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Incompetence or corruption. Pick one or two.

My two cents is that the dogs need to have the same energy level, character and size Breed certainly will impact energy level, character and size but age is important too. So, my vote would be the terrier since they are of similar age and energy level, size, and character.

Yep, I agree. They say that HFCS is process differently by our bodies. One of the things I have heard/read is that HFCS does not satisfy your hunger so you keep eating. Europe uses HFCS but their fructose content is something like 9-35% vs the US 55ish%. When I was in school there might be...

Yes, the sugar cane industry has been protected from overseas competition which has kept sugar prices high. Now, some would argue high sugar prices are a good thing to lower sugar consumption. Some European countries are limiting sugar in products and taxing it is my understanding. I don't...

We have noticed that when we have traveled to other countries, we loose weight, or worse case, don't gain weight even though we eat more food when traveling. We certainly go to more restaurants when traveling than when at home. On the second trip to Ireland we would eat chips, aka potato...

Funny that you mentioned this about Ireland. Our first trip to Ireland was by boat. After arriving at our final port before flying home, we took the boat's owner to dinner. He wanted a Gin and Tonic but he was afraid the tonic would have high fructose corn syrup(HFCS). We had a long...

The NASA P3 is back again doing more interesting patterns. I really think they are looking at the river water levels.

We have only spent a great deal of time in Ireland and the Netherlands with a week or so in Scotland which was on a boat visiting smaller port towns with only a short time in Glasgow. One of the expressions, and law, they have in some/many European countries is "anti-social behavior." It...

Regarding the stock market. Over the years, I have noticed that the market seems to settle into a range from X to X+Y. The market will move up or down with some big change, for some reason, but it settles into a range where it just bounces around. So for example, back in Feb and Mar, the...

John D. MacArthur was a South Florida billionaire. I read an article about him in the early 1980's that mentioned his office which I eventually drove by one day by happenstance. It was an old, small house along a sorta major road. The house was likely built in the 1920's or 1930's. Across...

Seems like a "normal" year so far. The dog picks up quite a few ticks all year round and he ran into a nest of seed ticks yesterday..... :( Was out earlier this week repairing the driveway from the 10-12 inches of rain we had last weekend. The mosquitoes were vicious. A couple of weeks...

You are talking about the dog and not the wife? :unsure: 😁:ROFLMAO::D Speaking of booty scratches, our dog is the same. He likes to have is butt rubbed and will dance in place if you get the right spot. He will have lift one leg after the other and kinda dance in one spot. Really funny to...

The EU has ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorization System) that we now have to do, well will have to do, but it keeps getting pushed out into the future. Now it is for some time in 2026 the last I read. Supposedly, this was because the US had a requirement to check people entering...

We have spent more time walking around Dublin than any US city. Only got a bit nervous in one area near the Guinness Store House, not because of people directly, but just the trash, graffiti, barbed wire, razor wire, etc. It was a nicer, newer area but it was off. We did have an issue with a...

It will be interesting if you notice the changes that have been happening Dublin, and the rest of Ireland, over the last few years. There is much that is happening in Ireland and Northern Ireland that is not getting covered in the usual media outlets, and if covered, not telling the whole...

This one just showed up hugging the coastline and avoiding bad weather to the west. A Ukrainian An-12 that took off from Titusville, FLA, aka Cape Canaveral, and is heading to Portsmouth, NH. It's last flight was Leipzig to Turin. No record of how it got to Titusville but supposedly, it is...

Saw this today. A NASA P3. The P3 used to be, and still is, though being replaced, a submarine hunter. Given the rain we had from Chantal, my guess is that the plane is looking at flood waters? But one would think it would flying more over the rivers. It is flying low too at 3,200-3,000...

The following really surprised the heck out of us. I compared two items at our grocery store with the same product on Amazon. Amazon was cheaper by $2-3. One of the items was mayo. :eek:

Our dog will sit and look at where the treats are kept... He knows he is supposed to sit before he gets his meals or a treat.... When he comes inside, he gets THREE treats. He knows this, so he will go sit and look at where the treats are kept. He can count, because if he does not get THREE...

That is a really odd pattern. I wonder what NASA is doing. If this was a USAF U2 and if there were USN exercises off shore, I would have expected the U2 to just fly a race track pattern. A few days ago, I saw a YouTube video of an interview with a U2 pilot that was interesting. He would not...

I don't think the market wants what Ford, GM, Dodge, Toyota, etc., is producing, otherwise they would not have Employee Pricing. The car companies have gotten very greedy after shafting people with high prices since the lock down. People had no choice but to pay, and the executives figured...

I watch Ryan Hall Ya'll on YouTube to get weather, as well as looking at Windy and Weatherbug. Ryan Hall has a video a few times a week looking at the current weather and forecasts for a week or so in the future with some long term forecasts regarding temperature and rain. If there is a...

"would'nt" should be "should'nt" :) and thankfully, in all of the accidents with fission and fusion weapons, some of which were dropped, they never went off. 🤞 However, the B-52 that crashed over NC, did loose two of it's fusion weapons and one bomb was only one switch away from a fusion...

EV tied to a house solar system would seem to be a good idea, if one has the money. Having the money has always been my issue. We don't have the cash to install a solar powered system, the payoff is years in the future. and I can't see it making or saving money. It is a nice to have...

