Y2HH

QUOTE (BigHurt3515 @ Jul 25, 2014 -> 12:53 AM) The outdoors suck.. Girlfriend and I took our dog to a state park and went on a trail. During the 2 mile hike we found at least 6 ticks on our dog just on her fur and were able to get them off during the walk.. I got a bunch of little critters on my lower part of my leg. Think they are seed ticks, got them all off after scrubbing myself a lot when getting home and having my girlfriend pick at my body like apes tonight.. We have found at least 4 ticks on our dog tonight going through her (she is part border collie/lab and has a lot of black fur) so we don't think we have all them. Good news for the dog is we gave her front line around 20 days ago so we think the ticks will not stick to her skin but not for sure.. We also found a 2 ticks from all the laundry and towels we used today, found them after they went through the washer and dryer, no clue how they survived that.. Also found one crawling up my leg driving back home, Oh and I found a small one on my balls, woo. So if you are counting at home we have encounter roughly 14 ticks today, probably more and a bunch of litter critters (we think baby ticks) all over my leg and body.. Never going on a trail again... That's pretty bad luck, and they only come out certain times of the year. I've been camping multiple times this year already, and in previous years I've been in some hardcore places like the Boundary Waters, and have had 1 single tick on me the entire time, and I've been doing this for greater than 30 years. They usually hang around in tall grass, etc...so stay away from those areas...well kept trails usually don't have them.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 16, 2014 -> 07:19 AM) So what's on your home network? I'm moving into a new home and thinking about how I want to design the network from the start. We have less than 2,000 sq feet with two stories, no basement. WiFi. I've had a WiFi only house for about 5 years now, and see no point in wired anymore.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 07:27 PM) Does it do the day to day stuff well? We turn off our AC when we leave and turn it back on when we get home. Yes very easy controls.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 07:00 PM) Is it worth it? I like it a lot, despite big brother now owning and mining my data from it, but do know that Honeywell has a really good competing product out for it now. But all in all I'm happy with it. Easy to use, collects usage data for me so I know how much I used my heat or ac on any given day (and why, such as an extremely hot day), and remote usage, too. I often shut off my ac or heat when I'm on vacation and I can kick it on via my phone before I get home so I walk into a comfortable house. I'd recommend it or the new Honeywell that does much of the same.

QUOTE (Tex @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) Anyone have a Nest thermostat? Me.

