I failed a class in college. It was impossible to make the credits up due to scheduling conflicts/the tight nature of my curriculum’s scheduling. I had to miss my graduation in the spring, and go back to school in the fall for one semester for one class.

I am now a C-suite executive at a mid sized engineering firm.

Don’t worry about it at all. Take the extra time to breathe, get other things in your life in order, and hell-maybe just have a little fun too. You’ll be fine.

My appendix came damn close to killing me. I vote “not valuable”. :)

It was a good childhood from an independence building, learning to explore standpoint. People my age around me are 1) very independent 2) confident 3) clever. It was also a hell of a lot of fun.

But dangerous. Like some guardrails could have been in place without really affecting anything. I also didn’t feel this way - I had good parents. But a lot of kids were pretty much just straight up abandoned on a daily basis. Lots of resentment towards their parents, it’s tough having a parent that literally didn’t give a shit about you. I unfortunately think a lot of kids fell into that category.

RI in the states.

Funny how things so far away can be so similar.

Man, what was it with pipe bombs? It was totally a thing to do. Everybody has a story about them. For anyone younger reading - no parent thought that was safe. But so many kids tried to make them…

A kid on my street blew his hand off doing that. For real, I don’t know the details. Me and a couple of other kids strolled up to his crew (they were older and generally got into more trouble than I did). They were out in the woods and he was cutting a galvanized pipe with a hacksaw. When I figured out what he was doing, I took off. I literally got picked on for that - for about a week. I could not have been a bigger pussy. Then he was in the hospital with no hand. Then I was ok to hang out with again - someone with brains - nobody screwed around with pipe bombs any more after that.

We didn’t have a lot of water near us - just some ponds. We did stupid shit, but 1) not considered safe and 2) generally not that bad in the big scheme of things. Kids drowned a lot in pools and ponds. The items above around water were changing. My mom wasn’t a fan, but my dad was all “you’re just moming him to death”. So I suppose those are half truths - mom didn’t think they were safe - but I was still allowed.

51 Born in 74. Dead smack in the middle of GenX. Parents had me when they were real young. To be fair, they are good parents. We were pretty poor, they got divorced and should have never married in the first place, and they do all the boomer things that drives everyone crazy. But, they cared about me and my sister, gave us more than they could afford and we deserved, and I think I had more love from them than most kids got.

But boy-when it came to making decisions about safety. Man, what was considered normal and ok just blows my mind. ;)

Gen x with boomer parents who barely parented, so…. Everything?

How’s this for a list? I swear every one of these is honest to god true and I did them all.

• jarts
• Being kicked out of the house for the entire day with zero supervision
• ice fishing / pond hockey. We decided if the ice was safe or not. Like 10 year old kids…
• being allowed to ride our bikes on literally any road except for highways
• riding bikes on the roads with no helmets
• being allowed to go literally anywhere we could get to on our bikes
• being given firecrackers
• carrying and using real guns on the farm at about 10+ years old unsupervised (22s and 410s - the 12 gauge unsupervised wasn’t until I was older - like 16ish)
• riding with no seat belts
• riding in the back of a pickup truck
• riding in the way back of a station wagon
• riding on the edge of a tailgate with our legs dangling over (we used to drag our sneakers on the road and make white lines by burning off the rubber soles)
• riding on the side edges of the bed of a pickup
• holding ladders and whatnot onto the roof & tailgate of a pickup (like not tied down - the kids held it down)
• working / playing all day in the summer sun with no suntan lotion
• making jumps and going off them with bicycles
• jumping over our friends with said bicycles and jumps
• riding three wheelers (they stopped making them because they were so dangerous)
• mean green machines
• candy cigarettes
• buying real cigarettes for our fathers from a vending machine
• drinking from the hose
• we we had “real” ninja stars and we hucked those things at everything
• we had real knives at very young ages - like maybe 5?
• I had a real slingshot early. Like 5ish. That thing could kill. Dangerous af.
• I always had a bow and could use it as soon as I could draw it. My friend was lucky enough to have a compound bow. Totally cool to walk around with bows and shoot shit.
• I learned to use a chainsaw around 10yr old
• drove tractors unsupervised at about 8 yr old
• drove tractors on the road
• learned to drive a real car (Datsun pickup truck - stick shift) at about 10. Unsupervised on the farm. Not allowed on the road. We used to drive it fast and do donuts and shit. Parents and grandparents didn’t care - we were just having some fun. “Be careful and don’t crash into trees” was all I ever got warned about.
• siphoned gas with a hose
• sprayed herbicides pesticides and fungicides as a teenager with no mask
• being allowed to camp outside in the woods for the night with friends
• being allowed to make campfires at said campouts (we cooked hotdogs and ate them)
• going to concerts with older brothers (anyone’s older brother) at young ages (basically once you started getting into music - 10ish?)
• carrying a house key with you since day 1 of kindergarten
• being a latchkey kid - I came home alone and took care of myself and my younger sister by about 3rd grade. Before that we got dropped off at grandmas house after school. If we had a problem we just called grandma on the phone.
• allowed to cook anything anytime since about 5
• it was a responsibility to light the wood stove and keep the fire going in the winter.
• mowed lawns unsupervised since a young age. 8ish maybe?
• used weed whackers about the same time
• had a dirt bike at 13ish. Allowed to go anywhere unsupervised
• totally cool to swim unsupervised or even alone once I learned how to swim
• totally cool to eat things that had fallen on the ground - the 5 second rule definitely applied
• it was ok to drink at home a little bit with friends as a teenager. Like a sleepover or out in the woods. Better than drinking and driving. Getting shitfaced wasn’t cool, but drinking some of dad’s beer / liquor was - as long as we didn’t drive. Party at a friends house? Gonna be booze? Ok if parents are around and nobody drives.
• when tromping around the neighborhood-I didn’t have to tell my parents where I was. They didn’t care. There were no cell phones either. If our parents wanted us they’d yell. If that didn’t work, they’d call neighbors and once they found out where we were last seen - that neighbor would yell.
• people had chicken pox parties (I never went to one but they happened - I think I got it from my sister)
• monkey bars - big ass ones at least 15 feet high. Hard packed dirt underneath. Totally could bust your head open or break your back if you fell off one. Wicked dangerous. Was actually scary to climb to the top but you bet your ass we all did it, otherwise you were a pussy and got picked on forever.
• huge Fn seesaws - like would go up in the air maybe 6 or seven feet
• those spin-y things in the playground-dunno what they were called. You know all the kids piled on, others grabbed the bars and spun the shit out of it. We all got dizzy and tried not to whack our heads falling off.