No one really knows, but with LiFePo batteries, it seems possible that the batteries will fail due to age and not the number of cycles. If one is looking at used EVs, it might be better to buy a car driven by the "little old lady" that just went to church and the store once a week vs the car...

I know some companies have put chargers in the parking lots on the campuses. This is fine for open parking lots but I wonder what is going to happen if insurance companies start dropping coverage of EVs parked in garages. I have heard of that recently. We were thinking about buying a condo...

The price point is interesting. The car companies are in deep doo doo with their VERY high prices, high interest rates, and low reliability. They shafted their customers in the lock down and continued to do so after the pandemic ended. The so called auto company leaders think/though people...

I was wondering if the insurance companies were going to go after EVs when parked in doors. There have been enough car park fires and garage fires for the insurance companies to take action. We have thought about buying a condo in various places. One of the many problems/issues is parking...

To reuse Hermine's line in Harry Potter, if that story does not get to you... "...you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon..." :ROFLMAO:

Yes, I think a talk to the insurance commissioner would be helpful. Decades ago, after we had a few serious hurricanes blow through, an insurance company canceled a coworkers house coverage. I suggested he talk to the insurance commission and his coverage was reinstated. He had had no claims...

From what I was reading, certain insurance companies were to be avoided like the plague, an ACA plan could be a problem, but at least in my state, it was the company to avoid. Maybe other companies ACA plans had problems but I was really picking up on avoiding some companies. I figured if we...

When I went to the grocery store a few days ago I REALLY wanted a danish...... Yeah, I know it is bad for me, yada yada yada. :) But I had not had anything sweet like a danish in months.... I did read the label and just put the box of danish back on the shelf. :) The list of ingredients was...

Surprised I have not mentioned this before in this ancient discussion. :ROFLMAO: I went back and read all of my posts which was educational to see where I was years ago diet wise. I have continued to do Intermittent Fasting which has kept the weight off. Just wish I could loose a five more...

Yes. At work, I have a VM that I remotely login too. The VM is connected to the very fast company network. The same sized file, download from a server to the VM, can take anywhere from seconds to an hour. The difference in download speed can be the server running the VM, the network, and/or...

Sooooo...... What was your response? :ROFLMAO:

THANK YOU! I needed a good laugh today! :ROFLMAO:

Regarding tankers, I see them all of the time over eastern NC and offshore. I saw an KC 135 this morning and there are two KC767s, Backy21 and Backy22, from Seymour Johnson AFB flying around at the moment. There are a few C17s and C135s flying around today. Quite a few were flying around...

Yep, and the number of providers has gotten worse due to mergers which I think were done in some ways to deal with the cost of regulation and administration. My area has gone from five hospital systems to three spread across three counties. Now, there is only one hospital system in each...

In the US, I always hear people using the UK health system, NHS, as an example of a well run system and what the US should emulate. We should NOT emulate the NHS at all.

Yeah, making sure one's doctors will take your insurance is another issue to deal with when picking a provider. Looking at the ObamaCare plans in our area, I did not even look at one insurance company because I have heard so many problems with them being accepted by the providers. The US...

Yes it is complicated. My company benefits documentation specifically mentions which plans it offers are, and are not, creditable coverage for Medicare drug coverage. As part of the retirement process I will be talking to professionals. However, I want to know this stuff before I talked to...

Yep, I think that is correct. I should have said, "yes, one needs to have "creditable coverage" on some insurance plans before getting into Medicare Part D drug plan.." At least that is the one I know about. To make this more confusing/interesting for me, is that I have a bit of...

Yes, one needs to have "creditable coverage" on some insurance plans before getting into Medicare, otherwise, one can be more.

Given the breadth of experience on TBN, it actually is a good place to research health care and retirement. There have been people on TBN who have/had deep, deep experience in Social Security and retirement health care. I learned quite a bit ove the years reading what they had to say. One is...

Yeah, that is a good way to put it, GoGo years, SlowGo years and then there are the NoGo years. I have seen family work hard to get to the GoGo years, but then health issues came out of the blue and they had very few GoGo years, the SlowGo years were very few and the NoGo years arrived way to...

The TCM blew up a long time ago. 😁 This is The Truth. (y) How much is enough is sorta a tough question. At some point, one knows they have enough money, but prior to that point, there is uncertainty about how much is enough. I have modeled our finances so many ways it makes my head spin...

The situation at work is one of the main reasons to retire a early. It just gets worse and worse with no improvement. While looking at earnings adjusted for inflation, it is obvious that my highest earning years were years ago due to discrimination, inflation, and executive "decisions."...

Shocking, isn't it. Now that the company health care cost is documented, or should be documented, in the W2, imagine what would happen if companies did not get a tax break for paying for health care, and that money was paid directly to the employee. That health care expense IS paid for by the...

The back of the W2 describes the fields with the health care coverage amount being "DD—Cost of employer-sponsored health coverage. The amount reported with code DD is not taxable." Odd that DD is not showing up if you have company supplied health care.

Yep, if you can lower your income you get lower premiums with ObamaCare. Or if you have dependents. The 1099 was a nasty surprise. :( The health care payment is code DD on your W2. The cost of COBRA depends on the company. From what I can tell, my company ONLY charges 103% of the cost.

