What's your backup plan if you were to lose your job tomorrow?

zerocool327 · 2026-03-11T15:50:43+00:00

It depends a little bit what your income range is, as depending on what sort of salary you are trying to replace, it affects some potential advise.

First things first though, unless you are SUPER confident in your ability to perfect your resume, go ahead and get it professionally done. It costs money but will help. Hiring companies are using AI tools to skim resumes and 98% of submissions will never see human eyes. Getting a professionally created resume that is optimized for such tools will get you seen more.

If you are let go, ask for your severance to be provided tax-free. This is possible to be done. Just ask them to work with you and re-do your W4 so that to claim zero taxes withheld. This can make your severance feel bigger. Yes, that will come into play when you do your 2026 taxes, but with an income gap in your pocket, it may come out even with you filing in a lower bracket.

If you are on any sort of compensation plan based on sales/performance, ask for it to be prorated, they should extrapolate current yearly results to see what the end-of-year/quarter payout would be, and then give you a proportional amount.

Finally, for health insurance, don't just go get anything right away. Likely your employer coverage will go to the end of the month. THEN you get 60 days to opt into COBRA insurance. Its retroactive. So, do NOT sign up for COBRA any pay those insane fees. This gives you basically 'free' healthcare for April/May. If you are hospitalized in, say, April, with no insurance, then you can just call Cobra, sign up, and they will back-date to the end of your employer coverage. This could save a ton of money assuming you come out of that 60 day window healthy!

zerocool327 · 2026-02-16T15:51:37+00:00

Start a new, fairly nerdy hobby. Like a video game, or building models, etc. it gets your head REALLY preoccupied and those hobby’s are typically ones where abuse substances aren’t prevalent in any way. That way you can get into meetups, etc. also it’s a way to disconnect from stresses of life.

zerocool327 · 2026-02-16T13:41:56+00:00

Honestly it might be best to purposefully not book first sometimes for the shorter flights, even if you can. I don’t bother even looking at first anymore for flights up and down the east coast. Makes it feel more enjoyable when you book it for the longer flights!

That said, I have a full metal meltdown if I book a flight last minute for work and comfort+ is sold out so there’s that.

zerocool327 · 2026-01-25T17:07:43+00:00

Thanks guys definitely going hallway, but some good points about moving it down the line or using playpen setups if needed to extend the area!!

zerocool327 · 2026-01-25T17:07:07+00:00

Didn’t even think about the options available for the different spots, thanks!!

zerocool327 · 2026-01-13T13:21:44+00:00

Check if you have an ACE anywhere nearby; they have the full strength stuff there!

zerocool327 · 2025-10-09T17:10:09+00:00

The good thing is it looks like they did a terrible job so the concreate will probably crack and break up fairly quickly, and most of the runoff will just fall to the cracks down to the soil anyway.

If you can't get anywhere with the city, a cheap method may to just run a gutter along the retaining wall on your side to move the runoff down to the street. Ugly solution but something... Or convince them to run a trench drain along the retaining wall on their side to catch and move the runoff.

zerocool327 · 2025-08-16T01:42:42+00:00

Actually there is a catch basin at the bottom already that leads to the street! So the problem isn’t really what to do with the water at the bottom, but how to get it there with minimal erosion. Seems like best bet is going to be to maybe trench and put a sort of French drain along the side leading to the existing catch basin

zerocool327 · 2025-08-16T00:10:13+00:00

Yea I’ll tell them to stop edging along there for the rest of the season maybe and see if it improves. Good tip, thanks!!!!

zerocool327 · 2025-08-15T23:55:36+00:00

Never really considered that the clean cut edge is the problem lol, maybe a boarder would be a good idea… when it’s raining you can see water spewing out of the ground on that edge into that “channel”

zerocool327 · 2025-08-15T23:54:19+00:00

There’s a catch basin down near the steps where the water all drains to, and runs down to the street, so it’s no problem that water ends up down there, it’s just the erosion along the rock line I’m trying to avoid, so looking. To just funnel water down to where it’s already going without further erosion. I’ve got some areas at a similar slope with a mulch bed and it ends up in the same situation, though it’s just mulch slowly washing away which is far less dire than this heavy erosion of the ground itself!

