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Orale

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Orale

  1. On 1/28/2024 at 11:07 AM, midtown said:

    I was in Nicaragua in last week of Oct.  Was awesome.  Esp Ometepe.  Headed to Guatemala in two weeks.  Will report back.  Panama last February.  It was OK.  I probably owe it another try.   Will hit both El Salvador and Honduras this year to close out all 7 Central America coutries

    How was El Salvador? That's on my bucket list but it's been so dangerous for years. 

  2. I’ll figure that out How to do that when I get back Next week 
    Liar ; ). I'm headed to New Delhi later this month in combination with a visit to Nepal to see the Himalayas. I'd like to do the Golden Triangle but am waffling between a driver/tour versus going by train and doing my itinerary with a local guide in Agra and Jaipur. Was the drive a pleasant one or would being able to stretch out in first class on a train have been more comfortable?
  3. You should absolutely do it. BA may be my favorite city in the world. I'm partial to Palermo which has amazing restaurants, architecture, and streets shaded with massive trees. It's very safe and quite affordable by U.S. standards, particularly with inflation there as it is.

    You might also consider a long weekend to Patagonia weather permitting. Bring lots of cash in hundreds as the ATMs were often out of cash or limited how much you could take out last time I visited. Plus you can exchange it for the blue rate which is much higher than what a bank or official money exchange will give you.

    This expat forum is a good place to learn more about a longer stay. https://baexpats.org/forums/expat-life.6/

    • Hook 'Em 3
  4. 18 hours ago, Hornbeliever said:

    @OraleNot sure how advanced you are on building and such but feel free to post your construction journey.  This stuff always interests me and I'm sure some others.

    I posted about buying raw land on hornfans or shaggy many years ago.  I remember leaving thread not as motivated and over a decade later, I'm super displeased I stopped looking (and partly because of that thread).  I ended up buying some land with a house in Fayetteville that I love years later but I was looking at winchester/round top area for raw land around 2010 and all that area has blown up in that time. 

    I even thought about buying lots of land in Tahitian village after the fire in 2011 but talked myself out of it so f me because that place is back to being nice and the $ returns would have been crazy.  

    Here's a link to the tiny house project I did on our land this year. It was a pretty straightforward process. 

     

     

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  5. 13 hours ago, immamac said:

    There seems to be an issue here on understanding what the fuck I’m saying. Fuck all these mother fuckers. Do I wish all of them were dead? Would we be better off if they were? Fuck yes. Seriously fuck every last one of these pieces of shit. Do I think the US government should be the ones doing them in? No. That’s it. That’s my stance. 

    some of you are just frothing at the mouth for some conflict or something wtf is wrong with some of you. 

    So when terrorists are attacking the seat of our democracy, you don't think the government should be the one stopping them? I'm seriously at a loss trying to understand what it is you're arguing. The whole situation is ugly, no argument. But the source of this ugliness is 100% on one side. Both-sides blaming the side trying to stop/prevent the ugliness is bizarre. 

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  6. This past year I put in a new well and new septic on raw land we have in the hill country. I'm happy to share whatever you want to know. We have power from the county, but I have a large grid-connected solar system on my primary house in the city so I know a bit about that. Our well is on a hilltop, so we had to go 800 ft deep which cost about $50k. The septic was pretty reasonable at $15k. Because our land has hard rock a foot under the soil, we had to do an aerobic (electric/mechanical) rather than a conventional passive septic system which is ideal. Permitting for both was pretty straightforward. If you can find land with an existing water source, that would save you a lot of headaches as water is key no matter where you find land imo. 

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    • Like 1
  7. Not yet I’d argue, we would undoubtedly be worse off today but probably better in the near future. 
    I desperately want young America to wake up and vote someone in who isn’t a piece of shit at any level of government. Both parties are so fucked up beyond repair, one are unable to govern because they are pussies and the other side is insane nut jobs who want to destroy the country. 
    I like you bro, but that's some both sides bullshit. Democrats have passed more substantive positive legislation under Biden than any era since LBJ.
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  8. 3 minutes ago, Jiggy-Z said:

    You do not cut rebar with torches. It was expressly forbidden in every single set of structural drawings I have seen in the last 27 years.

