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gyroprotagonist

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by gyroprotagonist

  1. 1 hour ago, torre said:

    Interesting conversation.    Should leasing be included in the exchange ?

    I have never leased,  always considered/tempted.

    (could not find figures for '23,  article from June '23)

     

    • About 18% of new cars were leased in Q3 2022.
    • Lease payments are generally less expensive than financing payments on a new car.
    • The average car lease payment in Q2 2022 was $540 per month, and the average lease term is 36 months.
    • Leases also may require down payments, plus acquisition fees up front.
    • You face additional fees when you return the car at the end of the lease.
    • https://www.investopedia.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-lease-a-car-5186685

    I have leased twice in my life.  (many moons ago) My work had a car allowance and i had to get a certain type of car (no truck/SUV allowed at the time).  So leased a sedan to get the payment close to the allowance.  First lease term is up and I went to Carmax to get a quote and their buy price was above the residual/balloon payment so I went ahead and sold it Carmax and pocketed the difference.  Saved me from having to buy new tires as well.  Second time i shopped around, but it was cheaper to turn the lease in as the used value was lower than the residual.

    I would think it would be a no brainer to get financing at anything < 3% when your money can sit FDIC insured and earn 5%.  If the rate dips at the bank, then pull the trigger and pay off the note.

    Cars are just crazy stupid expensive now.  

  2. Just got back yesterday.  Got to play golf in 80-85 degree weather on Friday (Bali Hai).  Rain stopped about 15 minutes before our tee time.  Think it rained a little later in the afternoon and again some on Saturday.  Saturday was high of 83 I believe.  Did not stop the pool parade at the Cosmo though.

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  3. 16 hours ago, MC Fresh Breath said:

    I would add that  somewhere around the time we get back to taxing the wealthy properly like we used to please go ahead and tax all churches. 

    that's about the only thing 'make america like it was before civil rights again' does not want to mirror.  91% tax rate on the top bracket.  lol

    it was 70% until 1982

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  4. On 8/26/2023 at 5:50 PM, Francisco 2.0 said:

    Thought about posting this in the Herschel thread as a follow up for Matt Schlapp, but eh.  Matt has more allegations against him of sexual misconduct from...younger men.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/08/26/matt-schlapp-cpac-sexual-misconduct-allegations/

     

     

     

     

      Reveal hidden contents

    Schlapp did not respond to requests for comment.

    “I will continue to pray that the difficulties they are encountering will be dealt with openly and honestly,” Gerow said in a statement released after his resignation. “I am calling on my former colleagues to authorize an independent investigation into the charges against Matt Schlapp, to conduct an independent forensic audit of the organizations finances, to obtain a written opinion of counsel that the organization is in full compliance with its own bylaws and all applicable law and to thoroughly review all the exit interviews of the large number of staff who have recently left.”

    CPAC did not respond to requests for comment on the new sexual harassment allegations. But in response to Gerow’s resignation, CPAC said in a statement on Friday: “CPAC remains committed to compliance. Having a board that is unified toward the goal of defeating the left and winning on important issues and in the next election is critical to saving America.”

    Longtime member Morton Blackwell said he was not aware of any other allegations of sexual misconduct against Schlapp but acknowledged “there are problems, and I am looking forward to the next board meeting so we can discuss them.”

    Gerow’s resignation is the third by a member of the board’s eight-member executive committee in recent months. When ACU treasurer Bob Beauprez quit in May, he wrote a resignation letter saying he had “lost confidence” in the organization’s financial statements, blamed Schlapp for excessive staff departures and suggested that violations of the organization’s bylaws could expose the organization to lawsuits or criminal prosecution.

    In the lawsuit filed in January in Virginia, GOP operative Carlton Huffman accused Schlapp of groping his genitals while driving Schlapp to his hotel in Atlanta after campaigning for Senate candidate Herschel Walker. Call logs, texts and videos provided by Huffman and his confidants to The Post and in his lawsuit matched his account, and six family members and friends and three Walker campaign officials confirmed to The Post that he told them about the alleged incident that night or the next day.

    Schlapp has acknowledged drinking with Huffman that night but denied making any sexual advances. The lawsuit is in the discovery phase.

    Gerow’s resignation letter also raised concerns about the organization’s potential liability for legal costs in the Huffman case, according to people familiar with the letter.

