What did you do today?

[Nick]

That had to hurt!

Show Did..

 

[zannej]

I took my brother to the voting place out in the middle of nowhere. I commented to the old lady who marks down the names of the voters about how the turnout has been pretty high. She said normally maybe 19 people would bother to show up at the voting place out there but that my brother was #51 and it wasn't even 1pm yet. More people showed up as we were leaving.

 

[Ernesto]

You can buy fuel additive stuff to put in the fuel so it don't gell up. Just fired up my old 94 dodge truck yesterday. It's been sitting for a month.

 

[Ernesto]

F'ing vote or shut the F' up.

 

[highup]

I thought of protesting today, then crying and stomping on the floor, banging on the wall, then maybe burn a flag and yell at people, maybe setting a police car on fire or throwing rocks through windows. Maybe even leaving the country............ but then I thought......... wait a minute, I'm on the other team.
Another day in the week, no big deal.

 

[Tom Picciani]

Jess King lost by 50k votes. Republicans have a 100k advantage over democrats.

But we took the house. Hope they pick someone other than Pelosi.

 

[Nick]

It will be Pelosi.. They are already talking about how she is going to deal with trump..

 

[Tom Picciani]

Thinking of removing baseboard in winter by taking out a strip of carpet a foot wide around walls. Then remove padding. Then remove tack strips. Then I’ll remove rest of carpet in spring for new flooring and baseboard.

Just want to get some of the work out of the way before I have to move furniture.

 

[Ernesto]

Took the house. Winning!

 

[highup]

Thinking of removing baseboard in winter by taking out a strip of carpet a foot wide around walls. Then remove padding. Then remove tack strips. Then I’ll remove rest of carpet in spring for new flooring and baseboard.

Just want to get some of the work out of the way before I have to move furniture.

New flooring same as the oth

Thinking of removing baseboard in winter by taking out a strip of carpet a foot wide around walls. Then remove padding. Then remove tack strips. Then I’ll remove rest of carpet in spring for new flooring and baseboard.

Just want to get some of the work out of the way before I have to move furniture.

New flooring going to be the same as you already installed?

 

[highup]

I'm not even going to ask how that happened.

 

[highup]

Took the house. Winning!

Another day in the week. Life goes on just as it always has.Could have been historically predicted 20 years ago. A result like this happens almost every mid term after a Presidential election. Happened under Obama didn't it?
It will probably tick back over after Trumps second term.
Democrats need to come up with 2 things. A viable candidate and a vision....... a vision of something .......anything!
The message seems to be, tax people and corporations to their knees and open borders.
what did I miss?
.....oh, I forgot, higher gas taxes designed to force poor people to buy $50,000 electric cars.
$50,000 -$20,000 tax credit, -$10,000 subsidy to electric car manufacturers.
......or take California's lead and require all new homes be solar and photo-electric capable (Grid ready) ........ hey what could be better for new housing starts than mandating a $25,000 state requirement for all new home construction?

 

[Tom Picciani]

New flooring same as the oth

New flooring going to be the same as you already installed?

No. New flooring will probably be Pergo or Quickstep but similar in color. Looked at the thicker Pergo Timbercraft. It is 12 mm and textured for better grip. Also won't show scratches as easily. with a 2 mm pad it should raise it up to the proper height to match kitchen. There's going to be a transition strip between kitchen and living room/hall. The baseboard is 40 years old, dull and at different heights around room. And it's buried at least 1/2 inch. Last stuff was brittle and didn't come out in one piece. I'm just going to assume it's going to be scrap when I remove it. I have two 8 foot lengths of baseboard left over from kitchen job. Need 8 more. But it's getting too cold to do stuff in garage. Don't want to do it in basement because the smell will get in house. I'm going to do the floors first and leave the painting for later, probably using a pro to do it because of the high ceilings in the stairway. Still undecided there. Paint will be sage green against the stained wood.

 

[Tom Picciani]

Another day in the week. Life goes on just as it always has.Could have been historically predicted 20 years ago. A result like this happens almost every mid term after a Presidential election. Happened under Obama didn't it?
It will probably tick back over after Trumps second term.
Democrats need to come up with 2 things. A viable candidate and a vision....... a vision of something .......anything!
The message seems to be, tax people and corporations to their knees and open borders.
what did I miss?
.....oh, I forgot, higher gas taxes designed to force poor people to buy $50,000 electric cars.
$50,000 -$20,000 tax credit, -$10,000 subsidy to electric car manufacturers.
......or take California's lead and require all new homes be solar and photo-electric capable (Grid ready) ........ hey what could be better for new housing starts than mandating a $25,000 state requirement for all new home construction?