    In all of Trumps fancy projects, rebar would have already been fabricated and cut at the shop.

    Every once in awhile you might need to cut something, but that would be with a cut off or chop saw.

    You might see torches in some shitty residential job, but there us no need to use them since the cut off saw is so much easier in every way.

    As usual, Trumps outed themselves  while thinking they were bragging. 

    I've cut a lot of rebar with a chop saw with a metal blade for home projects. It never occurred to me to use a torch, not that I know how to safely use one. Seems like it would be a lot slower. 

  9. What would work better? I have Zoysia in the backyard, but it ended up being a mix so I am pretty unhappy about the purchase considering the cost difference. The neighbors on both sides have St. Augustine.
    I have a huge planting bed around our oak. And our tree was severely damaged the last time we had freezing rain so maybe it is time for us to take that oak out and put in something smaller. That would help a little but you can see in the pic, where the neighbor's tree is located, it causes a problem for the remainder of our front yard.
     
     
    image.png.3b6d8362eefde2da4ce8a2e5514dd6af.png
    You might consider a Mexican sycamore. Grows super fast, provides big shade, and the large leaves are easy to collect in Fall.
  10. I put in a well and septic system on a hilltop property near Comfort this past year and just finished building two tiny houses the well will serve. I've been staying at the property this week getting the tiny houses ready for use. I installed water filters under the kitchen sinks for cooking and drinking purposes, but I'd like to put in some kind of water filtration system at the well pump water outlet so that all the water going to the tiny houses is clean of any potential contaminants. 

    I've been researching options online but I admit I don't really know or understand what kind of system I'm looking for. I see carbon filtration systems, reverse osmosis, and water softener systems amongst others. They seem to vary in price from a couple hundred dollars to multiple thousands of dollars. I'm a city guy, so using well water is a new thing for me. Any advice is appreciated. I'm also going to call the company that did the well and pump today to see if they have a recommendation. 

    • Like 1
  11. 7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:


    They should be marketing the entire country to Americans as the place to retire to

    I've been a couple times and will be spending a month or two there this spring. I've thought of getting a long-term place there, but their legal system and rule of law is FUBAR and I wouldn't trust any government not to mess with property rights, particularly those of foreigners. 

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  12. 2 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

    Coming back to this, I'm thinking I might be crazy.

    We are planning on doing this with the in laws, who are 72 and 73 years old, and the MIL doesn't get around that well and hates anything outdoors, or at least anything that requires her to walk more than 100 yards.  The rest of us, including FIL, are big hikers and outdoor people.  We all also have constrained budgets right now, due to various life issues.

    If it were up to me, I'd call this whole thing off and try again in a year or so, but wife is saying this is her dad's bucket list trip and we have to do it now.  I just feel like it's going to be a nightmare on multiple fronts.  

    Only thing we have booked right now is airfare, which is refundable.  Should I be pushing to call it off?

    Can you just leave MIL in hotel/airbnb to watch tv when y'all are out and about enjoying nature? Or is she just miserable in general to have along? I loved my North Island trip last Fall. I hadn't planned on it, but ended up hiking the Tongariro Crossing which was amazing. 

  13. Thanks for all the input. After thinking about it more and realizing the challenges involved in traveling the continent, I'm changing my plans to something like three countries in the southeastern part of the continent. South Africa, perhaps Kenya, and another country TBD. I'll also be doing India and Nepal on this trip as well, so I'm going to scale back my ambition wrt Africa. I'll attach Morocco to a future Spain trip. Thanks to those who recommended a travel agent. I will for sure be using one.    

    On 11/3/2023 at 9:21 AM, Ghost of LL said:

    By the way, @Orale, what's the budget we're talking about here?

    Not sure. I don't need luxury, but I like to stay in safe (usually touristy or expat) areas. I'm pricing out flights at the moment to get a sense of costs. 

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