BESIDES MEH, WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR COOLEST PURCHASE OF 2019?

@lisaviolet I just saw the bill for my walking boot that got processed through insurance, hasn’t gotten to me yet. That alone will be $250. I should have just went to Amazon and got one for $50.

Good luck at your appointment! I have an MRI in 2 hours.

@lichme @lisaviolet My DH doctor just tells him which brace to buy. He said it is insane what the charge is to get them through insurance. (DH tripped on a cat and caught himself on the stair rail. He has a boxer’s fracture that is driving us both nuts with the healing time. I guess it is better than a cracked skull at the bottom of the steps but some days I wonder )

@lichme @lisaviolet

The way insurance and as a result, non-insurance prices those walking boots and back braces is a pure and simple shakedown.

Hard plastic and foam. $5-10 in materials.

Our son injured his back last year at a climbing gym and the back brace was $1,000. The medical supply service acted like they were doing us a favor since it was out of pocket for our high deductible insurance - they’d charge the insurance company $1,200!?!

For an 18 inch by 18 inch piece of plastic.

I could perhaps understand separately paying their fitting specialist (no college degree) $100, even $200 for 10 minutes to size it before ordering (still crazy)… but a thousand dollars for a hunk of plastic should be literally criminal.

Learning and saving: order 2-3 of the boots or braces online in different sizes and either return, sell, or simply throw out the extras.

@lichme @RedOak Before I had surgery, we got a call from a medical supply company that our doctor had called so they could bring us equipment. We never needed them to bring equipment. I cancelled the delivery.

I already had canes, we borrowed a rollater from his brother and I bought a walker with front wheels from Amazon, less than $30.

No, thank you, insurance, we’ve got this.

Oh, the before/after appointments and the surgery costs were around $65K.

@lichme @lisaviolet @speediedelivery

@lichme That’s crazy.

(I very nearly posted about the drill press I found on clearance last week before I remembered this. I guess it still hasn’t quite sunk in yet, despite all the work I’ve been doing over there.)

@dannybeans

That is wonderful! I hope your tree farm turns out well. : )

@f00l Thanks.

The beauty of the project is that there’s very little financial risk. Besides the land - which we were going to buy either way, and didn’t go into debt over - the biggest expense is the trees, and we can get those for less than a dollar each. So if we start small and plant 200 a year for the next six years (using equipment borrowed from my father-in-law) and then nothing ever comes of it, we now have a wooded lot and only spent about a grand in the process. A lot of work, yeah, but the kind of work I like to do in my spare time anyway.

@dannybeans

Yah, drill presses are cool. But land is even better!

@dannybeans That’s very cool. I’m assuming you don’t live anywhere near me. I don’t think I could find 12 acres of empty residential land around. Closest thing is a house for sale on 12 acres that was listed for $5.5 million. Good luck with it! If the trees don’t work out as a business, maybe you could either decorate them and create a giant Christmas display, or build it into an amazing Halloween haunt.

@cinoclav It’s all about location. This is on a dirt road 15 miles from the nearest town of more than 1,000. Pure unincorporated farmland, with a county drainage easement running through it that prevents much more building than what’s already on it, but not planting. And that makes it perfect for us.

Not to put too fine a point on it, we didn’t even pay a twentieth of your number.

@cinoclav @dannybeans @f00l
That’s some nice premium farmland.
I just checked my neck of the woods; most comparable thing I could find is 10.25ac in Tarrant County, TX (just a bit NW of Ft Worth) - $245k.
…not far from the Eagle Mountain Lake and FM 730. Mobile home, 2 septic systems, deep storm cellar and other storage-type outbuildings. The land could easily be developed for RV or mobile home park, or just a great place for a home with land. Mostly pasture, but the entire property is loaded with trees; horses are permitted. At the back is a great place to build your dream home. Road frontage is approx.170’ & over 1600’ deep & 514 across the back.

@cinoclav @compunaut @dannybeans

For a Christmas tree farm in Texas, perhaps someplace around Mineola?

/image Mineola

@dannybeans nice…and you could always build a baseball field

@f00l I’ve got friends in Mineola! And the land right behind their back yard would be perfect for Christmas trees…

@cinoclav @compunaut @f00l Mineola looks shockingly similar to my hometown in Indiana. Let’s see what the Image tag makes of this:
/image Columbia City

edit: Hey, not bad. Would’ve been more obvious from a different angle.

