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RTDNTOTO 🐻 Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 20 (2025)

Big Owl said:
I am getting fiber internet installed today. The tech is suppose to be at my house sometime between 8 am to 12 pm today. We are 36 minutes into the time period. What's the guesses?
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2:30 pm is the estimated time now. I am glad that I didn't have to take off to wait.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
Our teenager is volunteering as a counselor student director at a drama camp this week and next. There are about 15 kids in the camp and most are in 5th and 6th grade. She's only there from 8:00 a.m. to noon but those kids must be wearing her out. She never takes naps but has come home and taken one so far every day this week.
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This post gave me crazy deja vu.
Did this happen last year too or something? The matrix is glitching. Am I the only real person here? Are you? Did we cease to exist when the site was down??
 
I love when stupid people think they are awesome and super professional. I got one of those requests from a loan officer/realtor or whatever they are asking for the reports on the latest zoning cases and housing subdivisions.
1. Love the glamor shot photo in the email signature. My daughter just said "that's some bad hair extensions"
2. Way to use your personal gmail account and not the company account.
3. If the city were a good lead don't you think one of the other people in your office would have mentioned it?
4. Yes we have internal reports about every project going on. We don't have external reports because it's a giant city with a lot of projects and no one would understand all our codes and where the project is in the process.
5. We do have a map that you can pull data from. Sorry it's not a list of everything.
6. I also left her with the council agenda auto email. Ours usually have 100 items every couple weeks, but it does have the zoning cases you asked about. Granted a zoning case is nowhere near building a house, but have fun.
 
Why can't my database do simple things like tell me how many permits were pulled in a subdivision and which builder puller the permits?
 
I only come up here to Virginia City for Planning Commission meetings. We really should come up here one day and play tourist.
 

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Big Owl said:
2:30 pm is the estimated time now. I am glad that I didn't have to take off to wait.
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They were there at 2:25 pm. I now have a fiber optic line running from the street, across my yard, and into my house; and It's hooked up to the modem which has a big red light flashing. Evidently, I am the first in my neighborhood and/or my street to sign up for service and they don't have everything hooked up to connect the line in front of my house to the interwebs. So much for being an early adopter. The good news is that I haven't canceled my existing internet service yet.
 
DVD said:
I love when stupid people think they are awesome and super professional. I got one of those requests from a loan officer/realtor or whatever they are asking for the reports on the latest zoning cases and housing subdivisions.
1. Love the glamor shot photo in the email signature. My daughter just said "that's some bad hair extensions"
2. Way to use your personal gmail account and not the company account.
3. If the city were a good lead don't you think one of the other people in your office would have mentioned it?
4. Yes we have internal reports about every project going on. We don't have external reports because it's a giant city with a lot of projects and no one would understand all our codes and where the project is in the process.
5. We do have a map that you can pull data from. Sorry it's not a list of everything.
6. I also left her with the council agenda auto email. Ours usually have 100 items every couple weeks, but it does have the zoning cases you asked about. Granted a zoning case is nowhere near building a house, but have fun.
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I occasionally get emails like that, usually from commercial brokers/developers and it's almost always obvious that it's a form email that they probably send out to 100 different municipalities. I like to make it easy on myself by usually just responding that we are a county with 62 individual communities and reminding(?) them that counties in Michigan do not issue permits. If I'm feeling generous, I'll send them a link to a page with the contact information for each individual community.
 
We decided to go check out a Korean grocery store and coffee/boba shop after lunch and there was also a K-Pop souvenir shop in the same complex. There was some sort of record release party earlier today for a K-Pop girl group. It looked like a hurricane had come through that section of the store. It must have been pretty busy in there this morning.
 
Anyone here know about St Joseph and selling houses? Maybe a favourite Saint thread is needed.
 
donk said:
Anyone here know about St Joseph and selling houses? Maybe a favourite Saint thread is needed.
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I was told to bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down in the yard, but now that I think of it, I was selling my house and searching for a new house. Those things happened, and I keep the statue of St. Joseph in my living room. It's a small, plastic statue and is tan colored.

Did it work? I can't say, but it seems kinda of silly to bury a statue of a saint in the yard.

When I decided to buy a new house and move, i started packing. The way I feel.about things now, I think I manifested a new home.
 
