Random thing you loathe right now.

We went through a year or two of FedEx relying heavily on local contractors, and they were preyed upon by organized gangs. I saw (and later inadvertently videoed) unmarked contractor trucks, 2 of them, stopped by the entrance to our neighborhood, the drivers working together to slit open boxes that looked/felt like they valuables and setting them aside. Then (and this happened to me) they would put the packages on a door step, register the delivery (including pics) and walk off with the package.

I finally got hold of one of the company owners and he went ballistic. He said he knew something was going on, as drivers kept recommending their friends and relatives and quitting after a few months, so I sent him the vids and he thanked me and fired like half his drivers.

About a year went buy as the independents got a grip on their vetting process; now FedEx is far more reliable here. But it's still below the rock-steady UPS folks who quite simply go above and beyond whenever needed. And the community loves them. There's a reason Dogs of UPS exists. These folks work hard, get good pay and bennies, and there's a friendly face at every door. By contrast, it's obvious the FedEx folks are not in that situation and could care less about last mile deliveries.

It fascinates me to see the difference between unionized folks and non-union ones. The non-union drivers are definitely worse off. So much for Republican orthodoxy.

Use or lose money left in my HSA at the end of the year because my wife was way over zealous about how much we would use.

The phrase "Jesus is the reason for the season." No, axial tilt is the reason for the season. The sun starting to rise higher in the sky again is the reason for the party.

Mixolyde wrote:

Use or lose money left in my HSA at the end of the year because my wife was way over zealous about how much we would use.

The phrase "Jesus is the reason for the season." No, axial tilt is the reason for the season. The sun starting to rise higher in the sky again is the reason for the party.

Just on the offchance that you didn't include a typo, money in HSA's don't expire, and simply roll over to the next year. You *should* max it out every year if you can, as it's a tax-advantaged investment vehicle that can be converted to retirement funds once you retire.

If you meant to type FSA instead, yeah, you're f*cked. FSAs are stupid and I stopped using them for exactly this reason - they rely on predicting an unpredictable thing.

Mixolyde wrote:

Use or lose money left in my HSA at the end of the year because my wife was way over zealous about how much we would use.

The phrase "Jesus is the reason for the season." No, axial tilt is the reason for the season. The sun starting to rise higher in the sky again is the reason for the party.

Run out and get some big ticket items you can get marginal use out of or flip for a loss online. E.g a Thera-gun, heart monitor, Fitbit, etc

Jonman wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Use or lose money left in my HSA at the end of the year because my wife was way over zealous about how much we would use.

The phrase "Jesus is the reason for the season." No, axial tilt is the reason for the season. The sun starting to rise higher in the sky again is the reason for the party.

Just on the offchance that you didn't include a typo, money in HSA's don't expire, and simply roll over to the next year. You *should* max it out every year if you can, as it's a tax-advantaged investment vehicle that can be converted to retirement funds once you retire.

If you meant to type FSA instead, yeah, you're f*cked. FSAs are stupid and I stopped using them for exactly this reason - they rely on predicting an unpredictable thing.

We're allowed to roll up to $550 of FSA money over year to year. We find incredibly useful to have for dentist, PT, and eye care related expenses. Another interesting thing I encountered was that they apparently have to eat any negative balance when employees leave. I spent our $600 FSA before leaving a job, and HR told me that I wouldn't have to pay the negative balance out of my last check.

HSAs are excellent, and I wish they'd make them more generally allowed. I hate that they are prohibited if you carry a more traditional insurance plan.

Yeah, I meant FSA. And we missed the open season to re enroll because of everything going on, so we can'tcarry over. Trying to spend the last of it with big stuff, but it is a huge PITA.

Ian M. Banks' fifth Culture novel, "Excession," does not appear to be available on audiobook anywhere short of hunting up a physical copy on CD. 1-4 are readily available, 6 and beyond are readily available, but this one for some reason is either not present or gives me a message saying it's not available in my territory (even if I use a VPN to be in a different territory) on Audible, Google Play audiobooks, and every other service I can find.

I would like to support the author, but if it's gonna be like this, yo ho, me hearties, yo ho.

hbi2k wrote:

Ian M. Banks' fifth Culture novel, "Excession," does not appear to be available on audiobook anywhere short of hunting up a physical copy on CD. 1-4 are readily available, 6 and beyond are readily available, but this one for some reason is either not present or gives me a message saying it's not available in my territory (even if I use a VPN to be in a different territory) on Audible, Google Play audiobooks, and every other service I can find.

