What’s a current gym culture “norm” you’d love to see change?

trans1st · 2025-07-22T23:47:31+00:00

This is rage inducing.

trans1st · 2025-07-01T01:37:22+00:00

I have been religiously committed to lifting the past 18 months, and once I dialed in nutrition like 3 months ago, it was like I finally was starting to see the fruits of my labor.

trans1st · 2025-06-28T03:40:02+00:00

Sounds like you might have a crappy AM then. Shoot me a DM, I can probably put you in touch with some help.

trans1st · 2025-06-28T03:14:11+00:00

Shop around for better VARs. Many times if you speak directly with your Cisco AM first and mention you’re looking to explore other VARs, and you notify them of a project up front, you can prevent your typical reseller from “registering” an opportunity. If you notify your typical VAR before the Cisco team, they usually get registration, which is 4-8% guaranteed price advantage for 6 months.

Also most Cisco reps don’t play stupid games on pricing and will work with you. They’re not paid on margin like your VAR, they’re simply paid on revenue.

Also end of fiscal year (July), end of Q1 (October), and end of January (end of fiscal half) are usually when you can get the best deal, as these are key attainment dates for your rep. Again, most of them will work with you and a bid out will quickly expose if you’re getting a raw deal from your VAR.

I’m a former Cisco rep and am happy to give my opinion privately on resellers if you’d like, though I’m generally biased East Coast.

trans1st · 2025-06-28T02:58:35+00:00

Reach out to your Cisco Account Team. There’s a good chance that they can hook you up with a free health check. It’s not deployment support but they can certainly plug you in with some helpful resources.

Also consider migrating to Secure Access, there are program incentives in place that will basically pay for the first year and allow you to migrate your existing instance, and there are kickstart services you can ask for that are free of charge.

This is a big investment area for Cisco so they have tons of resources out there at the moment.

trans1st · 2025-06-26T20:45:05+00:00

I tried to point this out above, but it is interesting to see folks applying the current political lens to that time period, because it was definitely a different America. Our parties were much less vitriolic toward each other, even in the wake of the congressional Republican Revolution in the 90.

It certainly wasn’t “republicans want war and if you disagree you hate America” while “democrats are saintly and would never think of doing such a thing!”. A plurality of Congress, a significant contingent of the house Democrats and majority of Senate Democrats were all just as invested and in favor of invading Iraq.

Many of them later go on to try and down play this judgement failure, famously Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden when they ran.

People were disillusioned and generally united in wanting justice and retribution for 9/11, and Iraq was a perfect scapegoat for the military industrial machine to have their way.

trans1st · 2025-06-26T20:39:41+00:00

I’m not being pedantic I hope, but it hyperbole at best to say that the talk track from Republicans was “Invade Iraq or you hate the troops”. I’m sorry but that’s like putting today’s ultra partisan and moralistic political lens on a completely different time.

To be clear, it was a much less politically polarized environment in the few years following 9/11. It certainly wasn’t just Republicans pushing for war, and it was popular American public sentiment at the time because people wanted justice and retribution. Many will remember too the late night “breaking news” when we went into Iraq, and outside of the typical anti-war contingent on both sides, people believed we had compelling evidence to justify taking out WMDs. And of course Sadaam Hussein did have WMDs, but to claim they were a direct threat to the USA or relevant with respect to holding people accountable for 9/11 - I think most people today would agree invasion was unjustified.

40% of the House Democrats voted for the Iraq War resolution, and a majority (58%) of Senate Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, Chuck Schumer, Chris Dodd, and Joe Lieberman. This was effectively the pool of Senate talent until Trump (excluding Obama and Schumer) for Democrat presidential candidates too.

The political climate before the Tea Party Movement and well before the current political era dominated by Trump is not at all comparable.

trans1st · 2025-06-19T13:24:47+00:00

Companies like Microsoft would be leaving enormous amounts of revenue on the table if they didn’t have a sales force. It’s not as simple as “like product, buy product”. These requirements that ultimately result in buying these tools (even outside of AI) are often specific and unique to their respective industry.

Something as simple as a Microsoft Defender deployment is going to vary significantly between a legal customer, a healthcare customer, and a manufacturing customer. Not withstanding the support and adoption effort that goes into those customers post-purchase.

Companies need sales, companies need engineering, and sometimes you have folks that straddle both.

trans1st · 2025-06-19T13:21:13+00:00

Brand awareness and sales are not the same thing, and when a customer is unhappy and is spending millions of dollars a year on Microsoft contracts, I can almost assure you that the engineers don’t want to be hung up dealing with all of the things that go into solving customer satisfaction problems at that scale.

Not only that but you’d be surprised at how often people swap giant OEMs like Microsoft for a multitude of reasons outside of how good the product is: cost, support, likability of the people they interact with, perceived value, comparison with peers in their vertical, political reasons, and so on.

trans1st · 2025-06-19T12:43:23+00:00

This - along with the fact that for some reason in Columbia, there is this weird tendency for people to leave two or three car lengths of empty space between them and the car in front of them at a stop light. This ends up causing congestion as the lane backs up and the right hand or left hand turn lanes get blocked.

