Get Your Grump on Thursdays - Was (What's chapping my @ss today?)

[guido]

You shouldn't have mentioned your flame thrower...

not Thursday, and totally a first world problem:

My grandparents gave their ranch in the Santa Ynez to UCSB. I was last there after my grandmother died in 1988. I will be in the vicinity in August, and contacted the reserve to schedule a visit, asking to be allowed to walk around the place for a few days, alone, as I know it like the back of my hand and don't want company. This was the response:


Sedgwick Reserve <nrs-sedgwick@ucsb.edu>
6:54 PM (3 hours ago)



Hi Jay,

Thank you for the follow-up about your visit. The UC Natural Reserve System only permits use related to our mandate of supporting university-level research and teaching as well as public service related to our land stewardship objectives. Our mission does not allow approval of unaccompanied visitation to the Reserve that does not fall under those categories. We do not allow visitors without research or university-level coursework to visit the Reserve unaccompanied, and do not approve requests that fall outside of our mission. However, we would be willing to make an exception and accommodate you for an hour-long staff or docent-facilitated guided tour of the field station on a weekday between 9am-5pm during your visit down here. Friday Aug. 16th would work well for us; is that a date that would work for you? Thanks for your understanding of how our policies have evolved.

Onward,
Avery Hardy


Onward?

And Saab, you should be grateful you weren't buying in SF. My aunt's house went for 50% more than the asking price a few weeks back. And it appraised for that. I hope the people who bought it live long an happy lives there.

[Saab2000]

And Saab, you should be grateful you weren't buying in SF. My aunt's house went for 50% more than the asking price a few weeks back. And it appraised for that. I hope the people who bought it live long an happy lives there.

My employer has a base in Oakland and Los Angeles. I would love to go to California but it's just too crazy. I love the work I do when I get to California but I just can't justify the cost. Good for those who can!

[monadnocky]

My employer has a base in Oakland and Los Angeles. I would love to go to California but it's just too crazy. I love the work I do when I get to California but I just can't justify the cost. Good for those who can!

The mean (I think mean... could have been median) home price in all of California just passed half a million dollars.
The implications of that are staggering.....

ninja edit: median is $548k.

[ZenNMotion]

I think she was as surprised as I was. My sister has 'chastised' me for this! She believes in happiness and sometimes you have to throw a little caution to the wind. She's not wrong actually. The amount of money here isn't huge at all over a lifetime.

She and my brother-in-law have been in their dream house in Switzerland now for nearly a decade and it's practically perfect. She said they just paid the asking price and haven't looked back. It's not a bad strategy. Of course, they're in a position to do this.

I'm going to revisit this with my agent and maybe we can find some common ground with the seller. It's not on the open market so we have a bit of luxury regarding the time frame. I can find a place to stay in the meantime.

This is the disconnect- sellers often overvalue what they have and/or don't listen to their own listing agent. The market sends a message as to what what the selling price "should" be, and without that feedback mechanism these things happen. That said, the bank appraisal should not have been a surprise to your agent, or the seller's agent if they were doing their job. The level of minimal training and competencies required to get a real estate license is shockingly absurd, some are obviously good at what they do, but I have little respect for the profession as a whole. Maybe I'm feeling mean, but your agent should comp you a significant portion of what you lost in fees etc, and if they don't, fire 'em. Maybe fire 'em anyway, an unlisted property is something that fell on their desk with very little effort and they didn't do a big portion of their job- due diligence and research.

Would you fly based on a weather report limited to what the tower at the destination airport could see out their window?

[ericpmoss]

I hate hate hate the low information way so many bike parts are sold, especially those for our contact points. Case in point, handlebars. The resellers rarely say how wide the clamping area is. They also make it the work of an investigative journalist to find out if measurements are c-to-c or outer-to-outer, and if at the ramps or the bar ends. Worse, they have ONE photo at some worthless oblique angle like it's an ad for a sports car.

THIS is how it should be done, IMO -- clear photos from orthogonal angles so we can see exactly what we are in for. Kudos to Rivendell for this.

[ides1056]

My employer has a base in Oakland and Los Angeles. I would love to go to California but it's just too crazy. I love the work I do when I get to California but I just can't justify the cost. Good for those who can!