Yep. One also needs to be aware of to have creditable coverage. My understanding is that this is for Medicare part D drug coverage. I have seen other discussions where people say it mean something else but the only thing I can find is something like this...

And that bill is part of the health care cost problem. How can the Providers billed plan be so much higher that the allowed total cost? If the billed plan cost is real, the provider took and $100,000 loss? That is hard to believe. Some providers in some states will not accept Medicade...

I would suggest getting blood work done including having your vitamin D level checked. It is not expensive and provides a clue as to future health problems. Adequate levels of vitamin D will lower one's risk for respiratory illnesses. I was exposed to the pandemic virus multiple times and...

The wifey and I have been talking about going without as well. Unfortunately, our family had quite a few hospitalizations and surgeries a couple of decades ago. This lasted for say 10-15 years, but thankfully, this has eased up quite a bit in the last decade or so. I don't know what my...

OUCH! That is a gotcha that I did not know! Unreal.....

We are NCFB members so they would be who we would talk too about health insurance. I think we did a few years ago and the price was high but I think that was before ObamaCare and us knowing how much my employer pays. Course it is still expensive either way you look at it. :(

I figured we would but I want to see what the TBN Mind Trust has to say. 😁 Over the years, there have been some very informative conversations on TBN regarding retirement, Medicare, and to a lesser extent, health care prior to Medicare. Health care prior to Medicare gets a mention here and...

If we could keep our work insurance for $1,000 a month we would but the cost is several times that amount. 🤬 The ObamaCare policies I have looked at are similar to our current plan. Deductibles and out of pocket are a bit higher but still similar to our current health care plan.

I found this on the rebates/subsidy ending, Obamacare's 'subsidy cliff' eliminated through 2025 Who really knows if it will end. What is scary/interesting, is the price comparison in the link with and without the subsidy. Basically, without the subsidy, the premium payment in one example...

That is interesting since I had no heard that Obama Care rebates would change. From what I have seen on our state policy, we would pay no more, and maybe less, for a similar policy I get through work.

We could and would use COBRA for a year or so because of company benefits but that won't get us to Medicare. On of the good things about Obama Care was having your W2 show how much your company pays for health care. it is a criminal amount of money. Then add what we pay out of pocket and in...

What are people doing for health care if they retire before Medicare? - Private policy of some kind? - COBRA? - Obama Care? - No coverage and pay as you go?

Yep. We have seen the smaller health care providers struggle with billing and regulations. We stopped going to one provider for years because the billing was always wrong. They were struggling to start a business and getting the billing done correctly was very hard for them and they had to...

Yep. When I finally got around to canceling DirecTV they tried to keep me by lowering the price. Well, if they had done that years ago and not forced me to call, maybe they would have kept a customer. Maybe. Given there was very little worth watching, which was declining year after year, even...

I don't touch our retirement investments very much. A few years ago, I was looking that the various funds, and some are not performing as well as others. I looked at transferring some of the the under performing funds to better ones. However, as I dug into the higher performing funds, I...

Yep, it is a paper loss until one sells. Last century, in one of the big down turns around 1990 or so, I knew a retired person who panicked and sold stock. He lost a big percentage of his retirement savings. It was horrible. He had been through these down turns before and should have known...

Yes, you can pay about $15 to get commercial free viewing. There is more to the plan, like downloads, which is why I pay for the service. The commercials are not that bad on the videos we watch. I don't login to the Premium account on our Smart TV so we get commercials.

My great, great grand parents owned a country store eons back in time... 20-30 years ago, my mother was visiting a thrift or antique store in the area of the country store. She found a calendar that my great, great grand parents had created with an image of the country store. The calendar was...

For years we streamed with 1.5 mbps. Yes 1.5. We ended up with two 1.5 mbps lines to load share a bit but streaming was done on a 1.5 mbps line. At one point, streaming was done over a DVD player and we would get pauses while the buffer filled up. We had to replace that DVD player with a new...

Mental health care in the US needs to be better. This is is really difficult since it is just not a matter of money and trained staffed, both of which are needed, but of laws and because of the actions of the person in need. We have some people who are mental and should not be walking the...

The Vegas attack did not make sense to me at all for many reasons, but mainly because the truck did not really explode. I really questioned if the guy was in the Special Forces because of what happened and some initial reports. Then more information came out and it was obvious he did not...

Almost every spring, we see a Bald Eagle sitting in a dead tree on a farm pond. It only stays for a few days and then moves on. The snag it would sit in has fallen down so I doubt we will see it again. :( A Red Tailed Hawk wounded a crow years ago. The other crows were trying to help out...

I can't tell if having 30 member remaining out of 300 is a good thing or not. <thinking> Course it was a quarter century ago. QUARTER CENTURY! :-) I did watch the video for all times sake this Christmas like I always do. :)

No screen shot. Sorry. Last week I noticed a 747 doing multiple horse track pattern off of NC/VA. The 747 flew out of a base in eastern VA and was not commercial. I assume it was testing something against USN ships. I see Lear jets flying similar patterns in the same area and I assume they...

Putin has been threatening this, that and the other since he started his second Ukraine invasion. Once the Ukrainians fought back, Putin was a dead man walking. It is only a question of how long, how many people have to die and be wounded, how much destruction, and how much money is spent...

