Random thing you love right now that doesn't deserve its own thread

I’m walking my dog and the weather is just absolutely perfect!

RawkGWJ wrote:

I’m walking my dog and the weather is just absolutely perfect!

The weather here in Newport, OR is also perfect. I am celebrating with a chimenea fire and BBQing some chicken legs on the Webber that I had in the freezer.

Why do you keep your Weber in the freezer?

Robear wrote:

Why do you keep your Weber in the freezer?

So the body doesn't rot before you have a chance to cook it.

The University of Alberta (through Coursera) is offering a FREE 12-week course entitled Indigenous Canada.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/indig...

Indigenous Canada is a 12-lesson Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. Topics for the 12 lessons include the fur trade and other exchange relationships, land claims and environmental impacts, legal systems and rights, political conflicts and alliances, Indigenous political activism, and contemporary Indigenous life, art and its expressions.

(Note, I am not associated with this in any way.)

mudbunny wrote:

The University of Alberta (through Coursera) is offering a FREE 12-week course entitled Indigenous Canada.

https://www.coursera.org/learn/indig...

Indigenous Canada is a 12-lesson Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the Faculty of Native Studies that explores Indigenous histories and contemporary issues in Canada. From an Indigenous perspective, this course explores key issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. Topics for the 12 lessons include the fur trade and other exchange relationships, land claims and environmental impacts, legal systems and rights, political conflicts and alliances, Indigenous political activism, and contemporary Indigenous life, art and its expressions.

(Note, I am not associated with this in any way.)

I know some people who took this course (or a similar one, perhaps?) last summer, and they spoke so highly of it. "Transformative" was a word that was unironically thrown around. I have been meaning to investigate further, and I appreciate the reminder.

The Apollo app for iPhone has a widget that you can set to pull photos from Reddit. I have a few set up with EarthPorn, SpacePorn, and Aww to name a few. It’s nice to flick through photos right from the Home Screen.

This one’s from Eyebleach:

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/NjVtKgz/Apollo-Widget.png)

PaladinTom wrote:

The Apollo app for iPhone has a widget that you can set to pull photos from Reddit. I have a few set up with EarthPorn, SpacePorn, and Aww to name a few. It’s nice to flick through photos right from the Home Screen.

This one’s from Eyebleach:

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/NjVtKgz/Apollo-Widget.png)

Any tips on getting that setup? I added the app, but couldn’t figure out how to specify subreddits to pull from for the widget.

Edit: nevermind, figured it out in the widget settings

PaladinTom wrote:

The Apollo app for iPhone has a widget that you can set to pull photos from Reddit. I have a few set up with EarthPorn, SpacePorn, and Aww to name a few. It’s nice to flick through photos right from the Home Screen.

This one’s from Eyebleach:

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/NjVtKgz/Apollo-Widget.png)

Try MurderedByAOC.

Something has gone horribly wrong with that dogs nose/lower jaw, I thought but then I worked out what was actually going on.

Is that a kitten on its nose?

I think it’s a hamster.

Looks like a sugar glider to me

Clumber wrote:

Looks like a sugar glider to me

Looking at images of sugar gliders they seem to have longer legs and ears as well as sizeable tails.

Yeah, a hamster. Check this out for more stupidly adorable pics of the two, plus their bird friends.

That my oldest passed his driving exam on his first try, after struggling with the learner's permit, not passing it until his 4th try!

cartoonin wrote:

That my oldest passed his driving exam on his first try, after struggling with the learner's permit, not passing it until his 4th try!

That was totally me.
Congrats to him, less so to your insurance rates.

I passed mine because, while I hit a cone and flag doing the parallel parking, it was uphill, so when I pulled away into the spot, it settled back down. Apparently you had to knock it over to fail.

That course also had a stop sign that was hidden by bushes until you passed it, so no one got a perfect score first time. The 70's were truly another world.

I failed my first try. The tester was a bit of a dick and a moron, but to be honest even with a fair tester, my nerves were shot the way they always are for me during a test and I likely wouldn't have passed anyways.