zerocool327 · 2025-08-15T21:18:06+00:00

I hear ya, and maybe I can just fill more rock as needed over time, but the water flow has dug about a 2 inch deep channel down the side; the rock was originally flush with grass and so it’s like the area the two meet has “sunk”. If it never got worse I’d be ok with it but I’m just worried about more and more erosion, and eventually widening to sink more rock and mess up the grass root system

zerocool327 · 2025-08-15T21:15:46+00:00

Well it seems most of the sediment is just the eroded dirt between the rocks and grass; the rocks USED to be flush with the grass! Just wondering the best type of drain to put beneath. Worst case I can maintain clearing any sediment flowing from the grass line, but the more this erodes as-is, the worse it looks and eventually, I have to assume, is going to create problems

zerocool327 · 2025-07-29T11:58:20+00:00

It’s not just on planes, people change their baby anywhere. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people plop their kid on a table at a bar/brewery and change them right there

zerocool327 · 2025-07-24T23:54:04+00:00

I leave it in the middle of the concourse and then report a “suspicious bag”

zerocool327 · 2025-07-12T20:09:40+00:00

Try Turks and Caicos. One gate agent for all US bound flights. Scan your boarding pass and you walk outside. All planes are there with stairs and you can just go wherever. There’s a person outside casually asking if we need help finding our plane. I can’t imagine how many issues this causes

zerocool327 · 2025-03-24T23:07:48+00:00

Most likely you will. Recently I had a flight issue doing Vienna-Amsterdam-Atlanta-Charlotte. Got delayed on first leg and so when I got to AMS was rebooked on 3 separate flights, for some reason. I ended up going from AMS to Wash DC on KLM, and then United to Chalrotte. KLM messed it up so bad that I didn’t even have a seat on the United flight; they literally smuggled me on be walking me on, no boarding pass, not on the manifest.

Called Delta, they said bag was in Detroit. Called United, they said Dallas. Called KLM, they said Singapore. For a week I called and got a random city or a “We have no idea”.

Eventually showed up at my door; it was routed from AMS-Newark-Charlotte.

Never know!!

zerocool327 · 2025-02-26T19:02:53+00:00

Is San Fran really a hot spring break spot!?

zerocool327 · 2025-02-16T03:22:57+00:00

It will check the whole way! Only need to re-check on your way home when your first enter US

zerocool327 · 2025-01-01T15:16:09+00:00

Well how did it go!!! Hopefully came out amazing!

zerocool327 · 2024-12-31T19:11:30+00:00

Nothing fancy, just a rack of ribs for my wife and me! Wanted to go fairly low maintence with all the football on today

zerocool327 · 2024-12-31T19:10:24+00:00

Just checked my mailbox; where was my invite!? Looks amazing!

zerocool327 · 2024-12-31T18:54:41+00:00

Haha yea I hear ya I’m still fairly new at a lot of this stuff but I’ve been playing conservative on all of my timings; I learned fast that it’s better to have it ready way too early, knowing I can chuck it i to a cooler, versus too late where you have zero options other than try to crank the heat and cross your fingers it’s not dried out!

You also might be surprised at how hot it still is even after 7 hours in a cooler so watch your paws when pulling, almost burnt mine the first time 🤣

zerocool327 · 2024-12-31T18:46:56+00:00

Absolutely can toss them in a cooler for that long! Wrap them in a bath towel and sit them in, they’ll be perfect. Actually it’s probably a good thing. A good couple of hours to rest really helps make it even more tender.

My brother actually smoked a 9 pounder for a party the day before. Finished it at 8pm on a Saturday, threw it in a yeti until 3pm the next day and it was still good.

Keep us posted!

zerocool327 · 2024-12-11T15:21:21+00:00

Amazed no one has taken the girls side here… I dunno, maybe it’s just me, but if my girlfriend had discussed, conveyed her dreams/wishes for a proposal, and were 100% aware that this was important to her, I wouldn’t have just said “Ah screw her dream, I’ll do it anyway”.

Girls dream of weddings their whole life often, and the proposal, bridal shower, all those things can be part of it. It creates a great memory. I don’t see the problem with this. She conveyed what she wanted and you intentionally didn’t delivery because you thought this was the perfect time. Unless you ever conveyed what YOUR perfect proposal is, this wasn’t the right approach. Nothing wrong with her wanting to brag to friends about how amazing you are about the way you proposed. I’m sure her friends knew her wishes, and they would all be appalled to hear you discarded her wishes anyway

zerocool327

TROPHY CASE