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HouTex

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Posts posted by HouTex

  1. 1 hour ago, Brew said:

    Out of curiosity, if he signs a noncompete as part of a severance why would it not hold up? He’s taking the cash and signing the agreement which at least in surrounding states to me would be enfoclrceable. I get the issues on the front end signing at employment, but this seems like a different deal.

    Texas has somewhat unique rules on noncompetes.  Here is the general rule:

    To be valid under Texas law, a covenant not to compete must be “ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement.” Then, the restrictions must be reasonable in scope. The “otherwise enforceable agreement” requirement simply means that both parties to the contract must have made binding promises.

    The usual case is when the employee signs the CNTC on day one of employment.  Courts say that the employer must do more than just provide continued at-will employment for the "otherwise enforceable agreement" requirement.  In this case, it's severance pay after the employment ends.  I wouldn't think it would work.  If I'm the employee, I take the money and fight about it later if he wants to compete--but it could be costly.

    If I'm the employer, I would probably make it an incentive payment(s) either at the end of a term or paid in installments.  So if the employee doesn't compete the stated time, then he/she gets the money.  If he/she competes, then don't pay.  That might have a better chance of being enforced by a Texas judge.  

    • Hook 'Em 1
  2. 10 hours ago, Elvis said:

    Shingles.  Fuck that.  My dad RIP got shingles inside his eyeball.  Yeah, he had shingles on his retina.  It was awefull. He had this schedule of something like 14 eye drops a day, 4 or 5 different types of drops. I would have probably killed myself if that was me.  

     

    I'm 45 and I had chicken pox when I was a kid like everyone else.  Does the shingles vacine actually work to prevent shingles?  How does that work?  I would rather not have to kill myself over eyeball shingles in my golden years.

    The new Shingrix vaccine (a two shot vaccine over a couple of months) is very effective.  I believe over 90% effective.   It prevents you from getting shingles.  If you had chicken pox you have a 1/3 chance of getting shingles.  I was somewhat lucky when I got it.  It was in a shitty (literally) location but it wasn’t as painful as it could have been.  I caught it early and was given antibiotics and the pain was gone in a couple of days and the rash was gone in about a week.  The new vaccine became available about 6 months or so after I had shingles and I got the shots asap.  That was about 6 years ago and so far so good.  

  3. 1 hour ago, DixonHur said:

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    Ok, good one.  But I don’t consider Grease as a HS movie in the same vein as the late 80’s-90’s HS movies by Hughes.  Other than boy meets girl it doesn’t really get into the issues facing teens in HS in the late 70’s.  Basically, it’s a feel good musical.  

  4. I finally read the news story of today’s DOJ report from my Apple News feed.  It says the “majority” of the victims were shot in the initial barrage before the cops appeared on the scene.  After they appeared it seems that shooting was sporadic but it’s unclear.  The cops’ lame excuse was that they were treating it like a barricade/hostage situation rather than an active shooter situation.  I could not tell from the news report how many victims were shot after the cops arrived and how many victims might have been saved from bleeding out had the cops immediately engaged the shooter. It may be impossible to know.  I’d like to know those things for my own curiosity, but it doesn’t change the fact that the cops didn’t do what they should have done.  

  5. 5 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

    This is essentially what I do with my well. I just super insulated the short line from the wellhead to the tank. Looks like it worked again this year. Flipped the power back on, turned the cutoff switch 45 degrees and got water coming out of the faucets and no apparent leaks. I don't have any sprinkler system tho as addressed above. Only problem now is getting the cutoff switch to stay on but I'll take that problem any day over busted pipes. I got 2 17 gallon washtubs, a large cooler, 2 large plastic containers, and various other plastic gallon bottles, buckets, pitchers of water for flushing and washing. Plus plenty of gallon bottles of drinking water I filled beforehand.

    It's still trial and error, but I heat up (I think) a 3 gallon pot of water on the stove for about 15 minutes for a shower. Empty that into a 2 gallon bucket and 1 gallon pitcher I set on the floor of my bathtub and that seems to be just enough for shampoo, conditioning and washing.

    My wife would need 100x that amount of water for a shower. Your 3 gallons would be fine for me.  

    • Haha 1
  6. 1 hour ago, Texzilla58 said:

    Grad HS in 77 Memphis. My class was the same as the seniors in Dazed and Confused. It was very much like our high school life except for the hazing.

