Yes.

Let me tell you when, why, and how I learned that you need to pay attention to taxes.

I was in third grade and my class had a field trip. This was 47 years ago, so the exact details of the trip are lost to time and rusty memory. The lesson remained.

There was something that the class could purchase at the end of the day on the trip and the place only took cash and the school was not doing anything to help, except tell the kids about it and the price. Which was something like $5. I told my Mom and she handed me a $5 bill, plus a quarter, which confused my 3rd grade brain. She said to due to some strange words "sales tax, which was 5% in my state at the time. Got to school that morning and all my classmates were proud that they had their $5 bill, but none seemed to have a quarter. So I kept the presence of my quarter a secret and was a little embarrassed about it. Yes, I was young and stupid. Now I am old and stupid.

When it came time to purchase the whatsit at the end of the day, me and one other of my classmates produced a quarter to buy it. The teachers and chaperones had to cover the sales tax for the other 20 kids and they were pissed.

I went to school and learned a lesson that has stuck with me for nearly 50 years.

Mensa membership is directly correlated to taking online IQ tests.

Truly intelligent people don’t.

I’m a cook as a hobby, so typically the cost of making vs buying does not figure into my decision, except when things at the store get absurdly expensive.

A case in point: Toasted Sliced Salted Salad Almonds from Fresh Gourmet

My wife and I love these on our dinner salads so we go through a lot of them. The cost of a package of these salad almonds has risen to $7 for a 3.5oz (99g)package.

I can buy a 16oz (454g) package of raw almonds for almost the same amount of money, as the 3.5oz (99g) Fresh Gourmet package. I have an electric oven that consumes around 5kwh that runs for roughly 30 minutes during preparation and my daytime electric rate is around $0.13/kwh (I think).

Out of that I get a full pound (16oz, 454g) of salted almonds for ~$7.07 and 30 minutes of my time. I also use about $0.02 worth of salt, bringing the total cost to ~$7.09 for 4.5 times more almonds.

I also can adjust the amount of salt on them as well, as typically my wife and I like less salt that most people.

It’s also fun to do.

Learning how to type.

You either had to take typing, or some other class that I can’t remember during my junior year. The other class didn’t appeal to me at all, obviously as I cannot even remember it now, so I took typing. By happenstance my best friend was in the same class.

The class taught me a skill that I use till this day, some 38 years later.

Transistors.

The first working transistor was created in 1947. Before then it was just vacuum tubes. Less than 80 years later the modern world relies completely on its existence.

You use billions of them in your everyday life.

I’m still here.

I keep reading it, so added for comedic effect…

I’m a Gen X’er… Not sure if the Lemmy’s word limit on posts would allow me to list it all.

So here are a few:

Drank from the garden hose? Check

Rode in a car without seat belts? As a toddler? As a baby? Check

Rode my bike all over town with no helmet? Had an accident that put me in a coma for 48hrs because of not wearing a helmet? Check

Harvested tobacco on my grandparents farm? Check (Anyone who has done this by hand, working with those stakes knows the risks.)

I started skydiving in the early 90’s. My mother was absolutely appalled and constantly berated me about how “dangerous” it is to jump out of an airplane.

The truth of the matter was I was far safer in free fall than I was during most of my adolescence.

1985 Pontiac Sunbird and my parents had a 1986 Buick Skyhawk. Both were exactly the same car, just different front fascia. Same crappy 1.8L SOHC engine and terrible build quality.

Both cars blew head gaskets at 50,000 miles and my Sunbird blew it again at 65,000miles. Neither car were ever overheated. The A/C on both cars died at 60K. Various parts of the exterior and interior were just plain falling apart. The cars’ performance was absolutely abysmal.

The cars were so bad that I haven’t purchased another GM product since, nor will I ever buy another product from GM. My Dad had bought a mid-90’s Oldmobile 88 and it was actually OK for the most part. It just ate alternators, until I convinced him to put an upgraded aftermarket unit on and that problem was solved. Later he bought a Chevy Traverse and that thing was an absolute piece of trash. He had to put timing chains on it at 70k and that was a $2500 bill. The power steering also went out on it multiple times. He had the steering rack and power steering pump replaced multiple times.

I traded my old Sunbird in on a 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S and THAT was my absolute favorite car of all time. I autocrossed it for several years and it never broke. I’d love to find one to restore. I have owned multiple Toyotas in my 39 years of driving. My current car is a Camry Hybrid.

Used to work for a company that started out as a US startup for IT Services, later it was purchased by a large German company.

During its startup days, you did not dare drink alcohol at lunch time.

After being bought by the German company, you did not dare NOT to drink alcohol at lunch time. Especially if someone from Germany was visiting. They viewed it odd that we had an aversion to drinking beer at lunch.

My wife is a Rheumatologist. She actually had a patient attempt to use an article SHE WROTE to argue against her diagnosis. The article the patient was “citing” was not even applicable to the symptoms the patient presented.

55m here.

