[scaredyclassic]

funny you should mention airline seating. for the first time in my life, I paid extra for more room. It was a nonstop overnight flight to nyc on jetblue. for $99.00, you could get “More Room” tm. I ran the numbers and didn’t just plunge into the deal. 6 hours, 99 bucks, about 16 an hour, 25 pre tax,hmmm. is the suffering of sleeping less worth 25 an hour. it would’ve been a close call 10 years ago, but today it was a no brainer. I would not suffer that night and over into the next day, even if it was just marginal suffering for 25 an hour.

it ended up being amazingly worth it, the whole row was empty, people were eyeing my spaces hungrily, the attendants actually put the seats up for sale at the eginning fo the flight but warned passengers that if they didn’t sell, they would be asked to leave if they snuck into my adjacent seating. it was SO worth 99.00. I didn’t sleep that great, but not awful, and I was pretty vertical AND peed in the middle of the flight with no problem getting up and down or disturbing anyone.

on the other hand, if the room were 1500 dollars, say for 6 hours, i’d suffer a lot for 250 after tax. would be very difficult for me to justify my comfort at that price. even though 1,500 doesn’t sound like a massive amount of money, and I’m not certain I could find something to spend 1500 on that would be as nice as the lazy boy recliner experience, probably better than 10 massages, in terms of overall body wear and tear.

I still would rather not let go of the 1500 on behalf of my comfort.

I cannot foresee having so much money that i’d pay 250 an hour after tax to be comfortable. id rather forego the trip.

on the other hand, with time in life running out, just so many vacations or trips remaining, maybe i’t better to see it as a nonrecurring rare expense, like the opposite of a tooth extraction. it’s difficult to tell what’s worth what.

as to the true problems of life, the problems of childhood and where the answers lie. those problems, rejections, pains and insights, those are the true work of middle age and beyond. almost hthe entire book 1 of REMMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST is about young proust being put to bed as a child.

we are all still small children inside. the suffering of children creates the mental problems of the middle aged.

did we get enough room in the rear seat of the family car and can I rectify that problem now with a better airline seat?

why did my mother not fully attend to my distress and would perhaps a large tip for this waitress somehow salve the wounds of my infancy and cause someone to attend to the long past but still reverberating distress that is now a distant echo in my heart?

what do I deserve in life? we are born to suffer and die, to earn our bread by the sweat of our brow, with never enough leg room. this is man’s fate.

[scaredyclassic]

i wouldn’t really judge my kids’ success on whether they earned more money than me or had more accomplishments. if they were less neurotic, if they had more fun, if they were in the present more, if they had satisfying relationships, if they felt they had a purpose on earth, if they were caring of others and felt a deep connection to someone or some cause, if they were not dull, if they were funny, if they enjoyed real friendships, if they took care of themselves, if they weren’t mean, if they weren’t self destructive, if they were healthy, if they were nonjudgmental, if they were loving, if they were able to listen, if they were interested in some subject deeply,

i’d consider them a success.

however, I think it’s wrong to declare victory while kids are in their early 20s. I would say it’s not really a success until they make it to midlife intact.

I dont see that our 8ncome earned in excess of 200k has made us happier. However, life in the top 1 percent is more stable

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=PCinSD][quote=FlyerInHi][quote=zk]
And also, if you had been more pressured as a child maybe you would have been a valedictorian, Rhodes scholar, concert pianist, etc…. at that time, your competitive advantage would have been so much greater.
[/quote]
Wow, Zk, I’m so sorry about the way you’re parents raised you. All that untapped potential . . . gone. Were you able to overcome the lack of proper parenting? Have you made peace with your parents?

I’d pick up a decent keyboard and start taking lessons asap. Hang in there.[/quote]

I think there’s an argument that if the kid has a burning desire to be rich or famous, its usually to fill some gap in the parents life. If your kid just wants to be unknown, you probably didnt lsy your failings on them.

Me I really wanted to be famous, and still do. Most days I walk around feeling like there’s something great in me if I could just get out

[scaredyclassic]

