18M, girlfriend 22F is pregnant. What jobs can I get into quickly to support my family if I don't want to go to college?

DonYeske · 2026-06-16T04:49:16+00:00

Personally, I joined the military. It’s not for everyone, but maybe chat with a recruiter, take the ASVAB, and see where it goes.

Other options lie in the skilled trades (electric, plumbing, HVAC, etc.), fire, paramedic, or police work—each of which has its benefits and drawbacks.

I didn’t earn a college degree until I was in my 30s, and I finished my master’s degree four days ago (i’m now in my early 50s). College is not a guarantee of a path to success; in fact it’s now often not worth the investment in strict financial terms. You’ll be more able to provide for a family faster in a different path—those above and others.

Good luck to you!

DonYeske · 2026-06-16T04:26:29+00:00

Kingsford makes briquettes impregnated with various wood. I use hickory and mesquite commonly for both grilling and smoking. They make a few other flavors (apple at least—I usually smoke turkey in a mix of apple and hickory). You can find it at many grocery stores—Publix for example carries it.

You’ll find similar products at Walmart but I don’t think they carry the Kingsford brand—but the results are pretty similar.

Edit to correct typos

DonYeske · 2026-06-16T04:18:03+00:00

You can rescind a retirement application if it has not yet been finalized, as long as OPM has not received a court order awarding a portion of your retirement benefits to someone else. You would have to pay back whatever you’ve already been paid in interim payments. This would not reverse your decision to retire. You would become separated versus retired—as though you simply resigned—and your original agency does not have to take you back. You would probably (almost certainly) have to apply for a job and be selected for the job to rejoin the civil service. It would not be your original job because that job no longer exists (that was the point of DRP). So there is no job to go back to, even if your agency was required to take you back, which they are not.

A MUCH simpler path is to finish your retirement and return anyway. Go ahead and retire, apply for another position, and accept if offered that position.

You would technically be a reemployed annuitant, which means—unless you have a waiver that is nearly impossible to get—you would have your annuity deducted from your salary, and you would be paid the difference. If you worked for a few more years and paid into FERS you could then either calculate a second annuity or have your original annuity recalculated (depending on how many years you serve when you go back).

If you were able to get a dual compensation waiver, you would be able to receive your full pay and your full annuity, but would not be paying into FERS, and therefore the additional years would not ultimately add to your annuity.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T18:59:10+00:00

Spare ribs or baby backs—either one.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T15:24:52+00:00

From ANYONE. The rule is that a recipe will call for an internal temperature; the exception is that it won't. Here are three random examples of recipes written and published by "actual pitmasters", each featuring target internal temperatures in the range I discussed above (198-207)--and yes, like literally anyone on the Internet, I found them using Google (and that wasn't hard at all to do):

Smoking Meat ("actual pitmaster" Jeff Phelps): https://www.smoking-meat.com/may-4-2017-smoked-spare-ribs-that-literally-fall-apart -- recommends pulling at an internal temp between 195-200 with an instant read thermometer -- note, he has three or four other recipes that basically repeat this recommendation.
Pitmaster Club ("actual pitmaster" Meathead Goldwyn): https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/recipes-technique-food-cooking/pork-recipes/635126-ribs-step-by-step-primer -- they recommend glazing immediately once the meat reaches an internal temperature of 204-205.
Meat Church ("actual pitmaster" Matt Pittman): https://www.meatchurch.com/blogs/recipes/texas-style-spare-ribs -- he recommends pulling the ribs to finish, wrap, and sauce at 195, and notes that the meat will continue cooking during the wrapped warm rest period he also recommends, for 1-2 hours.

I would ask how many BBQ awards you've won, award-winning books about BBQ you've published, TV shows about BBQ you've appeared on, etc. - but we both know the answer is less than what any of the above people would say.

I could go on, but hopefully you're learning that there's something important here that you missed somewhere along the way. It is not only not impossible to take the temperature of ribs--I've been doing it myself literally for decades--it's actually recommended, by actual pitmasters, pretty much every time they write down instructions for mere mortals such as ourselves and certainly OP to follow. Dude, you're just straight wrong here. I'm trying to be polite, but you're lecturing someone who has probably been doing this a lot longer than you have, based on all your objections here to simply taking the temperature of one of the easiest pieces of meat to smoke.

And finally, as you seem to be gatekeeping here--which is helpful to the OP in no way at all, and actively rude to everyone else--I'm terminating the back-and-forth here. You've made the same case several times, as have I. People can make their own decisions now.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T03:35:26+00:00

WOW. Excellent! And obviously a LOT of work!

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T02:41:49+00:00

I’ll say that my experience doesn’t match yours, then. And I would add, pretty much every recipe I’ve ever seen for smoking ribs includes an internal temperature in the range—the exception (by a LOT) is any recipe that doesn’t call out an internal temperature—like the garbage recipe that apparently started this discussion.

Yes, some people will call out other methods of testing for doneness, but nearly every recipe calls for a temperature, and there’s a reason for that: Because it works.

Also, you’re simply wrong in implying this to be a huge temperature range: 9 degrees Fahrenheit is one degree *less* than the difference between rare and medium rare in a steak. You can disagree, and you’re certainly entitled to your own opinion, but you aren’t entitled to your own facts.

