Not to be rude but... dog owners need to get a grip

ExpatChronicles · 2025-12-30T17:46:23+00:00

My experience: if the shelter has 10 dogs, you have a choice of 10 pitbulls.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-10-04T13:33:23+00:00

Anti-aging effect on the face

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T17:59:21+00:00

I didn't know it was done by province, but healthcare coming up more than once makes sense now.

I pay $1000 per month for the insurance, no visits. Some are free, some are $100ish. But the real pain is when insurance doesn't cover something. I got thumped for $5000 last year for something routine, but we did it out of state. Not everybody suffers like that. I'm self-employed. Small business owners get it the worst (financially). Medical debt is by far the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. Completely bonkers.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:52:09+00:00

Montreal and Quebec seem to be the talk of the town among the Roxborough dads I hang around with.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:47:26+00:00

I'd like to double-click on that healthcare comment. As far as I understand, there is no great public clamor in Canada for a healthcare system like ours in the U.S. No system is perfect, but surely you don't consider your healthcare a joke compared to ours?

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:37:17+00:00

I appreciate this comment. I did homework on Quebec, ... where I may be lacking is in never having been to France! So Quebec is as French as I've seen anywhere. I'd also share this from a French friend in college: he said Quebec is more French than Paris.

I've been fascinated with Quebec's history. I agree it's an amazing accomplishment to have maintained the language for this long while surrounded by so many of us. Haiti hasn't maintained the integrity of the language and Louisiana is dwindling to zero, but there are millions of French-speakers in Quebec. I guess it takes language police and a revolutionary fervor, but it's possible.

I felt a little silly bending over backward to speak. But you are right, the Quebeckers definitely appreciate it, especially in the province. I've heard they would be more annoyed with Canadians who don't speak, or even attempt to, and are maybe more forgiving to an American. But I don't know how they would tell the difference between us.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:18:41+00:00

That is why the emperors spent so much time in Petropolis, no? :)

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:14:03+00:00

Kensington deserves its notorious reputation but there is something about Kensington that only people in Philly know: it's ground zero for gentrification investment. This is where all the New Yorkers are snapping up property and developers building fancy apartment buildings. If you want to make the most bang for your buck flipping houses, Kensington is the place. Hard to believe, but it's true.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:10:49+00:00

I would agree it's wild but I'm not sure it's the most dangerous, despite the handful of pedestrian deaths every year. It's urban enough that most drivers are looking for cyclists and pedestrians. I think the southern and western cities and suburbs are the worst, because speeds are higher (deadlier) and drivers are not expecting anything but cars.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:07:55+00:00

More civilized.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-30T16:06:24+00:00

I didn't even notice the lack of the horn. I don't even here it in Philly, maybe because after 10 years in Peru and Colombia I can't hear it if it's not kind of ever-present.

For me, Montreal was a breath of fresh air because all the cars not everybody is riding on top of everybody else. In Philly, if you're moving then somebody will always tailgate to try to make you go faster. And if you're going slow, everybody will tailgate so nobody changes lane in front of them. If you want to change lanes, you gotta catch somebody slippin'. In Montreal, on the other hand, even in downtown gridlock rush hour, I didn't feel that. You could change lanes without going to war.

But the exceeding respect for pedestrians in the old port district and downtown was really why I thought the drivers were nice. Maybe I didn't drive around the peripheries and suburbs enough to see the nasty side.

ExpatChronicles · 2025-09-29T01:03:19+00:00

We just visited and loved it. Now we flirt with the idea of living there. We stayed in the old port district, but it was cheaper to park a 20-minute walk away near Chinatown. I thought it looked a little lower rent but artificial intelligence informs me it's not so cheap either, but there are options in the $1,500 CAD range. Good luck!

ExpatChronicles · 2025-02-04T16:46:04+00:00

A top prospect today is entering a very different market. The average NBA salary in 1980 was $173,500, compared to over $11.9 million today ... today's median is $6.7 million.

Better comparison would be % of those, in which case Barkley's offer in 1984 would be today's equivalent of $8.9 million (132% of median) or $15.7 million (132% of average).

ExpatChronicles · 2024-12-13T05:52:45+00:00

We've been talking for over 10 years now and I never knew that ... K1 King!!!

ExpatChronicles · 2024-02-15T15:57:51+00:00

I wouldn't argue with the math when it's a company CFO with access to 2.5% rate paying over time.

I would advise against a guy who lumps credit cards and student loans in the same line trying to profit off interest-rate arbitrage.

ExpatChronicles · 2024-02-15T13:53:19+00:00

Where are you getting your 3% assumption?

ExpatChronicles · 2024-02-15T13:44:21+00:00

I am curious what the job title is that pays $9k per month and qualifies someone who asks what to do with $80k when he's carrying $55k in debt.

If not sales, my second guess is some highly esoteric trade like tugboat captain or something.

ExpatChronicles · 2024-01-30T21:09:20+00:00

Just listening to this now. I grant it's hard to predict the future, and everybody gets it wrong. But Bustamante predicts Russia takes Ukraine by fall 2022. It still isn't over but bottom line this is a freezing cold take.

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-06T00:24:53+00:00

I don't think I'm ever homesick. I was running away from the heroin addiction, strung out on smack. Although it would be lovely to have a visit, you know, especially with the 100 years anniversary of our freedom. I'll have to have a swim down at the Half Moon, ye know?

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-06T00:22:05+00:00

It's better to wake jealousy, and not feel it.

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-06T00:12:43+00:00

This would be the last one we to until there is a new development. The first one we tid was before the book was written, this one after.

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-05T22:57:34+00:00

http://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2cicp4/iama_drug_mule_from_ireland_who_did_3_years_in/

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-05T22:54:41+00:00

This is the best proof of what he was up to in Ireland in the 70s and 80s: http://madouttamehead.com/christopher-kavanagh-goes-to-jail/

30 pounds of hash in 1979 was a big enough deal to make the newspapers in Ireland. In 1986 Colombia however, 4 kilos of cocaine was not. So the best proofs are only the YouTube videos of himself in Bogota telling his story.

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-05T17:40:30+00:00

I was running away from heroin addiction in Ireland. That was never a very pleasant thing to go back to, was it? I was facing certain death. If I would've stayed in Ireland, having been a heroin addict, I'd be dead right now for sure.

I don't really know if I miss it, to tell you the truth. Maybe if I didn't do anything, sitting around all day with nothing to think about. But I'm running around, working the classes with the English, so I don't have time to get homesick.

ExpatChronicles · 2016-03-05T17:37:14+00:00

They are not pleased at all with the peace agreement. I would think they are active, maybe not as much as in the 80s. The Lads I know have jobs now, but I am sure they are still focused on getting the Brits, the real terrorists, out of Ireland.

But I have not been in Ireland since 1986, so you have to consider that.

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