It’s so frustrating to me that the vaccine is 50+, as if the rest of us can’t get it. I WISH I could get my shongles shit today.

See the fun thing is we have passenger rail from my city all over the country…but dogs aren’t allowed on it if they’re over 20lbs. I’ve even written the company pleading for them to review their policy and citing the crazy amount of dog sport participants that could use their service, and even suggesting they require an easily verifiable 3rd party obedience certificate and was effectively told to go pound sand.

Almost half of households in the US have dogs, so it’s frustrating that travel with them is limited to personal cars (there’s only one commercial airline that flies large dogs in the US and it has very limited destinations.) I would LOVE to take a train to a backpacking trip in the mountains, but then we’re back to leaving my pup at home. This country needs a major culture shift on a great many things, not the least of which is public transit.

To some extent I think you’re right, but for outdoor recreation that somewhat depends on where you live and what type of terrain your hobby requires. Switzerland as a country is full of beautiful hiking scenery and opportunities so I imagine the travel to get to it even by public transit isn’t an arduous one. In places where the terrain and landscape are more flat, barren or boring, the travel time to get to good hiking opportunities can be significant. For instance, the closest mountains to me are a 10hr drive by car; I could cross your entire country in about half that time. Unfortunately location plays a large role in the viability of using public transit for certain hobbies.

Yep same. Work from home, have my groceries delivered and most other things I can do online. As it currently stands my car is used to take my dogs to an enrichment program twice a week, and for recreation. Without my car my hobbies would essentially completely end. There may be some places where public transit would work for hiking and backpacking, but where I live options are limited and the closest place I can legally backpack is an hour away by car, and it’s a small 4 mile loop. Anything more significant requires a multi-hour trip. Even IF public transit existed for it, I don’t want to go and leave my dog at home, bored all weekend, because he’s not allowed on a bus or train. Part of my joy in hiking and backpacking is sharing the experience with him. Right now his world is huge and full of adventures. Without a car his world becomes the size of my neighborhood, and that’s just depressing.

For me personally, the loss of a car means potentially the loss of certain hobbies. I like to go camping and backpacking, and that means taking a certain amount of gear out into remote areas. While I might be able to minimize the amount of gear needed, there’s no getting around the remoteness of the hobby, and that necessitates a car for transportation.

The other hobby is dog related. I enjoy doing things, including sports, with my dog. Transporting the dog, at least as it currently stands in America, requires a car. Large dogs are not allowed on public transit pretty much anywhere here. When you also consider that I may be taking jumps or poles or other larger equipment with me to train in new places, losing access to a car makes that a near impossibility.

I’d go so far as to say many outdoor recreation hobbies either require or are made easier by having a car or larger personal transport. Kayaks, boats, skis and snowboards, fishing poles and the list goes on and on. Sure you could setup rental places, but if you do a hobby a lot you ultimately want to own your gear so you can get something that suits your preferences and needs.

I’m not opposed to a less car-centric society, but eliminating personal vehicles would make many hobbies problematic or impossible.

Nothing crazy, but my dog fractured a tooth and I was very worried he would either have to have it pulled or have a big ugly titanium crown put on, at great expense. He went to the vet today for it and it turns out the fracture wasn’t as bad as I thought. No root canal and crown necessary. They shaved down the sharp parts, sealed it with resin and he’s good to go now! I’m unbelievably relieved and it cost less than expected. Easily the best thing that’s happened this week.

And tomorrow I’m going camping with my dog and some friends too! That should be a fun time. It’s unseasonably warm and while I wish it were cold, I’m going to enjoy the nice weather while we have it!

Because people can buy stuff off your wishlist and have it shipped to you. In its current form, it doesn’t expose your address to the buyer, but apparently the change may do that.

Seriously! Anyone who thinks about this for half a second realizes the repercussions of only allowing US citizens bank accounts. Are we just eliminating immigration entirely now? Immigrants have to prove that they are financially self-sufficient and doing that without a bank account is… effectively impossible. Every legal permanent resident would be immediately unable to function in society. Most jobs require direct deposit into a bank account these days and won’t issue paper checks. How do you even pay rent or a mortgage without a bank account.

It would be absolute chaos.

And they’re still going to make you work in the office

Cisco sent out a similar email, and I know firsthand Supermicro is doing the same as we’ve already had a huge order get a price increase AFTER placing it, and we fully expect to see another one before the whole thing ships. It’s a shit show right now.

Based on the article it appears they’re targeting naturalized citizens, but as someone who was born in Germany because my dad was in the Army, this is still concerning. Here I was just thinking I only had to fear for my permanent resident husband… I really hate this timeline.