I dunno, that’s all just off the top of my head.

Corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef, one onion, 2 cups of water, can of guiness. Pressure cook on high for 90 minutes. Slow release.

Remove beef, cover with a mix of brown sugar and honey. Broil/grill/torch to carmelize/burn the sugar a bit.

While you’re doing that, you throw the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots into the broth and pressure cook on high for 5 minutes-quick release.

Veggies will be done same time as beef is seared.

Enjoy.

A pool cue. It was a nice one I had grown to love. My wife replaced it. But I still keep that old one around so when guests are over they have a nice cue to play with and don’t have to feel like they are handicapped with a crooked house cue ;)

New iPhones bought from Apple that are unlocked “connect to any carrier later” work on all the networks in the us. Once upon a time, there was an “unlocked” phone - meaning you could change the sim and the phone wasn’t locked to a contract. But you still had to match the phone to the major carrier. For example, an att phone could be unlocked, and then used on straighttalk (becasue straighttalk resold att network). But it wouldn’t work on Verizon or T-Mobile because they were different networks.

That’s not a thing anymore with iPhones and hasn’t been for a long time. An unlocked iPhone can be used with any carrier that supports esims.

If your old phone is still on a contract - you may not be able to transfer the phone number, or have to request an unlock, or any other shenanigans. But the new iPhone will still work on whatever network you take it to.

Ideally, your contract is done, you buy new unlocked iPhone, you take it to your existing or a new carrier, you say “I bought a new unlocked phone, I want to set it up new, and I want you to transfer my number” a prime time carrier will just make this happen for you. A reseller can be a little more of a pain in the arse.

Personally I’ve been happy with the prepaid plans from straight talk - despite their setup process sucking. If you call them and get a person to help it goes pretty smooth. And the service is indistinguishable for a much cheaper price once it’s setup. I’m pretty sure this goes for most resellers.

Good luck - you’ll be fine!

Devastator and jetfire

Clear winners

98 Volkswagen Jetta. Rampant problems for everyone, not just me. Body molding falls off, window motors fail, water pump fail, wiper motor fail, 3 starters and an alternator, frame problem wearing out at the wheels, and the clear coat peeled.

When my third window motor failed, I drove my pregnant wife and her sister (who were in the car) to a dealer instead of whatever plans we had. I bought a Highlander on the spot and drove home in that. My wife drove that Highlander for 14 years.

I went from one extreme to the other! :)

I have it. I don’t know why, but it won’t sink its claws into me. It’s a great game but something isn’t clicking for me. Most people like it though from what I can tell.

See, after one year everything repeats indefinitely. You literally can’t miss anything. So there’s actually infinite time. If you’re stressing out like “omg spring is gone and I didn’t grow abc”. That’s what’s supposed to happen - you’ll grow it next spring.

Yup. There’s a story reason for it. It’s actually part of the charm of the game. But that first bit (which should be an intro cake walk, but isn’t) is a bad design choice IMO.

Not everyone likes every genre of game - so here’s my grouped list:

The “I’m a nerd and like to build things and I like to watch lava lamps flow” Factorio

The “I enjoy tough but fair games that I can totally become OP in once I figure it out” Elden Ring

The “I just want to chill” game Stardew Valley

The “I like to build things” game minecraft Honorable mention-Terraria

The “Metroidvania” game Hollow Knight

The “Arpg” game Diablo 2 Honorable mention - PoE

The “I like action and smashing things in an open world” game Neir Automata Honorable mention - God of war (play one of the originals so you can 1st hate the remake, and then get to THAT point, and then happily eat crow and let Kratos be your baby daddy.

I came here to say this. I’ve been gaming since the early 80s. Factorio is top 5 for me.

This one has been sitting in my steam backlog since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. I should get on that…

+1

I’m NOT allergic to them but they scare the crap out of me. Bees are a little bit ok. Wasps and hornets though - F that.

In 2010 I built a new computer. I was interested in bitcoin from a “this is technically neat” category. I set it up and was able to mine dozens of coins per day.

I did. It was all set up and working. But it generated a lot of heat in my upstairs So. Cal. Apartment. So I stopped. Just deleted the coins because they were pretty worthless then.

I don’t get too upset though because I never would have held them to $50k each. I would have sold them for a buck each.

But I “could have” if it wasn’t so hot out. ;)

1/3 of one percent of all voters matter in Arizona per the article. But like 30% of people don’t vote. That’s enough to swing many solidly red states blue, or vice versa. If that’s the margin republicans win by over Supreme Court shenanigans-then we the people got what we deserved.

Get out there and go vote people! Even in the non swing states - make them swing states!