The democrat here says you're right on the topic of viable candidate but it's early. As to the taxes, raising taxes won't help. But raising wages will. We need something to encourage employers to pay a living wage. Nearly everyone not making a living wage always has the American taxpayer to fall back on. Some people say that if you apply for a job at Walmart and say you have a family to support, they hand you the welfare form right there. (exageration, I know). And if you don't already know, the ER's are full of low income or no income people getting treatment for minor illnesses. That cost is added to the entire patient list of the hospital. And since 90% of patients in hospitals are elderly, Medicare foots the bill for them. And that is with or without Obamacare. Cobra was put in place in the 70's and from that point, the poor can go to the ER for anything they need.

 

[highup]

"And if you don't already know, the ER's are full of low income or no income people getting treatment for minor illnesses. That cost is added to the entire patient list of the hospital. And since 90% of patients in hospitals are elderly, Medicare foots the bill for them. And that is with or without Obamacare. Cobra was put in place in the 70's and from that point, the poor can go to the ER for anything they need."

One thing I'd love to see just for kicks and giggles.
Before the Obamacare, hospitals did like you say. Costs were passed on to others when people couldn't afford health care insurance.
I'd like to see the cost people paid monthly for insurance before Obamacare, then what they are paying today.
In theory, the newly enrolled would be paying for a lot of what was previously passed on to others.
I'd say the typical insurance cost should have gone down since many more people are paying.
.......maybe with it's flaws, the old system was working. Maybe the old system could have been improved rather than been burnt to the ground to start anew. I wouldn't buy a new car if I got a flat tire or the fuel filter got dirty.
....just ramblin.

 

[Nick]

We need to bring the costs of drugs down.. Why do you think people go to Canada ? Because Canada deals with the drug company's..
They don't let them jack up the prices like the crooks in Washington do ..

 

[zannej]

We need to bring the cost of hospital visits, X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, treatments, & doctor visits down as well as the pharma costs. A person should not be charged $1k to sit in a waiting room of an ER or pay $640 for 2 minutes with an ER doc or $800 to $2k for a scan. It would also help if Medicaid paid for preventative care & if employers couldn't fire employees for being sick. I know the FMLA was supposed to cover that, but places like Walmart completely ignore it & use loopholes to get around it (or count on employees not knowing about it). If people get preventative care they are less likely to get sick, less likely to make others sick, and less likely to need emergency treatment for serious illness. I mean, it's not going to stop cancer or anything, but it can help reduce some of the crud. Dental and optical should be considered part of the regular medical care (I'm not talking cosmetic, I'm talking gum/tooth and eye health). Tooth/gum infections can be painful and can even lead to death if untreated.
Problem is, we have legislators who don't want to work together, who get paid by big corporations to protect their interests instead of advancing the good of the people, and govt is such a clusterf*** it will be difficult to get some competency in handling things. So long as Congress members get cushy ACA health plans & large pensions so they will never rely on Medicare/Medicaid/SS, they will not care. But, they aren't going to be making any votes against their own personal interests. I think that all of the politicians (regardless of party affiliation) need to step up or gtfo. They need to put their $ where their mouths are. I see spineless politcians mouthing off about what should and should not be done but then doing nothing when it comes to taking action. Or voting the opposite of what they said. To paraphrase a quote from a video, they write checks their a$$es can't cash.
(Since I have a sinus headache I'm cranky & frustrated with political BS). The Dems better not screw this up. Both sides need to stop the "I'm against it because it came from the other side" crap. I had people get mad at me about saying we can't just let all the illegal immigrants in and that we have immigration laws for a reason (granted, the first laws started as racism against the Chinese), but they exist for our safety & to protect immigrants from exploitation. But, what is happening with the children goes against immigration law/protocol, is psychologically damaging to the children, and is inhumane.

 

[Tom Picciani]

