybe, Boston and the notoriously bad drivers there).
 
Gedunker said:
I had driver's ed in HS, but because my birthday was toward the end of the enrollment cut-off, I hadn't had driver training when I tested for my license in the summer of '77. Hell, I had only ever practiced parallel parking one time, about an hour before I went for the test. Because I had earned my license, I was able to skip regular driver training, but I did take my HS advanced driver training and that saved my parents a lot of money on auto insurance (which was stupid expensive for a male in NJ). It also came in handy the one and only time I had a front tire blow-out at 75mph on the Garden State Parkway.:wow:
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I don't recall if I learned to parallel park in driver's ed, but I must have had a cursory introduction to it.

I got some real expertise in it when I was in the Marines and was dating a girl from Long Island for a couple years and we'd go up to visit her friends and family and there was a lot of parallel parking around Queens and Hempstead and Mineola. Even though I was driving a big, bulky Jeep Grand Wagoneer with bad power steering she taught me to pull forward and start cutting my wheel hard when I was reversing and my mirrors aligned with the mirrors of the car in front of me. Over the years, that has seemed to work pretty well. We happen to live in one of the few towns in Metro Detroit that has a lot of parallel parking in our downtown and my parking skills are one of the few ways I seem to still be able to impress my wife. :cool:
 
We had to parallel park as part of our drivers test. I practiced in my mom's 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis Station Wagon & took the test in my dad's 1977 Toyota Corolla. I passed.
 
Planit said:
We had to parallel park as part of our drivers test. I practiced in my mom's 1971 Mercury Grand Marquis Station Wagon & took the test in my dad's 1977 Toyota Corolla. I passed.
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I had to make a three point turn. My kids had to parallel park.

I was trying to find a parking space for a festival. I cut off a guy to get a lone parking space along the curb, and had to parallel park, which I don't do well. I got into the space quickly. The car I cut off pulled up beside me, unlocked the window and I waited for name calling and swearing about cutting him off. Instead, he praised me for a textbook parking job!
 
I took the test in my parents' boat of a car - an Oldsmobile station wagon, maybe from 1979? It was a blizzard and yeah I had to parallel park without skidding

#getoffmylawn
 
Had to parallel park for State Driver's Exam - I did it in a Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser Station Wagon (you know a land yacht)
 
I drove around the block in Sun City, a retirement community. Then I had to do a 3 point turn around. Easy stuff.

The kids will be taught be me and then we have her do the school driving program to help lower insurance costs.
 
I learned to drive on a 1973 Chrysler Newport, a 1978 Dodge St Regis, a Chevy Monza*, an old Ford van*, a Dodge Omni 024*, and a K-Car. I took my drivers license test on the St Regis.

*stick shift cars.

Edit: Uncle Tom also taught me how to ride his Kawasaki 650.
 
I took drivers ed in HS. I was in no rush to get my license and failed the drivers test. I couldn't parallel park. I actually learned to drive from my cop dad. This explains a lot about how I drive.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
I have so many unread books. I usually pick up at a local thrift store for $1-2, hardback or "trade" paperback as we used call them when I worked in a bookstore. I don't pick up paperbacks. I've been on a self-imposed freeze the last year or so.
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My wife says I cannot buy any books, unless I use my allotment*, or if it's work-related.

We have a local bookstore that has a bag sale on Sundays--all the books you want for $5 per paper grocery bag. So what I do is find one book that is related to planning (or something tangential like architecture or social work), then fill my bag with more since the marginal cost of every book after the planning book is $0. That way, technically, I am not buying non planning-related books with our joint funds. Wife actually agrees with that logic.

First book: $5
Second book: $0
Third book: $0
Fourth book: $0

and so on.


* We have $x amount from every check we allow each other to spend on whatever we want. We don't need to know or care to know what the other does with it. Everything else goes to joint expenses. We've been married 20 years, so I guess this system works.
 
SlaveToTheGrind said:
I have so many unread books. I usually pick up at a local thrift store for $1-2, hardback or "trade" paperback as we used call them when I worked in a bookstore. I don't pick up paperbacks. I've been on a self-imposed freeze the last year or so.
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I tend to get a lot of books from the library, which then, for obvious reasons, take precedence over my personal books when it comes time to pick something to read. That's why, as of January 1 of this year, I made a rule for myself that for every book I read at the library, I must read and then remove one from my personal collection. (They usually get donated to the library.)

Also, in years ending with "4," like this year, I can re-read something I read in the past. (That's because it's something I have read "be-4.")