I have seen Air Force One/Two several times. The first time, the plane was not obviously Air Force One/Two but it was sorta easy to figure out. This time, Air Force One was flying to South America which is why there were two 747s. I think they always fly two 747s when the President goes...

Never, have I ever seen this before. Just noticed a 747 flying over Eastern NC. Looked closer and it was TWO 747s flying on top of each. THAT is unusual to say the least. Zoomed in and it is two VC-25A, aka Air Force 1 and 2 if the President and Vice President is on board. Never seen the...

I don't have my data handy, so from memory, ten years or so ago two older white men had married local woman on Mindanao. The men were shot in the head one day while in public. I think at or near a beach. The attack was odd because one had to wonder if it was a terror attack but I never heard...

Yeah, making the videos did not help, but given he stuck out from the local population, he had to be well known in the area and information would have spread about him. We where once in a small town in Ireland. We had gone to the town to get a sim card and when we parked on the street my wife...

There was another article about the guy who was kidnapped. No word if he is still alive. Given that the kidnappers shot him in the leg, he could have died, and even if he is alive, his health is going to be a big issue.

Just saw this story about an American kidnapped on Mindanao, US YouTuber kidnapped in Philippines after marrying local woman He was taken to an area where many of the kidnapped people were taken years ago. I really had hopped this s...t had stopped, but an American or Westerner, is a target...

They say I40 will reopen in September of 2025. Maybe a lane in each direction. If they can fix the I40 section that has been washed away in a year that will be amazing. That section of I40 gets closed every few years, or so it seems, due to landslides and rock falls. I really is not a good...

This has been my experience as well. After Hurricane Floyd hit, the Mennonites appeared out of no where into a very small but hard it town. I have no idea how they got there or how they found out about the town but there they were. Red Cross and National Guard were feeding people after the...

LiFePo batteries are huge improvement over lead acid for most applications on boats. There are the "drop-in" replacement LiFePo batteries that are supposed to easily replace lead acid. I would be very careful with these batteries. LiFePo batteries have different charging requirements that lead...

There were at least two problems, the paperwork and the rules were changing. So what was true today was not true tomorrow. If one over produced you did not 2.5 cent per KWH. You got nothing. You just gave the power company free power. The rules have changed since then and I don't know what...

We have gotten some of these calls as well. I had a series of "conversations" with one company and talked to at least two different people. I suspect some of the other phone calls we have gotten were from the same company but with different numbers. The message/script are very similar.

That is not a new problem/issue in my area. You can see it via the houses in some places, in other places, it only shows up when a lot is flagged. When we were looking to buy land, one parcel was one piece of similar sized lots carved out of a large parcel. I think this was done originally to...

The wife's family have been entrenched in an area since at least 1900. For some reason, we went digging on the Internet over the weekend and found some interesting things. I found, online at the UNC library, what we would now call, or used to call, the yellow and white pages from the early...

There is big development going on in our area but it is not easy. One development was just stopped due to it's location and density. Some of the people wanting to buy land are looking for a steal price wise and hoping the owners don't know the value of the land. Most property owners I know...

Sorry to hear you had to cancel your trip but it was going to be a risk. All it takes is a run in with the wrong people who see you as a lottery ticket. Look at what happened to the US Marines in Turkey this weekend. That could have gotten very bad, very fast. We were lucky to visit China and...

We have been getting offers to buy our land for years now. A family member owns a lot in our area but lives out of state and has been getting the offers as well. I think we both started getting the offers about the same time but the person living out of state seems to get more. Most of the...

I just read that in part of the Netherlands, the power company is paying homes with solar power to NOT produce power at certain times because the solar power is disrupting the grid in some areas. They have too many solar panels in some regions so PV can produce more power than can be used. I...

I think this C130 is a hurricane hunter checking out Debbie. Going 180 knot and at 2125 feet.

The map is showing the most dangerous areas are in the eastern part of Mindanao, which is where much of the violence, including against westerners, was taking place.

Our first flight after the pandemic, we took masks just in case. I was worried about someone being sick near me on the plane. The last flight we took, I can't remember if I took the mask or not. This weekend I met in passing, two Filipino teachers traveling in the US. I mentioned that I...

There has been quite a bit of offshore air activity off VA and NC. Lots of T38's, adversarial aircraft, tankers, antisub and Lear Jets doing something. Also seen C2 cargo planes heading offshore that disappear and then reappear. Gee, what could be out there? :) I think the USS Truman is...

Another source of information can be YouTube. I get far more relevant information on YoutTube about current events than most of the main stream media. One just has to find the right channels and know how to sniff out the valid comments vs trash comments. The comments often have as much or...

Another thing for Ultra to consider, is how much will you regret if you do not go? We had an opportunity to attend a wedding in Taiwan in November of 2019. Some coworkers went but we did not since we had a vacation planned for April 2020. We should have gone to the wedding. In hindsight of...

That was last year..... A lot has change in Ireland in the last year. It started with the Ukrainian refuge's but then the Irish government invited, and allowed, other nationalities into the country. Ireland has taken in more "migrants" per capita than any other European country. There are...

Regarding safety in other countries. When we travel, I read up on the area in more detail once we have nailed down the area we are going to visit. Generally, I read the news in that area as part of my routine, but I will start trying to find out more about the area as our plans solidify. How...

