Ryan Jones

Hi there everyone. Yes, it's been a while. Two years or so. Glad to see things are still going here. Hope you are all doing well. Bell is ringing, I suppose I should pay some attention to the students?

Things here are good. Waiting for next snow which, luckily, will be light. Assuming the forecasts are correct. Just up to 3" or so. On the coast in DE and MD beaches, over a foot. Of course a deviation of 20 miles in the track of the storm could give us a foot here in the DC area also. On a covid related note, our little town just dropped off free boxes of 20 N95 masks to every address in the town. Also early next month they'll be giving them out free in any places that gave covid booster shots. I saw something that was verified by the local news that in order to reuse the N95 masks (assuming you're not in a high risk profession) you put them in brown paper bags and that will disinfect them somehow. Let's all hope that @kbois has lots of extra clothing, it's supposed to get down to below freezing almost to southern FL.

12 cats???? I have 2 cats, I couldn't imagine 12 of them. When would you have time to do anything but cater to them? These are my last cats, or pets of any kind. I'm 70 and I want to be able to just go with Justin anywhere and anytime we want to go. With the cats we'd either have to board them or use the pet services that come by twice a day to feed them and clean the litter boxes. Our two cats are 18 and 17, the 18 year old one had cancer in a paw that led to amputation of the front leg to the shoulder almost 7 years ago. She's getting pretty feeble. Typical grey/white one. The other is an overlarge orange cat. Both are rescues. I've had the grey/white one since kitten stage from a pet adoption at Pet Smart. The other one started to show up at my house and I fed him awhile. Then captured him and had him checked out. It's so weird, they act like a married couple. I told Justin they must have paid a lot of attention to us over the past 10 years.

Ours does it all, even washing the clothes. I can remember the first housekeeper I ever had as an adult (we always had them when I was growing up) I felt weird having her wash my underwear. Now it doesn't matter.

That's why they have housekeepers. I often wonder what ours thinks about the personal habits of Justin and I. I'm sure if she muttered something under her breath it would be in Spanish so I'd just assume it was praise and compliments!

I have my heat set at 65 here also. It all depends on what your house is made of. I have a brick house, it takes forever to both heat up in late spring or cool down in the winter. So an outside temp of 58F probably wouldn't get the heat on. Especially if it was a sunny day.

Same to you! I have to admit to the same joy when all the CCs are at $0 balance. This year I paid the 2nd half of my property taxes $2900 on the credit card that gives me 2% back on everything. I had to pay $20 service fee on the site that took the payment but I got $58 in cashback and then paid it off when the bill came. I always check on every bill to see if I can make money by using the CC.

We got lucky in the DC area, the last storm just gave us a few inches of snow then it rained a lot on top of it. The next morning was still above freezing so that inch of slush was very easy to get off the sidewalks and cars. After that the winds kicked up to 30-40mph and dried everything off so no problems this morning with ice. They are already talking about the NEXT storm, coming Friday/Saturday which as of now appears to be farther east so the DC area will get all snow. They barely mention that Thursday we could get a couple of inches, that's apparently not worth a mention now although since it's happening during rush hour I can only imagine the traffic nightmare. Have to admit I hate the plow buildups also. I live on a street with houses only on one side but no amount of suggestion/discussion will get them to plow it towards the field. It's always towards the cars.

I wonder how many times my laptop will update before it catches back up? I have a laptop with Win 10 that I only use for my APBA baseball draft meeting in early Feb. It's an in person deal near Baltimore and is usually a lot of fun. Last year's meeting was canceled because of covid and I only use this laptop for the baseball meeting so it hasn't been turned on in almost 2 years. It's updated 4 times so far in two days. Hopefully it finishes before the meeting!

Not sure if you saw the news story about our last winter storm, I think it was Jan 4th. We had about 8" of snow here, to the south towards Fredricksburg they had more. It started to snow at a rate of about 3" per hour between DC and Fredricksburg and 18 wheelers began to jackknife, blocking the interstate in both directions. People were stuck in their cars for up to 27 hours before they managed to get the road cleared. Even the US senator from VA was caught up in the mess for over 20 hours. Also the power went out so those cars that made it off the interstate couldn't find gas, food or shelter. The power was out for a week in places. Thankfully we just had the 8" of snow. Our little town keeps the roads cleared, as soon as the snow ended you could drive out of our town. Of course the other local towns weren't as good.

