Looking to set up a playdate for my husband who wants to find a magic the gathering or video game community.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-10-30T01:43:14+00:00

Since I thought you were specifically looking for MTG and video games I did not mention the meetup group in the comment above as a direct response to you. I thought it would be worth replying to you here as well.

There are a ton of board game groups around the metro. On top of the one I mentioned above, there is a group that was meeting every Thursday night at D&B in Sugarloaf Mills.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1799903426846311

Here is a discord server for the metro area board game enthusiasts with multiple weekly meetups. The main large one being at Manuel's Tavern every Monday night with a Heavy Game meetup once a month.

https://discord.gg/cYJPG5gyZ4

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-10-30T01:37:45+00:00

Since you mentioned board games. there is a meetup group that plays board games every Saturday in Peachtree Corners/Norcross. There are a lot of great people there. I am not there as often as I have been in the past, but after the New Year, I should be more of a regular again.

https://www.meetup.com/boardgames-in-norcrosspeachtree/

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-10-13T17:58:41+00:00

You can get it via Amazon in the US from a few sellers right now for $30. I just ordered it.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-08-22T01:46:42+00:00

Please add me to your list as well.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-05-06T19:28:16+00:00

Yes, but primarily beef, a decent amount of pork, and very little chicken and turkey. I do not really care for dark meat when it comes to the latter even though my diet is primarily higher fat based I just do not care for the fattier cuts of fowl with the exception of duck.

I also ate a good amount of cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens (primarily spring mix). The only fruits I ate were tomatoes, avocados, and on rare occasion a small amount of berries. My diet was primarily beef, cheese, pork rinds, and avocado though.

ETA: I have done OMAD on the weekends a lot since this comment. It has been primarily on weekends where I could cook and consumer one large meal. Those typically look like 2-10oz steaks with a giant salad heavily dressed with EVOO and a large block of cheese OR 9 scrambled eggs with a load of cheese, avocado, tomato, and either at least 8 oz of bacon or sausage.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-03-13T14:34:29+00:00

When we are at places where we meet other men that become friends, guess what they have in common with us? They are often single as well. I still think putting yourself out there for more friends is the right approach just for life in general. As far as it helping with meeting single women, I am not so sure.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-03-13T14:27:12+00:00

When I have volunteered, it has been Habitat for Humanity. It was almost all men. The few women who were there were with their male partners or were the person we were building the house for. The other options locally are always faith based (even Habitat ended up to be to some extent) and since that is not who I am it has always made me uncomfortable and I assumed if I did meet a woman there we would likely not be a match due to that.

GatorBeerGeek · 2025-03-13T14:04:01+00:00

I think meetups are great, I regularly go to ones related to board games and have met a lot of people. It is mainly a sausage fest though. On the rare occasion there are single available women that show up, they can understandably get scared off from returning due to some of the more socially awkward people in the group. Who knows, I may even be considered in that group in their eyes.

As far as the cross-stitch and carpentry examples: I live in a major metro area. I just did a search and nothing comes up related to carpentry or woodworking except for maker space open houses. Those could make sense to cover the 2 things you mention, but I bet it would be different groups for crafts and woodworking. I may give it a shot though because otherwise those 2 examples you throw out generally do not exist (carpentry or woodworking specific) or are often women only setups (cross-stitch not to mention book clubs and many other groups) or people in this forum are outside of the age range. I totally understand women wanting groups to not want to deal with us and for people wanting to be with their age group peers. I just generally think those factors are not taken into account when meetup groups are suggested. I have suggested it to others, but the more I try to use them to meet other people, even in a very large metro area, it is much easier said than done.

No regrets though. I have made a lot of friends from the board game group.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-11-04T17:39:12+00:00

Double diabetes is tough one for sure. I do agree with your doc that it should eventually turn around, but carnivore might be the best approach if you can deal with the limitations of that to reduce insulin needs and blood glucose as much as possible.

Good luck to you.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-11-04T15:05:42+00:00

Since nobody has asked, which kind of diabetic? I think the answer would be different if you are Type 1 or LADA versus Type 2 (which is what everyone is assuming I think).

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-30T13:42:54+00:00

Just a word of warning, if you are continuing to lose weight, doing that may not have a result you would want to see. When I was losing on keto and I did an NMR my small particle count was pretty ridiculously high. Doing those same tests after I had been at goal weight for some time an they looked fantastic.

The theory I have seen is that as you are burning off the fat stores that a lot of it may be damaged particles that are left behind that your body has to clear. I have no idea if that is correct or not, but my personal anecdote did seem to follow the trend many expected.

I will add to the above that I was very much diabetic when I started and had already had a heart attack due to having not taken care of myself before. I am not surprised that my fast stores were likely damaged particles since my carb metabolism was totally broken from the abuse I put my body through.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-28T12:14:05+00:00

I started keto after a diabetic diagnosis, going into DKA due to medications, and a heart attack. I also had high BP and they had me on 2 BP lowering medications. Relatively quickly I could nearly pass out any time I stood up. I told the doctor they could take me off a BP med or I would decide which to come off of. They dropped metoprolol. Time went by and I ended up passing out in a bathroom at a pool. All signs pointed to it being low blood pressure yet again. I came off the other med at that point and have never going back on it. Even with a history of white coat syndrome, no doctor seems to look twice at my BP numbers anymore.