My second try was wild. The second I started the test, a huge swatch of the highway near the centre got closed for maintenance, which means the route we went on was vastly different from the standard one they usually did that I practiced on. I started it assuming I was going to fail again, but I passed, and I wonder if that change is what helped me pass. I spent the whole test constantly worried because I wasn't used to the area, the roads, the speed limits on the roads, and the intersections which made me hyper-alert and going with my gut instinct. If we had gone on the typical route I practiced, I may have had time to feel overly confident and/or second-guessed what I should be doing too much.

When I took my first driving test, I walked into the office to a grumpy old man yelling at the secretary:
THAT MAN IS A THIEF! I'VE BEEN DRIVING FOR 40 YEARS AND I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING AND HE JUST WANTS MORE MONEY.
When I got into the car with the driving instructor he was adamant in telling me that he was not a thief, that that guy was constantly crossing the lines etc. etc. He was actually praising me when I'd do something correct. The only time I got dinged was for not stopping at the white line before pulling up to see at an intersection, and he was actually apologetic, saying he was afraid he'd have to ding me for that.

So yeah, license on the first try.

When I was sixteen with two weeks before school started, I was sitting at home bored and decided to just go get my license. I drove myself, illegally mind you, to the DMV. I took the written and was given an instructor who put me through the wringer. I passed and walked out with my prize. Nobody asked how I got there with a vehicle. I told my parents when they got home and they were happy and proud. It was an hour later that one asked the other when they had time to take me. After confirming that my older sister didn't take me, I got taken to the wood shed.

TL,DR License on the first try. Immediately grounded for it on the same day.

I failed my first try as well, but the test was done in a parking lot and not even a parking lot that had been set aside just for testing. Second try went to a place that had you drive on actual streets with signs and stuff and I passed it.

For my test, it was a pleasant Spring day and my dad let me use his convertible to take the test. So the tester was in a good mood and that car was easy to maneuver and see around.

There was a story flying around my high school about an instructor at the local DMV testing site. They nicknamed him "Blackbeard," and said he failed just about everyone. I was almost 18 by the time I decided I wanted to try for my license, but all the Blackbeard stories had me nervous, so I convinced my mom to take me to the testing site an extra 30 minutes away.

I hated parallel parking, but I practiced it a ton. However, I had gotten so used to the bits where you back in and pull out that I just stopped bothering to signal while practicing, and I got dinged twice during my test for failing to signal. But the rest of the test went fine, and that wasn't enough to fail me outright, so I got mine on my first try.

When I moved to Ohio 9 years ago, I had to take their written test to get my Ohio license. I crushed it in a few minutes without even studying for it. I didn't know I had to take it until I got there.

Robear wrote:

I passed mine because, while I hit a cone and flag doing the parallel parking, it was uphill, so when I pulled away into the spot, it settled back down. Apparently you had to knock it over to fail.

That course also had a stop sign that was hidden by bushes until you passed it, so no one got a perfect score first time. The 70's were truly another world.

Here is the "funny" part. We practiced parallel parking for at least an hour every weekend that we went to practice, only to have them not even go over that on his driving test. The only type he did was the standard parking.

I failed my first try. The instructor had me do a three-point turn on a tiny narrow road. One of my wheels went off the asphalt (no curbs) and spun out. The instructor FREAKED OUT like she was going to die and failed me.

My second test, the three-point turn was done in a cul-de-sac. I passed easily.

When I was kid there were rumors that instructors tried to fool you by telling you to turn the wrong way down a one-way street. Everyone knew someone who knew someone that had that instructor.

My test took less than five minutes. Instructor told me to make a right at a stop sign. Then parallel park. Then make a three-point turn and turn left back to where we started. I thought for sure I failed because it was so short!

I was late learning to drive. My first ever driving lesson was at the ripe old age of 22. My instructor was two years younger than god, and the first question he asked me when I got in the car was "what do you do for a living?" and when I replied "aerospace engineer", he said, "well I don't need to explain how a car works then, off we go!"

Turns out that that 4 year degree didn't include a course on clutches, and the use thereof.

Am I weird? At my high school we got our driving test administered by the same guy who taught us Driver's Ed. He already knew whether we could drive or not, so there was basically nothing to it.

fenomas wrote:

Am I weird? At my high school we got our driving test administered by the same guy who taught us Driver's Ed. He already knew whether we could drive or not, so there was basically nothing to it.

Yes? For me, the driving test was done by the DMV (or whatever in your state/location) while drivers ed (which might also have a test at the end) was done either by the school district or a private company.