You've got that right. I only go to Costco on Tuesday or Thursday mornings at 9am. They open an hour earlier for your older people like me! I'm always amazed at people who seem to have unlimited time and no money. You'll see lines at the Costco gas station that might take 30 minutes to reach the front and you're only saving 10 cents/gallon compared to a Wawa right beside it almost. Even if you have one of those gas guzzling vehicles that look like you could fit a platoon in that's no more than 18 gallons. So your time, at that rate, is only worth $3.60/hour to you. I used to buy a lot at Costco but the things I was buying I could get cheaper at a Lidl or Aldis. Like butter (I bake a lot), eggs, cream (I also make my own ice cream) and most meats. Sometimes they'll have an item cheaper than one of the local grocery stores but not all that often. What I still buy? Ziploc bags. I use a lot of those. Rotisserie chicken, no way they make anything selling it for $4.99. Don't confuse it with your grocery store rotisserie chicken, those are tiny. The Costco one is almost the size of a roasting chicken. Dishwasher liquid, cat litter. I was going to ride past it today, see what the gas line looked like but I decided not to drive 1 mile out of my path. People are panicking about our upcoming storm which here in the MD suburbs of DC looks to be much of nothing. A few inches of snow, a little ice and lots of rain to wash all that away.

If I'm not mistaken I once played on a course in Florida and the ponds had signs that said something like: If the ball went in, the gator has it. The ball isn't worth your foot, leg, arm or life. I never saw a gator but then I never hit one in or near the water. We don't have rattlesnakes in the MD suburbs of DC but once a friend of mine hit one in the woods and when he went to get it came running out yelling "rattlesnake". I knew we had none in the area so I took trusty ball scooper from my bag and went to confront the snake. The ball was actually within the coiled up snake who was indeed a rattlesnake. Went back to golf bag and emptied out the main zippered pocket. Corralled snake and put him in bag, took him to the National Zoo where I knew people in the reptile house. Turns out the snake had been in a cage at the local community college right behind the golf course but got loose. That snake lived the rest of his days being well fed and cared for at the zoo. My only "dangerous" encounter wasn't dangerous for me but was for a poor duck. There were a lot of them walking across the golf course not that far away from me and I mishit the ball. Instead of a nice arcing shot I hit what we called a "grass cutter" because it was barely off the ground. Hit poor duck and feathers exploded all around it. Duck was no longer with us. Unfortunately no gator to feed it to so took it to office and dropped it off.

My 88 year old aunt pays about 40% of her SS income on diabetes and one heart medications. The same drugs would be about 90% cheaper in the Netherlands (not sure of other countries, my family (son, grandkids, great grandkids) all live in Amsterdam and my son's mother uses insulin,etc. By the time you count the Medicare payment and supplemental insurance my aunt's SS check is 75% gone. It's all ridiculous. If they can't pass the entire Biden program they should just break off the prescription drug part of the bill and pass that. Here in the DC area we see the competing ads all the time during the news. AARP is pro bill and of course the phama companies are all doing counter ads about "Woe is us, we can't do research unless we gouge you" although they don't use the word gouge of course. My insurance is great so I'm unaffected. Even my Descovy (cash price $2300/month) costs $6 and that's the maximum I have to pay for any drug.

Your dog walks in flip flops? Make a video, go viral! Weather here is cold. My car said 19 this morning with 15-20 mph winds. The long range weather said warm December, cold January and so far that's been true. Got to make it to February and then it's supposed to warm back up. Had 11" of snow so far this winter, the most in years. Still not enough to make me move south. I keep waiting on climate change to bring the south to me.

Over the various holidays different meats go on sale. Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving it's the standing rib roasts. Always the same general price range, from $5.77 - $5.99/lb. So we get the butcher at Safeway to cut us one that's 6 lbs and then when I get it home I cut it in half, wrap it in cling wrap and then into the freezer. Usually I get 3 of the roasts during this period, that covers us until Easter when they go on sale again. Ham is always cheaper near Christmas but neither of us like ham. We love uncured pork loins though and they go on sale at various times for the $1.99 and we follow the same procedure. Yes, in the DC area it was 60+ yesterday and even at 11pm it was still 48. This morning at 8am we had about an inch on the porch railings. Could get up to about 8" before it's done. Luckily we have some teens next door who will clean off everything. For a price of course but better them than me!