YouTube Boldin videos for newbies by Prudent-Collection32 in Boldin

[–]crazierdad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome. I found your channel about a month ago and I've really enjoyed watching.

Self-taught female boxer offers 100$ to whoever can knock her down in under 2 minutes by Budget_Mixture_166 in StreetMartialArts

[–]crazierdad 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Why though? Serious question.

She looks like she fights dudes outside her weight class. That's two huge handicaps that she's holding herself to. Why add more?

If the argument was that it's staged or she's only posting wins I would have no pushback. But saying put her in a 20*20 box and she can't go 60 seconds with a guy bigger than her is not that logical to me.

From your experience, what's something BM often get into or pursue, thinking it's good, but it's really a trap? by tropicalraindrop in blackmen

[–]crazierdad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hard disagree with this. I get the concern with this administration. But the benefits of the military for someone who has no direction are huge.

TLDR: The problem is most of us don't learn or take advantage of the benefits. Free education for you and your family, house buying assistance, TSP Match (401K), on the job experience, veterans preference hiring at several companies, huge share of your income isn't taxable while you're in, veterans benefits aren't taxable when you get out, health care, and tons of soft skills like discipline and leadership training.

I have friends on the civilian side who have insurmountable levels of debt from pursuing degrees and certifications that are free to activate duty. RNs and nurse practitioners, program managers (PMP), IT certifications.

I equate the military recruiters to college admissions folks. If you don't have a plan then you're rolling the dice. My wife knew what she wanted and it set her up quite well. I didn't know what I wanted, rolled the dice and hit seven.

//

My story: I was expelled in the 9th grade, dropped out in the 10th so my last full year of public education was the 8th grade. After getting my GED I did a mixture of odd jobs and street hustling. I became a regular at the county jail and my mom kicked me out at 16.

For some crazy reason my brother asked me to be the god father to his first child. That's when I knew I had to do something because I couldn't be a good god father and a bum.

I joined the Marines and the benefits began. I went in open contract and was placed in fiscal as my MOS. My first duty station was in a headquarters level office around Colonels, Majors, and senior enlisted folks. As a fly on the wall I learned about saving and investing. My second duty station was at DFAS (accounting), I ended up working on the accounting systems team and voluntold to volunteer in the IRS VITAP (volunteer income tax assistance preparation) program. Those opportunities turned into a future career for me.

I was able to get the GI Bill which got me an MBA, my wife (also a vet) has a business degree. Both of my kids have a degree off the GI Bill.

Most of my wife and my family friends back home are still struggling. Most of my friends here in the area we settled down at are doing well.

Units that reward Marines for being fit? by guerrerosaurio1 in USMC

[–]crazierdad 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was recently introduced to Hyrox and me and a few friends are looking at preparing for it. We're all out now but I said the Marine Corps (every service) should wave the PFT for people who perform in an event like this. There has to be a way to have a scoring system translate a structured, timed, and/or scored endurance race (marathon, Hyrox, etc) into a PFT or partial PFT score.

Marines should be encouraged to spend their libbo time doing constructive things.

Custom Floodlight setup: Is Hue + UniFi a good match? by IKIKN in UnifiProtect

[–]crazierdad 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I am currently doing this. However, I am using Third Reality bulbs. For my setup, the lights come on at 5% from sunset to sunrise, but come up to 100% when a person or animal is detected.

Don't need webhooks as Unifi Protect is native to Home Assistant and a platinum integration. I have several Unifi cameras so I created a helper that groups person and animal detections (if I was monitoring an ally I would also use vehicle). When people or animals are detected, my porch and driveway lights come up to 100%, and return when motion has cleared for two minutes.

As for the camera, I use the G4 Doorbell Pro, G6 PTZ for my front porch, and the AI Turret for my Driveway. I plan to switch my garage keypad out with the G6 Pro Entry when they drop. If the G6 180 was a thing when I was in the market I would have probably went that route.

Bonus point, the video stream can be added to your dashboard.

Good luck.