DVD said:
I love when stupid people think they are awesome and super professional. I got one of those requests from a loan officer/realtor or whatever they are asking for the reports on the latest zoning cases and housing subdivisions.
1. Love the glamor shot photo in the email signature. My daughter just said "that's some bad hair extensions"
2. Way to use your personal gmail account and not the company account.
3. If the city were a good lead don't you think one of the other people in your office would have mentioned it?
4. Yes we have internal reports about every project going on. We don't have external reports because it's a giant city with a lot of projects and no one would understand all our codes and where the project is in the process.
5. We do have a map that you can pull data from. Sorry it's not a list of everything.
6. I also left her with the council agenda auto email. Ours usually have 100 items every couple weeks, but it does have the zoning cases you asked about. Granted a zoning case is nowhere near building a house, but have fun.
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I had two of these on Friday.

#1 was an open public records request from a PhD student at Cornell. They wanted a list of all affordable housing projected funded in the state in 2023-2024, the amount of public funding projects received, source of funds, and total construction costs. We’re only one funding source with 4 programs. There’s another agency that only funds affordable housing-it even has “housing” in its name 😆 I am sure they were disappointed in the list I generated.

#2 is a “developer” that works with homeless people. He’s a disgusting person and had a high profile sexual harassment case that resulted in a $900K settlement to his employee 👀 So he’s been pestering us about building a tiny home on a residential lot and we have kind of pushed him off a bit. Can’t catch a clue so finally I told my program manager to ask if he’s got planning and zoning approvals. Y’all….he submitted a document from 2008 trying to pass it off as an approval. This resolution is old enough to have a high school diploma. And it clearly states only bulk variances are granted as it’s a non-conforming lot. No other relief is granted because the proposed use (steel shipping container housing) is detrimental 😆
 
Corn.

We have corn growing in our yard. There's a dozen stalks in 4 different areas of the yard. When we first saw them, Mrs. P was intrigued and wanted to see what they would do. Most of them have grown about a foot tall and stopped. However 4 of them (those in the sun) have decided to keep growing. As of this weekend, 2 have silks and ears growing. We both think this is hilarious because we don't have much success with gardening, primarily because our lot is so shaded. I feel like I'm in Iowa for goodness sake.
corn.jpg
 
Planit said:
Corn.

We have corn growing in our yard. There's a dozen stalks in 4 different areas of the yard. When we first saw them, Mrs. P was intrigued and wanted to see what they would do. Most of them have grown about a foot tall and stopped. However 4 of them (those in the sun) have decided to keep growing. As of this weekend, 2 have silks and ears growing. We both think this is hilarious because we don't have much success with gardening, primarily because our lot is so shaded. I feel like I'm in Iowa for goodness sake.
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Some of the best ears of corn I've ever eaten have come from "volunteers". That's what we called them where I'm from.
 
I went for a run yesterday morning at a park I go to often but they recently opened a path connecting the main park to a small northern section of the park that was previously sort of isolated. I had never been in that area of the park before and I was pleased that about 100 yards in the trail passed through a massive blackberry patch that looked like it extended a few acres off to each side of the trail (I also never realized that blackberry bushes were so thick... there was no way I was venturing off the trail to get more because my legs would have been torn up!). About a half mile later the trail came out a tiny lake and across the water from a small fishing boardwalk there was a big bald eagle nest up in a tree over the water.

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WSU MUP Student said:
I don't understand all the hubbub around this guy. I mean, I get that we, as a society, like seeing people get a dose of karma, but is this Astronomer company so big, or is this CEO so rich and powerful enough, that this need to be noteworthy for me than the evening that it happened?
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Too often the news media gets called out for being too negative, too focused on If It Bleeds It Leads stories. With today's fractured media landscape, it is heartwarming to witness collective positivity from the media as it covers, nonstop, the momentous Coldplay Couple video incident; it is the balm for all that ails us as a nation. The anointing is palpable.
 
Planit said:
Corn.

We have corn growing in our yard. There's a dozen stalks in 4 different areas of the yard. When we first saw them, Mrs. P was intrigued and wanted to see what they would do. Most of them have grown about a foot tall and stopped. However 4 of them (those in the sun) have decided to keep growing. As of this weekend, 2 have silks and ears growing. We both think this is hilarious because we don't have much success with gardening, primarily because our lot is so shaded. I feel like I'm in Iowa for goodness sake.
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Gramma Fran's rule of thumb is "knee high by fourth of July" (south Iowa).
 