We are watching a TV show filmed in Canada about a boy, his family and friend growing up in Newfoundland. Pretty good show, and oddly Malcolm McDowell is on the show. The main characters best friend is from the Philippines which is weaved into various episodes. One of our neighbors when I...

We have a pretty good selection of beers in the stores but I have not see those beers. Will have to check the local store that only sells beers and see if he carries those. I do miss the beer in the Netherlands. MUCH cheaper than here, even if one did not return the bottles/cans for the...

Easy for me. I don't drink sodas! 😁 They really are too sweet for me and I don't like them. It has been many, many years since I had a soda. Now beer..... :D

That sounds like an awesome trip. Something not many people get to do. Very tough decision.

The terror groups were mostly kidnapping along the coastal areas because that is where the Westerners were located, i.e., that is where the money was located, so to speak. But there was quite a bit of fighting in the internal areas and the terror groups were exploiting at least some of the...

Too funny that RC Cola is a big thing over there. RC Cola is an old time Southern favorite along with peanuts and Moon Pies. 😁 As a kid, the school took us on a field trip to a soda plant in Atlanta GA. It was not a Coke plant but another brand, I want to say Fanta but that does not seem...

The kidnappers in the Philippines were well armed, well motivated, had training, and executed well planned raids against Westerners all over the Sulu Sea. They raided individual boats, guarded marinas full of people including their targets, and various resorts across the area. The kidnappers...

Reading the policy a bit, it certainly would seem the insurance has the option of not covering treatment/transport in a no go area. However, it is one thing to say to not go to Russia vs there is a civil disturbance in Dublin, and they won't cover treatment/transport in Cork. So, reading left...

People who are cruising the world have said to just self insurance expect for big health care events. Health care is cheaper in many countries outside the US. Get travel insurance. We have gotten it for our kids and actually had to use it. The wife and I get travel insurance when we go...

The question is WHERE in the Philippines? The answer seems to be Davao City on Mindanao. Therefore, stay away or exercise EXTREME CAUTION. First a bit of history. After the US took control of the Philippines from the Spanish after the Spanish American War, the US fought a war against the...

Noticed these three Pipers flying this morning. Then noticed the other two aircraft. The Pipers are training military pilots to get their ATP(Air Transport Pilot) certification.

Years ago, maybe decades at this point, I read an article from Warren Buffet about how the US would pay down the national debt. The answer was inflation which allows the US paying off old debt bought with expensive dollars with a cheaper dollar. We have a huge debt issue, that along with other...

I did not get a screen shot, but last week, I noticed a 737 airliner doing a race track pattern over the center of the state. I will see this with military aircraft but not passenger planes so I got my attention. It seemed likely that it was trying to land at RDU but was put into a holding...

Yep, I knew about the Samaritan's Purse being the only DC-8 still flying since I have seen it before and was curious about the plane. I typed that info up, but deleted it, and forgot to mention it again. Glad you did since it is interesting information. It flew down near Trinidad so it had...

Happened to glance at one of the flight tracking pages today and noticed a four engine jet flying in central NC. Four engines are unusual and it turns out it is the DC 8 from Samaritan's Purse. Looks like it is headed to the islands with hurricane aid.

The refurbs we have bought for the kids over the years were brand new and never issued from a large company that bought them. That was surely luck that is for sure. I would be shocked that refurbs were not formatted and new image installed. I would not expect new batteries. As others have...

You might want to consider converting the IRA to a ROTH IRA. There will be tax hit now, but the money will grow and be tax free when your daughter inherits the money. The RMD(Required Minimum Distributions) will likely cause tax issues in the future for a regular IRA/401K.

I have not seen NC improving rural internet speeds. They spent a fortune on landlines in an eastern NC county, for a small number of users. They could have paid for Starlink for decades for what was spent. My county, and I don't think it is different that other counties, has awful Internet...

A couple of thoughts popped up reading the last few pages. Last year I posted about Intermittent Fasting which is helping me loose and keep the weight away. During the week I eat in an 8 hour window and fast for 16 hours. You can't pig out in those 8 hours, and staying away from processed...

We have been using Starlink for several years for Internet access including streaming videos, normal access, and web conferencing. Starlink has worked just fine even with my wife and I on separate web conferences at the same time. We can have multiple video streams going as well. We have the...

This website estimates how much KWh a solar system will get at a given location and takes into account the month and weather. PVWattsg If one is going to cycle the batteries daily, one really should look at good quality LiFePo4 batteries. Most of the drop in LieFePo4 batteries cannot handle...

Ireland has had housing shortages for centuries. I read a few years ago that the cost of housings was up to 60% due to taxes and complying with regulations. The government has made changes to reduce that expense but I don't know how much that has really been reduced. Six or so years ago, I...

The balloon is heading out to sea from NC. Surprised I noticed it... It has the same registration number as the balloon seen by bdhsfz6. Looks like it was launched just west of Cedar Rapids.

I bought a Stihl Kombi brush cutter and it worked as well, if not better, than my old gas unit. Need to buy a saw blade for larger diameter saplings to finish "the test" but the brush cutter worked. The batteries lasted as long, if not longer than a tank of gas/oil mix and was MUCH quieter...