Wages are significantly higher in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country, but getting a foot in the door is problematic. My stepsister's son and wife will move in with them (Oakland) after he defends his PhD. She is fluent in four languages who had a summa to his magna, he is a physicist with a particular skill at making graphic representations of chaos theory. But without a toe-hold, they would likely not make the move.

[Saab2000]

Wages are significantly higher in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country, but getting a foot in the door is problematic. My stepsister's son and wife will move in with them (Oakland) after he defends his PhD. She is fluent in four languages who had a summa to his magna, he is a physicist with a particular skill at making graphic representations of chaos theory. But without a toe-hold, they would likely not make the move.

My wages don’t change based on where I live. I work in the airline business and my compensation is under the language of our collective bargaining agreement. We have no language in the contract regarding geographic location because we can choose our own base, changing as often as we like. I’ve chosen Chicago for a number of reasons, low taxes not being among them...! ;-)

[bcm119]

Wages are significantly higher in the Bay Area than in other parts of the country, but getting a foot in the door is problematic. My stepsister's son and wife will move in with them (Oakland) after he defends his PhD. She is fluent in four languages who had a summa to his magna, he is a physicist with a particular skill at making graphic representations of chaos theory. But without a toe-hold, they would likely not make the move.

This reminds me of a general grump of mine: the sheer volume of right wing media stories about the high cost of living in SF being a result of liberal policies. It is truly amazing to read the twisted logic they've come up with to cover up the fact that technology capitalism run amok has resulted in extreme income inequality and unaffordability for anyone not working in the industry. If you mix a white hot economy with a small city surrounded by water on 3 sides and add a healthy dose of international real estate speculation, you get SF.

Then there are the stories about people "fleeing the Bay Area" because of the high costs, which is true for a certain demographic (everyone not in tech), but the stories never mention the people flocking TO the bay area to replace them. Surely if everyone was fleeing the area the high costs would be in free fall, but even basic economics is thrown out the window when writing about the great failed liberal experiment that is SF.

The irony of it all is that the tech industry is generally not liberal at all, they hate paying taxes, are anti-union, and anti-regulation. You would think all the pick-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrap conservatives would be flocking to SF to compete in the tech free-for-all. There hasn't been a better merit-based opportunity to make a lot of $$ in decades.

[defspace]

I just spilled almond butter all over my pants. I don't even know how it happened. What a mess.

[Dallas Tex]

I’m failing miserably at the ‘gracefully playing a smaller role in my daughters life’ endeavor. She’s driven, strong willed, and independent. Which was always the goal. But it’s been a big change.....for me.

[bigbill]

Messed up my line on some single track yesterday evening. Landed on my back on a rocky section. It was like a kidney punch. Hurts tonight.

[SpeedyChix]

Taking a whack at the grump today.
Concussions suck. Losing a combined total of 12+ hours pre and post is scary. At least I remember riding the DTE mountain bike trail on Friday. While Saturday is a blank page until just before moving from ER to a room around 7p. It's scary to learn what you've been doing and have no recall of.

On the plus side, I'm able to take a lot of naps (and i'm not big on 'em). I'm hopeful they'll help quickly rebuild a lot of damaged connections w/o any permanent loss.

[guido]

Ouch! Take care with your recovery! Concussion is a big deal. Give your self a lot of time, your brain needs it. And before you even think about riding again, replace you helmet.

Naps are good...

[j44ke]

I just spilled almond butter all over my pants. I don't even know how it happened. What a mess.

This is me every day. I used to be a very neat eater. Not sure what happened. Not like I don’t know the target.

[LarryA]

Taking a whack at the grump today.
Concussions suck. Losing a combined total of 12+ hours pre and post is scary. At least I remember riding the DTE mountain bike trail on Friday. While Saturday is a blank page until just before moving from ER to a room around 7p. It's scary to learn what you've been doing and have no recall of.

On the plus side, I'm able to take a lot of naps (and i'm not big on 'em). I'm hopeful they'll help quickly rebuild a lot of damaged connections w/o any permanent loss.

