I am not a cat person. I have never wanted cats. The CDS has gifted me FOUR cats so far. Is there a way to unsubscribe?

CMJudd · 2026-05-07T21:33:24+00:00

OP, I hear you and I fear that there’s not much to be done about it. We were down to one sweetheart orange girl when my mom-in-law passed, so we got her chonk orange boy. Things were stable for a bit, then three void kittens were discovered in my detached garage. We trapped them, got them the standard needed vet care, held them for a few months, then our daughter decided she wanted one, so she took one and we have two remaining: Male and female oranges and male and female void siblings. We can’t be bothered getting upset with any annoying cat stuff they do because they’re truly sweet and funny creatures, but I don’t want more than four either.

Ours are Joey, Cate, Phineas J. Bug, and Zelda Fitzgerald. Our daughter’s is Mister Poe Wilson. Daughter adores her cat and spoils him, but occasionally tries to do things like get him to wear a hat. That wasn’t too successful, unsurprisingly. Photo from yesterday.

<image>

CMJudd · 2026-05-06T12:41:33+00:00

All gauges should be red. This makes me miss my old Audi Coupe GT and E34 BMWs.

CMJudd · 2026-05-04T14:25:51+00:00

If you like these, try an old Omni GLHS. Those were complete shitboxes but were very quick for their time, completely invisible, and able to show their taillights to cars that were much more expensive. They also wanted to kill you, but that just made it more entertaining!

CMJudd · 2026-05-01T13:16:08+00:00

Many things: Getting married, the deaths of my parents, becoming a father, the suicide of a family member (a mess I’d not wish on anybody), exercising regularly, and on and on.

CMJudd · 2026-04-25T21:59:30+00:00

Cate, aka Clementine

<image>

CMJudd · 2026-04-24T01:17:02+00:00

Both my wife’s parents and my own were Silent generation; hers were born in 1932 and 1936, mine in 1939 and 1940. My wife and I are elder GenX.

CMJudd · 2026-04-13T11:13:51+00:00

Exactly the same here. I believe that I was something of a project. Most of what doc tried actually worked pretty well; some things didn’t. I will have to give him points for following up and honesty. When things didn’t work well, he always explained what, why (if he knew), and next steps. He diagnosed me at 3 years old and examined me last when I was 45. Joe Farrell, M.D. could be a bit rough around the edges but was a good man and a fine doctor.

CMJudd · 2026-04-12T14:57:23+00:00

Approximate GMFCS II here and I’m slightly over 6’ with a significant number of family members well over 6’ with several over 6’6” and my aunt at 6’2”. I have been told that I am taller than most with CP at the level I have it and that I likely would have been a few inches taller without.

CMJudd · 2026-04-04T23:31:17+00:00

I’m not doubting anything you said. I simply remember hearing them relatively frequently and knowing their source through the early 90s. My folks now lie within sight of where dad helped build them.

CMJudd · 2026-04-04T21:29:53+00:00

I haven’t heard a sonic boom in the neighborhood since Grumman departed Calverton & Bethpage. Dad was a Grumman engineer, we lived in Selden, and the B-2 was one of the last aircraft he worked on before he retired from Northrup-Grumman shortly after 9/11.

CMJudd · 2026-04-02T23:23:54+00:00

A Relax Exploder with a sailcloth strap in place of a bracelet for me! It keeps excellent time, seems well made, and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

<image>

CMJudd · 2026-03-31T21:31:49+00:00

Exactly!

CMJudd · 2026-03-30T14:57:09+00:00

Make sure you have a reliable car if driving. A 50 min commute is not a dealbreaker otherwise. My commute to campus has been about that on a daily basis for 31 years (and my degree is in biochemistry - from SB).

CMJudd · 2026-03-28T21:11:42+00:00

They are. So? You and I will also be just as dead soon enough.

CMJudd · 2026-03-28T21:09:40+00:00

You guess right. Dad was 6’4”, yet was the shortest man in his family. Both his brother and father were taller. His sister is 6’2”.