    The cliques all intermingled a bit. Life was different then because with drinking age at 18 beer and booze was plentiful and easy to get. The Schlitz brewery was 2 miles from campus and we’d go at lunch and they’d let us skip the tour and go straight to the tap room. Self serve. Chug a few cups of Schlitz and head back to school.

    Cars were also part of the culture. Muscle cars were cheap so all us poor kids had them. Rich kids had conversion vans, Bricklins, Vettes, or new wheezy TransAms.

    That parking lot would go for a few mil at Mecum. I had a 70 Olds 442. There were 67-72 Camaros, TransAms, Mustangs, Cudas, Challengers, etc. A buddy had a 64 Dodge Dart that he inherited. Took out the slant six and put in a Hemi. He won lots of money.

    So if you weren’t dating a chick we all hung out at a set of places. There was a burger place we hung out at. Pizza inn and Shakeys allowed us to take over dining rooms and drink pitchers of beer. It was very cool. There wasn’t as much weed as in the movie. Memphis was very tough on it and beer was cheaper. That was more a college thing for us.

    I had the same HS experience except that weed (as well as beer) was everywhere.  Most of my HS friends smoked pot every day.

    As for HS movies in the late 70’s I mentioned Breaking Away but it’s more of a post-HS movie about finding yourself.  I don’t really recall any HS focused movies during the late 70’s.  It was 20 years old, but Rebel Without a Cause was on network TV from time to time and it was somewhat still relevant to me.  

  7. 1 minute ago, utee94 said:

    Those backflow prevention check valves are a notorious weak spot.  I just always keep 2 or 3 extra for my pool system, no matter how much I wrap them they're almost guaranteed to break at least once per season.

    My problem was that I assumed there wouldn’t be any water in the valve if the water supply is cut off, the system is bled, and the valve is closed.  So I never insulated the valve itself—just the PVC above and below the valve.  It busted again during the last major freeze.  This time, I wrapped the valve very well and it did not crack.  

    • Hook 'Em 1
  8. 16 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

    During these freezes I’m tempted to turn off water at the meter and drain as much water out of the pipes as possible. Turn off the water heater as well.

    i can use bottled water to drink and fill up a few buckets for flushing the toilets and washing.

    Besides not having a hot shower for a couple of days, are there any downsides to this?

    I did this during the 2021 freeze.  But I still had a valve on my sprinkler back flow system crack.  Even if that valve is off (I’ve since learned) and the nipple valves are bled there’s a tiny amount of water in the ball valve that can freeze and crack the valve.  It wasn’t an expensive repair but the lesson is that there can be some water in the lines that can freeze even doing my best to drain the water lines.  Now, I’ve become a dripper and I make sure all exterior pipes and valves are well protected and I haven’t had any issues.  

  9. 17 minutes ago, shakahorn said:

    This wouldn't work for me.*  My heater won't kick in unless there is a 'significant' amount of water flowing through the hot side.  For example, in my guest bathroom, the hot water in the sink will never kick in, unless the hot water in the bathtub is turned on first.

     

    *I don't have this specific problem

    Same for my tankless hot water heater.  Mine is in my attic and so far it has been fine throughout the last 3 major freezes.  The neighbor next to me (similar patio home design and construction) lost her tankless heater during the 2021 freeze.  

  10. 17 minutes ago, retsevlys said:

    This was discussed at a conference I was at this past fall.  ChatGPT cited several cases.  The opposing counsel or the judge questioned those citations.  The attorney asked ChatGPT for the opinions for each of those cases.  ChatGPT gave them.  All of it was fabricated.  The attorney claimed he thought ChatGPT worked like a search engine to generate results.  I'm not an attorney, but I can't imagine that you'd assign the same task to a junior attorney and not review their work before submitting.

    https://www.reuters.com/legal/new-york-lawyers-sanctioned-using-fake-chatgpt-cases-legal-brief-2023-06-22/

    Yes, I read the transcript of the show cause hearing in the NY court. The lawyer at fault was given chances to withdraw the offending court paper and didn’t until the court issued the show cause order.  Opposing counsel initially brought it to his attention by asking for copies of the cases, letting him know that the cases did not appear to be real, and he basically ignored it.  Later, he lied to the court about vacations and other stuff as an excuse for not fixing it.  I never heard how he was sanctioned and/or disciplined.  
     

    edit:  I see from your link that they were sanctioned $5,000.  They also could face disciplinary action by the state bar.  