Personally we opted out for a long time. Our oldest was not liking 1st grade, the homework was dumb, I was writing snarky comments to the teacher correcting her grammar and grilling her on the purpose of the work. Around the time, we opted out of the System and did about 7 years of homeschooling, which was partly unschooled, part free ranging, part mixing with other families, part homemade curriculum. I was opposed in part at the time, not so much for the kids, who I thought were probably benefitting, but because of all the income we were foregoing from my wife not working fulltime. In retrospect, it was an awesome, unusual, somewhat expensive for us at least childhood experience to give them. They never quite bought into the school bullshit, the pecking order, the brand status, the peer pressure, because by the time we reintroduced them into normal reality in high school, we had already had them alone all that time to brainwash them into our reality. Long range, nothing they might have done in elementary school was omitted by us, and academically they were probably “ahead” of their peers, as if that has any meaning. Later they did great in high school, probably because their minds weren’t all encrusted with allt he nonsense and bs of modern schooling. They had an outsider’s amused viewpoint, and there was no “drama” from any of them. I think it’s probably wrong to say parents are “choosing” to be stressed out an dinflict that financial stress and anxiety on their kids ina freemarket sense. I’d say it’s more likely that they perceive themselves to be in a desperate struggle to ensure their kids don’t fall off the economic ladder, and with limited information, knowledge and no tolerance for error, are doing what they think in their deluded state is best. Seems intuitive to me that for long term mental health and success, it’s flat out wrong, but everybody does what they think is best. I’m pretty sure we could’ve done better, but I cant really judge parents for trying to inflict all kind of mental anguish ont heir kids. Moms and dads have been pinning their hopes and fears on their young charges since time immemorial, so now is really no different than the past. Just based on my high strung nature, it seem slike less pressure, more exploration, would lead to more thoughtfulness and better mental processing. But it’s not exactly a science, or an economics problem, this raising of children. More of a labor of love performed in an unconscious backdrop theatre of terror. don’t think of them as “winners” or “losers”, but humans given the best opportunity I could to have them be calm, stable, thoughtful, interested humans.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=zk][quote=FlyerInHi]

You wouldn’t rather have had what your kids have?

I think today’s world is better. Memories are better than the real thing.[/quote]

It’s better in some ways. The weed is better. Easier to smoke with a vape. Cheaper. TV is better (both the content and the apparatus). You can carry most of the world’s information in your pocket.

And you’re right, memories are better than the real thing.

All that said, I wouldn’t trade growing up when I grew up with growing up now. Kids are under so much pressure now. They’re so overscheduled. There’s less freedom and free time. There’s less opportunity to figure things out for yourself. It’s tough for parents today to try to raise a kid the way my generation was raised. First, the neighborhood generally isn’t full of other kids roaming around. They’re all at piano lessons or playdates when they’re young, and, when they’re older, piano lessons or volunteering or joining clubs or otherwise building their college resumes. So a free-range kid is likely to spend a lot of his free-range time by himself. Second, you can get arrested for letting your kid go to the park by himself at ages we had been going to the park by ourselves for years. Third, you risk your kid being left behind in today’s much-more-competitive world.

We spent countless hours playing sandlot baseball, exploring field and forest, relaxing, riding our bikes here and there and the beach. Occasionally being bored enough that we’d sit around thinking of something to do. I wouldn’t trade that for all the information and great tv and cheap weed in the world.

Sure, parents can try to raise their kids like that today. But they generally don’t. No, I’ll take my childhood over today’s kids’ any day.[/quote]

It does feel oddly pressured now. It was better to not matter so much

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=AN]Unintended consequences of the fake actions is that good long term tenants will probably get their rent increased.[/quote]

Or perhaps intended

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=flu][quote=scaredyclassic]My mom thinks it’s terrible that I bought cars for my 3 kids, but I commute only by bike.

I think its cool[/quote]

Nah.. You’re part of the cool club now…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RksFDe6nkaY%5B/quote%5D

Haha.

But seriously, why buy any other car?

[scaredyclassic]

My mom thinks it’s terrible that I bought cars for my 3 kids, but I commute only by bike.

I think its cool

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=treehugger]What dealership did you use? I miss my old prius and this seriously has me tempted to get rid of the Volvo SUV. I live near the Carlsbad Toyota dealership, but have not had good experience with them….[/quote]

I got a bunch of internet quotes all in a day, took the lowest price to temecula valley toyota that night, they matched the lowest and I bought it.

I normally would try to do a few rounds of trying to get each to go lower, but I felt like there arent that many 2019s around and it required some quick decisionmaking.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=FlyerInHi]flu…. do you think that American Tesla is anymore reliable than Mercedes? Would you buy a Mercedes electric?

Honestly, I think electric is a new product line and you can’t project gas car reliability history to electric. But, yeah we will see in about 10 years. My experience has been very different with the Fiat 500e and the i3. Very reliable so far. Some rattles but nothing wrong. I think the Chevy Bolt would be reliable too — but not according to chevy’s reputation.

Scaredy, I buy so many things and don’t bother with reviews. Reading consumer reports seems old fashioned. I buy so many appliances and TVs for my condos — whatever is cheap enough but looks good works for me — never any problems. I think that commodity items are all the same. If the price is cheap, just replace it when time comes.
I do like Samsung appliances. I think they run quieter and the design is more modern.[/quote]

Consumer reports is kind of for old people. My kids think its dumb.

