Backpacking - Either one really swanky sleep system (the full Zenbivy ultralight), or perhaps one crazy expensive ultralight tent like a Durston, or if we’re going budget, an entire setup of basic gear including backpack, tent, cook system, sleeping bag and pad, etc. Everything needed to backpack you could buy for under 1000€ to get started.
Before the Reddit Exodus I only used Reddit and YouTube. Social media is a plague. Once I left Reddit I never looked back and now use Lemmy exclusively. I don’t really see it as “hardcore”, it’s just me avoiding the worst and most stressful facet of modern society. I don’t feel like I’m missing anything by not using any other social media.
Ok but um…what do we do with California?
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.
About the length of a golden retriever
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.
It’s about to get absolutely stupid. Like I know everyone thinks things are bonkers now, but up until this week vendors I work with, that supply electronic equipment either partially or entirely manufactured in China, were still honoring quotes created weeks ago. This week we’re being told that quotes we’ve had in the works for weeks or months are now likely going to be pulled and not honored, and that was BEFORE this additional increase. We’re talking large spend that’s likely going to be delayed indefinitely, which will almost certainly shrink the entire GDP and cause mass layoffs, and we’ll be in a depression before we know it. I wish I was being hyperbolic, but I’m watching multi million dollar spends planned for the better part of a year evaporate because quotes won’t be honored.
Perhaps, but Russia is already busy with a war on their front door, I dunno that they’d want to stage one at the side door too. Sure, they’re interested, but realistically I don’t think they’ll stage a coup for it and try to force Norway out. That said, the world is upside down so who knows.
Fair. You asked where I would move to though lol. If it wasn’t for family and job tying me here in the US I would move to Longyearbyen in a heartbeat!
Correct
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.
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!
Oh man I loved Dragonheart as a kid! I haven’t seen it in ages! Guess I know what I’m watching tonight!
Your English is fantastic and you have no reason to apologize! I should apologize for assuming you were from the USA and not even bothering to state that my comments were. So sorry for that and the confusion caused! Sounds like both of our countries have confusing chicken standards though!
Gonna spend some time in the kitchen today. Tomorrow I’m making a homemade version of Flying Saucer’s Bratzels for dinner, so today I’ll be making the pretzel dough and freezing it so I can bake them tomorrow. I also have 4 bananas going brown so those need to become banana bread. Lastly, I’ve been saying I’ll make tiramisu for two weeks, so I think it’s probably time I get it made.
Other than that, I will probably play with my dog and take a nap. It’s a cold and cloudy Saturday here so we’re gonna enjoy the cozy time.
The terminology on the various bird conditions is frustrating and confusing. Cage free can effectively be exactly what you described - entirely indoors, crammed in and miserable, but not in cages. Free Range birds must have “access to the outdoors” but that can be as small as a hole they can stick their head out of but not go through. It’s honestly ridiculous.
If you buy grocery store eggs, I would recommend looking for the Certified Humane stamp on eggs and other farm products and meats. While the conditions they require are still far from idyllic, they are better than the general standards most livestock exist in. For chickens, pasture raised certified humane is a good option as birds must be let fully outside into the pasture, must have a minimum of 10 square meters per bird when out there, and must be allowed out for a minimum of 6 hours per day. At least in these conditions, they can reasonably be birds and touch grass. There are a lot of other requirements as well, including perches and dust baths. Ideally if you can afford the extra couple of dollars, these are good companies to support. (There are also other 3rd party companies that certify pasture raised eggs, the Certified Humane one is just most common in my area).
Back many moons ago when I smoked I preferred unfiltered Lucky Strikes. I generally put them in ash trays anywhere I could find one, but if one wasn’t available in the vicinity I had no qualms with dropping it and giving it a smash and twist with my shoe to put it out and effectively destroy it. One rain, or even just a good fog, and it no longer existed. I agree I think this habit was continued when filters came into fashion and it’s just not equivalent at all.
The unfortunate part is the two counties in KS most affected currently are two blue counties. They’re the more densely populated part of the state being part of the Kansas City metro. Sucks 😔
Every time I go hiking with my dog I pull one of these little bastards off his fur. I cover him in permethrin, as well as every inch of my clothing, shoes and hat, so I’m not SUPER stressed about it, but it’s still annoying. A couple days ago I found one in his tail floof (he’s a golden so it’s a giant poof.) The tick was near dead already by the time I got it untangled from his fur thanks to the permethrin though. Usually I spot the ticks on him either because they’re on his head (where they’re easy to spot immediately), or because they got tangled in his fur and couldn’t jump off. I’ve never once seen one bite him thankfully.
It’s wild to me because I have only seen other kinds of ticks twice so far this season, but otherwise it’s all lone star ticks, which are not supposed to be the most common where I am. They’re definitely more prominent this year though. Of all the tick diseases, alpha-gal terrifies me the most, so I’m not thrilled by this increase in lone stars.