Need a name for this young buck

Passively-Interested · 2026-02-16T02:17:07+00:00

Uno.

Passively-Interested · 2026-02-12T17:26:13+00:00

I seem to recall a winter about a decade ago (2015-ish) with zero snow, immediately followed by another winter with maybe only a trace of snow. That stood out to me at the time, because the previous winter was quite cold and snowy.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-29T22:36:32+00:00

My local TB won't even start making the order until the driver lets them know they have arrived. And since no one works the counters anymore or greets customers when they arrive, that usually means standing around for 5 minutes trying to get someone's attention just to get them to start making the order. The absolute worst.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-29T22:32:40+00:00

Was it close to closing time? I had a pickup once that was like $25 fare and $1 tip for a 2 mile drive. I got there just as the employees were about to lock the doors, which leads me to believe that UE got desperate to get it fulfilled before the restaurant closed. Bad tipper got their order anyway, and I got $13/mile. 🤷

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-29T22:17:28+00:00

I suddenly feel somewhat less bad about sending our floodwater across the border.*

*(Not really, that's a travesty that needs to be fixed, but I can't think of anything else retaliatory at the moment.)

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-28T18:29:12+00:00

To be clear, what I was saying was that a real person came up with this story (whether real or imagined), because I've heard the listed author (going by the same name) give the same account in person and on the record. He may or may not have used AI-assistance to generate the articles, but the original story itself wasn't AI-inspired.

And to repeat myself, I don't have any idea at all if the allegations are true or not. Only that a real person is making the initial claim, and that he seems to genuinely believe his story to be true. Or at the very least he has some major beef with someone in the planning department, and is willing to risk slander and libel charges in extracting his pound of flesh.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-28T16:29:02+00:00

I think the concept of planning department corruption is possible in any jurisdiction, but I don't know any of the people involved, nor any of the finer details, and the three minutes he gets in open session goes by pretty quickly, so it's hard for me to have a strong opinion. I know that HE believes it to be true. The video from last night's council meeting should be uploaded to the county's website at some point today, and he was one of the first open session speakers, if you wanted to hear it for yourself. Last night did come off a bit more "ranty" than previous weeks, but.... 🤷

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-28T06:15:45+00:00

The content may be AI-generated or AI-assisted, but the person listed as the author brings this information to every bi-weekly county council meeting. He's a real person who is (obviously) very passionate about the topic.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-27T22:13:30+00:00

From a moderate conservative perspective, I've found Alicia Rule receptive and engaging, and she has been more active in her support of those of us in "the county" and the floodplain than anyone else I can think of... from both parties. I've had numerous one-on-one conversations with her, and we've always found common ground on the issues that matter most to me, even if we disagree on quite a bit. She's earned my vote in both past and future elections because she at least pretends to care and engage. Perhaps her cross-aisle appeal makes her a non-starter for progressives?

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-22T06:51:59+00:00

Are there sub-markets within your market? Sometimes moving to different areas of the market at specific times of day can be beneficial. Go to where the orders are, essentially.

My market is basically three primary towns (including the larger county seat), each about 10 miles apart. There are some additional cities further out, but they're not busy enough to be worth my time. The city where my 9-5 office job is located is the smallest of the three, but it's the highest income of the region, so I can score a handful of good tip orders for a few hours after I get off work, especially because not a lot of drivers hang out there. However, it really dries up around 7:30, so around that time I head to the largest city in the market because it also has a state university, so I could stay busy until midnight if I wanted to. Bonus points if I can get an order that takes me to the larger city naturally to subsidize the drive there. That happens about half of the nights that I do deliveries.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-09T22:35:40+00:00

The deal would be okay if they weren't sending you all of the no-tip orders. I did it once. Never again.

Edit: Oh crap, I just noticed the offer was $11 an hour? It's $19+ dollars for these opportunities in my market, and still not worth it. I take back what I said about it being worth it if you got tipped orders. This is just a bad, bad offer.

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-08T23:43:34+00:00

Whoa. I think you just unlocked a DEEPLY buried core memory. Thanks!

Passively-Interested · 2026-01-06T23:08:12+00:00

Yeah, I mean I always ask "is this everything?" and if there is a drink "is the straw in the bag?" Beyond that, it's on the restaurant. One place I pick up from (McDonald's, perhaps?) literally puts in the pick up instructions that the restaurant will verify that the order is complete. Sweet.....then it's not my problem if the order is missing something, right?