I have an alarming number of rules for myself, most of which are related to either eating, traveling, or reading. Luckily, they apply only to me, and I don't want to or even try to impose them on others.

Jim
 
Had to take one of my husband's employees to the airport at o-dark-thirty this morning so I am super early for work and even had breakfast downtown with the coffee shop cowboys on my way to the office - the hazards of working in the city that has the airport for the whole region lol

the classic young-person situation though - I get there at 4:45 - take an hour to get to the airport and her flight is at 7 - I am sitting there, no lights on in her house, no signs of life, car in the driveway - so I text her "hey I am here" - no response - call, goes to voicemail - text my husband a wtf message and he says go knock on the door - and it's pretty early so everything echoes, so I am just waiting for the cops to pull up to see what this crazy lady is doing banging on someone's door - finally, SHE WAKES UP - rushes around getting dressed and packing and apologizing, I am trying to be the cool old lady and am all it's okay, we'll make it - get there at 6:15 AM so hopefully the TSA line isn't too long - we are getting more NY flights in the morning so our once short TSA line is starting to get longer - but anyway, that's the start of my day
 
luckless pedestrian said:
Had to take one of my husband's employees to the airport at o-dark-thirty this morning so I am super early for work and even had breakfast downtown with the coffee shop cowboys on my way to the office - the hazards of working in the city that has the airport for the whole region lol

the classic young-person situation though - I get there at 4:45 - take an hour to get to the airport and her flight is at 7 - I am sitting there, no lights on in her house, no signs of life, car in the driveway - so I text her "hey I am here" - no response - call, goes to voicemail - text my husband a wtf message and he says go knock on the door - and it's pretty early so everything echoes, so I am just waiting for the cops to pull up to see what this crazy lady is doing banging on someone's door - finally, SHE WAKES UP - rushes around getting dressed and packing and apologizing, I am trying to be the cool old lady and am all it's okay, we'll make it - get there at 6:15 AM so hopefully the TSA line isn't too long - we are getting more NY flights in the morning so our once short TSA line is starting to get longer - but anyway, that's the start of my day
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Wow. :oops:You're a better person than me. I would not have handled that delay well at all. No, not at all.
 
Remember this Schoolhouse rock? Do you realize roughly about as much time has passed since it was made and now, than had passed since 1920 when women won the right to vote and the making of that Schoolhouse Rock! Kinda puts things in perspective.

 
luckless pedestrian said:
Had to take one of my husband's employees to the airport at o-dark-thirty this morning so I am super early for work and even had breakfast downtown with the coffee shop cowboys on my way to the office - the hazards of working in the city that has the airport for the whole region lol

the classic young-person situation though - I get there at 4:45 - take an hour to get to the airport and her flight is at 7 - I am sitting there, no lights on in her house, no signs of life, car in the driveway - so I text her "hey I am here" - no response - call, goes to voicemail - text my husband a wtf message and he says go knock on the door - and it's pretty early so everything echoes, so I am just waiting for the cops to pull up to see what this crazy lady is doing banging on someone's door - finally, SHE WAKES UP - rushes around getting dressed and packing and apologizing, I am trying to be the cool old lady and am all it's okay, we'll make it - get there at 6:15 AM so hopefully the TSA line isn't too long - we are getting more NY flights in the morning so our once short TSA line is starting to get longer - but anyway, that's the start of my day
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I hope she did get hung up at TSA. Like I did in your freaking teeny tiny airport! I had a bag of a blueberry popover mix. Apparently within the bag where it seals there is some sort of metal. I was escorted aside, approximately 15 TSA agents surrounded me and started asking me what was in the bag. I said I hoped what it said on the label. They seemed quite disappointed I had no intention of trying to bring down the plane. I was just embarrassed it caused such a ruckus. (I like the word ruckus). :)
 
My TSA experience -
Once Had to explain what diabetic test lancets, pen needles (for injectining insulin) & insulin pen (not a dangerous liquid) were & were not a risk.
 
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So I just received this email:

Noticed your role in Anytown, USA. Your work in urban development is really impressive - figured I'd reach out.
I noticed you aren't using a community engagement platform for your projects. Having a platform will help you receive more feedback on your plans from your community.
Would you like to have a quick chat to learn more about this? Just shoot over a reply and we'll go from there.

This is from a "community engagement platform" vendor.

I detest these emails as it comes across as (and is) very disingenuous.

Blocked.
 
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