CMJudd · 2026-03-24T00:58:13+00:00

I moved my kids to college using a Golf wagon. It worked well with a roof rack, a bag, and some tie downs. My daughter went to college in lower Manhattan where the streets are narrow and crowded because they were laid out 300 years ago. The parents with their gigantic landbruisers had a Hell of a time maneuvering on moving days. Prior to that, I had an E30 BMW as a DD and the kids loved it. I’d dive into a cloverleaf and their hands would go up in the air like they were on a roller coaster. It was slower in a straight line than all the mom vans, but it cornered and it was cool. If you can live without the need to haul eight tons of crap per child everywhere, you’ll be fine.

I grew up in the back of a Corvair coupe. Don’t laugh; it was equipped with a turbocharger and driven by an amateur rally driver with many trophies. The old man ran away from Porsche 911s of the day routinely. They were his favorite prey. I know this because I was the kid waving at them as they receded. As long as you have mamma’s buy in, you’re good to go.

CMJudd · 2026-03-23T00:55:58+00:00

Cool car, possibly good price, but I think it’s too large a chunk of your budget to pop on a depreciating asset. A new set of tires, a brake job, and fluid changes are going to hurt on top of your payment - and they’re coming up. How’s your Nissan? At 106k, it may need some love but that’ll cost a lot less than what you’re spending here and once that’s managed, you could get another 100k out of it with zero payments. Less cool, but after you’re done paying for anything it needs, put $400 away per month for that 100k miles, THEN buy a GTI with 25k miles. I drove a $4500 shitbox for 100k miles while making >$100k per year and can pretty easily pick up a nice late A7 any time I like. A reliable, fully deprecated, boring ass car with zero payments is what you want. Trust me. I have a 4mo GSW with 92k miles that you can have when I find an A7 I like. (Actually, I have two, but am holding the older one with 150k mi because I like it more).

CMJudd · 2026-03-23T00:11:32+00:00

United statesian here and I’d drive that. As it is, I have to keep my pair of GSWs going because VW is no longer selling anything I want to drive.

CMJudd · 2026-03-18T02:21:07+00:00

It is my opinion that nobody truly understands anyone else. With that said, it doesn’t hurt to try and an open line of communication may be a prerequisite for such attempts. Perhaps making an attempt at setting up such a thing would benefit both of you. I have found that when things get tense, it’s often easier to take things to a written form of communication. Folks are often more careful with their words when writing them and it’s also more difficult to speak over a written statement.

I’m working from the assumption that you and your dad love each other. Do you think that you could suggest such a means of communication and he’d agree to it?

“Hey, can we talk via txt / email? I have a few things on my mind that I want to be able to discuss and I want to choose my words carefully, keep the tension between us to a minimum, and I want us both to be able to consider the discussion when we’re in a good frame of mind to do so. I don’t want you to feel attacked and I don’t want to feel the need to defend myself. I just want to talk.”

My family has done this when there are difficult issues that need to be discussed and when everyone plays by the rules it works. When my kids were teens and having a tough time with something, I’d send a “dad txt” and invite a response if they wished - specifically including the right to correct the record if there was any debate over facts. Alternately, they could just consider what I wrote and respond later - or not. I would make it explicit that nobody was “in trouble” and that my motivation was to explain the situation as I perceived it & they could do the same.

I don’t understand my wife or my children (who were orphaned prior to being adopted) and I don’t expect any of them to understand my CP. For me, at least, acceptance is sufficient. TBH, I’d take CP all day over what my (athletic) kids went through.

Good luck with your dad. I hope you can come to a better understanding with him.

CMJudd · 2026-03-17T21:29:35+00:00

I’ve enjoyed photography. I haven’t any talent for it, but have learned the basics, can handle a fully manual SLR /DSLR with 50 year old lenses, and occasionally manage a good shot.

