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RTDNTOTO šŸ» Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 20 (2025)

kjel said:
My father was the black sheep of his family. He had 5 sisters that married 5 brothers and they all had a bunch of kids. One sister and one brother passed away and the widows married each other. My father was the youngest and I was his youngest child. I was closest in age to the children of my cousins (making us 1st cousins once removed). When I was 18 I was at a friendā€™s house and there was a guy there in his early 20s. He was looking at a magazine and I saw the name on the magazine postage label. I asked if it was his, he said yeah. I said who are your grandparents and he says X&Y. I start laughing and he says whatā€™s so funny? I tell him weā€™re cousins and his dad is my cousin. He was like damn my dad is like old and you are
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I never met any of them, but famous alumni of my alma mater (Sacramento State) include Tom Hanks, Ted Kaczynski, and Joan London. I did briefly talk to Lester Holt once since I minored in journalism, before a class for about 30 seconds. We didnā€™t know each other or have anything more than that brief exchange about something trivial.
 
When you die, the dealings of your trade or profession occupy virtually no role in your 'life review'. Except perhaps to highlight how you emotionally reacted and dealt with various situations that occurred that may have happened while you were busy subsisting. I don't know about every culture on earth, but American males certainly place an outsized importance and attention to one's roles at work. In many respects we are encouraged to define ourselves in terms of what we do at/for work. If you, say, engaged in a pattern of lying over a lifetime and some of those lies manifested at work, one's work history might be relevant, but otherwise how well or poorly one performs at their job doesn't merit any attention at all in the eyes of the Universe.

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jumbach said:
Yep. We donā€™t advertise it though.

Weā€™ve never met and itā€™s unlikely we ever will. (Many cousins on my motherā€™s side have scattered to various winds, just because thatā€™s how life is and not for any falling out or anything.)
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One of my cousins' cousins (the other side of their family) is a pretty famous country music singer and occasional actress - I'd usually bump into her (figuratively speaking) a few times a year when we were kids.
 
As posted on FB by Revitalize, or Die.

I want to live in Candyland. With trick-or-treat right around the corner, Iā€™m about to find out if I do.

Thereā€™s probably a PhD candidate somewhere with charts and regression models to explain it, but Iā€™ve developed my own highly scientific metric for neighborhood health: the Yard Goblin Index. Thatā€™s the number of inflatable monsters and skeleton families per household.

Forget the Census. Forget Zillow. If you want to know whether a neighborhoodā€™s got life, check the plastic corpse to porch ratio.

I grew up in the kind of suburbia where you could run a 5K between doorbells. Nobody trick-or-treated our street except the kids next door, who were forced to show up like hostages to our dark, candyless porch. Our neighborhood wasnā€™t built for kids. It was built for cars. And car places are terrible for kids demanding Rolos.

But kids are geniuses when it comes to sugar logistics. They know exactly where the good neighborhoods are, the ones where you can hit ten porches without breaking stride. If planning boards really wanted to measure livability, theyā€™d run a Snickers Feasibility Study. If a costumed eight-year-old canā€™t double-fist candy corn at full stride for two straight hours, donā€™t approve the subdivision.

Letā€™s do some back-of-the-wrapper math. A suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood might have 71 houses per kilometer. A walkable, traditional neighborhood? About 120. That means the kid dressed as a Power Ranger, mask slipping, cape dragging, pillowcase half-spilled, can hit roughly 720 homes worth of candy in two hours.

Meanwhile, his suburban counterpart is trudging along cul-de-sacs and collector roads, praying for the sweet mercy of a Reeseā€™s cup. One gets a tower of Twizzlers. The other gets a single Dum-Dum and shin splints.

Trick-or-treating is the purest neighborhood diagnostic tool ever invented. Are the porches lit? Are the sidewalks full? Do people linger and laugh? Do kids feel safe and welcome?

If the answer is yes, congratulations, youā€™ve built a good place. A place designed for people, not machines. A place with neighbors who give a damn.

A good trick-or-treat street has all the civic essentials: human-scale homes, sidewalks, lighting, slow traffic, and a little shared joy. Itā€™s the built environment of belonging.

Looking out my window this week, my street is filthy with Halloween decorations. Spiders cling to porches, skeletons sip martinis in lawn chairs, and orange lights glow like civic pride incarnate.