  11. 29 minutes ago, thunderlounge said:

    When you get a shot that makes your veins feel like they are filled with fresh lava, let me know. 
     

    25 years later and I can still vividly remember that feeling. It. Sucked. 

    Was that the old shingles shot?  The new one (double shots) has been out for 5 years or so and it also hurts going in.  I also had cold/flu symptoms that kicked in around 12 hours after both shots.  But it didn’t last too long and it shouldn’t prevent people from getting the shingrix shots.  

  12. In legal circles there’s a situation in NY in the last year or so where a lawyer used ChatGPT to do some legal research and write a brief to file with the court.  He didn’t double check the case law that ChatGPT spit out.  Turns out that ChatGPT fabricated some of the cases.  Then he didn’t come clean right away and was in some hot water with the judge.  

  13. 5 minutes ago, crash_davis said:

    I don't understand houses up North do not have to drip pipes or have frozen/busted pipes problems. How are they building things differently up there versus down here?

    Well all the warmth is sure to keep the pipes from freezing and bursting. Issue mitigated.

    The water pipes coming into the house are in a basement or otherwise buried so as not to be prone to freezing.  

  14. 6 minutes ago, locodos said:

    yeah but universally better than the shingles.   

    csb: The nurse who was gave me the shot told me the symptoms would be rough, but then she shared that for her 50th B-day she was getting the shingles vax.  Evidently she had worked in a clinic and her experience with pain management in shingles patients meant she was going to ANYTHING to avoid getting them, including spending her birthday feeling a bit low.

    This.  And the shingrix shots are very effective.  I got shingles before it was available and I was too young for the old, not very effective, shot, and as soon as shingrix hit the market my doctor said to get the two shots asap.  I know a guy who has diminished eye sight in one eye from shingles.  

    • Like 1
  15. 2 hours ago, dlatin said:

    First gumbo of the season…and got our tree switched over at the start of the year. We were gifted a king cake that lasted a day. Not bad, we normally get a Randazzo’s cake mailed to us.

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    I get a Randazzo every year from a colleague in NOLA.  Love it.  I have a hall pass Thursday and I’m making my first seafood gumbo of the season.  

  16. 1 minute ago, tx 3 putt said:


    7 is stout 

    ill be at the golf range. should play more but never do

     

    Funny thing is that I play, on average, once a week and it doesn’t seem to affect my scores.  I played 72 rounds last year-most ever, but I can go a month without playing and it doesn’t seem to matter.  

  17. 1 hour ago, tigol said:


    It will.

    My husband thought that if it is below freezing outside, you have to use emergency heat on the heat pump.

    I hit the fucking roof when I got the bill. Then I started my campaign to demonstrate how a heat pump works.

    He still doesn’t believe me. Because reasons.

    Your husband sounds like my wife.  

  18. On 1/13/2024 at 11:46 AM, jdhorn92 said:

    Heading there in a couple weeks with a group of buddies.  One of them has a house, so we should be good on local intel, but is there anything you can pass along for newb to Aspen?  Believe we are skiing Snowmass 1 day and then whatever mnt has the Cloud 9 restaurant/bar the other.  Eating at Catch one night.

    Looks like we'll be getting much better snow than you got.  Family and I were at Breck for Christmas and we had similar snow to what you described, still fun though.

    Try to get reservations at Lynn Britt Cabin on the mountain at Snowmass.  If the weather is nice, sit outside and get a drink at the outdoor bar.  Sam’s is also good and you should get reservations.  I don’t ski at Aspen Mountain so no mountain recommendations there.  But, as mentioned, for in town dining Clark’s is always good (love the cioppino).  The famous sushi places are very good.  Pretty much any of the downtown Aspen restaurants that have been open for several years are excellent if you can get in.  I like the bars at the Little Nell and I still love the J Bar at the Jerome.  One of my favorite places in Snowmass Village is Il Poggio.  I believe it’s closing in October after 30 years in business.  Just classic good Italian.  It’s still a relative bargain for the area and it has a very good wine list for the money.  

    • Hook 'Em 1
  19. On 1/15/2024 at 12:41 PM, Pam Cummings said:

    Fool Me Once is decent. This lady is a genius at getting people to watch her kid.

    We finished it last night.  For me, Maya has it all going on.  Just the right amount of cockney accent in addition to the pretty face and figure.  She seems tiny though which is not all bad.  

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