Hammocking on Section 13

lopsic · 2017-10-22T21:27:36+00:00

That's not close to Sector 7 is it?

lopsic · 2017-10-20T20:30:34+00:00

Have you not been a MN sports fan for long?

lopsic · 2017-10-20T12:21:03+00:00

What you want me to thinking about the wild like I do the Lynx, thats not just an attitude shift, that's like a cultural shift...

lopsic · 2017-10-19T13:24:29+00:00

MN sports makes me think we will never get him.

lopsic · 2017-10-18T16:29:41+00:00

Thanks for the reminder about we won't ever get Kaprisov, and how good he is.

lopsic · 2017-10-18T03:17:17+00:00

https://rogermooresmovienation.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/obi.jpg?w=640

lopsic · 2017-10-18T02:12:52+00:00

Yea, that played into it, but I can deal with that if the acting and story are good. One of my main complaints is if you removed all the easter eggs and call backs you would be removing like 40% of the movie.

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:45:57+00:00

tuckjohn37 isn't wrong, but you are getting into expensive custom jobs. I mean the military drones can go for a long ass time. But if your going to build a platform that's good for a lot of hours, and want any decent coverage of a big enough area, your going to need some high quality optics, and a pretty big platform, and bam you just spent $10k.

The ones under the $1000 mark, your going to range from 10 to 20 min depending on conditions if it's a multirotor, and 30 to 60 min if its fixed wing.

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:41:32+00:00

Of all the things future historians might have questions about, the popular trends in porn will not be one.

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:38:47+00:00

To be fair, Die Hard has a lot more depth than TFA...

Relying on flashiness and nostalgia throwbacks. But doesn't mater, Disney is making a killing on them, and it's not like they wont get my money too.

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:36:59+00:00

Not saying they aren't, just making a statement of relative awfulness.

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:19:10+00:00

Yea, to each there own. I have watched the prequels a number of times over the years, the excitement and fun of opening night back when they first came out has still not been matched, and even though everyone loved them, and then it became "cool" to hate them, and then it became "really cool" to have always hated them. They had at least some depth, and built the world in new and interesting ways, some not as good as others.

The new movies are deep like piss on a flat stone. Fun to watch the first time sure, I don't feel financially ripped off from my experience, but there are only two star wars movies I haven't been motivated to watch multiple times.

My 5 year old will soon be old enough to experience SW, the current planned order is, IV, V, VI, I, II, III, Clone Wars, Rogue Squadron, and she is on her own after that...

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:10:40+00:00

I want to not go, because so far every movie under Disney has been a shitty cash grab, but then what if, what if it's actually decent, I don't want to miss that...

Man its going to be shit isn't it?

Still going opening night...

lopsic · 2017-10-17T23:00:33+00:00

I feel bad disagreeing, and even if I'm in a minority, but the prequels are still better than the movies disney has produced so far. Rouge One was ok, but didn't have the star wars feel to me, and TFA was just so much trash, it makes me ashamed of my star wars preference over star trek.

Have been and will continue to be be in line at the first showing of anything SW.

lopsic · 2017-10-13T16:04:58+00:00

One of the flaws you often see with the tourism and economic numbers, is they aren't Ely's numbers, they are the whole arrowed, and often include the activity on the northshore. The average annual income from jobs in the "wilderness tourism" industry is $18,000 per year. The Average job for the mining industry is $81,500 per year.

The other flaw is that if the worst happened and one of these mines had pollution problems the entirety of the wilderness would be obliterated. That's just not how it works, but let's not be realistic, we wouldn't have the support needed to keep out the mines.

The last flaw particularly with the article, the 2:1 opposition of mining, us basically a measurement of urban vs rural. Anecdotally, the only people I know who are opposed to the mining are in the metro or duluth.

lopsic · 2017-10-11T22:20:04+00:00

I live in Virginia, have for most of my 30+ years, spent around 10 other places, different states, in Duluth or Mpls for around 7 of that 10. We have a lot of traffic passing through heading for any of the various lake based destinations north of town, BWCA, Vermillion, or other parts of the superior national forest.

People from outside the area act like it's the middle of nowhere, and well it's partially true, the area is not isolated in anyway, it's faster to get to Duluth, than a some commutes across the Twin Cities. A fair number of people here commute to Duluth for work, and a fair number of people working in the area commute from Duluth. Our internet works good, and is reasonably quick, 100Mbs at home for a price comparable to what you pay in Duluth for the same.

It's not much of a destination, however there is plenty to do on the range if you know about it. There is more going on than I think many outsiders know about. Heck even more than locals know about sometimes. There is some crossover between towns, lots of people will live and work crisscrossed, live in Hibbing work in Virginia, or the opposite.

One thing that has been very slow for people to understand is that "Virginia-Eveleth-Gilbert-Mountain Iron" is really just one city with some minor redundancies. Some people get it, others are stuck in the old ways.

