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Spaulding Smails

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Everything posted by Spaulding Smails

  1. I've noticed the exact same thing. Point to dollar value seems skewed not to mention the increase in average room rates. We've used points a few times this year, but have actually cashed out a ton with Amazon gift gards. If you don't want to use them on travel, check out the other redemption options. I have a Southwest card as well. Considering getting rid of both that and Bonvoy and moving to AMEX Platinum or something similar. We just don't travel like we used to, so I'm not getting the value any way you slice it.
  2. I've noticed the same thing. Got my first 9/9 yesterday. I struggle any time the expansion teams are present. My Topps complete sets ranged from 1985 - 1994, so my team knowledge is heavily weighted during that time frame. I would organize the set by team then player in alphabetical order and put them neatly in the 9-sleeve plastic sheets in big a binder I got from my dad's work. I think I could probably tell you Ozzie Virgil's hometown and how many games Kent Tekulve pitched in 1988 when he was on the Phillies. I got 8/9 this morning but got stumped on Rockies / Tigers. I've been consistently in the 5-7 range. There's no way that many people are baseball statistic savants to hammer 9/9 consistently.
  3. Not the best, but for chopped beef sandwiches on the river, it passes muster.
  4. I've been fortunate enough to do tons of activities that I would consider extremely Texan. But, I have two very Texan days: August 2019. Left the house around 7 AM with a few buddies and their sons, snagged breakfast tacos from Flores in Drip, picked up some BBQ from Lam's in Junction a few hours later, kayaked / fished the South Llano while drinking Lone Star and eating BBQ sammiches. Drove to the ranch around 4 PM, got in the stand and saw my son whack a big sow right before dusk, came back to the camp and grilled steaks over open coals, then wrapped up the night watching the stars as a big thunderstorm rolled in from the west around midnight. October 9, 1999. Texas-OU. Had seats on the 40, watched Major lead us to victory 38-28, hopped in the truck and drove straight to Arlington, sat down in our seats behind home plate right before first pitch, watched Roger and the Yanks clinch the ALDS against the Rangers (as a Longhorn and Astros fan, I was rooting for Roger), drove to Ft Worth and watched Robert Earl play at Billy Bob's. Caught a ride back to the hotel in Dallas. Both top 5 days of my life. And extremely Texan.
  5. Firming up our plans for CR. Arriving 8/2 to Liberia. We're staying three days at Rio Celeste Hideaway Hotel up in the jungle / mountains, then five days at the JW Marriott on the beach south of Tamarindo. Me, wife (no pics) and two kids (15 & 11). Booked a full-day offshore trip. The rest is kind of up in the air. Any must-do activities or restaurant recs in Tamarindo? And, I'm really trying to figure out if we're going to rent a car or not. I have one booked, but trying to figure out if it makes sense to do that or rely on a charter service given how spread out we are. Just looked and the JW is 30 minutes from Tamarindo. We're more "eat in town / explore" than "hang out at the resort" people FWIW. So, we're more likely to run around than stay camped out at the beach for five days.
  6. This right here. Had serious sciatic flare for the first time in my life last November. To the point I couldn't put my boots on in the morning. Had to stop on the way to and from work multiple times to get out of the truck. Started stretching 2X daily. 30 days later, it was damn near gone.
  7. It was one of the ones I missed today, but it sent me down a rabbit hole.... Since 1937, The As have only had one player with 200+ hits in a season. That's pretty incredible. My Carney Lansford guess was off.
  8. I have one Ford Lightning in my fleet. My BizDev guy drives it. He went to a DC charging station Monday, and they had the power essentially "turned down". So, instead of a 15 min charge, it took 2+ hours to charge his truck.
  9. I was working yesterday afternoon fixing some fence. I was drenched in sweat after just 30 minutes stretching barbed wire. It reminded me of the hottest I've ever felt in my life. In 2019, I was digging post holes with my uncle and cousin and it was absolutely unbearable. 100 degree heat and crazy humidity with no breeze. I felt like I was breathing through a wet paper bag that just got out of the microwave. Not official obviously, but check out the heat index from that day.
