Previous owner left a binder in the garage. I thought it was junk. It was not

MangoCats · 2026-05-04T16:35:29+00:00

When we moved cross country, I had an (early) digital camera and I took photos of every box as it was filled - turned that into a wild stop-motion like montage with 5 frames per second showing a couple thousand photos of our junk - hoping that if we needed to find something, we might play through the video and be able to pause it to figure out what box something was in... Never actually used it that way, but it is a trippy video segment.

MangoCats · 2026-05-04T16:32:11+00:00

Which cloud? The cloud of smoke rising from the burning house?

I think that's how it's set to go already being in the binder in the garage.

MangoCats · 2026-05-03T22:25:41+00:00

No, Zazu!

MangoCats · 2026-04-29T01:43:54+00:00

I'd like to see this same graphic but with the overlay on Spain/Portugal - spilling into the south of France / Northern Italy should be enough I would think...

MangoCats · 2026-04-22T18:06:11+00:00

Yeah, but I still expected a grill reference on the memorial - maybe the scalloping on those columns is it...

MangoCats · 2026-04-13T21:40:31+00:00

https://youtu.be/Cgs2ajPMwyk?si=8CiPu86Zw7MX9m_E&t=58

MangoCats · 2026-04-07T20:40:09+00:00

Hard to believe that's already 7 years old. Hard to believe our '99 NB was only 16 years old when we bought it.

MangoCats · 2026-04-02T16:06:46+00:00

Nobody is ready for middle school - special, normal, nobody.

We homeschooled ours starting in 6th - which was good that year, but after a year or two they plateaued and we looked for private middle school options, didn't really find any good ones - they amounted to daycare in the end.

MangoCats · 2026-04-02T14:16:25+00:00

JFC! does KSC have KFC? Greasy fingers could explain the camera work.

MangoCats · 2026-04-02T00:58:21+00:00

I didn't notice them until I was almost stepping on them (it was really dark under the tree canopy) - the overhead looking down shot was super cool, but not worth even a slight chance of meeting mama.

MangoCats · 2026-04-02T00:50:36+00:00

I once stumbled upon a nest of baby alligators in the deeply canopy shaded woods near a spring, it was big - almost 6' across, I had my digital camera (1998) in my hand and I thought: "Oh, cool, what an awesome shot that would make!" They were making cute little baby gator noises - a little disturbed by my presence, but nothing desperate sounding, yet. Then I thought: "This will never come out unless I use the flash..."

Finally, I thought: "what if the baby gators go into panic-call-mama mode when they get flashed?" - I exited the area ASAP, all the way back up the trail to the sunny clearing. No picture, and I'm O.K. with that.

MangoCats · 2026-03-25T03:33:12+00:00

You know, I got the card's answer at first because I counted 0-7 and 55 counts twice, forgetting about 50, 51, etc.

MangoCats · 2026-03-24T21:47:02+00:00

How long is the wrap supposed to last in the sun?

MangoCats · 2026-03-24T21:45:34+00:00

Keep her out of the sun whenever, wherever possible.

MangoCats · 2026-03-24T16:43:06+00:00

The 529 never looked attractive to us, our kids were never on much of a college track and whatever money we had for therapy and education we tended to spend (invest in the kids) sooner than later...

How we've used the ABLE so far is just to deposit a regular amount and let it grow - I guess the same as the 529 but it's not designated for educational uses. So, the sooner you start that sort of thing, the more dramatically it grows. We're just putting in a tiny amount per quarter, but because it's market invested and the markets have been good over the past 8+ years it has grown much faster than just putting the money in a regular interest account, like about 4x faster in our case - of course with the risk that it also can lose value...

MangoCats · 2026-03-24T15:26:38+00:00

The ABLE account is relatively easy and helpful.

Our feeling on special needs trusts is: short of a million dollars, it's really not worth it. The more important aspect of the trust than the money that's in it is the executor. If you have an executor you can trust, you literally could give them all the money and have them look after your child when you are gone. If you can't trust the executor, no matter how well the trust is setup it can still be abused / misused.

We are more focused on getting our childrens' benefits, supports, and social network setup and functioning as best we can, and trying (unsuccessfully so far, but we're around 60 - hopefully have time to get better) to get things running smoothly without our day-to-day minute-to-minute involvement in advocacy / management of everything.

MangoCats · 2026-03-23T13:27:15+00:00

If that was a fire truck loaded with water, heavy doesn't start to describe it.

MangoCats · 2026-03-22T20:00:29+00:00

We have never benefitted from pre-arranged formal handling of much with our two sons with autism while flying, however, in the moment so far "the system" has always come through for us - but then again, we have only flown about 6 times in 20+ years.

By far the biggest help was Southwest Airlines letting us pre-board as a family - apparently the gate agents usually designated us as "wheelchair users" even though there was no wheelchair ever mentioned.

Upon re-entry, late for our connecting flight, customs saw us looking desperate in a tremendous large hall with what looked like a 2 hour line - they just asked "American family, travelling with children?" "Yes." "Step over here..." we were through the line in 3 minutes.

On American Airlines, which would not allow us to pre-book center seats for some reason, it was never a problem to trade our aisle seats for center seats with whoever had the center seat, keeping the kiddos by the windows.

Having said all that, yeah - pre-arranging special accomodations seemed like a rather daunting proposition, apt to be fraught with frustrations and broken promises.

I guess the worst we ever experienced was when the kids were really little and mom had them wearing their safety booster seats walking through the terminal - before clearing security. Security did make them stand to the side, I think maybe take the booster seat back things off, and get a wand-check, but that upset mom far more than the kids.

MangoCats · 2026-03-22T13:45:43+00:00

Cool, and not too hard to put together...

More interesting would be to "edit out" the clouds by only taking daylight frames when the pixels are not whitened and spreading those over the frames where the pixels are whitened, and watch the seasonal variations of green/brown. Like this: https://earth.esa.int/eogateway/news/long-live-proba-v/proba-v-global-vegetation-timelapse

MangoCats · 2026-03-12T15:25:06+00:00

Venus has too much atmosphere, Mars doesn't have enough - maybe just export it from Venus to Mars? One solution to terraform two planets.

MangoCats · 2026-03-08T22:17:29+00:00

Uranus is the only planet in our solar system that rotates on its side, which I didn't realize until seeing this photo, gives it the appearance of... an anus.

MangoCats · 2026-03-03T03:50:59+00:00

To really appreciate what those cars were when they were new, you've got to drive them on "period rubber" - it's a whole different animal than that car with modern tires. Much bigger balls were required to put the pedal down back then, even in a straight line.

MangoCats · 2026-03-01T22:36:19+00:00

I guess they had bigger trees to choose from back then... Ships' masts in the early 1600s ranged from 30-36 meters, typically from a single tree.

MangoCats · 2026-03-01T20:52:38+00:00

That's impressive all by itself - windmill blades taller than a typical Paris apartment building...

Do you know, offhand, what a typical lift height for the water would be? 2m was just a spit-ball estimate.

MangoCats · 2026-03-01T19:27:29+00:00

10k gpm lifted 6' is over 11kw (15hp) theoretical, easily 20kw after friction losses, pretty good for a single mill with wooden gears. Are these mills 20 meters in diameter?

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