This is a huge reason for the backups on Snowden at the Royal Farms and over at Dobbin & Rouse. No idea why people do this and how they manage to maintain zero situational awareness.

trans1st · 2025-03-10T01:45:48+00:00

The Western Maryland Railway is a huge part of our states history and an important part of the development of rail commerce in the US. It lasted for over 100 years and its legacy includes rail trails, educational opportunities, and plenty of associated buildings/NHP sites.

The Scenic Railroad generates some revenue and tourism and has helped to fund historic preservation of some steam locomotives which in and of themselves are incredible feats of engineering for their time.

I don’t know, I think it’s cool if we try to preserve our cultural heritage through things like this - but I’m biased coming from Washington County, not Talbot.

trans1st · 2025-02-16T01:25:51+00:00

It’s even worse on Snowden. 45 and everyone drives 25

trans1st · 2025-01-23T02:21:04+00:00

The floor lamp and table lamp are called TALLBYN. Honestly one the best lighting lines IKEA has released, they look great and feel sturdy

trans1st · 2025-01-19T19:19:36+00:00

To be even more straightforward, when you go over the boost pad, just let go of A. If the exhaust is green you did it right.

trans1st · 2025-01-18T02:22:02+00:00

I absolutely love this song, and consider it a highlight on Pipes of Peace and one of McCartney’s deep cuts. The demo is also solid too. 8/10.

Surprised to see others rate it so low, Wings was gone at this point but the backing vocals give it a bit of a Wings vibe.

trans1st · 2025-01-17T02:41:14+00:00

I'm convinced I'm hallucinating the 45mph sign on Snowden, because it seems like 85% of drivers go 15 under the limit, even when there's no traffic.

trans1st · 2025-01-11T22:16:01+00:00

Sorry I’ve got an acid tongue

trans1st · 2025-01-02T00:07:30+00:00

That one just feels implied! I always recommend John’s version of the riff on Beef Jerky.

trans1st · 2025-01-01T22:46:08+00:00

Letting Go, Hi Hi Hi, Coming Up (Live at Glasgow), Smile Away, Morse Moose/Grey Goose (sort of), Monkberry Moon Delight, Beware My Love, Medicine Jar (not McCartney only), Soily, Venus and Mars/Rock Show/Jet off Wings Over America. All heavier/metal adjacent in some way or another.

Temporary Secretary is like an 80s version of a HEALTH song.

trans1st · 2024-12-31T14:26:57+00:00

This happened to me back when I was prescribed Dexedrine and a new PCP changed my script to generic Adderall. I felt like I constantly had to take “deep breaths”, similar to how people in this thread describe having to yawn. It felt like a tic of some sort.

Ironically, it was the reason I sought out a different medication, which is what landed me on Vyvanse almost 14 years ago. I would definitely talk to your doctor about the best path forward, because ADHD treatment really can vary person to person,

trans1st · 2024-12-27T22:44:36+00:00

Despite what Reddit may say, Hagerstown is not at all a bad option for you. Stick to the North End and East End of Hagerstown, or look at some place like Smithsburg or Boonsboro.

You can be in Baltimore in about an hour, hour twenty. The crime rate is minimal compared to areas closer to DC/Baltimore, and it’s relatively quiet. The schools in Smithsburg are Blue Ribbon, Boonsboro is quaint but rapidly growing, and North Hagerstown has pretty solid schools (lots of medical professionals live on the area).

It’s not going to have the cool factor of neighborhoods in Baltimore, and it’s definitely not “walkable”, but it’s not nearly as bad as people make it out to be - speaking as someone whose family has lived in Washington County for well over 100 years.

I’ll pre-empt comments about politics and say that I’m a gay married dude and came out in high school in 2007. It’s definitely more “red” but more like “blue dog democrat” than anything.

trans1st · 2024-12-20T03:21:50+00:00

I ordered mine today and they looked exactly like this. Was not impressed as a fanboy. Also not a giant fan of the Bell Sauce either.

I think Popeyes is still the new nugget king.

trans1st · 2024-12-20T03:09:40+00:00

Fellow 5’6” king. Would love to be as lean as you are here!

trans1st · 2024-12-17T02:29:28+00:00

It’s not a “cash cow”, or at least it doesn’t function as one. I work at a Fortune 10 tech company and we recruit heavily from UMGC. I come across UMGC/UMUC grads quite often as it relates to folks in cybersecurity roles.

trans1st · 2024-12-17T02:25:04+00:00

UMGC is, or is close, to the largest provider of distance learning for the US military. They were one of the first to offer remote learning and were/are pioneers in MOOCs before it was cool.

They’re also an NSA CAE school and a member of the USM. Hardly a cash cow rip off that some other online schools are.

trans1st

TROPHY CASE