We need to bring the cost of hospital visits, X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, treatments, & doctor visits down as well as the pharma costs. A person should not be charged $1k to sit in a waiting room of an ER or pay $640 for 2 minutes with an ER doc or $800 to $2k for a scan. It would also help if Medicaid paid for preventative care & if employers couldn't fire employees for being sick. I know the FMLA was supposed to cover that, but places like Walmart completely ignore it & use loopholes to get around it (or count on employees not knowing about it). If people get preventative care they are less likely to get sick, less likely to make others sick, and less likely to need emergency treatment for serious illness. I mean, it's not going to stop cancer or anything, but it can help reduce some of the crud. Dental and optical should be considered part of the regular medical care (I'm not talking cosmetic, I'm talking gum/tooth and eye health). Tooth/gum infections can be painful and can even lead to death if untreated.
Problem is, we have legislators who don't want to work together, who get paid by big corporations to protect their interests instead of advancing the good of the people, and govt is such a clusterf*** it will be difficult to get some competency in handling things. So long as Congress members get cushy ACA health plans & large pensions so they will never rely on Medicare/Medicaid/SS, they will not care. But, they aren't going to be making any votes against their own personal interests. I think that all of the politicians (regardless of party affiliation) need to step up or gtfo. They need to put their $ where their mouths are. I see spineless politcians mouthing off about what should and should not be done but then doing nothing when it comes to taking action. Or voting the opposite of what they said. To paraphrase a quote from a video, they write checks their a$$es can't cash.
(Since I have a sinus headache I'm cranky & frustrated with political BS). The Dems better not screw this up. Both sides need to stop the "I'm against it because it came from the other side" crap. I had people get mad at me about saying we can't just let all the illegal immigrants in and that we have immigration laws for a reason (granted, the first laws started as racism against the Chinese), but they exist for our safety & to protect immigrants from exploitation. But, what is happening with the children goes against immigration law/protocol, is psychologically damaging to the children, and is inhumane.

Regarding unnecessary ER visits the costs can be more than dollars. I was in an ER waiting 45 minutes for a chest pain issue (which amounted to nothing). While I was waiting a man collapsed and was taken into the ER while CPR was being done. In the meantime, countless people were waiting to see doctors for obviously minor medical issues, all minorities. Hope the guy ended up OK.

 

[zannej]

Good point, Tom! I've seen people who were stabbed who had to wait bc the hospitals didn't have proper triage set up. They tell people to draw numbers and wait to be called in to a little room to report what their problem is. Only people who come by ambulance seem to get urgent treatment- but the ambulances can take 45min to over an hour to get to a place 5 min away & there aren't enough of them. My friend's neighbor died while waiting on an ambulance that took an hour to get there when he lived 2 blocks from the hospital (but his wife couldn't lift him & carry him to the car). According to statistics, men wait an average of 45 min while women with the same symptoms wait an average of something like 65 min. When I had a back injury, I waited 4 hours and they never put me in a bed.

The ERs get crowded with people who could be treated at a regular clinic. I know white people who go in for minor stuff because they are on Medicaid & there aren't nearby clinics open.

Also, I mistook this for the politics & religion thread. My apologies.

I've already been in to town today to pick up mail & retrieve my cat from the vet after she was spayed. $246 for vaccines & spaying. Ouch. I took the $ out of the bank to pay for it myself so my mother wouldn't get upset. I also took the time to transfer a bit of $ from my savings to a CD with 2.5% interest that will mature in about a year.

It's been rainy and blech so my sinuses don't like me. I've been sick since the end of September. It's viral so I know antibiotics won't help. Still trying to sort out the hot water issue with the shower. When I pulled the valve stem out, the screw and washer stayed in the valve seat & I didn't realize it until I was already at the store trying to find a replacement. The o-ring on the valve stem looks good and the stem itself seems to be ok. I think the issue is the valve seat. But, I'll have to wait until nobody needs the water to go shut it off and pull the valve seat to look at it. I did pick up the tool for it though. Lowes & HD did not have a matching valve stem in stock. I'll have to see if they have a matching valve seat if it turns out to be the problem. My friend's fiance has been a bit annoying in that she now thinks of me as her personal chauffeur and will call me & ask me to go in to town to drive her for things that aren't necessary. Like yesterday she called & woke me up to ask me to pick her up and drive her two blocks so she could hang out with another friend. I declined as politely as I could. I don't mind taking her for important things, but the girl needs to find someone else to drive her for social visits. Especially since my road is absolute muck right now & the logging trucks have been breaking the law & driving on it (they are not supposed to drive on it within 24 hours of substantial rain and they were driving on it a couple of hours after a very heavy rain).

Mom's confuser is still down so she's using a 25lb Alienware laptop that she has trouble lifting on her own.

I'm still waiting to hear from my insurance company and/or the repair shop on whether or not my truck ever got towed and assessed. I will probably call them in awhile to see. I'm feeling a bit nauseous from the sinus crud and I'm hoping it will pass soon.

Did I mention a small oak tree fell over next to the house during a strong windstorm the other day? I wanted to get rid of that thing and thankfully it didn't hit anything important-- just took out more of the fence that had already been damaged.

Meanwhile, I have pictures because I'm bored.

I walked out of my room and my Akita mutt was sleeping with her head in a bucket. No idea why. (I know I desperately need to vacuum that hallway-- no outlets in the hall or nearby though).

Princess was outside after the storm taking a look around. Her fur has grown longer since we first got her.

Fry (the cat we were fostering who we ended up keeping and who fathered a bunch of kittens) mid-meow outside.

 

[Nick]

What is the issue with your mom's Confuser ?