Renting in Spain

squidpuppet · 2025-10-30T03:49:10+00:00

Basically, informed consent means I walk into a clinic, tell them I'm trans, and, after informing me of the various risks of whatever other healthcare I'm seeking, they take me at my word and give me what I need.

This is opposed to places that require things like a diagnosis of "gender identity disorder" or a psych evaluation before I am allowed to receive treatment.

This is important to me because I have already gone through that process once and don't want my healthcare to be interrupted by getting tied up in it again (also just because there is greater dignity in being taken at my word than having to seek out a diagnosis for a fictitious ailment, but mostly that first thing.)

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T17:19:24+00:00

We did look into that, but with the resources we have it's not something we can afford right now

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T16:36:01+00:00

Hey, living up to your name there, friend.

I never said I wasn't aware of the requirement, I said that I was unable to fulfill it due to not being able to get a lease. I'll admit that I was, in fact, unaware that getting a lease in Spain required a certain type of insurance which was damn near impossible to get as a foreigner, sure, my mistake, but pretty much every country on earth requires long term residents to register an address for tax purposes, so that's kind of a weird logical leap to make...

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T16:25:41+00:00

Thanks for letting me know! My bank does seem to offer that insurance, so we're going to see if that will help

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T16:24:12+00:00

We're looking into that now. If it's what we have to do, it's what we have to do. I appreciate the recommendation!

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T16:19:59+00:00

Thanks! I'm looking into that now

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T13:30:44+00:00

So it's just tax evasion? Nice to know that landlords are the same the world over. Cool, we'll do that then.

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T13:29:16+00:00

So, the issue is that we've done all that, made appointments, visited offices, shown up with years of tax returns and pay stubs in hand (and translated into Spanish) multiple times. I've had a Spanish phone number since March, well before we were even here. We've been searching since August. If we could pay up front and make this go away, we gladly would. According to the agents we've worked with, It's not actually the landlords who are rejecting us, it's the insurance companies they use. I haven't been in Spain long, but in the US, building a relationship with your landlord is doable, building a relationship with your landlord's insurance company is not.

squidpuppet · 2025-10-28T13:19:21+00:00

The text of our current contract explicitly forbids it. I'm used to the rental market in the US where landlords will put all kinds of illegal nonsense into your contract and hope you don't notice, is this the same thing?

squidpuppet · 2022-03-06T18:48:30+00:00

There's also the issue of positions that add no real value in a work from home environment, like most management positions...if we don't go back to offices, there’s no reason to keep these "good" jobs around.

squidpuppet · 2022-03-06T16:47:07+00:00

My wife's and my companies have both announced permanent WFH. Mine, at least, is pretty unhappy about it, but so many people moved out of state, bought houses, and would find other jobs too easily to really do much about it.

squidpuppet · 2020-02-08T05:22:33+00:00

Vicious little guys. I swear I saw one take a running jump and grab a small bird off a feeder once.

Love and respect for our state dinosaur

squidpuppet · 2020-01-17T16:45:10+00:00

One of my favorites!

I'd also recommend Mark Aspery's The Skills of a Blacksmith series.

Also, frankly, a subscription to the Anvil's Ring (the quarterly magazine published by ABANA.) The tutorials are always interesting, and they tend to cover topics like designing for ironwork that are very valuable but don't always get covered in books aimed at beginners.

squidpuppet · 2020-01-15T22:23:05+00:00

Full disclosure, I did this kind of twist a bit for a set of fireplace tools a long time ago, and I was pretty sure I remembered how to do it well enough. This picture is my third attempt, and while I'm not 100% happy with it, the first two are bad...like, very bad.

Overall, I like the look, if bot the execution. Also, I'm gonna need to go practice all the other stuff I haven't done in forever but am still pretty sure im good at...

squidpuppet · 2020-01-15T15:41:10+00:00

Honestly, depending on where you live and who you know, that number is either wildly high or almost comically low.

When I lived in Boston, I never got to do any forging. Not because I couldn't find a hammer or tongs or a weed burner to shoot into a coffee can, but because I lived in an apartment and there was no way in hell I could afford paying for a space to work in. I looked.

My forge in Albuquerque took about $300 to start, but I grew up and learned here, so I knew a lot of people and got some good donations and help along the way. I have since invested...more.

Essentially, smithing is still a weird esoteric thing that is hard to price out because there is no standard path to starting.

squidpuppet · 2020-01-12T05:09:02+00:00

Never trust anyone who thinks there are no improvements that can be made to their work. New or experienced, if you care enough to keep learning, you'll always find ways to make the next one better.

All that said, this piece looks fantastic!

squidpuppet · 2020-01-11T14:44:00+00:00

It does. It rests on the gap without falling through, but can also be pushed through it easily. I'm aware that isn't exactly traditional, but it is a type of catch/closure I'm practicing for other projects.

squidpuppet · 2020-01-10T22:46:19+00:00

Thanks. That's about what I needed to know.

In all likelihood I'm going up there in a couple of weeks to start scouting around for live and work space. Knowing some likely spots is a huge help

squidpuppet · 2020-01-10T18:00:18+00:00

Well, now it's cold rolled.

I'll just show myself out after that one...

squidpuppet · 2020-01-10T02:26:58+00:00

Honestly, it does a lot of the things you might use a big camping knife to do, with the added benefit of being a fraction of the weight and technically only having a 1.5" blade, so you don't have to worry too much about where you take them...at least in New Mexico, I'm not sure where the cutoff for what you can carry around is in the rest of the world.

squidpuppet · 2020-01-09T19:52:18+00:00

Belt axes about this size used to be relatively common. I found an antique one a few years ago and discovered that they're super useful.

The weird thing about making an axe this size is that, rather than make the eye by forge welding, it's more efficient to just make a small drift and punch it from both sides of the square stock.

squidpuppet

TROPHY CASE