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[quote=scaredyclassic]
Well I spoke too soon…

I m in a great mood. Went for a long hike on the pacific crest trail yesterday with the whole family, eldest is off from college, was freezing, had decent Pho afterwards, everyone was happy together. Why wait for Christmas though for family togetherness or loving mood? It’s either there all the time or it’s probably fake.[/quote]

Glad the mood hit you. And no worries about what you spend on gifts, that’s really not important at all. We have years we spend a lot and years we spend a little, and no difference in the happiness either way. We just go with the flow.

Per the family togetherness all the time – well you can say that right now cuz your kids are unmarried and childless. Wait until there are other families involved, maybe at considerable distance from your own….Your kids, grandkids, other families, weather and money and job and schedule constraints, on and on. Togetherness gets a lot harder to achieve and really only possible on rare occasions through the year, when businesses shut down and force downtime on the masses. Though I don’t celebrate Christmas per se, I do celebrate the holidays and appreciate the synched downtime that a majority population of one religion affords us.

And I appreciate your humor in the other posts, many in this thread even, that make me chuckle though I usually don’t post a response. Keep on keepin on scaredy!

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[quote=scaredyclassic]Still disagree.

Children have wonder for everything.

By overstimulating with lights, presents, music etc, we actually reduce their capacity for wonder. They need increasingly bigger doses. A simple dried dandelion stalk no longer suffices.

I suppose it is OK to say merry christmas. Just leave it there.[/quote]

I respect your right to disagree – just think maybe you’re holding your butt cheeks a lil tight.

The way Christians raise children works, the way my family raises children works, and the way you raise your children works. I’m fond of saying that you have to be a severely bad parent to screw up a kid. Kids are very resilient and are exposed to so much outside of their immediate family and neighborhood now that they can quickly adapt to overcome whatever deficiencies we have as parents. Unless the kid isn’t hitting on all cylinders then they were screwed to begin with.

Kids – all kids – have plenty of rough days growing up and will have even more as an adult. Who am I to be scrooge and dissuade them from enjoying Christmas. They’ll turn out juuuust fine.

It just seemed like everyone was trying to be the turd in sjk’s punch bowl in this thread. I’m saying its all good. Enjoy!

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[quote=scaredyclassic]

Why do I dislike xmas so much?  Hard to say.  I suppose at base I believe in principles.  I respect the Puritan viewpoint for its consistency.  This dressing up in santa suits and yipping about jesus and buying lots of stuff and partying—offends my sensibilities.  Just because I don’t believe something is true, doesn’t mean that other people’s beliefs don’t matter to me, and , well, I guess I fall ideologically on the Puritan side.  I am annoyed by inappropriate merriment, hypocrisy and xmas.[/quote]

I feel pretty much like that most years. I do. I grin and bear it because I don’t want to be a downer and don’t feel it is a big enough issue for me to attempt to persuade others. So I go through the motions. I put up with the repetitive songs, the gaudy decorations, the commercialized trading of bad guesses at gifts.

But this year, this year is different. I’m excited this year. We have a couple of little ones running around the house this year (younger than 7) and they are super excited. It is rubbing off on me. To drive around looking at Christmas decoration and watch the awe come across their faces, to hear the excitement in their voices, to see them jump around like pogo sticks around the tree. That’s what Christmas is about – the little ones.

I think it started this season when about a month ago – not seasonly timed but by pure accident – we watched the Christmas Special episode of the British show Stella that was made a few years back. It was beautifully done. Christmas can be tasteful, though usually it isn’t done that way.

In any case, I’m sure I will revert back to my old viewpoint in whatever December these littles one are either no longer little or no longer in our household. But for now, I’m gonna enjoy the feeling.

And we’ve highjacked this thread a bit. For that I apologize, sjk.

Though I’m neither a believer nor a Christian, Merry Christmas to ya sjk my friend.

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Interesting story on this topic.

Over a decade ago I had a friend who lived in rented house in a small California town. That house caught fire and burned – a total loss.

A few weeks later the landlord called my friend and asked him what insurance company he had used, as they needed to call them and get the $$ to rebuild the home.

My friend had to explain to them it was the *owner’s* responsibility to insure the building, not the renters. That house sat a burned out shell for years after that. I can only guess the landlord didn’t understand the basic rules of renting. If they had had a loan on it, the bank would have told them pretty quickly they had to have insurance.

I never would have believed this had I not talked to the guy personally. Strange things happen in this world.

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[quote=scaredyclassic] For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.[/quote]

Money, it’s a gas
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash
New car, caviar, four star daydream,
Think I’ll buy me a football team

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[quote=flyer]
Imo, as long as life and death exist, the search for immortality will continue. Personally, I think the scientific and spiritual premises of this quest are quite compatible. More so than one might think.[/quote]

Those religions that believe in a supreme being are at odds with science, IMO. It is only in the last ten years or so that I have heard Christians start adopting some of the scientific constructs and proposing that they aren’t at odds. Christianity is morphing, as it always has done and always will do.

I don’t mind any of that, but find it amusing.

What really gets under my skin, though, is when folks go to the ballot box and try to vote in their beliefs as law, so that all of us must live by the tenets of their religion. I see that mostly from Christians, but have no doubt if this country was a majority Muslim or Hindu population, they’d be doing the same thing.