And I love it. Decorating your house for strangers is the most unselfish act of neighborliness there is. You donā€™t do it for yourself. You do it for the kids, for the joggers, for the dog walkers, for the people who live near you. Itā€™s a gift of delight to the block.

Trick-or-treat night is my favorite of the year. Itā€™s the one evening when everyone comes outside, sidewalks are packed, and the simple magic of community is alive again.

I love the look of my neighborhood this time of year. The houses are close, the lights are warm, the sidewalks are ready, and the neighbors all seem like the kind of people who stock the full-size bars.

I canā€™t wait to see hundreds of tiny goblins marching up our brick street, buckets swinging, sugar dreams within reach. The anticipation is almost unbearable. I just hope we have enough Nerds to survive the night.
 
JNA said:
If you want to know whether a neighborhoodā€™s got life, check the plastic corpse to porch ratio.
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It's apparently an unwritten rule in my neighborhood that if a house has no Halloween decorations, they're not handing out candy.

When I grew up is was about whether the porch light was on. If so, trick or treat; if not, they're not giving out candy or they've already given everything away.

Personally, I'm not all into the 20 foot skeletons and such, especially when people leave them up year round. Originally it was a novelty; now it's just meh.
 
kms said:
I'm glad it wasn't worse.
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I slid on the gravel so I wouldn't go over a cliff in front of me so yeah it was bad but it could have been helicopter-ambulance bad

kjel said:
My father was the black sheep of his family. He had 5 sisters that married 5 brothers and they all had a bunch of kids. One sister and one brother passed away and the widows married each other. My father was the youngest and I was his youngest child. I was closest in age to the children of my cousins (making us 1st cousins once removed). When I was 18 I was at a friendā€™s house and there was a guy there in his early 20s. He was looking at a magazine and I saw the name on the magazine postage label. I asked if it was his, he said yeah. I said who are your grandparents and he says X&Y. I start laughing and he says whatā€™s so funny? I tell him weā€™re cousins and his dad is my cousin. He was like damn my dad is like old and you are not šŸ˜†
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Wow, right? This is a lot! I need more!
 
Maister said:
When you die, the dealings of your trade or profession occupy virtually no role in your 'life review'. Except perhaps to highlight how you emotionally reacted and dealt with various situations that occurred that may have happened while you were busy subsisting. I don't know about every culture on earth, but American males certainly place an outsized importance and attention to one's roles at work. In many respects we are encouraged to define ourselves in terms of what we do at/for work. If you, say, engaged in a pattern of lying over a lifetime and some of those lies manifested at work, one's work history might be relevant, but otherwise how well or poorly one performs at their job doesn't merit any attention at all in the eyes of the Universe.

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I think for some, it might work and "life review" might overlap. I might be idealistic in my view, but do my job because I genuinely want to make a positive difference in the community that I work for. At the end of my life, I want the work activities to be a reflection on my commitment to bettering the communities that I live/work in and the lives of those who live & work there.

Years ago while at the APA conference in Philly, we were at a group table discussing what it means to be a Planner and why we do it. When it got to me, I talked about legacy and being able to drive through a community and see how people interactive with the built environment that was created or preserved because of my recommendations, guidance, and sometimes decisions. Even if it didn't have my name on or there was any other indication of my involvement, I would know that I had a small part to play in improving their lives. Afterall, isn't that what life should be all about?
 
Maister said:
When you die, the dealings of your trade or profession occupy virtually no role in your 'life review'. Except perhaps to highlight how you emotionally reacted and dealt with various situations that occurred that may have happened while you were busy subsisting. I don't know about every culture on earth, but American males certainly place an outsized importance and attention to one's roles at work. In many respects we are encouraged to define ourselves in terms of what we do at/for work. If you, say, engaged in a pattern of lying over a lifetime and some of those lies manifested at work, one's work history might be relevant, but otherwise how well or poorly one performs at their job doesn't merit any attention at all in the eyes of the Universe.

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I have an employee or two that I am trying to teach the skill of separating work-me from me-me more than they are - it's hard to teach as I think it's something they learn the hard way
 
^^^ AIB previous work vs life balance discussion -

I had 2 internet projects going before I retired that I carried over into retirement.
Yes they were were kind of work related but not my job/career.
They were & still are social media research for/about trails and interactive GIS map editing for the USGS National Map Corp.
 