Even more iPhone 6 glass stress testing -- they finally got it to break after running it over with a car. IF this is the actual panel they used, this is more impressive than I originally thought.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 11, 2014 -> 07:33 AM) I could use to add weight pretty much everywhere. I'm not sure which workouts I posted, but whatever the case may, I guarantee it's changed since... I'll start with my arm routine -- yes, I have an actual arm routine, performed on a day where I work nothing but arms. You will have to adjust the weights up or down based on what you can lift. ----- Barbel Bicep Curl (or curl bar) 8 reps @ 60 lbs 8 reps @ 70 lbs 8 reps (or to failure) @ 80 lbs To failure @ 90 lbs French Press (Skullcrushers) 10 reps @ 60 lbs 10 reps @ 70 lbs 10 reps (or to failure) @ 80lbs To failure @ 90lbs Standing Alternating Single Arm Dumbbell Bicep Curl (This is when you hold a dumbbell in each hand, and curl one at a time) 8 reps (or to failure) @ 30 lbs (each dumbbell is 30lbs) 6 reps (or to failure) @ 35 lbs (each dumbbell is 35lbs) 4 reps (or to failure) @ 40 lbs (each dumbbell is 40lbs) * When performing this exercise, concentrate on accentuating the negative. Dips (You can add weight with a chain if you want to go over bodyweight) 10 reps @ bodyweight 10 reps @ bodyweight 10 reps @ bodyweight Single Arm Dumbbell Hammer Curl (Do one arm, rest, do the other arm, rest, repeat.) 8 reps (or to failure) @ 30 lbs 8 reps (or to failure) @ 35 lbs 8 reps (or to failure) @ 40 lbs Single Arm Inverted Grip Cable Pulldowns/Tricep Extensions (This is where you grip the cable machine handle with your palm facing up, and you'll pull it down with your tricep.) On this specific machine, weights are not listed, but some sort of resistance factor is, so I don't know what I'm lifting here...but I do 3 sets to failure (or to 10), I try to find a weight where on the first set, I can do all 10, and the following sets I'll usually fail to get above 6. ----- ...and that is my current arm routine. Keep in mind, as in the past, I try to limit my time in the gym to LESS than 60 minutes, so most of my routines are NOT long, but they are intense.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jul 10, 2014 -> 07:30 PM) y2hh I know you posted some of your routines before, would you mind posting again? I need something new. What body parts in specific are you interested in?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jul 10, 2014 -> 09:29 AM) This will sound stupid but does anyone else have an exercise they have trouble with mastering the form? For the life of me I can not nail deadlifts. I've worked in the fitness industry for a while and I research this stuff all the time so I know how they're supposed to be done but for whatever reason I always round my back. So I just won't do them anymore if a trainer isn't with me. It's annoying as hell. On a positive note, hit my personal best on squats this week. It doesn't sound stupid at all, and you'd be surprised to hear that most people have trouble mastering MOST of what they do, because most never bother to learn how to do it properly. I've personally found that any gym I've become a member of or visited over the years, and it's been a LOT of them, I'd guesstimate that about 80% of the people in there have no idea what they're doing or why. If you talk to them, you can observe them perform exercises that are counter to their goals and they don't even know it, and worse, they don't care. So long as they're in a gym doing something, they've convinced themselves they're doing it right, and to a degree, they have a point in that doing something is better than doing nothing, but my counter point to that is they COULD be doing it way more efficiently, see greater gains (or losses, depending on their goals), in a shorter amount of time if they spent any time learning to do it right. As to your deadlift problem, the good news is you're aware of what you're doing wrong, which means it's correctable. Next time you deadlift, whatever weight you normally lift, drop it by half. Yes, half. What you're looking to do with the lighter weight is master your form, which is much easier to do when you're lifting "easy" weight. Now, with half the weight on the bar, stand in front of the mirror and flatten your back, rolling your shoulders back to keep you from rounding out, and then perform the lift...it'll be easy because it's so light, perform the move slowly and watch your form in the mirror. After you recognize how you hold your back/shoulders, add the weight back on. The big issue with this is to NOT worry about what other people around you think about you lift lighter weight, etc. Open a little bubble around you and live in the moment, and don't be self-conscious of what others think, your only goal here is to overcome a flaw in your form you're fully aware of.

QUOTE (caulfield12 @ Jul 10, 2014 -> 10:01 AM) My g/f and watched it with Chinese subs, although her English is good enough to watch without. We liked it, but it wasn't as funny (overall) as it was billed to be...and we liked Blended for the opposite reason, because we had zero expectations, so it was actually "not bad." While that's quite a low standard for comedies, it did actually have some pretty funny scenes. Maybe I'm just not as big of a Seth Rogen fan as others. On the other hand, I can't imagine too many people out there have him as their #1/favorite actor/comedian in the world. Who knows, though, people are weird. Aside from Seth Rogan feeling it necessary to remind everyone he's a jew in *every* movie, interview, or skit he's in, I find him somewhat funny, but that "I'm a jew" bit has really become annoying, and I'm starting to just not like him anymore.

QUOTE (juddling @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 10:40 PM) Former "Chocolate city" mayor Ray Nagin going to prison..... couldn't have happened to a bigger douchebag......have fun in prison........ He wants to build a chocolate Attica.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 06:27 PM) To be a bit technical here, claiming him off waivers means assuming his contract. There is zero chance that happens. Once he clears waivers, the Sox can pick him up, and Boston is on the hook for his entire salary minus the prorated veteran minimum. It's not my money, so I don't give a s*** what they pay him. I'd go to a game JUST BECAUSE he's back.

To answer this question, as soon as the white sox claim AJ off of waivers.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jul 9, 2014 -> 08:43 AM) I think the problem is in singling out the Obama era. I believe that, aside from chunks of Reagan's and Clinton's presidencies, this country has been getting worse my entire lifetime. It's actually been getting better, the only thing that's changed is your knowledge and understanding (perspective) of the times. Every generation since this countries inception has said things are getting worse while they were getting better, and this one is no different. I have some news for you ... the kids are alright.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 11:31 PM) You don't agree that things have worsened considerably in all aspects (economy including gas prices, society, environment) during the Obama era? It's truly depressing. If you think gas is expensive here, go elsewhere and find it's more expensive for a single liter (not a gallon).

