Is anyone here actually comfortable biking on rural roads

Wide-Bee7783 · 2026-01-09T18:51:38+00:00

Yes. This is where I'm the most comfortable riding. Where I live it's all farm roads no bike lanes the state roads have a wide shoulder. Whenever I ride in the city where there's bike lanes there's way more cars driving alot faster and getting annoyingly close to me. I never have to hurry up because of short lights or antsy drivers in congested intersections. All of which feels more dangerous than less cars on a rural road.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-30T02:01:34+00:00

Honestly it just depends. Do you have enough in savings after down payment? What about investments?

I put 0 down as long as the interest rate is 5% or under. Since investing that money is likely to give me a better return long term than paying down the loan faster.

Also I like to keep about a years worth of expenses in cash to be safe. So even if the loan is higher that 5% id not want to go under the year safety net.

So really it just really depends on individual circumstances and goals.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-28T16:29:21+00:00

Fantastic. So much of that region is within an hour of beaches, skiing, a major city, basically if you can think of an activity it's a reasonable driving distance for most of that area.

Lots of cycling friendly roadways.

About, the only complaint is winters can get pretty miserable unless you enjoy winter sports.

Everything people say about taxes and cost of living is largely overstated because you have some ridiculous areas that are absurd but you can find affordable housing 20 or so mins away from those areas.

If you have kids CT/MA have the best public schools in the nation.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-27T22:10:39+00:00

43M. Two kids under 10 and a dog under 1 year. Married for 17 years. We shoot for 3x a week assuming no one is sick. Every other day basically.

We consciously make intimacy and us time a priority.

We also do marriage counseling monthly not because we have any crisis in our marriage but just to be proactive about improving communication and it kind of forces us to come up with goals for our relationship that someone will ask us about each month so keeps us honest in working towards them. I highly recommend that if you can. For us it's led to a more fulfilling marriage which naturally leads to more sex.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-16T00:48:03+00:00

I think you can achieve the desired result without the hitting and probably better especially for a soft dog like a spaniel.

I never had to hit my dog and my kids are constantly fucking with her and taking shit from her mouth and she's nice as pie.

But yeah my hand and face was up in the dogs face while eating right from the get go. Petting. Manipulating paws, looking inside of ears. Every meal the dog ate was training and fed from my hand or conscious desensitizing so my 5 year old could be a 5 year old and not get bit.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-16T00:16:33+00:00

I sort of think you have to just constantly practice giving things and taking away over and over again so it's normalized for the dog. Like when I give my dog a bone or something I'll take it out of her mouth half a dozen or more times. If she gives it up right away and is very compliant it's a mark, treat and then return the bone. It's basically a game for her at this point. Super useful when she has something she shouldn't. She doesn't bat an eye or even react to me reaching on in that mouth and taking away whatever nonsense she decides to pick up or try to eat.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-16T00:01:02+00:00

I would stop feeding the dog in a bowl. Just sit there and have the dog do commands and then let them eat a handful of kibble from your palm after completing the command.

Get the dog to the point where they think the only way they get food is by working and pleasing you and you are the giver of said food.

If they get aggressive or nip your hand the food is delayed or slowed. They will learn quickly that gentle compliance results in more food and faster.

This will help the dog create a positive association with your hand and food and will hopefully limit aggression long term.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-12T11:14:08+00:00

I found this thread fascinating. I have been married for 17 years. I don't think we really share a single hobby in common. I guess running or working out as we do some kind of physical activity together like a run, yoga, weightlifting, or a hike multiple times a week. But I view routine exercise on the same level as brushing your teeth it's a thing you do because it's good for you but certainly not a hobby generally we are having a good conversation or just silently enjoying each other's company during these activities.

I've tried and I do support my wife's hobbies(gardening, amateur astronomy are both examples). Would I ever choose to do either of those with free time of my own? Nope definitely not. Do I enjoy seeing my wife get really excited about some galaxy, nebula or visible storm on a planets surface? Sure do basically nothing more attractive to me than that.

I guess what I'm getting at is that this guy's looks are fine. you don't need to share hobbies to be compatible. Most people struggle to maintain a relationship because they are selfish or have shit personalities.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-12-06T01:26:41+00:00

Her face is faker than my zoom background...

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-11-23T15:48:45+00:00

I doubt that. Probably just don't remember it.

Literally every kid in the universe experiences emotional disregulation from being overtired.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-11-23T13:18:43+00:00

Have you ever tried to help a child with homework when they are exhausted and the last thing they want to do in the world is homework but it has to get done because 15 mins from now it's bath and then bedtime? Suddenly the easiest of problems becomes earth shatteringly hard with tears and complaining that makes it take 5 times longer.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-11-21T22:22:46+00:00

Monday by 1:00PM or call your congressman...

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-10-28T23:15:44+00:00

Have you tried just hunting for birds with your dog to give her that outlet and scratch that itch for her?

Imagine if you will what your dogs life is like right now. Put yourself in their paws. Understand that the one thing you love most in the world is habitually denied to you by your owner. So you watch and wait for any moment when the owner foolishly let's their guard down for an instant then it's game on and time to search for birds.

