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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • Exactly this. Public transport in KC is effectively non-existent unless you live in the middle of downtown KCMO.

    Also as far as Amtrak goes, my biggest annoyance is that I can’t travel with my dog via train. In Europe many train systems allow dogs with varying regulations and costs, and sometimes you have to buy your large dog a seat which I think is fair. Amtrak in the US doesn’t allow large dogs at all. Now with no domestic airline flying large dogs either (they stopped that during Covid and never brought it back), my only option to travel with my dog is driving. I would happily buy him his own seat on a plane or train, and he’s a certified good boy (CGC and SPOT-ON certificates) so he knows how to behave in public, but nope, not an option.

    For me, not having a car will never be an option as long as I live in the US, not because I couldn’t manage to get around without one, but because I like taking my dog on adventures and what little public transportation we have in the US is not dog friendly at all.


  • Yep. I’m the (apparently minority) weirdo that LOVES the rainbow vomit lights. I have lights everywhere on my computer and desk and it brings me so much joy. It just feels happy to me to have the bright rainbow colors slowly shifting. I find it delightful and will pay extra to ensure devices are not only rainbow capable, but are the right type of rainbow (slow shifting) that I love. My side of our gaming office drives my husband nuts. I regret nothing!


  • One of my best friends in the world bounces his leg often. He’s a bigger guy and it can definitely get annoying. I try to just let it go unless we’re sitting at a table and he’s shaking it too, then I will gently reach over and touch his knee to let him know. He immediately apologizes and stops, and I feel bad for having to say something, but I draw the line at shaking the table lol. If he’s sitting across the room from me he can bounce to his heart’s content.



  • Assuming modern technology didn’t suddenly disappear, I would pick the cold without a doubt. Give me a good sized greenhouse attached to my home for growing my garden and I would be happy as a lamb. I hate summer, and the heat that comes with it. While 9F is colder than I typically prefer for outdoor activities (I generally like it right around 40F) I can make clothing and gear adjustments to continue outdoor hobbies like hiking and backpacking. If it was perpetually colder here I would probably take up a snow sport too. (Currently it’s not snowy enough where I live for snow sports). Also if it’s that cold I would never have to deal with bugs again and I am 100% here for that.

    As it currently is I’m basically stuck inside for 3 months of the year due to heat unless I want to drive 8 or more hours for a brief holiday respite. Summer is the worst. Give me arctic cold please.





  • A) Completely fucked. Likely dead within days.

    B) Less fucked than most I imagine. I do a lot of hiking (multiple times a week) and carry the 10 essentials in my bag, including a water filter. Food would be the biggest issue as I typically only have one meal and some snacks in my bag. I think it’s doable though.

    C) I think I’d be fine. I have enough food to last for months if I ration it and the knowledge, seeds and tools to grow a pretty robust heirloom garden. I also have water filtration and backups, as well as tents for shelter, solar rechargeable batteries for light at least until the panels and batteries degrade, and hand tools to build a more robust shelter. If the contents of my whole house came though the difficulty would be feeding my dog and cat, so we’d have to quickly start working on figuring out how to get meat regularly. I’d have about 2 months of food for them, but that would go quick. I am not readily equipped for hunting so I’d have to cobble together some snares. I have Wikipedia downloaded to an old Kindle and that would probably help in that department. I think in this scenario I’d be fine until disease got me. I have emergency antibiotics in my house though so I could at least survive a couple rounds of bacterial diseases.



  • I live in the US, and with the state of things I have decided to make my life more analog and disconnected this year, and for the foreseeable future. Instead of online games, I do puzzles and listen to audiobooks. Instead of doom scrolling for hours, I’ve decided I’m going to start backpacking. Instead of watching so much TV, I’ve been reading more.

    All of these things are helping bring me peace. I’ve been pack training with my dog, which means doing longer day hikes with a heavy pack for each of us, and it’s just been so nice. I’m losing weight without trying (which is a good thing as I’m overweight), I’m seeing parts of my area I’ve never seen, and spending fantastic quality time with my dog. This weekend we’re doing a shakedown car camp to see how he does in my smaller backpacking tent and I am SO excited. In 3 weeks we go on our first backpacking trip with a friend, and I’m already dreaming of future trips. All of this is huge for us because I’m allergic to the sun (literally) and he (my dog) is very sensitive to heat, and allergic to wasps (we have to carry epipens for him) so deciding to spend time outdoors has taken a lot of consideration, determination and planning, but we’re doing it. I’m so excited for the adventures we’ll have, I can’t even put my emotions into words.







  • Realistically, it’s complicated. I work remotely for a small company based out of California. The owners are awesome, reasonable, and fair. Their goal in running the company is to create good jobs for their employees and a good service for their customers. I’ve worked for them for 3.5yrs now and genuinely cannot imagine a better situation for myself short of being independently wealthy. I’m also the only person at my job that does what I do, so if I don’t work, I’m bringing real stress to the company, not to mention not being paid myself. Neither of those prospects are palatable. I’ve worked crappy corpo jobs in the past and wouldn’t have batted an eye at causing them some grief, but when you have an employer as great as mine, it’s a lot harder to realistically consider harming them.

    I’m sure there is a point at which I would make the choice, and it’s something I think about regularly, but it’s more complicated for me than missing paychecks or even being fired from a mediocre job. If you’d told me 20 years ago to describe my dream work situation, it would basically be what I have now. Throwing that away is a tough prospect.


  • Tinks@lemmy.worldtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    5 months ago

    My husband and I split things by % of income. First, we made a list of all household bills that we both benefit from - this includes everything from the mortgage to Netflix. Everything. We put it on a shared spreadsheet in Google Drive so we can both access it and update it. The sheet includes the bill description, the amount of it, the due date, and the frequency (weekly, monthly, annually), with another column to deduce the monthly cost of all bills based on frequency.

    Next up we made a section for income, and totaled out what we each take home every month. This is AFTER taxes and insurance, what actually lands in the bank accounts. Then we take the total of all the bills and figure out what % it is of our total combined income. For instance if the combined income is 5000/mo and the total for all bills is 3500, then it’s 70%. Lastly, we then have a spot that determines what 70% of each of our monthly incomes are. So let’s say you bring home 3500 and she brings 1500 - in this scenario you would pay 70% of 3500, or 2450 monthly, and she would pay 1050. If you get paid twice in a month, divide that by 2 and you know what you each should contribute per pay period.

    If you setup the sheet with proper formulas, you can just update the bills as needed, and change the income as needed, and it will update contributions automatically. This is the simplest version, but you can also include savings and stuff if you want as well. We opened a joint checking account separate from our main ones when we moved in together, and we transfer the money to it for bills each time we’re paid, and all bills come out of that account. Our personal accounts are kept separate and private, because anything left after bills and savings is our own money to spend or save however we like.

    Personally I think this is the most equitable way of doing things. We ensure that all bills are paid and that we both have a bit of spending money. We’ve been together for 20 years, and have kept this system for most of it!