    In a previous message to the board that was obtained by The Post, Gerow said he was repeatedly refused requests to inspect the organization’s finances, in particular hoping to review the insurance coverage for the legal costs. Gerow’s message said he received a response from CPAC’s general counsel, David Safavian, saying he could not copy any documents, which Gerow said conflicted with D.C. law giving the directors of nonprofit organizations the right to “inspect and copy the books, records, and documents of the corporation.”

    “Any failure to comply with D.C. or other law and our bylaws potentially provides the ‘ammo’ to fire at us,” Gerow said in his earlier message to the board. “Sadly, this follows several warnings from other directors and former officers about our noncompliance with our own by laws and the laws under which we operate.”

    Safavian then replied with a message, apparently intended for someone else, saying he planned to take Gerow off the board at a meeting this month.

    Safavian did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Another former employee, Regina Bratton, notified the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in January of plans to sue over claims that she was fired in retaliation for complaining about a co-worker’s sexist and racist comments. Schlapp and CPAC have not responded to questions about Bratton from The Post.

    ACU was founded in the wake of Barry Goldwater’s loss in the 1964 presidential election to nurture the conservative movement. The flagship CPAC conference has become a blockbuster gathering for activists and politicians. Schlapp became chairman in 2014 and expanded into international conferences while making himself a prominent surrogate for former president Donald Trump.

     

     

     

    Schlapp, Schlapp, Schlapping sounds...

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  5. 1 hour ago, Snake Diggity said:

    The replies on that tweet are some of the scariest shit I’ve ever read on the Internet.  It’s depressing as fuck to know there’s that many people out there that believe shit like that and who are aggressively against things like sourcing information.  Fuck me running.

    yeah, granted twitter is more like an echo chamber, but the fact that most of the replies were not calling that account an effing idiot and were in fact nodding their heads is pretty pretty scary.

  6. errbody better get liquid.  bully is coming.  full send.  #altseason #uponly.  

     

    That Bored Ape suit seems laughable.  You mean to tell me that celebrities 'feign interest for financial enrichment'?   no effing way!?!  The sales on platforms like opensea, blur, looksrare are even more crooked as buyers set up fake wallet after wallet to bid up a collection, start buying a few and then dump all their bags once there is even a smidgen of volume.  

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  7. 32 minutes ago, 66BUFF said:

    Odd fucking hobby.

    thatsmyfetish.gif ?

    I just have a 2K Honda to run a few things if the grid goes down.  Should probably get another one to run in parallel.  I converted to to run on LP as I don't want to mess with keeping gas, rotating said gas, etc... bought a big ass propane tank (you can refill them at Uhaul rent centers) and keep a few of the smaller 20lb tanks around as well.  I've run fridge, fans, TV/internet and some lamps.  

     

     

  8. yeah, we had record sales/profits when we were 100% working from home due to covid.  our business benefitted greatly from people getting covid bux from Uncle Sam.  

    we had been working 2 home/3 office for a while and got the  notice last week we are going to 1 home/4 office starting Q4ish and the 'excuse' was that profits are down so we need more 'collaboration'.  

  9. On 8/2/2023 at 1:59 PM, FirstTimeCaller said:

    For you old guys, what do y'all recommend most for the younger folks on here? Things to do, things not to do, etc.

    I've watched both parents get older... and it doesn't seem to be fun. Weight seems to be an issue affecting lifestyle, as well as simply staying in motion. Lots of bad joints, which limits mobility, which increases weight, which limits mobility in a vicious cycle.

    I read this book about a year ago:

    image.jpeg.ac9f0733d4dce5442800545183b08382.jpeg

    It's geared toward people in their 60s, but I thought it had a lot of great stuff to consider for people of any age. Watching parents get older has really put me on a kick where I'm thinking about aging quite a bit.

     

    not quite old yet at 49, but a couple things i wish i had kept up on or what i am doing now

    - I call it reverse atrophy training.  planks, light/body weight strength exercises just to keep muscles from shrinking and keeping the core strong.  Helps with back pain and helps with lethargy from my desk job.  a few months ago i started small at home and now hit the gym at work for 20-30 minutes at lunch 3 days a week.  will never get swol but hitting the major muscle groups at least once makes a huge difference.

    - don't be afraid to spend money on docs.  get cortisone shots, minor surgeries if you need them. my shoulders are pretty crappy with arthritis.  not much i can do other than i had a bone spur removed and i get shots in both shoulders at least once a year now.  