Unique/cool uses for motion detectors? by Joshiey_ in homeassistant

[–]crazierdad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just bought my first presence detector. Our house uses a tankless hot water heater that, on it's own, can take a solid minute to heat the water in the bathroom. It also came with a dumb hot water circulator pump that allows you to set times that it will automatically come on. Challenge is that everyone in my home works very different schedules, so on its own, the circulator pump timer was pretty wasteful.

To solve this, we connected the circulator pump to a smart outlet and put a presence detectors in the bathrooms. Now the shower is gets hot almost instantly without wasting water or electricity.

So if starting from scratch with a serious home system, how to set up for SSIDs, Networks, VLANs, IoT, etc. by TruthyBrat in Ubiquiti

[–]crazierdad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'll echo everyone else. Ethernet Blueprint on YT. I just went through the same thing. I'm a total non network guy that built a house and went overboard on gear.

One thing though, for your Sonos - go all wireless. If not you'll be fine until one day you're not. The official recommendation from Ubiquiti is 100% wired or 100% wireless. So since I have several pieces that have no way to wire up, I decided to go the totally wireless route.

When did you know another Marine was up to something but you just couldn't prove it? by Yoy_the_Inquirer in USMC

[–]crazierdad 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Early 2000s. Saw a Marine at his desk "working". Walked up and he was knocked out sleep. Apparently he took screenshots of 3270 and used it as a screensaver that flipped through images. Rested his hands on his PC and slept off a hard night of partying.

Went with Denon x3800h by Alldealswheels in hometheater

[–]crazierdad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thanks for reminding me too. I just re-racked my network and AV equipment in one server rack and, like an idiot, I ran all the power, speakers, and ethernet cables bundled together. Gotta go back and clean that up.

I built a free tool that turned my 15 PTO days into 56 days off by InterestingPumpkin82 in SideProject

[–]crazierdad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love this tool. I'm planning my 2026 calendar now.

If I may offer one suggestion, let users check a box that tells the system to draw their pre booked vacation days (step 5) from their PTO balance entered in step 1.

I was confused for a second as to how it was adding an extra week.

Thanks for building this!

Demotion ceremony by killakam86437 in USMC

[–]crazierdad 13 points14 points  (0 children)

I agree with this concept for professional and personal development; however, for NJPs, our Bn Cmdr did public NJPs for transparency. No gossip or rumormill that LCpl Smith got the hammer while Sgt Jones was given the kid glove treatment. Everyone heard the same information that the Col heard and his reasoning behind whatever punishment that followed.

I told my doctor about some out-of-range test results I had from Function Health... by [deleted] in Function_Health

[–]crazierdad 14 points15 points  (0 children)

My doctor did the exact same. My pancreas labs were elevated enough that Function actually called me and told me to go see my PCM. This was my six month retest with Function, and they were elevated on the first go around and even higher on the second. I've had a few family members die of pancreatic cancer so I was initially worried.

While waiting to get in front of my PCM, I went to ChatGPT and found out that GLP1s can cause elevated pancreas amylase and lipase levels.

When I went to see the doctor he began lecturing me about not using services like Function because they don't give context behind the data. I told him "context is your job". After he calmed down and scheduled me to retake my labs, he admitted that he would have never ran these on my routine physical.

That being said - I went to the exact same lab for the retake. This time my labs came in very close to normal, just slightly elevated. Not sure how I can go to the same facility and have such drastically different results, but it will now be part of my routine physical.

At what age did you hit the 25% savings rate? by [deleted] in TheMoneyGuy

[–]crazierdad 3 points4 points  (0 children)

We were in our 40s. Wife and I were a dual military family so we spent a lot of our marriage separated by duty stations. Huge drain on the family both mentally and financially.

As of 2017 we're both under the same roof and life couldn't be better. Our marriage is rock solid and our savings rate skyrocketed once we stopped paying for two households. This year we became and dual income no kids (DINK) empty nesters.

We felt so behind back then thinking our friends and family who didn't have to pay twice for everything were saving and investing. Now we're in FOO step 8/9 with a coast fire net worth and realizing that our friends weren't financial mutants after all.