Mark Twain wrote that book and it is a great one. Science Fiction or Fantasy depending on one's definition. :D There is an episode of Star Trek Next Generation with Mark Twain going into the future. I figured the Star Trek writers used A Connecticut Yankee story as the idea for the episode.

I got checked twice when I was a teenager while hunting. Well, I was checked once, the officers checked my dad who was in camp while I was up on a ridge. I heard the officers drive in and talk to my dad. Amazing how far sound can travel. I don't ever remember getting checked while fishing...

We had a full eclipse 5-7 years ago which was amazing to see. I think I saw one in grade school because I remember making the pin hole viewer. The eclipse I saw as an adult had a bigger impact on me. One could understand how an eclipse would freak people out who did not know that the sun...

The Federal government used to pay state and local agencies for boat based law enforcement. I would assume they still do and it would not surprise me if they have increased funding. That Federal money influenced how much land vs boat patrols were done, for better or worse.

I have not seen the numbers recently, but wildlife officers/park rangers/etc had a higher rate of assaults than city law enforcement. Wildlife officers do not have backup nearby like a city officer does, medical help is a long time and distance away, people are armed and know, or think they...

He is right too. There are some places in Florida where the amount of money is unreal. It has been decades, but I once saw a three car fender bender in an affluent area in Florida. It was a Mercedes, Porsche, and either a Jaguar or Rolls. In some places, seeing ONE of those cars would be...

Wow. I got lucky. I posted this back on 12/19/2023. Never seen a WB57 before and it was flying a perfect circle over the Newport News area. Actually, it was flying a perfect circle around Langley AFB... One of the websites I read each night had a very interesting article yesterday...

I have seen gyrocopters a few times, and saw one yesterday, but they sure are not commonly seen that is for sure. The Goodyear blimp has also been flying around the last few days.

NASA has a P3:

This P8 seemed to be hunting a sub. What did not make it into the screen shot was a Learjet that was "watching" the exercise.

Have seen some interesting P8 flights. The P8 is the jet replacement for the old P3 sub hunter but the P8 seems to have an intelligence gathering capability as well. Why was this flight spending so much time on the NC/SC border?

"Seats" or where they fold out couches? :ROFLMAO: Our last overseas trip, we had saved up enough points to fly in the seats behind first class. It was SOOOO much better since the seats where bigger and we were not feeling like sardines in a can. There were other things you get for the...

I often "catch" the return flight from Houston to Dubai on Flightfinder. Once the A380 flew over the house, and even at it's high altitude, I heard it. When we stayed in the NL, the flights at the Amsterdam airport, Schipol, seemed to make a turn over where we stayed to line up with the...

I was hoping you would get a photo of a Skunk Ape... :unsure: :ROFLMAO:

The EU was pushing for a ban on the use of some chemicals used on farms and the farmer protests caused the EU to back down on the ban. At least for now. Given the unrest against the EU, political parties in the NL, Germany, and I think Sweden are talking about leaving the EU. EU policies...

I think the Dutch farmers started this round of protests. The EU has mandated a reduction in nitrogen in the water near sensitive areas. The sensitive areas seem to be wildlife areas/parks. They also want to require a permit if one is withing 25 km of these areas. Ammonia is also a concern...

I don't want to know what we spend on Amazon. :eek: 95+% of the time we get our orders in the time specified. There have been a few things that did not get delivered on time and showed up weeks later. By then Amazon had shipped a replacement and we got to keep both items. This has happened...

And if the inventory is high, and getting higher, there will be more incentives. Then one has to negotiate with the dealers. They are not likely to advertise how low they will go. From the comments I have read on the videos I linked earlier, people are saying some dealers with high...

I think it is NC law that covers this situation though it has been awhile since I read up on the topic. A coworker decades ago had a "neighbor" who would not fence in his sheep. The sheep would eat my coworkers landscaping. The sheep owner was a lawyer who let everyone know he was a lawyer...

I have been following the truck market for the last 12 months. Short answer is, if you don't have to buy now, wait. Inventory is starting to stack up at dealers and they will HAVE to cut prices. I have seen reports that this is happening now, and TV advertisements are certainly becoming more...

Coworker on ATT is having issues. Verizon here is up and running. Just got a spam call. :(

Coops can sometimes charge more than the larger multi county/city power companies. I have read of some power Coops that made some deals that drove up their costs. Sometimes you win. Sometimes you loose.

I might have looked at Chemex when my "expensive" coffee maker broke. I looked at one coffee maker that was hand made in Denmark or the Netherlands and was something like $800. Ah. No. To just heat water and pour it over coffee grounds. :eek: An Irish AirBnB we rented had a hot water...

I would guess I posted years ago when this discussion started a decade previously. 😁 When we built the house, power was 8 cents per KWH almost 20 years ago. Now it is 15/16 cents per KWH. That includes all taxes and fees. The rate goes from 16 to 15 cents the more power we use, I guess due...

I don't no stink'n coffee maker! :ROFLMAO: Years ago, my expensive coffee maker died and when I looked for a new one I did not like the prices and/or reviews. The light bulb finally went on and I asked myself, self, why am I buying a machine to heat water to pour over coffee? :unsure: So...

The Fox Fire books had stories about people being hunted, attacked and sometimes killed by what they called cougars, mountain lions, painters or panthers. The Fox Fire books were written in the late 1960's as a class project for a school in the Appalachian mountains. The school is near the...