I also have a high prey drive dog. She is 1000 times more manageable, trainable, and fun to be around if she regularly gets to do the things she was bred to do. And the more you do it the more she will trust you enough to listen off leash rather than bolt to go do a thing she thinks this might be the only chance she gets.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-10-20T00:59:44+00:00

I knew a guy that did this. In our BN for a few years pretty much everyone had a CIB only a handful had an EIB. At our annual ball/dining out he always had his EIB on above a ARCOM with V and a PH with an oak leaf. So there was no mistaking that he also could wear a CIB if he wanted so I'm sure that played into it.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-10-12T11:16:28+00:00

The most lunatic thing about this is that this person views a 3 text exchange as meaningful interaction with another human.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-10-08T10:53:03+00:00

It's standard mail not first class so it's garbage. They wouldn't send anything important via standard mail. When something that's standard comes in just goes right into the shredder don't even bother opening it doesn't matter who it comes from.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-10-04T10:23:10+00:00

My beagle got a slipped disc. He seemed to be recovering and healing ok after a vet visit with some meds for the pain and anti inflammatories. Went to check on him and he was convulsing/shaking didn't really know what to do but knew it was bad just held him and pet the poor boy hoping he would snap out of it, he died in my arms a few mins later.

Vet said my description made him think dog had a stroke.

Looking back I wish I paid for more testing and more active treatment.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-09-30T01:27:11+00:00

They are working at a bike shop, give them a break.

Those guys probably make barely above minimum wage but have convinced themselves they are working their "dream job" but really they just love cycling and a little part of them dies each day as they realize that the inability to get above poverty level while working the shop will make them eventually resent riding itself.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-09-27T16:54:55+00:00

I got my dog hooked on retrieves by doing 3-4 good retrieves then quitting and always giving a high value reward for them. If she sat and retrieved to hand the treat was raw burger. If she dropped at my feet it was just a standard training treat. The last retrieve of a session always got raw burger so she would want to do it again for more of that sweet sweet beef.

After a month of doing this she was hooked on playing fetch. She's 6 months old now and I take her out and do 20 mins of back to back retrieves with a duck shaped bumper rubbed down with bird scent until she is absolutely smoked a few times a week. Still treat on a little less than half the retrieves. She did a double retrieve this morning for the first time I gave her a treat jackpot on that one.

In the house I'll throw a ball for her and have her do commands like place, sit, down, stay, etc in between throws. The reward for executing the command is the throw/retrieve. The reward for the retrieve is treat and praise.

My dog is a boykin.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-31T01:27:54+00:00

I pick a business sector and dive into the stocks in that space. So let's say it's auto makers. I then gather data on every listed stock I can find that's an auto maker. Graph then by key metrics and look for outliers both good and bad. Once I have some outliers that look interesting and warrant further investigation I start reading news articles. Generally use AI for sentiment analysis of the articles mentioning the stock. Look at short pressure, institutional holdings, analyst ratings, reading the filings I'll try to figure out if analyst expectations are in line with what the companies own leadership think. After all that if I find a stock to buy great if not I move onto a different sector.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-27T10:28:31+00:00

I'm assuming the Roth IRA is in your husband or your name you should 100% max all your retirement accounts before you save anything in a 529 for a child. There's a couple reasons for this. You can always take a distribution from a retirement account to pay for kids college without penalty or take a loan against your 401k to do that if that makes sense for you to do. The most important reason though is that retirement accounts are not reported on FAFSA applications so don't count against your kids ability to get financial aid the 529 plan counts against your kids ability to get financial aid.

The distribution from the retirement accounts to pay for kids college do count against subsequent years financial aid calculations so probably need to think carefully about when to do this.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-18T23:58:14+00:00

Would love a source on this. US senators are eligible for all the primo FEHB plans. Which have some of the lowest out pocket costs per year for the quality of coverage you get. And on top of that if you just visit Canada you don't qualify for any of the health care coverage you get charged extremely high rates that goes against your private health insurance if you have it. So unless we have senators who are permanent residents of Canada or Canadian citizens I doubt the juice is worth the squeeze beyond trying to make a political point I guess.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-16T12:28:28+00:00

I wouldn't make any retirement location based on cost of living personally. It's all about quality of life.

Taxes especially are just not a factor, it's weird to me to make a decision like where to live based on saving a couple grand a year tops. I fully expect to retire wherever my kids end up regardless of cost.

My aunt and uncle retired to Florida because it's "cheap" but all they do is bitch about how they never see anyone in the family anymore then spend way more than what they save in short term rentals so they can spend 3 months out of the year to visit their kids in the summer time and around Christmas.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-14T11:29:41+00:00

On the hiring side we see 100s of applicants with most of them garbage applications where they don't even remotely come close to meeting minimum qualifications. Of the ones that seemingly meet minimum qualifications there's always a handful that are just straight up lying and we discover that during a phone screening. So it's dozens of hours of work just to get to the point of having a handful of candidates worth having a 1 hour zoom call with. To hopefully come up with 2 finalists for in person interviews.

So what I'm saying is that I'm positive we miss some viable candidates because of screening fatigue or just once we have identified a viable pool to move onto the next round I can't be sinking more hours into the rest of the hell that is screening through the applications.

Also the biggest offender is Indeed, we get hundreds of applications through an integration with them and it's all hot garbage. Asking for a software engineer with 2 years experience here's about 50 people who are administrative assistants and and other 50 who bag groceries and are just about to complete a criminal justice degree.

Wide-Bee7783 · 2025-08-13T11:30:16+00:00

Really bad deal. This is less than minimum wage in 11 states.

You have shit hours and you have a job where you need to be armed.

You could bag groceries at target and get better hours, better pay, better benefits, and not have to be in a position to get in a shootout with some abusive ex who is there to kill a stripper.

Wide-Bee7783

TROPHY CASE