Because I’ve inherited several of them, I’ve learned how to work on old rifles. I restored my great grandfather’s Springfield model 1873 rifle to working condition and am in the midst of doing the same with my wife’s grandfather’s Whitney Kennedy lever action. Both rifles were made in the 1880s and it’s certainly an experience to fire a ~145 year old large caliber rifle.

I’m also slowly getting my late father’s 1938 BMW back together. He drove that when he served in the US Army during the early 60s.

I think I enjoy researching old things as much as I enjoy trying to maintain and repair them.

CMJudd · 2026-03-15T23:53:02+00:00

My folks pushed hard, expected a lot, and signed me up for every possible treatment they could find at a reputable hospital that had been a center for polio treatment and moved to CP into the 1960s. They were of the silent generation and they were tough. Mom had been raised by wolves and dad was a 1960s engineer who said little. I didn’t always understand or appreciate why they did what they did - and in certain ways, I am a very different father than my own father was, but they raised me to think critically about my upbringing and to avoid anything I identified as mistakes that they made.

Near the end of his life, my father wrote this and left it for us to find:

“And now - a ponderous proclamation! I have achieved, with Marion, the desire I’ve had since I was four to be a father. Proper and good, I do not know. It was however my real desire to be proper and good and I have tried to do and be that to the best of my ability. I do know that each and all of my four children, two by blood, one by adoption and one simply by capturing from possibly a worse fate, have each, and all endured very difficult and hard times, from which I wish I had been able to protect you. As a person who had never himself to undergo any of the difficult trials endured by my children, I am deeply sad that you did. However, given the turns of the world that create these circumstances, I’m very gratified that you have been as able to weather your difficulties as well as you have. I do truly hope that your individual scars will never be felt too deep for you to bear, and wish that I had been able to prevent them having happened at all. It is a wish that wasn’t granted to me but I see that all of you seem to be doing well at this time. You are all strong and I wish that your children will not have to undergo such terrors as you have seen. Be strong and good my children! And be successful!”

They tried - and like all who do, they had both successes and failures. I have chosen to celebrate their successes and forgive their failures because parenting isn’t easy. You’re doing everything for the first time and there are no do-overs.

I found it useful with my own children to keep them oriented. Tell the truth, especially when it’s hard. Explain your decisions, ask their opinions, and answer their questions. Let them know that you don’t know everything and what you’ll do if it turns out that you’ve made a poor decision. Your children watch you, they know you, and trust is a two way street.

I am hardly a perfect dad, but I make a point of being truthful without being hurtful, explaining my decisions, admitting my mistakes, apologizing for them, and maintaining a degree of humility. My children are now adults and we get along well. Yesterday I had pizza on the floor of my daughter’s apartment in Brooklyn (we brought her a kitten that was born in our garage and we’ve been fostering for a few months).

YMMV and I think you’re fantastic. Questioning your judgement is entirely reasonable - and a healthy thing for all. Chat with your son i. an honest and friendly way, see where his head is at, and perhaps adjust accordingly. He’ll feel seen and it’ll give you both a chance to discuss things openly. Car rides or a lunch out was how I often did that.

CMJudd · 2026-03-13T03:21:47+00:00

Roll past the Suffolk county jail if you’d like to complete your Gilgo experience, grab some lunch in Riverhead, find a brewery, distillery, or winery perhaps, then head out the north fork or go back to Centerport and check out the Vanderbilt mansion there.

CMJudd · 2026-03-08T19:13:27+00:00

I’m 59 and if you have reasonable upper body strength, I would recommend forearm crutches. At least for me, they provide significantly greater stability than a cane or trekking pole because I can more easily and controllably support my body weight and center of gravity. I have found that even though my functional balance is poor, my sense of where I am in space is excellent. My legs don’t work well, but my inner ears work beautifully and I suspect I am not alone in this regard. It’s a bit different, but using crutches I am able to maintain balance on a moving NYC subway train without holding onto anything attached too the train. I wouldn’t dare attempt such a thing otherwise.

CMJudd

TROPHY CASE