At a previous location, I hired a guy & we worked well together but I kept an arm's distance in social activities because I was his boss. When I left, we stayed in contact & hung out together sometimes. He asked me once why I was guarded when we worked together. I simply said I was your boss & he said that made sense.

Now we're very good friends and hang out together with our wives.
 
The ex was career centered in the extreme. It seemed every night, she wanted to unload about how unhappy and unfulfilled she was; all the personal drama/politics going on at work; how she'd do it if she was in charge; and, on and on and on and on, ad infinitum. I learned so much about shit - excuse me, I mean wastewater treatment - that I could probably sit for a state license and have a good shot at passing.

At one point, we agreed she needed a change so we tightened down the financial hatches and she quit her job to figure out what she would do next to make her happy. I kept telling her to do what she knows - water and wastewater, in which she was really quite accomplished. No, she decided she wanted to publish a children's magazine. I'm not kidding. When I incredulously told her she can't write, knows nothing about publishing (in the midst of magazines crashing and burning left and right, no less), and her own kids are indifferent toward her, well, you'd think I wrecked her new car.

Of course, after the divorce, she did start her own wastewater side gig and is apparently doing well at it.

Me? I'm thrilled to come home, play some WoWS and then plop down on the couch to watch TV. I'll deal with work when I get there next a.m.
 
kjel said:
My father was the black sheep of his family. He had 5 sisters that married 5 brothers and they all had a bunch of kids. One sister and one brother passed away and the widows married each other. My father was the youngest and I was his youngest child. I was closest in age to the children of my cousins (making us 1st cousins once removed). When I was 18 I was at a friendā€™s house and there was a guy there in his early 20s. He was looking at a magazine and I saw the name on the magazine postage label. I asked if it was his, he said yeah. I said who are your grandparents and he says X&Y. I start laughing and he says whatā€™s so funny? I tell him weā€™re cousins and his dad is my cousin. He was like damn my dad is like old and you are not šŸ˜†
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And here I am with one uncle (deceased 2023) and one cousin with another deceased in 1983. Mother is an only child and dad had one brother. Depression era (1929-1939) grandparents I suspect were influenced somewhat by that time in history as both my parents were born in 1936, and still kicking.
 
kjel said:
My father was the black sheep of his family. He had 5 sisters that married 5 brothers and they all had a bunch of kids. One sister and one brother passed away and the widows married each other. My father was the youngest and I was his youngest child. I was closest in age to the children of my cousins (making us 1st cousins once removed). When I was 18 I was at a friendā€™s house and there was a guy there in his early 20s. He was looking at a magazine and I saw the name on the magazine postage label. I asked if it was his, he said yeah. I said who are your grandparents and he says X&Y. I start laughing and he says whatā€™s so funny? I tell him weā€™re cousins and his dad is my cousin. He was like damn my dad is like old and you are not šŸ˜†
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My father was the only son of the oldest of 10 siblings. The youngest of the siblings were his age.
 
All four of my grandparents were born from 1903-1909.

All four grandparents didn't have their first children (my mom and dad) until Oct 1942 & Mar 1943.

My parents had me at 35 yrs old.
 
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Boy I sure could use some lamp. Anyone know where a dude can score some lamp?

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Planit said:
At a previous location, I hired a guy & we worked well together but I kept an arm's distance in social activities because I was his boss. When I left, we stayed in contact & hung out together sometimes. He asked me once why I was guarded when we worked together. I simply said I was your boss & he said that made sense.

Now we're very good friends and hang out together with our wives.
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I work for a big company. I have social media friends that work at the same company, but I don't know them through work. I also get friend requests from people I work (or have worked) with. I don't accept those. Maybe when I'm retired I will.
 
Not sure how to approach my wife and inform her that, unfortunately, I won't be able to go to dinner with her on our 20th anniversary because the Canucks have a 7 p.m. game that night (November 5). Maybe we could compromise and go to Chili's or some place with a sports bar rather than a snooty place like she wants.
 
jumbach said:
Not sure how to approach my wife and inform her that, unfortunately, I won't be able to go to dinner with her on our 20th anniversary because the Canucks have a 7 p.m. game that night (November 5). Maybe we could compromise and go to Chili's or some place with a sports bar rather than a snooty place like she wants.
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so where you stayin that night
 
You gotta pitch a weekend getaway since the 5th is a Wednesday - you want to make it worth her time :cool:


Congratulations though!
 
joscoffee said:
You gotta pitch a weekend getaway since the 5th is a Wednesday - you want to make it worth her time :cool:


Congratulations though!
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We've actually decided to do it on the 10th and 11th, since we are both off on the 11th. Canucks don't play either of those days.