I work in procurement and the last week and a half at work has been hell. Buying anything that contains RAM, Hard drives or GPUs right now is a circus. Pricing changing after orders placed, 6+ month lead times, insanely expensive pricing and any other problem you can imagine. It’s not just a problem for consumers, but businesses that need hardware refreshes, startups that are trying to launch, and replacements for defective units are all just really hard to get right now. I know this will pass eventually, but it’s a tough time to be in procurement for IT hardware.

My younger brother and I never really got along. My parents, but especially my mother, always treated him as if he could do no wrong. If we were both being loud, I got yelled at because I was the older sibling and should know better, if he broke something, I got yelled at because “why weren’t you watching him”, and just on and on. He knew he could get away with anything with them and used it as a weapon, purposely getting me in trouble. I have nothing but resentment for him. As an adult he’s almost 38, still lives with my parents, has never had a full time job, has never had a license or a car (he’s afraid to drive), and is effectively a leech on them. Over the years my parents have run into financial troubles a few times and my husband and I have bailed them out, all while watching my useless brother continue to be a drain.

And the worst part? My mom constantly lectures me about not having a better relationship with my brother. She doesn’t seem to understand the damage she did, and thinks blood is more important. I love her so I just nod along and try not to argue with her about it. After my parents pass I doubt I will have any contact with him. I expect him to be homeless and on the streets eventually, and honestly I don’t have any sympathy for him. He could be using his time right now to make a life, but instead he’s playing video games and shit-posting.

I wish I had a sibling relationship like I see some of my friends and family have. I LOVE my sister in law, and I wish she lived closer. My brother and I are just never going to get along though. We might have gotten past it if he’d ever moved out and became a real adult, but at this point it’s too late and I just don’t care.

So cute! My Maine Coon played fetch too. He preferred the shiny little balls of tinsel, but would also play with toy mice. I never taught him, he just brought me a toy one day and stood on my chest so I threw it to get him off me (he was big) and he brought it back. After a few times doing this I realized I was playing fetch with him and we did it his whole life 😊

What a cutie!

Public holidays are not mandatory time off let alone paid in the US. Many employers that give paid time off do include at least some holidays, but which ones and how many is variable between employers. Some will give every federal holiday and others will be only the really big ones like Christmas, thanksgiving, independence day, etc.

One of the most exciting things about the job I currently have is that I get around 15 holiday days a year off, in addition to my normal vacation time. It’s a rarity. My last two jobs only had 7 holiday days - that stretch from New years day to Memorial day (end of May) was always brutal.

The Art of Racing in the Rain (and also the book). No matter how many times I watch it, I’m going to cry every time

Public transit absolutely could work in America, but we would need to change how we design our cities as well as how we live. Many Americans live in sprawling suburbs where public transit is just not realistic. In places that are densely populated public transit does exist and functions well. The issue is that we build sprawling cities with massive suburbs filled with single family dwellings each with their own yard and space. We do the same thing with stores by having hugely sprawling shopping areas (most of which is separated by massive parking lots). It’s a chicken and egg problem. You won’t convince people to give up cars until they can realistically walk or use public transit to get where they need to go efficiently, but you also can’t make things efficient and compact while there is a huge demand for car storage. And beyond that, I think culturally most Americans don’t want to live in densely populated areas. Americans culturally put a high value on personal space and that extends to dwellings. Sure there are definitely people who want to live in an urban center, but the “American dream” is a house with a white picket fence and a dog, and until culturally the desire for that changes, America will be a car-centric society as a whole.

I think the assumption that you will be alone if you don’t have kids is completely false. I have a very cohesive friend group composed of both people with and without kids, and the youngest person in the group is 30 - most of us are in our 40s with a few early 50s. We just make a point of spending time together and fostering these friendships. We have various annual gatherings throughout the year hosted by different people and we get together at least once a week in person and hang out, play games, chat and laugh and just have fun. We like to say that our group is the family we chose.

Friendships don’t just magically exist - you have to be an active participant and it takes real effort, but that’s any relationship. Sometimes you have to go do things with/for friends even if you don’t want to. If you want lasting meaningful friendships, you have to put in the effort.

After thinking about this a bit and reading through this thread, I realized I might have a problem about always wanting spare things. I have more than one of a lot of things - lip balm, battery banks, phone & watch charging docks, dogs, headphones and earbuds (even two of the same kind), computers, pillows (I have spares of my main and body pillows), and the list goes on. I apparently need to re-evaluate my habits.