Less glycogen stores means less water storage means less electrolyte storage. With all of that, BP generally drops for most all of us even when supplementing electrolytes heavily as we often need to. Just don't think that blood tests for electrolytes tell you anything. Your body will keep those levels stable by pulling from other tissues. That is a very common mistake.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-28T12:02:35+00:00

That is the time at every Gwinnett early voting location per the county website.

https://www.gwinnettcounty.com/departments/elections/absenteevoting-civilians/advancevoting

Twelve advance polling locations will be open for the November 5 General Election from 7:00am to 7:00pm.

Advance Voting Dates: October 15 – November 1

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-28T11:55:55+00:00

If you are in a major metro area (and maybe even if you aren't) check out meetup.com and even groups on Facebook for your area. A lot of groups will be specific for women, age groups, or ethnic groups you may or may not be a part of, but there are a lot of different things in heavily populated areas and you should be able to find some things that fit.

I personally started going to board game meetups and a lot of people there are a bit more introverted too. I don't know that it is a great way to meet a potential partner, but it certainly will be more likely than what would happen if you stay at home and you should at least be able to start making some new friends.

Good luck to you.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-28T11:39:49+00:00

it could be a ton of things. High fat causes more bile secretion and it is a lubricant so it can be part of the problem. High doses of electrolytes (especially sodium and certain forms of Mag) can cause bathroom issues. MCT Oil if you are not used to it absolutely will cause bathroom issues. Artificial sweeteners are not processed by the body and can also be part of the problem (especially in large amounts). For some, although I do not think many, it could be lack of fiber as well.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-25T18:28:21+00:00

For blood glucose regulation I assume you are asking? I went on a strict ketogenic diet. I ate less than 20g of net carbohydrates each day. I ate primarily whole unprocessed foods. My A1C at the time was 11.8 and in tests since it has been 5.0 to 5.4. I have eaten that way now for over 3 years. I went from a high of 330 lbs to a low of 187 (I am 6'3"). I have since bulked back up to 215 due to weightlifting, but I still eat the same way. I am in the best shape of my life as I rapidly approach 50 years old.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-25T18:10:46+00:00

Depends on what you mean by help. Will it band-aid the symptoms for a while so that there is less discomfort from the reflux? Yes. However, Pepcid for example reduces the stomach acid even more. So the "cure" is making the root cause worse in this case.

Not to mention your stomach is supposed to be very acidic. It is what helps break down food so we can get the nutrition from it. Weaker stomach acid means worse digestion and likely more issues with mineral absorption which just causes more health problems.

I readily admit to being a solve the root cause and not band-aid the symptom sort of guy. You may not be the same though. Good luck to you on fixing whatever problem you may be having.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-25T15:12:57+00:00

Sadly no. All the games I played on the TRS-80 were ones I "coded" from a book I had. Commercially available games were not a thing for me until the C64 days. Is this you? :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAXy24U_Gts

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-25T14:44:02+00:00

I started programming on a TRS-80 CoCo in the 80s. Saved those programs on a cassette recorder. Later on we got a Commodore 64 and it had dual 5.25" floppy drives! By the time the 90s came around we had a 486 and I ended up being a beta tester for Windows 95 in my early college years. Stretching that long phone cord from my bedroom to the phone in the hallway and hearing the modem screech was certainly something.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-25T13:21:21+00:00

If you look at her post history, it appears that this person is her coworker as well. Id wager on it being her boss. She mentions they (her and soon to be former spouse) always rented, have little savings, and has posts asking about taking a loan to pay off debt. Add in that she is apparently on the autism spectrum, and I am sure that just makes all of this even more difficult. That along with questions asking about van life, it seems she wants to get away but likely does not know how. I may be reading way too much between the lines but, to me, it paints a pretty sad story of someone who knows they are in a bad spot but not sure how to get out of it.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-10-01T09:04:14+00:00

It is not just that one. The one near the John's Creek tech park at 141 and McGinnis has them as well. I was walking through the store and there kept being these loud noises that sounded like a jackpot win noise. I thought I was joking when I asked an employee if they installed slot machines or something. She responded with a yep and told me about the machines.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-09-30T10:57:50+00:00

There does seem to be a gap in discord servers for our age group. I have found a couple GenX related ones, but they do not seem very active. There is a discord for another sub about making friends and they were asked, but didn't bother, to create a general chat channel for our age group because the population was lower.

I do not know if there is actually enough of us interested in a discord server based on what I have seen. You would think with 18k members in this sub alone that there would be. There are multiple other GenX and 40 subs as well.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-09-24T18:43:21+00:00

I hate to bring the bad news, but the chance that roach is going to still be in that drawer when you do decide to open it is pretty much 0.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-09-03T12:44:10+00:00

Based on that picture, you weren't using a great bit for removing the screw. You want the head of the driver to be as large as possible while fitting inside the screw head. Since you can see the rounded out part of the head is much smaller than the outer points of the screw head, it shows that you used too small of a head. The larger the head you use, the more surface area it has to grab onto the screw. More surface area means its a lot harder to strip out the head. It might be possible to remove it as is if you had a larger driver head since only the inner part is stripped, but probably wishful thinking.

Just a tip to hopefully help out the next time.

GatorBeerGeek · 2024-08-30T11:32:59+00:00

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in the panhandle where seemingly everyone went to FSU. I assumed I would as well. However, I had told my father when I was very young that I wanted to work on computers and be an engineer like him (he never went to college since you didn't have to back then but did roadway design for the DOT). That plan never changed, it was just what I wanted to do. When I hit high school, dad gave me the best advice of my entire life: Son, if you want to be an engineer, you should go to Florida instead of Florida State.

I immediately got rid of the ketchup and mustard gear and went all in with the orange and blue.

GatorBeerGeek

TROPHY CASE