But I guess I can stay on the new couch she just bought today that is being delivered Saturday. Our sectional is 20 years old and needs to go.
 
jumbach said:
Not sure how to approach my wife and inform her that, unfortunately, I won't be able to go to dinner with her on our 20th anniversary because the Canucks have a 7 p.m. game that night (November 5). Maybe we could compromise and go to Chili's or some place with a sports bar rather than a snooty place like she wants.
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Sir... as a extreme Puck Head, I need to share something with you.

A November 5 game between the Canucks and the Blackhawks is a 3 out of 10 on the importance scale. Currently the Canucks are 5 & 5 and the Hawks are 4 & 3. There are 72 more games this season (from today). My Detroit Redwings have better odds of winning the Stanley Cup. The only team that has less odds than the Blackhawks is the Sharks. If there was a game to miss watching, this is that game. If you watch this game, the only scoring going on will be on the ice... and even that isn't guaranteed.
 
Notes from the margins: Our benevolent trash company went through [what I assume to be] a corporate piracy event and merged with some other waste-related entity recently. We found out by a mailer that came two days after our trash cans disappeared and were replaced by a shiny identical can that made me think I had somehow contracted the local trash-can-washing-man unknowingly. They have maintained adamantly that they replaced our two (2) cans with two (2) new cans for weeks - accusing us of trash can hoarding and scheming upon having three (3!) trash cans without their knowledge. After weeks of legal battles which escalated all the way up to the person over the person who answers the phones (in other words, waste management district court) our evidence (consisting of security footage of a single can being dropped off by their truck) was acknowledged. We were awarded damages ($5 rebate on second-can service) and are promised a new second can. Ah, the not-so-sweet smell of justice...
 
michaelskis said:
Sir... as a extreme Puck Head, I need to share something with you.

A November 5 game between the Canucks and the Blackhawks is a 3 out of 10 on the importance scale. Currently the Canucks are 5 & 5 and the Hawks are 4 & 3. There are 72 more games this season (from today). My Detroit Redwings have better odds of winning the Stanley Cup. The only team that has less odds than the Blackhawks is the Sharks. If there was a game to miss watching, this is that game. If you watch this game, the only scoring going on will be on the ice... and even that isn't guaranteed.
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Yep . . . besides, I don't really get SUPER into hockey until after football season, and, this year, with the Olympic break, probably not until the end of February. Honestly, I don't expect much from Vancouver this year.
 
jumbach said:
Not sure how to approach my wife and inform her that, unfortunately, I won't be able to go to dinner with her on our 20th anniversary because the Canucks have a 7 p.m. game that night (November 5). Maybe we could compromise and go to Chili's or some place with a sports bar rather than a snooty place like she wants.
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It's game 15 or so in 82 game season. I think the Canucks will understand. Did the Canucks play on November 5, 2005? If they did and you didn't see them play then you shouldn't make an effort now. If it was real important, you would have got married in the off season. :smirk:
 
Big Owl said:
It's game 15 or so in 82 game season. I think the Canucks will understand. Did the Canucks play on November 5, 2005? If they did and you didn't see them play then you shouldn't make an effort now. If it was real important, you would have got married in the off season. :smirk:
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This box score brings back memories with those names from the past.

And I paid zero attention the game. I was kind of, uh, distracted.

Even in the Canucks 1994 Stanley Cup Finals run . . . I had just met a girl (the one I am married to now) and paid zero attention to their STANLEY CUP RUN. Because of some girl. (But then, I was 18 . . .what 18-year-old straight boy doesn't chase girls?)

www.nhl.com

Calgary Flames - Vancouver Canucks - Nov 5, 2005 | NHL.com

NHL Gamecenter - Calgary Flames vs. Vancouver Canucks, Nov 5, 2005 - summary, stats, boxscore, play by play, recap and more.
www.nhl.com www.nhl.com

Jim
 
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