  10. If a golfer is honest with their scores, the handicap is amazingly accurate. The scores pretty much follow a bell curve exactly. Here are my last 10 scores net to my handicap: +0.7, -2.3, +1.3, +3.5, +2.3, +1.9, +0.5, -1.3, -0.4, +1.7 And, I think home course plays a big part in that too. My home course has a few configurations, but handicap and slope ranges from 68.8 / 125 to 71.4 / 137. My buddy's course is 71.0 / 137. His course is easily 3-4 strokes tougher than my 71.0 / 137 configuration. Member-Guest at my club this weekend. I like that he's a 6 because it'll post, but he'd be a 2 or a 3 if he played my course more often. Format is interesting. All scoring is net Stableford. Thursday - 18 holes: best ball Friday - 27 holes total, 9 holes: scramble, 9 holes: shamble, 9 holes: alternate shot Saturday - 18 holes: individual play Flighted. Winners of flights face off in a 3-hole shootout.
  11. We bought three of the AWS blinds plus three of their stand-and-fill feeders about five years ago. Another vote here for AWS. We have two 5' off the ground and one ground blind. All 5x5. Fit two adults comfortably. I think it was in the $500 range to have them delivered and set up west of Junction.
  12. Made chicken and waffles for supper this evening. Added two over easy eggs on top. It did not disappoint. Will do it again. Soon.
  13. Yep. It was really the only option for us given the configuration.
  14. From a privacy / sound standpoint: swing door > pocket door > barn door. But in our case, this is to the bathroom in the master. That opening is directly across from some French doors that go out to the backyard. Realistically, the only time these will be closed is if there's people over and one of us is in the shower. The bed is far enough away that light / sound should be minimal if one of us is getting ready in the morning while the other is sleeping.
  15. That's exactly what I did at the last house and it looked great. Added some horizontal cross braces as well for some detail since it just had vertical slats. We may do that on these as well. It would be super easy to pull off the wood trim I put around it and replace it with steel. We have a blackened steel fireplace in the master bedroom, so if we go that route, we'd probably just blacken the steel.
  16. I had a unique condition in our new house where barn doors were the only practical option. Stairs on one side, so no swing door. Wet walls on both sides of the opening, so no pocket doors. And, we have 12' ceilings and wanted a minimal header. So, the result was building some 11'3" x 2'6" biparting barn doors. Used some leftover reclaimed oak we had from another part of the house over 3/4" plywood cores that were glued and pocket screwed together. The build was fun, but hanging them is going to be a challenge.
  17. All of this is so true. I recently left a neighborhood where I was on the board for a spell and still keep in touch with many of the neighbors. Small neighborhood. 30 homeowners. The crap that's going on right now is incredible. One of my old neighbors forwarded me an email and it was both infuriating and comical. People on absolute power trips over irrigation of the common areas. The amount of vitriol and hate spewed is so over the top. I can't tell you how glad I am that I live on property with zero restrictions now. It's HOAs. Little League boards. Small non-profits. Volunteer organizations. In those types of groups, there's more people on a power trip than not it seems. My hypothesis is that there's an inverse relationship between the amount of power someone wields in their day job to the amount of power they crave for these other organizations. I'm not sure if it's correlation or causation. Using my old neighborhood as an example, there's several folks that are fairly successful business leaders. In some cases with 9-figure budgets to manage and hundreds of employees. And they're the most chill folks, even when in a position of authority. Meanwhile, the people thumping their chests wield minimum power in their careers or are retired. So, I'm not sure if they're in those positions because they crave that power or if it gets to their head because they don't know how to deal with it. But, the observation is spot on.
  18. Like @TexEx15 said, I have two of the Move units. Sound pretty good and connectivity is solid. We use it out back when sitting around the picnic table by the BBQ pit or on the other side of the house on the covered patio. Keep another one at the guest house. Seems to be the best option for Sonos portability. Holds a great charge too.