@compunaut
When do you move? Sounds great for a horse farm or even just a wonderful back yard! Where you even looking to buy or are you just comparing?

@capguncowboy LOL…

@capguncowboy Make sure you store 'em right. Those things tarnish really easily.

@earlyre turn your phone sideways then you should see the icon

@earlyre nice man…congrats…

@lseeber very nice…what brand appliances?

@fastharrydotcom Kept my appliances since they were already fairly new… Whirlpool. Everything else is new.

@Barney

Kudos. Be proud and conten! No way to have buyers remorse if you don’t buy it!

@Barney yet

@RedOak My gf’s brother in law works for our township driving the trash and recycling trucks. It’s amazing the amount of stuff he’s salvaged and brought home. Most bizarre is probably the 4+ foot tall plastic yellow M&M display. Something like this guy:

@cinoclav ironically in this case, we’re already using an old Olevia 19" flat panel TV (from the early flat panel days, bought at Microcenter) in the garage. That one has an old Analog tuner so it has one of those free from the FCC, digital converter boxes.

@cinoclav it is incredible what folks throw out rather than donating.

I regularly pickup and take perfectly good curb find stuff to the Salvation Army.

But interesting experience we’ve found is the better (still usable) curb stuff tends to be in moderate to middle income neighborhoods. Wealthy neighborhoods nearby us apparently donate or downstream to family 'cause it ain’t at the curb.

@cinoclav @RedOak cool.

@cinoclav @RedOak Sometimes there are some of us older females that cannot lift or haul the stuff (no truck) and sometimes, they won’t come and pick it up. I’ve tried.

@cinoclav @lseeber @RedOak the last time I called to have some furniture picked up it was between 1-2 months for most places. Ended up listing it on Craig’s list as curb side, come and get it. Half of it got picked up at least.

@cinoclav @lseeber @RiotDemon

Perhaps you live in areas with less developed charities.

In our medium-sized metro market, we have several competing charities for a range of needs from (still usable) general merch to appliances to furniture to construction materials.

In cases where something was large and we wanted it picked up, I don’t recall ever having to wait more than a week for it to be gone.

Another avenue in our area, depending on timing is church and school fundraiser “garage/rummage sales”. They often arrange for larger donated items to be picked up.

Sometimes it requires some patience, hassle, etc… but the payoff in helping someone out is well worth it. (The garage isn’t for cars anyway!)

@cinoclav @RedOak @RiotDemon I lived too rural. They said they wouldn’t drive more than 13 miles and that had to be for a lot of stuff. I had closed down a flea market outlet I had with CASES of brand new stuff… some really good stuff too… and was donating it. I did finally get the downtown rescue mission to drive out. It was a couple grand worth of stuff. The other places that wouldn’t (except the Salvation Army… they are my fav charity) will never see a penny from me now. Went thru the same thing when my husband passed suddenly. a bunch of stuff… good stuff. nope.

@cinoclav @lseeber @RiotDemon

Agreed on Salvation Army. Our default as well.

@cinoclav @lseeber @RedOak @RiotDemon

I also like the Samvation Army, but they have no easily accessible close-by donation center.

When I had lots of good stuff recently going out, I rented a u-haul and drove it to a local Goodwill that was quite happy to receive the items.

@cinoclav @f00l @lseeber @RiotDemon

We’d almost throw the stuff out before donating to "Good"will… well, Ok, we’d patiently wait for a church rummage sale if no Salvation Army were available.

There are two warring Goodwill organizations in our area. And their bad blood spills out into public occasionally.

@compunaut Oh. My. Gawd. I lust for that saw. You made a good find there - it’s going to last you longer than pretty much any comparable new bandsaw you can buy, even Delta itself. Pre-1960 American tools are just about the best ever made.

@OldCatLady Congrats! That’s huge!!!

@OldCatLady Congratulations! Welcome to the 30%! I don’t know what anoles and sandspurs are but maybe you should have your doctor look at that.

Not sure about sandspurs but anoles are those cute little green lizards similar in a way to Chameleons in the fact that they will change colors to blend in. But they’re cuter.

@OldCatLady @therealjrn You know how some people talk about the excruciating pain of stepping on legos with bare feet?
These people have never encountered sand spurs.