MD Planner said:
Some of the best ears of corn I've ever eaten have come from "volunteers". That's what we called them where I'm from.
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Mrs. P said we're going to eat then when they're ready.

When that day comes, I'm going to buy a couple for comparison from the farmers market & the grocery store.
 
Planit said:
Mrs. P said we're going to eat then when they're ready.

When that day comes, I'm going to buy a couple for comparison from the farmers market & the grocery store.
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In my experience, when a corn stalk is growing solo it often suffers from incomplete pollination. Don't be surprised if you open the ear and it's missing lots of kernels like something got to it.

If your corn turns out good, though, you should make elotes (Mexican street corn)

 
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I noticed there was a truck from the Water Department parked out in front of the house. There was a guy working on the water meter. I walked over and asked him what was going on, and he said he was replacing our electronic water meter. Apparently it hasn't been reading correctly since last December, so our water bill was WAY down. The guy from the Water Department said they wouldn't try to back bill or anything since it's on them to make sure the equipment is functioning properly.

The bad news is we'll be paying our fair share again.
 
Listened to a podcast on the band ween. I don't understand them at all, even though I think I should.
 
Was tasked with devising more categories for the online complaint system for folks to file their (largely) meritless complaints. So in terms of types of new complaints I'm thinking:
  • don't like the cut of their jib
  • the 'wrong sorts' of people live there
  • offends my sense of aesthetics
  • neighborhood going to hell ever since 'those people' moved there
  • their parents were responsible people. Have NO IDEA what went wrong with their kids
  • The trouble is it's a rental property, if you know what I mean


Any other ideas?
 
Maister said:
Was tasked with devising more categories for the online complaint system for folks to file their (largely) meritless complaints. So in terms of types of new complaints I'm thinking:
  • don't like the cut of their jib
  • the 'wrong sorts' of people live there
  • offends my sense of aesthetics
  • neighborhood going to hell ever since 'those people' moved there
  • their parents were responsible people. Have NO IDEA what went wrong with their kids
  • The trouble is it's a rental property, if you know what I mean


Any other ideas?
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the whole bunch is on dope!
 
Doohickie said:
View attachment 64917

I noticed there was a truck from the Water Department parked out in front of the house. There was a guy working on the water meter. I walked over and asked him what was going on, and he said he was replacing our electronic water meter. Apparently it hasn't been reading correctly since last December, so our water bill was WAY down. The guy from the Water Department said they wouldn't try to back bill or anything since it's on them to make sure the equipment is functioning properly.

The bad news is we'll be paying our fair share again.
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Our independent water board has been dysfunctional for about 20 years. During COVID they went through and replaced all the water meters to smarter ones that someone didn't have to go out and read. What they also knew but didn't tell anyone is that about 75% of the meters no longer worked and those people were getting billed the base rate, some for close to a decade. People were not happy when they had operational water meters that read correctly. My bill went up about $15 a month unless I ran the sprinklers. A lot of people also figured out that they had leaks. We have some of the highest rates in the state, but people didn't feel it until their meter worked. It was insane the amount of mismanagement the on the company's part.
 
Maister said:
Was tasked with devising more categories for the online complaint system for folks to file their (largely) meritless complaints. So in terms of types of new complaints I'm thinking:
  • don't like the cut of their jib
  • the 'wrong sorts' of people live there
  • offends my sense of aesthetics
  • neighborhood going to hell ever since 'those people' moved there
  • their parents were responsible people. Have NO IDEA what went wrong with their kids
  • The trouble is it's a rental property, if you know what I mean


Any other ideas?
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Don't you know that will drop my property value by a lot.
That just does not fit with our neighborhood.
That will change my kids school - classroom overcrowding, test scores, bus traffic, etc....
I don't want look out my kitchen window and see that - Good'ol if you like the view/scene then buy it.
This will increase traffic on my road.
 
donk said:
Listened to a podcast on the band ween. I don't understand them at all, even though I think I should.
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Never heard of them, wouldn't know how to find a podcast about them,
so does that make me old and "not with it" ?
 
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