Sounds like almost a very bad thing. Glad it wasn't, and hope you heal quickly. Give your head the rest it needs - don't shortcut recovery.

[ides1056]

Taking a whack at the grump today.
Concussions suck. Losing a combined total of 12+ hours pre and post is scary. At least I remember riding the DTE mountain bike trail on Friday. While Saturday is a blank page until just before moving from ER to a room around 7p. It's scary to learn what you've been doing and have no recall of.

On the plus side, I'm able to take a lot of naps (and i'm not big on 'em). I'm hopeful they'll help quickly rebuild a lot of damaged connections w/o any permanent loss.

This is something to overdo recovery on. Don't expect to just bounce back. Give yourself lots of time.

[bigbill]

Should have been a grump yesterday but it's biting me this morning. Where I work we have 5 compressors. Someone noticed a smell from the disconnect of the largest one on Tuesday and reported a burnt fuse that needed replacing. It wasn't replaced but the root cause is a high resistance connection. Now we're scrambling to get a rental compressor on line so we can replace the entire disconnect assembly instead of recognizing a high resistance condition that could have been corrected three days ago.

[72gmc]

Speedy: Get well! Let the naps win. I don't want you to get hurt, but if it has to happen, I will sincerely hope that getting super rad on the bike played a role.

Dallas: tell me about it. And please tell me if you figure it out.

[bironi]

Sometimes bad news is not delivered on Thursday.
On today's fixed gear group ride, a buddy told me of a tandem stoker passing a week ago.
The back story is this.
Her husband, the captain died on a remote steep climb, heart attack.
His wife, the stoker went for a solo ride the following day.
She was speaking in her mind with her husband.
She went through a red light and was hit hard in a t-bone.
Hospitalized for 2-3 weeks.
Was told she might have to lose a leg to survive.
Said she would rather die.
Well she did, I need to hear from those closer to the couple to hear the cause of death.

Man, shit can go sideways fast.
They were very fit and fast.
I sucked their wheel often when I was a bit younger.

That's a big gap in our local paceline.

[one2velo]

Sometimes bad news is not delivered on Thursday.
On today's fixed gear group ride, a buddy told me of a tandem stoker passing a week ago.
The back story is this.
Her husband, the captain died on a remote steep climb, heart attack.
His wife, the stoker went for a solo ride the following day.
She was speaking in her mind with her husband.
She went through a red light and was hit hard in a t-bone.
Hospitalized for 2-3 weeks.
Was told she might have to lose a leg to survive.
Said she would rather die.
Well she did, I need to hear from those closer to the couple to hear the cause of death.

Man, shit can go sideways fast.
They were very fit and fast.
I sucked their wheel often when I was a bit younger.

That's a big gap in our local paceline.

A bit more detail here.....

Her last couple of months were seriously difficult. It was a stop sign up in Boston Harbor area, not a red light but that's truly a minor issue as she did indeed get t-boned. She had significant infection in her leg following the initial surgery that inserted a bunch of hardware into her crunched leg bones. That infection resulted in another ER trip and hospital stay. That was followed buy a couple more surgeries on that leg and hospital time and then the last straw was yet another ER trip with some serious intestinal blockage that would have required a risky surgery and very very lengthy recovery period. She said "I'm done. No more surgeries. I've had a very rich and rewarding life up to this point but don't have the strength or interest to go forward through this loss of Bill and loss of mobility." Note that this is someone who summited Mt Rainier 10 times from various routes including the hard ones, did extensive climbing in the Cascades, in Alaska, in Peru (at elevation without oxygen as that would have been extra weight to carry)..., completed many many marathons and some triathlons and usually won her category or placed very well, went on trips to the Europe to ride cols for long weeks of 100+ mile days with 10-15k feet of elevation gain every day, rode the first Seattle-to-Portland ride and many others after that (and I believe a sub-10 hour on the tandem)....I could go on. I've spent much of the last couple of months with her helping with issues after she lost her husband and essentially lived in her hospital room for her last week on this rock. I too followed that tandem for many thousands of miles and also did many gravel rides with them in Capitol Forest and elsewhere. She and her husband were very close friends of mine. They made our lives richer and are and will be deeply missed. Rest in peace my friends.