@therealjrn You made me go look up stuff. Census says 34% of owners do hold clear title. It also says 65% of people who have income over the national median family income own/have mortgages. One more piece is what percentage of people have none of the above, i.e. either rent or are homeless. It’s hard to unearth a consensus opinion. Numbers and definitions are being slippery.

@OldCatLady Yeah, I looked it up before I issued you your membership card…I used the more conservative 30% because well, I’m a conservative guy.

@lseeber plus they do that really neat ‘push-up’ thing where they puff out their throat to intimidate you…
When my daughter was younger she occasionally used these as ear danglers by letting them clamp onto her earlobes. (No, she never had any salmonella troubles…)
Sand spurs on the other hand SUCK! I used to hate it when some would hitch hike back from Pensacola beach on our shoes etc then get loose in the house. Yes, they are WAY worse than Legos.

@chienfou Yeah… It’s funny to watch the anoles. They’re cute. I picked them up all the time. Usually they were fine but sometimes they clamped on. One time one bit so hard and wouldn’t let go I was afraid I’d have to kill it to get it off but I know I couldn’t bring myself to do it anyway. Finally it let go. But I was never worried about catching anything from them. pfffft.
I looked up the sandspurs. I’m well familiar with them and the pain they inflict…just didn’t know that’s what they were called. I thought they were just “those little prickly things”.

@lseeber if that ever happens again you can put your hand in a bucket with water in it and the critter will let go rather than drown…

@chienfou Good idear! I was gonna start telling people he was jewelry. Hubby was too busy laughing for the first 10 mins to help, lol.

@therealjrn I bought my fridge in 1989. I have a feeling it’s on its last legs. Sad.

@therealjrn New people barely last 30 years, let alone appliances.

There it is!

@therealjrn looks nicer than the Haeir I got from Sam’s/Costco a few years back. Definitely worth the dedicated chest freezer to stock up and freeze food when it’s on sale. Also, a mostly-full freezer is more efficient than an empty one. Just don’t overload it with ice cream in case the power goes out.

@mike808 Thanks! It’s an inexpensive Magic Chef from Home Depot. It was $168.00 and I used PayPal so I got 6 months interest free which I didn’t really need, but I’m taking it anyway It even has a LED light on the inside lid when you open it so that’s a nice touch.

No ice cream anymore at the TRJ household–it’s full of meat and vegetables–I’ve lost 40 pounds in the last 4 months but I’ve still got a ways to go…

@therealjrn Congrats on the wt loss!

@chienfou @therealjrn
How’s your weight loss journey going these days @therealjrn, did the Covid lockdown effect you in any way? As far as eating and losing weight is what I meant. I’m just now starting my journey to a new and improved “me”. After gaining about 50-70 pounds in the last 2 years and NOW being diagnosed with diabetes it’s time to get serious about being healthy! I’ve never been one to be a chubby checker and it doesn’t feel good! Seems like I just woke up FAT one day! Funny how that happens… Hmm

@chienfou @Lynnerizer I’ve kind of slowed down but my A1C is pretty good–prediabetic levels anyway. It’s at 5.3 which is WAY down from where I started. I try to keep my glucose under 120 even with meals. That’s pretty hard core though, my doc said to try for under 140 which is a good place to start. Every body reacts to different food. Rice, for example causes my blood sugar to soar while refried pinto beans doesn’t cause me too many problems. But YMMV.

I’ve bought some exercise equipment that I need to use more but I’m down 60 lbs. Sorry about your diabetic diagnosis Lynn…but good news is there are some nice resources about getting your numbers back in line. If I only had to pick one, I would choose this private facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/reversingdiabetes

There’s other stuff and forums out there but that’s where I would recommend diabetic friends to start.

Good luck on your journey!

@carl669 Don’t you mean pretty fucking cool?

Because that sounds pretty fucking cool.

/image pretty fucking cool

@therealjrn i didn’t want to be vulgar.

@carl669 Have a biscuit Carl

@Barney me too! I got some blue ones. And the largest size, the men’s 9/women’s 11 must be a TINY 11 because those babies do not fit my women’s 11 feet

@moonhat I didn’t even get the chance to wedge my feet into my clawgz. They ran out before they got to my order.

@Barney ooooh I get it. Did they not tell you right away they were out??

@moonhat I was notified today.

@moonhat Nice!