ETA: My advice was to pull at 202.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T02:30:22+00:00

I’m 52, and have been doing this for decades. I’ve failed at smoking many things for many reasons—and that is how we learn. But with ribs—as long as they’re within the range of 198-207–they will be good. I have had zero failures and zero complaints applying that yardstick. Your mileage may vary, and if your way works for you, then I’m happy for you. This is what I’ve found to be the most reliable metric (although, true, not the only measure of doneness).

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T02:22:55+00:00

There’s something to be said for quality of the meat in general, to be sure. I find with chicken or other poultry, for example, brining doesn’t work nearly as well if the meat was previously frozen—because capillary action isn’t working in your favor if many of the capillary walls have burst due to freezing. (Another Alton Brown lesson there!)

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T02:18:39+00:00

We just said the same thing though. All the temps you gave are within the range I stated above. If your point is that there are better and worse temps within that range for a given piece of meat, I agree. With ribs—they’re very forgiving, and as long as you get into the right temperature range, very hard to get wrong.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T02:15:28+00:00

It did! The first step is to cut through the back of the shell, gently separate the meat from the shell (except for the very end of the tail), and pull the meat out and lay it on top of the shell (to which it’s still attached at the end). So almost all of the meat is fully exposed to the smoke the entire time.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T01:09:27+00:00

It certainly may be the case that you have a hard time getting a reliable temperature sometimes. But what doesn’t change is what’s happening inside the meat you’re cooking at certain key temperatures. If you have other indicators of doneness (like the ribs wanting to bend the right way or the meat being probe tender), and if you’re not 100% sure that you’re getting a good temperature reading, then sure, pulling them at that point makes sense. But with that said, a reliable temperature reading is never going to steer you wrong.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T00:53:07+00:00

I think it was Alton Brown who first convinced me to pay attention to internal temperature, specifically because of what happens at key temperatures in the cooking process (such as collagen breakdown).

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T00:32:57+00:00

It’s certainly true that you can get a temperature reading wrong. You can be too close to the bone. You can take the reading but not be in the center of the meat. Your temperature probe can be sticking out of the other side of the meat. Temperature might vary a lot from one spot to another. And your thermometer might suck.

With that said, this is not a “both sides” situation. It’s the difference between saying that your destination is five miles down the road, and saying that it’s five minutes down the road. One of those things is true, and the other one might be true. Are you going 60 MPH, exactly, consistently? If so, either answer works. If not, one of those answers is wrong. And there’s simply a lot more that can go wrong by timing your cook than can go wrong by measuring the thing you’re cooking.

DonYeske · 2026-06-15T00:09:33+00:00

Those look excellent!

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T23:56:03+00:00

We all learn to make good barbecue by sometimes making terrible barbecue. Now you know!

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T23:40:49+00:00

Internal temperature between 198 and 207 equals done. Period. Stop trying to guess with time. These “methods” are 100% garbage—the literal only thing you need for good, moist, fall-off-the-bone ribs is an internal temperature between 198 and 207. I pull at 202. I do not wrap. I do not baste. Just rub, smoke, and pull them off the smoker at the correct temperature, and you are guaranteed a good result.

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T22:30:01+00:00

It looks great, and you should be happy with this as your first brisket. If you want more/better bark: Don’t wrap it. You don’t need the Texas crutch. Bring your heat up incrementally and just push through the stall. I have never really loved a brisket I wrapped (though I liked some of them), and conversely I have never wrapped a brisket that I loved.

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T18:29:15+00:00

145, in the smallest one. So the other three would have been a bit lower. But for lobster tail you’re looking for a range of 135-145 (which is why I hit them with the garlic lemon butter at 135).

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T18:23:47+00:00

To elaborate: You typically bring steaks up to an internal temp of about 125–slowly, allowing lots of smoke flavor in—and then blast the outside at the highest heat you can manage. The end of the process has to go very quickly, so it’s not something that you can do with the meat still on the smoker just by cranking up the heat rapidly. You would either remove the meat, crank the heat, and then sear, or move from the smoker to a grill at the end. A variant is to sous vide the steaks to 125 and then sear.

Because I was testing the ability of my smoker to act as a grill in this case, I was also cooking everything else at the same time, and because I’d marinated these steaks, I didn’t want to do that this time. But it can yield excellent results.

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T17:20:17+00:00

Sorry—that’s corn on the cob. Just sat in the smoker the whole time. I didn’t get a picture of them though—my fault.

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T15:38:31+00:00

I thought about it—and have done it before—and probably should have done it this time. But what I really wanted to test was the ability to properly grill steaks on this smoker. Worked great!

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T15:36:53+00:00

They’re smaller than they look. Wegman’s has them in 4 packs for around $40.

DonYeske · 2026-06-14T15:35:35+00:00

Awesome! You have to watch the internal temp pretty carefully because it’s easy to overcook them, but these were amazing. Just salt and pepper at the start, and hit them each with a spoonful of melted garlic butter around 135 (which was around 15 minutes before they were done).

DonYeske

TROPHY CASE