I see Atlas Air 747s frequently but I have never seen that one! (y)

There are three CVNs docked in VA, Ford, Truman, and I forgot the name of the other carrier. Happened to see this today which I have never seen before. The two planes owned by Grumman seemed to be watching the T-38s and I assume the planes playing with the T-38-s we could not see.

When we built our house, the rules were that the septic system was sized by the number of bedrooms. A bedroom is a room with a closet. NC does have Low Pressure Pipe(LPP) septic systems that require inspection each year. The homeowner can take a class and perform their own inspection...

When we were buying our land, I read and reread the state and local regulations regarding perc and septic systems. Long story as to why, but your concern with corruption is a valid concern, and which is no longer an issue with us. The state regulations had the rules, and I think...

I was surprised how little smell there was when we have had our septic tank pumped. What I could smell was not that bad. Our pumper has one of the best looking and maintained trucks I have seen. I really is pretty. They keep it in a garage that is heated. (y) Regarding professors and...

Just checked our grocery store advertisement for the week and New York Strip is $13 a pound but on sale for $9. From your link, New York Strip is $6 a pound. Now the steak in our store is Select not Choice much less Prime. We do have a butcher shop, and they have better cuts of meats, but...

Good gracious this discussion move fast.... Yes, I would say my food bill has doubled in the last few years. I documented the costs in this post, Student Loan Debt?. Given we eat the same thing each month so only the costs have gone up. Not what we buy. Now, I am NOT including what my kids...

By dumb luck when scrolling to center the view over NC, I saw this for the first time.

The skies have been active in the last week or so.... Before I noticed the 747, there were 2 E2s up on the NE Outer Banks of NC. I don't think they had anything to do with the 747. There were some tankers up, that disappeared offshore along with two p8s that also disappeared once they went...

Yep. I don't think people understand how much diesel is needed to get food on the table.... How many "trips" does it take to get a loaf of bread on the grocery store shelf? If the farmer is doing no till, once pass to plant the seed. A trip to fertilize. Lets says one pass for weed and insect...

I agree. I do the grocery shopping and before the price increases, I would spend around $80 to maybe $100 a week. Now, I spend around $130-150 most weeks after $10-20 of coupons. Last trip, I spent $180 after almost $40 of coupons. We eat very little meat, mostly bacon at a pound a week. We...

The E6 is my previous post ended up flying down to Florida then back up to North Carolina. It few a large race track pattern over the central part of NC for HOURS before heading back to base.

Twas very busy in the last two days over NC.... Today, an E6, contract fighters, C130's and lots of tankers. What can't be seen is what planes were getting gas from the tankers. 😁

Yep. It is amazing how many of them are still flying and how many I see each week. The KC-135s are the most numerous military planes I see. Toss up between C130s and C17s as the next most seen.

We still have some small amount in European and Pacific funds but no longer add money to them. These funds used to go up in value when US funds went down in value, and vice versa, so it was a good balance. However, for a decade or more, the European and Pacific funds we have money in have not...

As I watched them, one of the KC135's did a 180 and headed back to Tampa. The other two went up north of RDU, did there U Turn and head back home. Curious as to why the one plane turned around 30inutes or so earlier.:unsure:

The third odd sighting was THREE KC135's flying formation. I frequently see KC135s flying, sometimes in pairs, and I see some tankers out of Seymour Johnson flying almost always flying pairs. They have the BACKY call sign. Saw Backy51 and 52 in the last 24 hours. But today there were three...

One of the planes I saw this morning I don't think I have seen before, a F16. What was interesting was the plane took off from Cherry Point, the USMC air station and it looks like it is a contract fighter.

Not really much new watching the flight tracking sites but today was a bit active. The first things I heard/saw was NOT on the tracking sites! I heard a noisy flight this morning and just thought it was a plane in the landing pattern for RDU. However, the sound was different, louder than...

We visited an observatory in the Netherlands last year and they had wall sized images from the Webb telescope on display. They gave us quite a bit of time to look at the images but I wish I could have sat in a comfy chair, with a nice glass of port or scotch, and just LOOKED at the images for...

Then there is the tradition/story of The Last Stitch. When a sailor died at sea, they were wrapped up in their hammock with a cannon ball or two at their feet, they body was then sewed up in the hammock with the last stitch through the nose. That stich was supposed to ensure the person was...

When one is getting your blood tested for a physical ask for your vitamin D levels to be checked. Most/many people have low levels which is not good. Vitamin D fights off respiratory illnesses and affects mental health. Ten or so years ago, I got Whooping cough even though I have had 12-24...

Years ago, guessing close to ten, a B17 flew into a local airport so I went to see it. I wish I had seen the plane was visiting earlier than I did so I could have gotten a ride on the plane. :D It was amazing enough just getting into the plane and look at the different spaces of the plane...

Yep. About the time I moved to NC, people in terror organizations were buying cigarettes in NC and taking them to NYC to sell for a huge profit. Can't imagine the profit now.... OK, a quick search and it looks like there is about a $7.50 tax difference per PACK of cigarettes in NYC vs NC...

I was at a grocery store a couple of months back and went to check out. I was in one line but another line had fewer people with less items so I changed registers. You know how that ended. The guy in front of me in the new line only had a few things.... :eek: :) But he wanted a pack of...