@RiotDemon Ha! I didn’t even see your “little things” comment before posting mine. Like minds of semi-evil intent - nice!

@mfladd Goose Island root beer is amazing. You can get what I’m 99% sure is the same product by the case at Costco. I say 99% because the brand name they sell it under is WBC, but the packaging and ingredients are otherwise completely identical.

@dannybeans @mfladd Looks that way. https://www.beveragesdirect.com/products/goose-island-root-beer

@mfladd very cool!

@cinoclav @dannybeans @mfladd
Jeeze, almost $33.00 for 12 bottles of root beer is mighty steep! I DO love me some root beer, but IDK…

@chienfou Sounds grand! My daughter just recently returned from a trip to Strasbourg/Alsace but she made a jaunt to Paris for a bit. Some friends of hers own a castle and vineyard near Nice somewherel (well… their grandparents do). They were recently here for a visit but I would def like to visit there.

@chienfou @lseeber Hm…near nice? So it was just OK? hah.

@chienfou @therealjrn haha… clevah!

@lseeber It was. Learned long ago I do better spending money this way than on ‘things’

@chienfou Understand that. I like both, lol. Things and places. Lots of times, things from the places I go. I have a black belt in shopping

@mfladd

@f00l I know. Luckily, it is small, aluminum, and has an older two stroke engine I can actually work on.
But the entertainment value, and bonding time with the kids will be priceless. You can actually even tube behind an aluminum boat with a 15hp engine.

@mfladd

I foretell your kids asking/whining to get off the boat and go back to online gaming.

/giphy online gaming

@f00l

@f00l @mfladd When I was a kid, if you got me on a boat, it was hard to get me back off… I loved it. Still do!

@mfladd

Cheer up! Your kids will stab you in online gaming!

/giphy gaming warfare

@mfladd

One of the coolest things you could do for them, if you can figure out the trick (which is not easy), is to get them addicted to some form of physical activity that’s good life-long.

I dunno. Tennis? Jogging/running?

Or get a treadmill and/or elliptical and/or stair-climber (way cheap off Craigslist) and offer privileges for the regular use of it.

Another great thing to get your kids into right now is an intro to healthy cooking. Cheap and fast and easy to do.
So that they will never be helpless, and stuck with pizza and Uber Eats as their only easy options.

I know if some parents who are using these delivery planned-meal-ingredient services (Blue-something? Or similar?) and teaching the kids to do the cooking from there. Nice thing is that the recipes are reasonably healthy and tasty, and it’s hard to screw it up.

Some cookbooks make for excellent cultural reading as well. Depends on how they are written.

@connorbush How’d you get it so cheap? $399 is an insane price. Paying for the logo.

@Fuzzalini They were on closeout at the local stores and then I applied the 20% mailer coupon.

@connorbush @Fuzzalini Nice score- we’ve been Parrotheads since the 70’s…

@connorbush @Fuzzalini Way to work the system!!

@blaineg And I actually learned two things from that video.

@blaineg Want.

Don’t need, but do want.

@tinamarie1974 aweee…you smell pretty!

@lseeber So I guess we’re all ready for the economy war that’s coming?

@Fuzzalini Any war.

@lseeber price?..you can whisper it to me

@spitfire6006006 Nice, still sitting on a 1070, thinking of waiting a few gens before upgrading again.

@FeralRants Yeah I was still using a 760 and the graphics card was the last piece I hadn’t replaced, so it was time.

@spitfire6006006 760, oh man. A well-deserved upgrade then. Congrats enjoy those extra frames.

@spitfire6006006 What did you do with the removed 760 card?

@DennisG2014 Snazzy.

@sammydog01 grr… I edited to tell the whole story of how I ended up with it and my general review of it, but it got lost when I submitted it.

Let’s see if I can make a long story short…
It’s a major downgrade from my WRX, I bought it on impulse because I couldn’t find anything else similar to the WRX with manual transmission, which I wanted to stick with (pun not intended). I don’t love it, but I do like it (I did love my WRX, until a couple of years ago when it started hemorrhaging money for repairs). Had been shopping for the perfect replacement for my dying WRX for over a year, but there was just nothing I really wanted. Couldn’t wait for another problem with the WRX so, I decided to lower my standards and just lease, which made me feel a lot freer to chose a car that wasn’t “the one”. This was the first car I was able to test drive w/ MT and I liked it well enough, so I just said, “ok, I’ll take it”.