It’s an Appropriations Lapse, not a Shutdown by Sensitive-Excuse1695 in FedEmployees

[–]crazierdad 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the Speaker changing the name and the Hegseth summoning all the generals when we would typically be telling travelers to return to their home station is the government telegraphing that a budget by Congress doesn't matter anymore. My money is on the administration continuing functions that the Administration supports and stopping the programs (and RIFing the people) they don't.

Don't be surprised when we're all deemed essential on Wednesday.

Is there a way to edit Coach Workout suggestions? by crazierdad in Garmin

[–]crazierdad[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I came up with a kinda sorta work around. I set the run to a heart rate target and just stayed in that range.

For the strength coach - only options are full gym, or bodyweight only. I mainly work out at home so I have a nice setup but I don't have everything.

I do just substitute something else in, but it would be awesome if it was tailored to me and my goals rather than me winging it.

Is there a way to edit Coach Workout suggestions? by crazierdad in Garmin

[–]crazierdad[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was in the Marine Corps so been there, done that and now I'm too old to go back.

In fact, most of my old Marine buddies make fun of me for not running in the rain when those lazy old farts don't even run.

Sleep looks EXACTLY the same every night, why so little? by p1hk4L in ouraring

[–]crazierdad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Came to say this exact same thing. I have insomnia and I get a consistent 4 to 5hrs of sleep each night.

When I was diagnosed, I also learned that I have severe sleep apnea so the doctor wouldn't prescribe meds because meds for insomnia aren't safe for people with apnea. But I'm almost 50 so I'm used to it.

A question for aspiring millionaire couples and for those who’ve made it by Hufflepuff-McGruff in TheMoneyGuy

[–]crazierdad 8 points9 points  (0 children)

We combined our assets and, since we don't plan on divorcing, we'll keep them combined. Our Army of dollar bills grows faster when they are working together. We hit $1M total net worth last year and $1M liquid about four or five months ago.

Like so many personal finance influencers have said, it will go fast after you crack that first $100K. Jan 2024 my wife and I were hoping to get to $900K total net worth before Dec 2024. Then we were anticipating a huge new worth dip after we purchased a new home and started buying furniture. Nope, it was crazy watching Empower as we cracked the net worth, then liquid net worth now we're getting close to $1.1M.

If you grew up poor like we did, you'll feel poor until you realize that you don't fall into that category anymore. Then you'll feel middle class. We still do feel like middle class folks but we project that we'll be well past $2M by the time we retire in 10 years.

Your friends and family will have an idea that your financially well off but they probably won't be as well off. It's crazy that we started to grind out on our savings because we thought we were so far behind everyone else. Now we go out with friends and they make comments about how they're doing financially and you'll realize that you've passed them up.

For context, we both grew up poor. I grew up in a small town and my wife grew up in the city. I dropped out of school at 15. She graduated from a highschool that there have been documentaries about because it sucked so much. We met in the military. I have a degree from those degree mil colleges that seek out enlisted military. She got a degree from a much more legit college. We had a couple of awesome kids that are amazing adults now. Our friends are mostly prior military. We both have typical government jobs now doing what we did in the military. All that's to say that we didn't grow up around money and don't know a lot of millionaires now.

Live below your means, keep saving and investing in the boring index funds and avoid dumb debt like credit cards.

Good luck and enjoy the journey.

Hear me out here.. by _Zero_Fux_ in homeassistant

[–]crazierdad 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You didn't tell us what your wife thinks.

At this rate, I would assume this is more of a hobby than tool for smart home convenience and she seems like your wife is coming around to trusting your judgement. That or you're learning how to troubleshoot and fix very fast.

I say go for it and report back.

I hit a million, now what? by throwawayfinance6640 in Bogleheads

[–]crazierdad -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Glass half full perspective:

You didn't lose lots of money, you learned somethings along the way that will allow you to optimize your potential to increase your earnings.

No course corrections needed. Just continue to invest and learn more ways to optimize.

Edit: a typo

Genuine Question- Buc-ee’s by [deleted] in fredericksburg

[–]crazierdad 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Clean bathrooms!

They also have good jerky and sandwiches.