I would like to support the author, but if it's gonna be like this, yo ho, me hearties, yo ho.

Have you read it? There's half-page long headers from space-emails between robots - doesn't exactly make for compelling listening, but you can get away with that on a page.

Well, Iain died in 2013, so...

Of the Culture books I've read so far, I liked Excession the least.

Rain in December, especially in late December.

Just freaking snow, I'd prefer snow.

(Obviously, this is a downstate NY opinion, as I'm pretty sure everyone in Western NY would be okay with not seeing any more snow for the remainder of the season.)

Prederick wrote:

(Obviously, this is a downstate NY opinion, as I'm pretty sure everyone in Western NY would be okay with not seeing any more snow for the remainder of the season.)

What is the Corning area referred to? Downstate? Pennsy Hat?

It's an area we're looking at retiring to when the time comes.

-BEP

Unless I'm mistaken, Corning is in the Finger Lakes region, north of PA and... East of Buffalo?

As a New Yorker, I can tell you New Yorkers don't agree. Corning is I think Southern Tier. Upstate is north and sometimes east of Albany. There's the Catskill Region heading on the Southern Tier, and the Adirondack Region north and North west of Albany. South of Albany is Hudson Valley or Downstate. New York City is The City (and on some highway signs NYC is simply named New York,) and Long Island is referred to as Long Island. A town in Long Island is referred to as Town, Long Island, and New Yorkers understand. Buffalo is Canada. Staten Island may as well be New Jersey, and Poughkeepsie sucks.

The people I know from NYC call everything outside of the five Burroughs "upstate," including places on the Pennsylvania line like Binghamton.

I’m from Long Island so anything north of Yonkers is “up state.”

PaladinTom wrote:

I’m from Long Island so anything north of Yonkers is “up state.”

:lol:

Oh yeah, my in-laws are on Long Island and, to them, anything outside of Long Island and Manhattan is upstate. Including Staten Island sometimes.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Of the Culture books I've read so far, I liked Excession the least.

This is what I like about Bank’s Sci-Fi books - they are so different to all his readers. Excession is my favourite culture novel.

It’s available on audible in the UK, read by Peter Kenny.

Also, I don’t know if they’ll ship internationally but the CD version is available via ebay.co.uk here.

Haven't played payday 2 in a while. Got the urge to throw bags. I forgot how incompetent player base can be. Straight up thought a bunch of them were bots but not just rather bad. Then had a pair of hackers tk me repeatably to fail the mission. No way to report either. Now I remember why I mostly did solo stealth.

Sorbicol wrote:

It’s available on audible in the UK, read by Peter Kenny.

Unfortunately it won't sell to my American Audible account, even if I VPN to the UK.

hbi2k wrote:
Sorbicol wrote:

It’s available on audible in the UK, read by Peter Kenny.

Unfortunately it won't sell to my American Audible account, even if I VPN to the UK.

Some chat online that they are available via YouTube Premium?

I saw that too. I have Premium, and I can only find one Culture audiobook (not the one I'm looking for) on YouTube, which does not appear to be through any kind of official channel. Either it has been taken down or region-restricted since they posted that, or they mistook a bootleg upload for an official one, or both.

Wife is about to go back to surgery to fix the hernia. They’re going to try to do it laparoscopically, but with the last hernia repair they may have to open her up with a scalpel. Hopefully, this fixes everything.

Wish us luck.

Break a leg!
But not literally since you are in a hospital ;P

fangblackbone wrote:

Break a leg!
But not literally since you are in a hospital ;P

My grandma once had a heart attack and the only reason she survived was she was in the hospital for a broken leg. It was the day she was to be released.

I mean, sh*t goes sideways medically, there aren’t many other places I’d like to be.

Good luck ISO! Hoping the repair is laproscopic and easy, with quick recovery.

Went on vacation and got COVID. So mostly spent my days in bed blah. Could have been much worse but still sucks.

Update: Wife is out of recovery and is resting in her hospital room. Should be going home today.

Finally! What a relief.

You wife just got battle scars and is now a certified badass