When I’d post on Reddit and started getting nothing but bots or trolls, or both I started to lose interest in it. The proverbial straw though was the API shenanigans. I used Bacon Reader on my phone, yes I know there were dozens of us, and the mobile Reddit app was crap.

So I did what any Gen’xer who was there at the dawn of the internet does… I searched for an alternative. Lemmy was one that kept popping up.

Been here ever since. Not sure how long ago that was no, 3 years? 4? I’ve slept since then.

High speed dirt man, high speed dirt.

Phone

SMS/MMS

Family Link

That’s it. Everything else can wait till I open it up.

Told a janitor to not unplug the equipment rack in a closet to plug in their vacuum cleaner. Why they thought that plugging in their vacuum there, rather than just using the outlet not 6 feet away outside the closet is beyond me.

Further, why that closet wasn’t locked in the first place. But this was almost 30 years ago and it was another time in IT.

I spoke with the janitor and she started plugging in her vacuum in the adjacent outlet. Then I went to the director of IT and got the capitol cost approved to secure all of the networking closets in the building, which there were 6, one for each floor. Only the one floor was an issue as that closet also house a sink and drain for the janitors to use. There wasn’t another place we could move the networking equipment to without laying out a lot of money.

Farscape by a long shot.

As someone that literally spent 25 years driving a manual, including various stints in racing. Manuals have seen their day.

It used to be if you wanted better mileage, you drove a manual. If you wanted to be faster on the track, drive a manual (caveat there is drag racing.)

Today? The computer is just better at controlling a transmission. I drive a Camry Hybrid now and not having shifts is REALLY weird and the drone getting up to highway speeds is annoying, but I do like the 45mpg. Not to mention, when I sat down to learn how the Toyota Hybrid Drive works… It’s a pretty clever system.

There are a lot of times that nostalgia gets the better of me and I wish I had a car with a manual. My oldest is possibly joining a skating team that is a 2 hour drive away. It’s tempting to let him use my car and then buy an older manual for myself as a toy. I’d love to get a hold of another mid-80’s Corolla GT-S. I autocrossed one back in the late 80’s early 90’s. It still remains my favorite car I’ve ever owned.

House:

No neighbors on the other side of the wall. Although, I live in a tightly packed neighborhood. My plot of land is only 10,000ft^2. That’s not the size of my house, that’s the size of my YARD. I do wish we had at least an acre. Honestly, I’d love to have 3 or 4 acres that are partially wooded, but beggars and choosers and all that.

More room to spread out. When we started having kids, we had areas we could turn into toy rooms, a dedicated bathroom for diaper changes and bathing the kids. We finished the basement two years ago and that has added even more room. I have my own personal man cave now, which is nice.

It’s a home. Meaning our property looks like how WE want it to look. We’re lucky in that we do NOT have an HOA. My wife and I love flower gardens and most of our property is taken up with flower beds. When we turn onto our street, we see our Home, not just a house. Never had that feeling in all the years I rented apartments.

For reference, I rented from 1991 to 2006. My wife and I bought our house in 2006 and have been in it ever since. This is the longest I have ever lived in one place in my entire life. Even over and above the house I grew up in. We’re about to go onto the next stage of life, as our oldest is going off the college next year and our youngest is about 3 years behind him. We might move when the youngest moves, but there are a LOT of things that will go into that decision.

I find distressed audio equipment and bring them back to life.

Here is a photo of some of the pieces I’ve worked on:

Top Shelf:

Adcom GP-555 It’s actually dead. I cannot get the left channel to work at all. Resoldered the entire signal path, replaced the opamps, cleaned the controls, bypassed the controls… Just cannot find where the issue is…

McIntosh MC7108: On/off circuit issues. This one I didn’t really fix, just bypassed the affected circuit, because I don’t care about turning it on and off via a switch. I use it every day.

Second Shelf:

Carver TFM-15cb: Needed new lights in the meters and the input level pots cleaned. That is all the one pictured needed. I have another one that required the same things, but also had to recap it. The one in the photo will need new capacitors before too long. Great sounding amps, but not very well built.

Bottom Shelf:

Soundcraftsman PRO-PA2X200: This is actually an amp my wife has owned for over 30 years. The power supply caps went out and needed to be replaced.

Here is a photo of said capacitors:

Been in a plane crash.

It was a Beech 18 that experienced fuel starvation on climb out. The pilot raised the gear and belly landed it in a freshly tilled corn field off the end of the runway. It was a lot like being in a car accident, just lasted longer with a lot more rending metal noises. The port engine was ripped off and was sitting about 50 feet behind where the plane came to rest.

It wasn’t cool, believe me…

Chili (I modified the “Joy of Cooking’s” McCleod chili recipe with fresh chilis and roasted red peppers)

Julia Child La Beouf Bourguignon (This actually gets better the longer it sits in the fridge).

Baked Ziti (Cooks Illustrated)

Chicken Tinga (Bon Appetite recipe)