But I still feel it pushes one toward slightly better decisions.

Or at least alerted me that our Mini would suck

[scaredyclassic]

That was my thinking. I hate that I’m basically a consumer but I still subscribe to consumer reports. And the reliability ratings to toyota are superior. For the next 9 months my kid will drive it 10 miles a day all electric.

If I drive it to work and leave the bike at home it’s all electric.

Costco, sprouts, trader Joe’s, and barnes and noble all electric. Old town temecula all electric.

That’s pretty much the majority of where we go local.

But sometimes we get crazy and head to l.a. or SD or riverside. If I’d gone with the used nissan leaf I’d wanted that might’ve been sketchy.

On balance, realistically, I feel like going and trading in my wife’s unreliable mini and getting another prius prime. But she refuses. I hate that car. I bought the super extended warranty and sadly it’s been profitable.

[scaredyclassic]

I think my timeline is shorter.

I owned and used my first car from 88 to 2012, 24 years

If I did that with this car I’d be 80…m

Dang

[scaredyclassic]

I think 25 miles electric range will cover 90 plus perc of our driving.

It was 2k off MSRP plus a 3500 toyota rebate.

Drove to the airport and got 66 mpg.

[scaredyclassic]

the roach clip is kind of interesting, now that you mention it. I had a roach clip but i think it was just a clip left over from when we were into shooting estes model rockets, the little clips that held the igniter to the scarily powerful little engines

. The roach clip is a relic from a time when people were a bit poorer, and less wasteful, the 70s version of depression era thriftiness. smoking down to the very very end of the joint without burning your fingers,

heck, I remember inhaling hot embers trying to get the last tiny bit of joint, or saving roaches for a rainy day and making another joint out of old burnt tarry roaches. a little 35mm film canister filled with roaches.

now where are the 35mm film canisters filled with roaches, I ask you? WHERE ARE THEY???

the answer is they are no more, just as no one insulates their walls with newspaper like they did in the 30s.

Now, our decadent society has become so utterly wealthy and extravagant that they don’t generally try to extract every last tiny bit of smoke from a roach. I recall a guy on 8th street a few blocks from my house selling weed to kids—probably an offense for which he could’ve gotten lot of jail time.

wait, no, he was on 9th st. where is he today? i hope he’s well, Bless his soul, serving that desperate market a t great personal risk to himself, helping us establish ourselves as little pseudo nonconformists.

We paid him $5.00 for a little tiny bag, I guess a joint or two? Crappy weed. Brown and dry and seeds. Nice little manila mini envelope though, I can remember its small fatness, the beauty of holding that illicit little parcel…well worth 5 bucks.

I can see minimum wage was $2.30 then, adjusted for inflation about 9.50. so I guess that was a 20.00 plus baggie at todays minimum wage! expensive, but, our options were very very limited in 7th grade, until some people’s older brothers hooked us up.

I should’ve just gone in to the candy store there and put all the money into comic books. What a waste.

But yeah, if it was 20 bucks, for that little bitty bag it’d be worth getting a 30 cent roach clip to get every last bit of Mexican brick weed goodness out of that little bitty joint.

Kids today, they don’t understand the value of things; they go their weed delivered to their homes off billboard signs they call, get special deals for new customers, probably get a half ounce of 10x better weed for that price. these kids dont know what it was like to struggle for that one skinny joint, spoiled brats. no searching for a connection; just buy it like it was starbucks coffee.

Probably just toss their roaches in the garbage; sad really, the loss of the roach clip. also, it’s pretty common now for joint to have little premade cardboard quasi filters, so you wouldnt burn your fingers anyway, so probably no one would actually buy a roach clip. but back in the good old days, who used filters? never heard of such a thing.

Maybe the roach clip could make a comeback, like spats, or penny farthing bicycles. The definitive cinematic roach clip scene is of course in the big Lebowski where he’s doing a J to unwind in the tub, listening to his tape of whale calls:

there he is with his roach clip, until the nihilists come with their aggressive marmot to ruin his life and perhaps unman him…. so retro, debonair, like a long cigarette holder.

“Hey, this is a private residence, man!”

it was so fun to smoke that little highly illegal bag of weed. so boring and pointless now. the good old days of overpriced shitty weed, roach clips, and so little entertainment around in retrospect it was awesome. im glad i grew up then.

As Charles bukowski said I’d rather drive from l.a. to nyc in reverse than do that again, but it was beautiful man

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=The-Shoveler]Somewhere is a different multiverse you are wishing you had settled down raised a family instead of being a starving artist LOL.[/quote]

Something like that. Not a starving artist exactly. Maybe just an irresponsible manchild

In reality tho what a miserable path

[Author]

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