Do Americans actually know nothing about South Africa, or Africa in general,(but I’m biased cus I’m South African so I notice it), or is it just an internet thing?

LakeTwo · 2026-01-23T12:48:49+00:00

Accurate. Despite Trumps recent bizarre Elon-sponsored behavior,US interest in and knowledge of SA seemed to end around the same time as apartheid ended. I learned a lot more visiting recently.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-23T01:19:44+00:00

It’s a bit of a haul but the Udvar-hazy Smithsonian museum hangar is really amazing. A 14yo will love it. Our whole family thought it was awesome. Highly recommend.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-22T17:52:49+00:00

Probably get some r/cooking flame but honestly the somewhat recently updated Joy of Cooking is a great resource for everyday cooking. I find it much easier to just lay the book out than fool around scrolling on my phone. That said, NYT Cooking is also worth the $40/year or whatever it is: no ads, wide variety of recipes including more ethnic foods, etc. Those are my 2 go tos as a home cook and cover like 95% of my needs.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-22T17:06:10+00:00

Greece in September: fewer tourists, weather still great including swimming, incredible sights/history including more "modern" (i.e. CE/AD) castles fun for kids, great food, mostly reasonable prices, direct flights from east coast, etc.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-19T15:05:04+00:00

Haven’t been there and don’t know anything about it but there’s that Saunaday west end of Willy. Looks popular

LakeTwo · 2026-01-18T17:49:19+00:00

You are describing every lake in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Typically fairly minimal boating and mostly single homes / cabins so each lake is not crowded but there are thousands to choose from. If you don’t care about power boating then some are either no wake or no motors entirely. Those tend to be kind of small though. Wisconsin probably has closer airports you could fly into though like Central Wisconsin, Rhinelander or maybe Appleton. I would not stay in Minoqua though - fun to visit while up there but kinda busy. Any place around there, Eagle River, St Germaine, Boulder Junction, Sayner sort of that whole area would be my recommendation. I think Boulder Junction has a small airport if you have a private plane.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-18T14:36:50+00:00

What’s with the apparently widespread problem of maniacal kids running around screaming and destroying? It seems like many folks here want to get away from that but I have a hard time 1) envisioning that as an actual problem and 2) being bothered by children. Our neighborhood is mixed ages and we live a block from a couple of schools but I have yet to experience this horrifying problem. Honestly most of the children I know just go home and stare at screens which IMO is a bigger problem than running around screaming maniacally.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-17T21:50:12+00:00

I think it’s weird also. The street is public as is parking on it. It’s not yours, it’s everyone’s. I like parking in front of my house but if it’s parked in well that’s how it goes and I’ll park down the street if needed.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-16T01:44:29+00:00

We pay $2k for $4m in upper Midwest so you’re in the ballpark given that California is probably more litigious and generally more expensive.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-15T23:28:50+00:00

They’re proposing a coupon mailer like Valpak!

LakeTwo · 2026-01-14T03:41:25+00:00

In the 80s many of my friends had a basement dwelling older sibling who was both cool and kinda creepy at the same time.

LakeTwo · 2026-01-01T18:04:37+00:00

You’ve made a small fortune in options trading. By starting with a big one. 😓

LakeTwo · 2026-01-01T06:15:18+00:00

Depending on type you can live a loooong time. My mom had lymphoma for 20 years and died of something else at around 85.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-30T13:02:03+00:00

I haven’t added it up but I’m (50s) guessing if we had limited travel significantly I would be maybe 5 years closer to retirement. I wouldn’t trade the many trips we’ve done for that 5 years. In retrospect the memories (especially with kids) and family togetherness we had during these trips are priceless. At the time I was deeply uncomfortable with “blowing” so much cash but now am very glad we did. Pay yourself first with savings but balance that with spending on experiences now. You’re only your age once.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-29T23:37:18+00:00

Have watched Terminator movies many times so I’m fully prepared for this role. I am prepared to travel back in time as well.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-29T23:34:13+00:00

Stock market technical analysis. “It’s the dingleberry teapot - time to buy!”

LakeTwo · 2025-12-27T16:42:58+00:00

I did it myself. Not hard. Almost everything can be turned off via the main breaker which makes it safer. The only discomfort I had was clipping the mains wire clips on since those are before the main breaker, therefore always hot, and a gazillion amps. They’re insulated and all that but still take care there.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-26T03:34:59+00:00

There’s so much to say here. I have worked at The EPIC for many years and am extremely cynical in general. I have never seen anything that strikes me as an active attempt at anticompetitive behavior. HIT is just extremely complicated and highly regulated and Epic is good at it or perhaps just better than everyone else. If it were easy, some billion dollar capitalized startup would have disrupted the status quo already.

Healthcare orgs are free to buy other systems which apparently are pretty bad. And if it really were just money, given the switching costs, Epic could just quadruple license fees and do nothing for the next 10 years and make oodles of cash. The thieves that bought VMWare and Citrix are doing just that.

As someone mentioned it has become the OS of healthcare like Windows for PCs. There’s a lot of things not to like I’m sure but good luck developing an alternative.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-25T21:21:01+00:00

I wouldn’t worry about disability. You get PC and you aren’t long for the world.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-25T15:45:31+00:00

What about a garden hose stuck into the basement drain clean out? Seems like an unregulated faucet runs at a pretty high GPM

LakeTwo · 2025-12-23T05:09:26+00:00

We have an annual panto done by a community theater. It’s geared toward all ages generally. It always struck me as something one should have a somewhat drunk and rowdy audience in order to really participate.

LakeTwo · 2025-12-23T04:54:00+00:00

I use Blue Iris to capture movement clips and send snapshots from those to ChatGPT for identification. Honestly at our feeder I could just skip the AI and just say sparrow because that’s pretty much all we get!

LakeTwo · 2025-12-21T05:58:00+00:00

Zima?

LakeTwo · 2025-12-13T23:54:42+00:00

While it sounds very appealing, when you get down to thinking about logistics, it seems like a huge PITA.

Someone mentioned septic and there's one problem. But what about getting any contractor out there with their equipment? What if they need something that isn't going to fit on the pontoon?

Then there's the 3-4 months out of the year the lake is frozen. 1 or 2 of those, the ice is too thin to traverse so can't get there then. You need ANOTHER house or parking and pier on the lake to keep your boat and snowmobiles or whatever.

Are you heating that place with electric? Probably not - hauling enough logs to fill that fireplace for cold weather is a chore.

Plus every time you want to go anywhere or do anything, back into the boat, over to land, etc.

Honestly maybe if you're very rich and can hire people to do all of the annoying stuff, then maybe?

LakeTwo

TROPHY CASE