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GhostOfTomJoad

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by GhostOfTomJoad

  1.  

     

    So dealing with the norks doesn't involve planning, strategy, consulting advisers with decades of experience in geopolitical relations. Nope. It's about "attitude."

     

    We are fucked six ways to Sunday.

     

  2. Is everyone in Austin and the Hill Country ready for the nonstop sound of motorcycles blaring up and down the roads for the next 72 hours?

     

    Over/Under on bikers killed this year? How does 2.5 sound?

  3. 5 hours ago, crackamacgowski said:

    No, it's great. 

    Don't get me wrong. I love it. Hell, I've watched it at least 3 times in the last few months since it's been back in rotation on Showtime & HBO. Frankenheimer had a blast with it, and the chase & interrogation scenes make up for lots of plot holes. If you don't mind, I think I'm just gonna...pass out.

  4. President Donald J. Trump

    500 DAYS: In his first 500 days in office, President Donald J. Trump has achieved results domestically and internationally for the American people. 

    • Since taking office, President Trump has strengthened American leadership, security, prosperity, and accountability.
    • After 500 days, the results are clear: the American economy is stronger, American workers are experiencing more opportunities, confidence is soaring, and business is booming.
    • President Trump has re-asserted American leadership on the world stage, secured vital investments in our military, and stood up against threats to our national security.
    • President Trump has put the American people first and made government more accountable.
    Holy shit balls that's the kind of fluff you'd expect to read from a flunky mid-level manager bucking for a promotion in his annual review. All it's missing is a "drove synergies in highly volatile market niche while maneuvering slippery slope of downtrending market segments through focused alignment entitlement thinking."
    • Haha 2
  5. Survived the day of hell. Austin to Houston trip wasn't too bad. Only real threat to life & limb was getting in & out of NRG parking lot due to large assembly of mouth breathers. Grad ceremony itself was a tolerable 2 hours. I stood on the perimeter while SIL drove people nuts while trying to micro-manage every photograph. BIL got drunk & gave a rambling, almost incomprehensible toast at dinner but he picked up the tab for 16 so preach on. Highlight was he & I gathered around the TV in the bar area waiting for our table to be set & getting to see Kody put that 3 run shot on Comal Street in the 1st inning. Aggy BIL was ready to spit nails but could only muster a "that's not good. I'd better go check on aunt Betty" then went outside to start fielding text message blasts from his other aggy friends.

     

  6. So dinner after the graduation should be just about first pitch of the Texas v aggy baseball game. FML. BIL (father of the grad) is aggy. If we're not sitting near a TV in the restaurant I will be very, very gruntled.

  7. Wife about lost her shit yesterday when her sister (mom of the graduate) included her in a group text of about 20 people requesting that they text their ETA for Saturday. So of course every fucking one of them replies to the group, not just her sister, causing my wife's phone to blow up. Then her sister takes it to eleven by utilizing the dumbest fucking piece of coding ever written, Apple's "like" comment to every response, which of course went out to the entire group again. Her phone looked like a pinball machine on tilt until she could get in & turn off the notifications.

    Oh, we were also instructed that the dress code for Saturday is "snappy casual." WTF? We're driving 3+ hours to sit in a pro football stadium for another 3 hours before driving another hour to get to a restaurant in the 'burbs and there's now a dress code? We're adults here. No one's showing up in cut offs & wife beaters. But expect us to dress up like the cheerleader families do before a competition. FML.

  8. One thing my wife & I have no desire to do in retirement is yard work. We'll by a lock'n'leave condo/townhome & throw away the garden tools. Depending upon where we end up, it may require replacing my charcoal Webers/WSM with a Traeger or something that's patio friendly. It'll be painful at first, but I look forward to the challenge of making great BBQ from a tool I haven't used before.

    Retirement location will be key to us. We love to walk now & look forward to doing more when retired. A mixed use development would be ideal for us. We've already discussed the massive moving sale we'll have some day. We can't wait to start over again with a dorm-style mentality. Downsizing won't be a problem. Bring nothing with ya, then add what is needed. 