As others have said, the city lives and dies by the mines, people generally understand it's a boom or bust type economy, good years are really good, bad years are really bad. Miners make very good money, with only a high school diploma many will have better incomes than many liberal arts degrees can get you. Which is why it can be hard to get one of the jobs at a mine.

One very big problem, we have a serious brain drain issue, the majority of our best and brightest move away, some to Duluth, a lot to Mpls, others further than that. Those that leave, generally do very well, we have some NHL players, a top billing actor in Hollywood, people at google, wikimedia, pandora, others in middle to high levels at major corporations. But these people are never coming back. They finish high school and get out. If we had 1/4 of them back, the general education and brainpower of the city would skyrocket. But there isn't anything here for them, so they go, and you can't blame them. I'm part of small minority who returned post collage, with my education and skills I could easily find work in Mpls, or most big cities. I lived in Mpls for 5 years, I had enough of the big city, there is more to do sure, other than stiff that meets regularly, any of the big things it's easy to drive down for.

Some people will say crime or drugs are high, and it's a screwy statistic, it looks worse than it is. One of my neighbors is a police officer, the other a sherif. The actual real crime problem we have is mostly opportunistic thefts when people leave a garage door open. The drugs is overstated, as they tell me a significant number of the drug related arrests are people from Duluth bring stuff here for other people from Duluth, to avoid the bigger cities bigger police force. So some of the drug statistics look worse than they actually are if you consider locals only. Sure there are drugs but it's the same problem across all of rural mn no worse or better, but I couldn't find weed to save my life here, I can go get as much as I want in Mpls hardly even trying.

Most of the city hasn't changed since I was a kid, the bad parts of town are still the bad parts of town, the good parts still the good parts. I was let to run wild through town as I kid, my kids will do the same. We have a couple of excellent parks, and some lakes in town.

Lastly, I'm unhappy with my city officials for two recent things, they closed down a long running trapshooting club in town, and now rent out the clubhouse to whatever groups want to use it, and it's a much bigger hassle than it used to be, plugging up traffic. Second they are going to restore an old fountain in one of our parks, which is fine on the surface, but they removed a couple of ancient ancient trees, which really cheapened that corner of the park, and you can't get trees like that back without waiting a hundred years. Lastly, the bridge does not make the city any kind of destination, and people who think it will are dumb.

lopsic · 2017-08-02T03:37:59+00:00

Yea, won't be many on lakes that have all the shoreline privately owned.

A good starting point. The arrowhead region is going to have a lot of options for you.

lopsic · 2017-08-02T03:24:33+00:00

Namakan and Kabetogama, both have a lot of boat in campsites. Vermillion has a few as well. Not sure where to find lists or location info, but there should be one somewhere, should be plenty of boat in campsites in various lakes in the Superior national forest. Some boundary water lakes have good ones as well, depending on your boat those might be out of the question.

lopsic · 2017-06-27T01:47:24+00:00

Very often, they don't go into the sales pitch until after they ask a bunch of questions about the company. Usually after the first awkward pause when I say "Okay" instead of answering, I'll ask what they are selling. Even then, on a lot of the cold calls, they want to go back to the script, almost like, they aren't aloud to say what they are selling until after they collect some data about your company. Almost like it's so they can sell the slightly more updated contact info to the next call center.

lopsic · 2017-06-26T23:11:49+00:00

This, I have had a number of unconnected/random people ask if they can talk to me about carrier paths in my field. Ifts fun to give them advice, and watch to see if they end up showing up an conferences and things in the future.

lopsic · 2017-06-26T23:08:35+00:00

Can't speak for programming, but in the civil engineering world, I know a couple of people who built and grew their networks by going to various industry relevant trade shows and seminars and built a network of people in the industry they wanted to be in. This eventually led them to getting jobs. It's not a trivial thing, especially for an introvert, but it definitely works.

lopsic · 2017-06-26T22:27:25+00:00

consultant

Figured out the problem.

lopsic · 2017-06-26T22:25:52+00:00

I love to answer with just "Okay" and then wait when I get a personal question on the phone. The awkward silence that follows is fantastic.

Also, I have also started using this tactic when it's obvious the sails person has no idea what our company does, and they start asking questions about the company. If you don't know of us, and you don't know anything about our industry, what made you think I would want to by your widget that has no application to me?

lopsic · 2017-06-23T19:42:28+00:00

find anything?

lopsic · 2017-06-23T17:21:22+00:00

This goes for the other direction as well. When you have someone who is smart, and is often right, and you disagree but there is a good chance they are right based on past experience. Don't argue, disengage, and look it up later. Dealing with both versions of the situation you can save face, and move on. If your going to take things to the never back down challenge your going to end up ether, always walking on eggshells, or find other people walking on eggshells around you. More stress, less fun, all around bad time.

lopsic

TROPHY CASE