    - all of the above to keep doing 'young' stuff like playing pickup ball with my son at the gym, travelling a lot more/booking ski/snowboardng trips while you can still go hard

    - i was always blessed with good metabolism and have not had to battle weight issues, but it's starting get harder and harder to maintain my weight and still eat enjoyably.  The saying that you cannot out-exercise your mouth is pretty true.  weight loss is about diet more than exercise, imo

    - i have not really curbed my intake, but alcohol is very inflammatory to my joints...but mezcal is so good.  

     

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  10. On 8/2/2023 at 3:31 PM, Ojo Rojo said:

    We have a special needs kid who can't stay in school or most camps.  We frequently get called to pick him up.  I am a lawyer; my wife is a personal trainer. Ironically, I generally have more flexibility in my job than she does, except when I don't.  When she is with a client, which is all the time she is working, she cannot take calls or leave.  If I am in court or a deposition or a client meeting, I REALLY can't leave.  Today I had a client meeting when I got a call from the camp to pick him up. Because my wife is almost totally unavailable an hour at a time, I didn't know if she would be able to respond or what, so I made the decision to go get him myself.  I asked another lawyer to cover the meeting (he was going to be in it anyway) and I left my office and texted my wife that I'm getting him and will take him to my office until she can pick him up.  This has happened numerous times before.

    Since the last time, however, two things have happened.  1. My wife got busted for cheating the time clock at work (long, complicated story that is not entirely her fault, but still) so her hours are being heavily scrutinized and she has to meet a minimum or we lose our health insurance, 2. her step-brother is coming to town to visit her diminishing step-father today and she's picking him up from the airport. So it's complicated, which is why I was trying to make it less complicated by eliminating a variable - what fucking time can you come pick up our son from my office?

    I texted her asking what time she would be able to pick him up.  I was more than willing to leave early or whatever I needed to do, but I didn't know when she might be able to pick him up.  I was expecting an answer that ended in "o'clock."  Instead, I got a bunch of words, none of which was "o'clock." Some of the words had to do with the time clock issue and picking up her brother from the airport. Then, when I complained about her not answering the question she says, "Fine! I'll just come get him now!" She's all pissed at me now.  WTMFF?

    is picking up someone from the airport still a thing?  can step-bro not install uber on his phone?  i can't imagine asking someone to waste an hour or more of their time (especially middle of workday) to save $20.

     

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  11. On 7/27/2023 at 9:48 PM, BearSchlong said:


    Families with small kids were told they could board between A and B. Fatass lazy adults who knew how to game the system boarded ahead of A with the truly disabled.

    Meanwhile on an AA flight the next week I turned down an upgrade to first to sit with my wife. (our reservations weren't linked, as we were meeting at an airport midway into a trip, and I'm the one with status.)

    yep, so many people get healed on the flight that the number of wheelchairs needs miraculously goes down upon arriving.

    flight back from Maui and my wife got the upgrade to first and said peace out, you can sit with the kids.  i don't blame her one bit.

  12. 2 hours ago, The Royal We said:

    A lot of these same fucksticks screech about "faITh OvER fEAr" when talking about vaccines, but have so little faith that God will protect them in the gym that they feel the need to strap up.

    I took my daughter to breakfast yesterday and the dude at the table next to us had a poorly concealed gun under his shirt. We were in a cafe on the town square where the population is <35k. Not exactly fucking Fallujah in 2004.

    you should have thanked the 'good guy with a gun' for his service and covered his bill, jerk.

  13. have trips to Whistler (flying) and CB (driving, i think although weighing the JSX option) and 90% going to pull the trigger on Portillo for July next year.  wife is on board, just have to work out all the kids' HS sports bullsht and how early they start prior to actual classes.  Want to go as late in July as possible i think to get the best snow. 

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  14. 57 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

    I don't know if I would put up with it for this.

     

    yvnyn4uazpfb1.jpg

    with that salary they are essentially saying, hey come here and be a full time host, sharpen your skills, hone your craft to go make money somewhere else if you can.

    I, unfortunately use to work for a place with a similar mindset.  they would only hire engineers after big layoffs in the sector and offer shit to start.  the actual work was cool, but the pay, not so much.  so they could not be surprised when people leave to get what they (at least think they) are worth.

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  15. On 5/26/2023 at 9:49 AM, CowboyFred said:

    Will they ever do assigned seating? 

    read an article the other day that said they tried a pilot program with assigned seating a few years ago.  I think out of San Antonio and one other city.  Said it increased boarding time by 1-4 minutes.  Which i guess every minute counts.  I don't think it's written in stone though.  I think the other airlines have figured out that they can advertise their economy seats' low fare, but then rake in more dollars by charging for window/aisle, premium economy etc... 

     

     

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