  19. Yep. Bullwinkle. My dad took me and some buddies down to the marina so we could watch it when they tugged it by. So, I'm guessing I'm one of those dots on the pier. I think I was about 8 or 9. Absolutely massive.
  20. Not saying it wold be impossible, but It would have to be a hell of a bridge.
  21. League average OPS is .727 so far this year. Bregman at .662 and Abreu at .527(!!!!) is so concerning. No idea what the average OPS is for those corner spots, but it's got to be higher than .727. That .200 delta for Abreu is no fluke. I remember reading an article two weeks into the season when he was batting around .300 that raised cause for concern based on the swing and miss rate and the abnormally high BABIP for that small sample set. Sounds like it was spot on.
  22. Totally worth it. The experience is as good or better than the course itself. Just absolute first class from the time you pull through the guard shack. It'll go to 11 when the permanent clubhouse is built. If you can pull off staying in one of the cabins, do it. The lighted par 3 course is a freakin blast after a nice dinner. I'll be back there in two weeks. Playing with a good friend that's a member.
  23. Not sure if they shed in trees, but I know they shed in kitchen ranges. First time I took my GF (now my wife) to the deer lease when we were dating, I opened up the door to the old pier & beam cabin, turned to my right, and there was a 6' coachwhip shed contorted around the burners on the gas range. She wasn't too thrilled. Also saw a massive blue indigo that afternoon coming back from the blind. That ranch in Live Oak County was very snakey.
  24. I mentioned it up thread, but mine is plumbed to the well also so I can top it off if necessary. The red float circled shows the water level in the tank. This is a pic from a few weeks ago right after we had 2" of rain, so about 20,000 gallons. You can kind of see the plumbing beneath the float where the plumbing from the well ties in. The big 6" PVC in the back is the overflow (which I still need to re-route around the retaining wall). The little shed style building in front is the pump house.
  25. Ours is for drinking water. We ended up drilling a well also, but only use that for irrigation and hose bibs. I ran a separate loop at the house / garage for the hose bibs so they run independent and don't draw off the rainwater. I also plumbed my rainwater tank to the well so I can fill it in the event we go through an extraordinary drought, though after seeing the volume I'm collecting I feel pretty good about avoiding that scenario. My system is nowhere near as elaborate as @troph's setup. The gray water concept is brilliant. And for the record, I absolutely think there's a market for what you've built. I'm banking on the fact that water independence will be a huge selling point in a decade or so. I'll post some pics early next week. The collection system is pretty simple. Just replaced traditional downspouts with schedule 40 PVC that we painted a galvanized color to match the roof. You realistically only need PVC at a grade below the top of the tank where the water column will max out, but we opted for all PVC so the aesthetic was consistent. The style of our house is pretty traditional, so there was no need to hide the downspouts. Just paint them. I'm guessing @troph's setup is more modern. I have about 8,500 SF of roof between the three structures that ties in to a 6" PVC main line before dumping into the water tank. Ours is a round galvanized tank with a liner. We used AgriTek out of Round Mountain. Very knowledgable and easy to work with. They installed the tank, and I had my plumber do the piping and equipment. The pictures I post next week will show the pump and filtration system. We have two pumps (for redundancy) then a sediment filtration system and a UV filtration system all mounted inside a small pump house adjacent to the tank. http://www.agritekwaterworks.com/ Though I did a well also, that's where the savings is. Plus, the water is 100X better than what I can pump out of the ground. People have commented about "how good" our tapwater tastes. I'm about $50K all-in for my 56,000 gallon system including the tank, equipment and all the piping. But, I had over 1200 LF of PVC installed based on how far everything ran, and I bought the PVC at the absolute peak of the supply chain crisis, so that number inflates the material cost significantly plus the labor to run (and bury) all those lines to the tank. The tank itself was $25K installed and the equipment (pumps and filtration) were about $10K.
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