I spent a couple of days reading this discussion. (y) :D This has to be one of the best conversations on TBN, though it went all over the place, which is maybe why it was so good. 😁 Toooooo many good comments to comment on. :ROFLMAO:

Have to watch on Christmas Day. :D

There is at least one local woman who really believes in the ChemTrails. I guess she has never seen the news reels from WWII of the allied bombers flying over Europe. Or maybe that is when spraying of ChemTrails started. :unsure::eek::D

Been a bit busy to post but I have been watching the skies..... There is a pattern to some activity. The USCG copters and C130's fly around training. For sure I saw them searching for someone that I don't think was a training mission since they were running a pattern off the coast. First...

We have had many health care billing issues over the years. I can only think of ONE problem we had with the insurance company while we have had many, many problems with the service provider. The wife had a contact with the insurance company that help us over and over and over, even though the...

Yep, the more process, the more it costs, both to buy the "food" and then the cost to one's health. Before my wifey lost the ability to eat beans, we ate them all of the time. I would make a big pot of beans on the weekend, can four quarts, and we would eat the rest during the week. The beans...

This discussion started 21 years ago which is hard to believe. Seems like yesterday.... It was a long, drawn out and horrible situation. Educational though. I don't think the original poster talks about the situation any more.

Used to work with someone who had an older vehicle. They canceled coverage for the vehicle and then had an accident. The spouse hit the vehicle with another family car. :eek: I once lowered my dental coverage and promptly bit into a bone in meat in a Taco Bell product which cracked a tooth...

This is an ancient discussion and I may have mentioned this in the past but it bares repeating... My granny always talked about The Three Evil White Foods, white flour, white sugar and white rice, which are all carbs and processed. I am attending a weekly nutrition class just to learn things...

Yep. What Musk has done with Starlink and Space X is astounding. I think people get so used too technological advances and we get blase about them. How many billions of tax payer dollars have been spent on the space program and we have been pretty much doing the same old process. Build...

Due to this conversation and one's on other websites about Starlink, I just checked our outages. I see similar outages, especially if one toggles on the .1s+. Flip side, I don't notice any service disruptions downloading, surfing, remote access, streaming, video meetings, etc. We did not...

I have seen a couple of gyro copters along the coast. They really stand out and I have been surprised to see them. I have seen one in roughly the same area so I assume it is the same aircraft. Seen some more at different places and I wonder if it is the same gyro or different ones. Can't...

There are pills one can take to help with the lactose issue. I have been using pills from CostCo and Walmart for years. They work for me but one can still eat too much lactose and overwhelm the pills. One pill is enough for me to eat cheese on a sandwich, omelette, etc. I don't drink milk or...

We have been getting offers as well. VERY low price offers. I do keep the offers to see how many are from the same company. We do get offers from the same company. All of the offers are from out of the area and they are similar in price. My suspicion is they are using some company to...

Over the weekend I saw a C5M which I don't think I have seen before. Also saw another E6 flying around and landing at airports. Today, I noticed two C5M's crossing near each other. I think one landed in Charlotte.

What a great idea! Looked it up, and while I could not find anything that says major parts of the 787 are made in China, there are parts made in Japan, Korea, and Italy. The Wikipedia article does say Boing is using four 747's to move parts to Charleston. I will have to try to see the 747 on...

I found a history professor in school who was really a Professor unlike many who had the title. I took a bunch of classes with him even though I did not need the credits. One of the classes was about the Nuke Age. Not sure if I learned it in the class or on my own, but the gun barrel bomb...

I did not get a screen capture, but twice over the last week or two, I have seen one of the E6's flying. The E6 is a flying command post, aka, Looking Glass, that take over command if the ground base is destroyed or can't communicate. The first flight I saw flew over NC, flew out over the Gulf...

Ah! I finally see what you are saying. :ROFLMAO: Started up Google Earth Pro, don't know how we lived without it, and using the chart you posted, it would seem that the two planes were withing 10 miles or so of each other. Not sure if they could see a small plane with the Mark I eyeball at...

Yep, I understand. I assume the airplanes could see each other As could other airplanes, flight website users, the Russian government, governments, etc. My original thought about the second plane was that it turned around because someone knew that the first plane was going to get brought...

Saw this last week. Lots of tankers were up as was an E3 AWACS. I think there was P8 up and the contract fighters were offshore. The tankers, E3, and contract fighters implies there was some fighters up and about that were not showing up.

My "assumption" is that they see what we see or something similar. Maybe a pilot will tell us for sure. Vessels have a similar system called AIS which shows other vessels, speed, heading, size, destination, status, etc., IF the crew decides to fill in the data and turn on the system...

Paid more attention to the price of gas vs diesel and across many different stations, diesel was 70 cents more than gas. :confused:

I have not seen diesel prices near, much less under, gas prices in many, many years. Diesel did go up last week, seems like it had gotten under $4 a gallon but it was up around $4.30 early in the week. Seems like diesel was at least 50 cents more than gas but I did not really pay attention to...

The reports I have read have been short of details, as usual. Course, I just read an article about Marines getting a Congressional Medal of Honor, but in the report, it was a Gold Medal. So either something was edited out of the story, or the writer, does not know anything about the...