So if your religion believes there is a Dyson DC50 way up in the sky that invented the earth in 16 days and thinks you have to scratch your butt for 5 minutes a day to worship him/her/it, I’m all for it. Just don’t pass any rules saying my kid has to scratch his butt at school for five minutes a day.

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Flu, Satanism has been around a long time. No re-invention needed.

I’ve studied it some and think in many ways I’m more in line with Atheistic Satanism (which is not devil worship), also known as LaVeyan Satanism, than I am with traditional religions.

For instance, most of the Eleven Satanic Rules resonate with me:

http://darkbiology.com/satanism_and_dark_biology.htm

I think what most Christians don’t understand is that December can be almost unbearable to non-Christians. We’re accosted daily with references to Christ. I’m a live and let live type of guy so it’s fine – but when someone starts talking about Jesus they better be prepared to hear my viewpoint too.

Just this week, my wife and I were walking through the neighborhood when two males approached us handing us Jesus material. They kept pressing even when we said we were atheists. Finally when we had enough and were walking away, they said “God Bless You”, so I said “Hail Satan” in return. My wife was shocked! I had just had my fill.

And believe it or not, while I’m typing this in, guess who just came to the door! More Christians hawking their pamphlets! Unbelievable!

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[quote=flyer]There’s so much I could say–and it’s so tempting–but I promised myself I would not, from here to infinity, beyond the blue horizon, or until the cows come home ever again feed the trolls–done. Whew! that was close.[/quote]

I love you brother!

You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

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[quote=FormerSanDiegan]
It also probably saves lives, since they are venting their frustration on a blog instead of doing actual damage in the real world.[/quote]

lol! I love the way you think…

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[quote=flu]
I could live with that….Democrat white house, repub senate and house.[/quote]

That’s the way I normally like it – white house with one party and congress with the other. They keep an eye on each other that way.

Didn’t work out so well this go-round due to undue pressure from the Tea Party that headed off any compromises, but in general it works very well.

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[quote=Hatfield]
In any event, GOP machine engineers an anyone-but-Trump candidacy. Trump gets butthurt, runs as an independent, and splits the conservative vote, handing the election to the Democratic nominee. I’m hoping it’ll be Bernie but it’ll probably be Hillary. I’ll hold my nose and vote for her.[/quote]

Anyone know what the latest date is for Trump to qualify as a candidate on the ballot of all 50 states?

If he’s not watching that closely, then that tells me he was never serious about running independent – and that once that date passes the GOP powers will kick him out on his arse.

I’m still 75% sure he knows he’s not a serious candidate and is purposely being a fruitcake for some other reason. Publicity for his businesses? Attempting to steer the GOP platform where he wants it? Attention in general? Did he make a deal with the GOP to stir up the GOP base and take the heat from the Dems while all the other candidates whistle and look at the sky? Not sure…probably the only one who knows for sure is Trump himself.

I’m not typically all that interested in primaries, but I will be watching pretty closely this time just to see if people really are going to vote for him…it will blow my mind if they do.

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I know looking back on this post in another year my prediction will seem foolish, but I still think Jeb is waiting in the wings, staying out of the fray.

I think it’s going to be Clinton and Bush. Not that I want it to be that, but I predict that’s where we’ll end up.

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[quote=flu]
So anyway, I hardly consider this living a life of luxury and a license to spend spend spend. This isn’t wealthy. This is middle class. This is what a W2 income looks like…
[/quote]

And if you’re married with a working spouse, it is only half the home’s income.

So now you need to double those numbers.

I know many, many professional couples living very comfortably.

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Lots of good advice here including:

[quote=XBoxBoy]
…I can understand you don’t like working for “the man”, don’t for one minute think that running a business is the ticket to easy street. And if you’re hoping that it will be different because you’ll be in charge, let me disabuse you of that notion. You will not be in charge, your customers will be in charge.
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Everyone I know who owns their own business puts in longer hours than I do and doesn’t take a vacation. On top of that, they still live and die by the whims of the general public – no different than working for the man.

[quote=joec]Most businesses end up failing for a reason and it’s hard to get a mortgage being self employed also for good reason.[/quote]

I’ve known so many people who had difficulty getting home loans because they were self employed. Some ended up giving up buying a home.

Other advice I would give (may be repeats, if so I apologize):
– Analyze the failure rate of businesses in that industry before you buy. And especially the failure reason.
– Stay out of the restaurant business. Very high failure rate unless you are very experienced at running a restaurant, which I assume you aren’t.
– Personally I would do a combination. Find a job with the man while you’re starting your own business. Gives you two paths to success: you end up liking your new corporate job, or your business takes off.
– Don’t forget to consider the impact that starting your own business will have on your unemployment benefits.

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[quote=AN]
It’s not about difficulty of the job. It’s purely about supply and demand.[/quote]

That’s exactly right.

I was going to post: there are a few SW specialties in SD that can get $175K, but those salaries are due to there not being enough skilled people to meet demand.

So what motivation – at all! – do those people have to get on a public forum and crow about their sweet spot? That would encourage people to transition to that niche and drive down their salary!

Also…slicing it by technical skill is fine, but I think there is more of a salary variation in general by slicing it another way: by industry.

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