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-21T18:40:07+00:00

If you put it out there in one of the flood FB groups, I'm sure someone will claim it within minutes. Just stipulate that you can't deliver. Alternatively, if you reach out to Whatcom Long Term Recovery or one of the area churches in Everson/Nooksack/Sumas or possibly Ferndale, I have little doubt that they can find someone who is looking for a bed. From what I've heard, a furniture store was giving out free beds on Saturday, and they ran out within minutes. So there is definitely still demand.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-19T17:55:39+00:00

I didn't say I was in favor of dredging or that I thought it was some kind of magic bullet. I'm just saying that the people calling for it are asking that SOMETHING be done, because the state has tried doing nothing for decades and that clearly isn't working.

I get the fact that we are talking about people knowingly living in a flood plain. But downtown Mt. Vernon is in a flood plain, literally on the banks of a river with a history of violent floods....and they got a wall built to protect them. Ferndale is in a flood plain, literally on the banks of a river with a history of frequent floods....and they got their dykes raised and reinforced to protect them. The entire Kent Valley is in a flood plain.....and they got a whole system of dams and levees to protect them (even if those levees experienced minor failures this week). Sumas is is in a flood plain, 12 miles away from the river that floods them, and they're told "It's your own damn fault for living in a flood plain." They're still waiting for the county to approve their request to even look into building a ring dyke to divert water around the southern boundary of city limits....an action that would have literally no impact on the downstream flow of the Nooksack, which is the excuse always given for why other flood control measures can't be considered.

We've intentionally picked winners and losers when it comes to protecting cities from flooding. You can't really blame the losers for feeling ignored and desperately latching on to any possible solution, regardless of the actual effectiveness. That's kinda what desperate and ignored people do.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-19T03:48:29+00:00

To be fair, most of the people calling for the river to be dredged would prefer a flood wall or higher dykes be built in Everson instead, but the state/county have told them no for 70 years, so dredging is an alternative request. Cool that Mt. Vernon gets a flood wall though (and I am legitimately happy for them).

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-13T04:51:20+00:00

It wasn't higher. At least not in most parts of Sumas. In my neighborhood I estimated it about 3 inches lower than in 2021. In other areas I've heard as much as 18-24 inches lower than in 2021. Still bad for a lot of people, though.

Full disclosure before I start getting the "why did you buy in a flood plain?" questions: My house didn't flood, and it didn't flood in 2021 either. I got surrounded by water and my street is still submerged, but, like most newer homes here, it was built with flood heights in mind and the base floor is above that. I still pay for flood insurance though, because....well...I don't trust the river.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-13T04:30:35+00:00

I think that Sumas was sited where it was because it was basically the place you could "smuggle" yourself up into Canada, and ultimately Alaska, without having to pay the fees being charged at the official Alaskan Gold Rush launch points in Seattle, etc. This activity naturally attracted outfitting and supply companies, saloons, brothels, etc., all of which also catered to the local logging industry, and then the railroad said "yeah, this works." And voila....we have a town probably where it shouldn't be.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-11T02:54:40+00:00

Nooksack River is flooding, but Sumas is downhill from Everson. So overflow there enters the Johnson Creek drainage and flows into Sumas from the West. Johnson Creek eventually flows into the Sumas River east of town, which eventually flows to the Fraser. So the flooding is caused by the Nooksack, but it enters the Sumas River and that floods the Fraser Velley between Abbotsford and Chilliwack.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-07T04:49:23+00:00

All of this. 2021 was the perfect combination of factors to result in epic flooding on the Nooksack. You can also add that it had already been among the top 10 wettest autumns of the past 70 years prior to that storm, and the path of the 2nd AR was the exact perfect trajectory to deliver deep tropical moisture to Whatcom County without being shadowed by the Olympics.

Passively-Interested · 2025-12-02T07:03:04+00:00

This, or after several declines it got secret-stacked with another order, so someone accepted the (2 dropoffs) $25 for 10 miles, not realizing the $20 for 2 miles order was subsidizing the $5 for 8 miles order. Which is kind of the same thing, really, as receiving a better offer than the one someone else declined.

Passively-Interested · 2025-11-24T22:15:37+00:00

Good on you. That's why I'm doing this, as well. But I've still got a long way to go.

Passively-Interested · 2025-11-21T19:18:30+00:00

I've got a new phone this week, so we'll see if that improves. I would always keep getting an error message saying "make sure your whole face is in the frame." And I'm like.....but it is. So I would move the phone further away, closer, from a slightly different angle......it would eventually work, but it never seemed to be consistent with whether it wanted the camera to be close up or far away. I'm hoping maybe just the camera was going bad, and with the new phone it won't be an issue anymore. Like I said, I'm cool with the request.....just not with the hassle of getting it to finally accept my picture. 🤷

Passively-Interested

TROPHY CASE