    Best of luck to all you surly bastards. May your realities exceed your dreams.

  9. 1 hour ago, Celery Man said:

    Surprised how many here are going to have pensions.

    I'm probably one of the few who has a pension from a publicly traded company (they did away with it for employees hired around 2000; I was fully vested long before then). And a matching 401(k). Mrs Ghost has worked in city & state gov't positions for her entire career & has 2 pensions coming her way down the road. 

    We won't be buying a chalet in the south of France, but barring anything outside of a full economic meltdown we'll be in good shape. Very fortunate indeed.

  10. 6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

    No offense, but your Dad sounds like a bit of a dick.

    None taken. Your assessment is spot on. And his wife is even worse. But that's probably for a different thread.

  11. My dad was retired early by his company at 55. Huge blow to his ego (only his wife & I know the truth; he told everyone it was his choice although his job was eliminated & he was sent out with a great package plus his pension). At 73, he's just now able to admit it was a good thing as he's had almost 2 decades to travel & do things he might have missed out on.

    My dad's actually a cautionary tale on what not to do, IMO. He and his wife have piles of money & should be able to enjoy things on a grand level. Unlike his parents who happily volunteered for decades, my dad & his wife see volunteering as a racket & people "just want to get things from you for free." Once they relocated from Austin to Fort Collins they built a house north of town. It's a beautiful house in a pretty area, but boring as a morgue. Dad was active for years on their HOA & took great joy in being the covenant enforcer. That is until one of his neighbors threatened to shove the tape measure up his ass that my dad had used to report that his newly planted tree was 6" too close to the sidewalk & would therefore need to be replanted. I told my dad to get a new hobby.

    It's weird. They travel a lot. Not too much internationally (his wife has health issues) but they spend at least one month a year at their time share in HI. They've only got 2 or 3 states left to visit to have collected them all. They go to Vegas a couple times a year for shows. But they live in their own bubble out by a lake. Blinds are always closed. They've alienated every bit of the family that is left, including my sisters & their children. He's never even seen his 2 great-grandsons. And when he does travel the reports I get back from him are never about what they saw or the beauty of the place, it's about some horrible experience they had at the airport or some random waiter who forgot to bring them an extra napkin.

    It just doesn't fit. It's like he is hellbent on doing the opposite of what his parents did in retirement. Rather than help others & take joy in the simple things, they'd rather collect meaningless objects, isolate themselves, & just vanish.

    • Like 2
  12. Mrs. Ghost and I are planning for 10-12 more years before pushing the button. We'd both be near 60 which would be a good time for us to get out & do the things we like to do (travel, hike, volunteer, etc). Don't have any desire to work after retirement & unless things go tits up there shouldn't be a need, but we'll both continue our volunteer efforts with animal rescue being a priority. Just in our blood. Shoot, my grandparents were delivering meals on wheels when they were both almost 90. Many of the people on their routes were decades younger than them!

  13. 2 minutes ago, sachick said:


    It should. But it won’t. Trumps hard core supporters see these kids as ‘animals.’ They shouldn’t have committed the crime of crossing the border illegally.

    Yep. "They came to took er jobbbs" jpeg goes here. They were just gonna come on up & steal those jobs at the beautiful, clean coal mines. 

  14. Obama played about 300 rounds of golf over 8 years, and Trump is more than a third of the way there after a little over a year.  Yet all the people who regularly criticized Obama for playing golf are still silent. 
    Well in fairness, Obama had a little more pigmentation than Trump which rustled the jimmies of many, many fucksticks in this country.
  15. It's righteous shit from San Antonio. Just discovered it a month ago but they've been around for ages. Big pack at Costco is about 15 bucks. I hear you can get smaller packs at HEB, etc. Great heat. Comes on after the bite. Threw it on the smoker for about an hour while brisket was resting. Pumped some extra pecan on to jazz it up.041371c8cde418176b4d902108c7b087.jpg

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