I have quite a few minor complaints, but I think I’ll be able to live with them until the lease is up.

Most annoying thing is the Toyota infotainment suite is a brick without a smartphone (which I don’t have). It’ll do am/fm and 3 months trial SiriusXM and that’s it - no integrated nav without a smartphone, no personal music collection w/out a bunch of wires.

So, that brings me to my next cool (I hope) purchase - had planned on keeping my flip phone until it no longer functioned, but the car forced my hand; ordered an iPhone SE from Apple clearance last night.

I’m actually considering keeping my flip phone and just using the iPhone to power my car’s infotainment system. We’ll see… I know nothing about smartphones and the service plans you need for them to work.

Oh well, this was only a little shorter than the one I wrote that got lost, but it’ll do.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@sammydog01 I do like the way it looks, it’s one of the reasons why I chose it over the former front-runner, the Mazda 3 hatch, which is much faster, AWD, MT not available yet (and probably not w/ AWD) but most of all, the new design of the 3 hatch is just butt-ass ugly.
If I could’ve leased an '18 Mazda 3, I’d have done that, they’re so much nicer looking than the '19.
But yeah, anyway, the first thing I’ve said to everyone I’ve shown it to is, “it’s not nearly as fast as it looks.”
100hp less than my previous car - very sedate - will take some getting used to.

@DennisG2014 @sammydog01

Nice! That Rose Gold is going to clash with the black car, though.

I’ve been a member of the “not nearly as fast as it looks” club with a base Veloster for almost eight years now. Wanted something with a stick and at least one back door for baby girl at the time, and to get out from under a Saturn Astra that ate alternators, made me hate automatic transmissions, and was about to come out of warranty. So many people say it looks fast, and I hate to inform them that it’s not. But other than that it’s been a wonderful car.

@djslack I got gold!
Also - if I didn’t like the Corolla, the Veloster N was the next car I was going to look at. I probably would’ve liked it better, but I was just so done w/ car shopping. Maybe in 3 years.

@DennisG2014 Congrats! They only had rose gold 32gb when I looked yesterday, my mother in law’s old iPhone battery is starting to crap out and I was upgrade spotting for her.

I’d love an N, they look like a blast. There’s a video out there of one on the nurburgring, it sounds good and looks competent.

@djslack Being a smartphone virgin, I have a ton of questions, but let me ask you one…
The iPhone I’m getting is 32gb, I have about 30gb of music in iTunes; will I be able to load the music onto the phone and still have room for… whatever else?
Do apps take up much space? The only other thing I can see competing for space would be pics and video and, at least at first, I don’t intend to do much of that.
Alternately, can my music collection be uploaded to and streamed from the cloud instead of taking up space on the phone?
(I’m not interested in a subscription streaming service like Spotify; I want my music and my playlists.)

It’s funny - in the '90s, I was a bleeding-edge Apple power user but I started falling behind when smartphones hit the market. Now, I’m practically a luddite.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

edit: one more question - Any suggestions for a rugged case for the SE?

@DennisG2014 Apps can and do take up a fair amount of space, depending on what they are. Navigation, for example, can want to cache a lot of maps that can take up space.

I’m not an expert here, my iPhone is my work phone so I don’t have a lot of stuff on it, but I believe there is an option to store your music in iCloud and stream to your phone. There is also selective sync in iTunes if you don’t want to sync your entire library.

I have always liked the OtterBox defender as a rugged case. They’re not the cheapest but they have a lifetime warranty with pretty much no questions asked. They are very sturdy, if they’re not too bulky for you.

@djslack Thank you!

@macromeh My uncle had the Model 29 44 Mag with the 8 3/8" barrel. It was a fun gun to shoot.

He also had a shoulder holster for it, and that thing was ridiculous! (In the best sense of the word). The end of the barrel rode well below my belt line, and you had to draw UP considerably to clear the holster.

@macromeh @fastharrydotcom Borderlands 2 has an overpowered revolver called the Unkempt Harold. It took me way too long to catch the reference.

@blaineg Dirty Harry’s Model 29 (my friend’s, not Clint Eastwood’s) was also 8 3/8" barrel, in polished nickel with rosewood grips. It was a handful, but it shot really well. He paid what seemed like a lot for it back in the late 70’s, but I’m sure it would be a bargain today.