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 06:53 PM) I love OneDrive, but I run 8.1 on one of my machines (awesome integration) and use Office a lot. It's perfect for that. Recent updates have made it a lot better. The 1TB I get w/ Office 365 ain't bad, either. Dropbox is nice, but low starting storage and it's outrageously expensive in the current cloud market. I quit using Google Drive because of their horrible desktop sync software. Might not be that way on Mac, I'm not sure. I did a fresh install of Windows and had all ~50GB of my Drive files still on the HDD and found out that when reinstalling Google Drive, I had to either delete everything from the cloud and reupload or delete all the files on my HDD and redownload. This is after it refuses to install until I rename the current Google Drive folder, which I can't do without uninstalling Drive, since I can't change the name of the Google Drive folder when Google Drive is installed on the computer. Stupid. I found complaints on their customer forums dating back several years complaining about that exact thing. There's plenty of merit to Google's cloud and browser focus, but I need a desktop service and theirs sucks. It isn't that hard to get right, but they have to care. I haven't had any issue with Google Drive on my mac, and they just released a brand new desktop client. It's only shortcoming is that sharing images are not done in-line, so I couldn't link a picture here on this forum from Google Drive like I can from Dropbox. You can share an image from Drive, but not in-line, such as displaying it ON this forum rather than posting a link to the picture. At least, I don't know of a way to do this on Drive, otherwise I wouldn't even need dropbox anymore. I also have little use for Office these days, Google Docs/Sheets and Apple's iWork offering do practically everything Office does, only leaner (IMO, Office is bloated fatware at this point). I've rarely seen anything on an Office Doc that Gdocs or iWork cannot handle these days, and both are free, while Office still thinks this is 1998 and they can charge for it.

QUOTE (Chi Town Sox @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 01:11 PM) So I have interviewed with a large corporation and a very good opportunity. I have taken time off of work to Skype interview twice and was just moved on to the next stage and once again was asked to interview with "a few more people." I have a 12 day honeymoon at the end of this year and it would be devastating to keep requesting this time off of work to be in a quiet place for a Skype interview and end up not getting the job. Anyone else ever have this issue? Ugh, when to say when... I know it costs money, time, etc. but things like this are much easier when it's one long day of interviews but I guess that's just how it works. Maybe request that they do the interview off hours or at a more convenient time? I wouldn't burn multiple days off for a single job interview because they keep having callbacks...I'd tell them, look, I'm open to new opportunities, because I'd be foolish to ignore the possibilities of working for a great corporation like this one, but be that as it may, I cannot treat my current employer like they don't matter and take multiple days off in order to interview, they deserve better even if I'm willing to look elsewhere. They may even like hearing your loyalty. OR, they'll tell you f*** off...but that's honestly what I'd say, and have said to potential employers in the past. I've always told friends that the best time to look for a job is when you don't need one...that way you can say whatever you want to say in an interview, versus being afraid to say what's on your mind because you need the job. I've said some pretty outlandish things thinking in my mind, "f*** it, I'm saying this, and if they don't like it, too bad, I don't need the job anyway", only to have them put me at the top of their list BECAUSE I said it.

QUOTE (Jake @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 04:02 PM) Don't worry, Americans are still very much over-exuberant about the place they live. Far fewer than 78% can choose adequately what to do with their lives, but who would ever want to declare their own, single life one in which they couldn't do what they want? Us humans are good at telling ourselves that we did the right thing. I think if more Americans traveled outside the country we'd be much better off. We don't have to do exactly what the rest of the world does, but it'd be nice if the average person even knew what the rest of the world was up to. The last part would seriously depend on where you go...there are places I wouldn't want to be -- ever -- and places I love to visit, but I always love coming home. That said, my absolute favorite place to travel is right here, the US of A. This entire study, if it can be called that, is a complete matter of perspective (or lack thereof), not to mention opinion.

QUOTE (Disco72 @ Jul 8, 2014 -> 01:55 PM) What online file storage set-up do people recommend? I'm looking for the simple ability to access documents from home, work, coffee shop, etc. These would be mostly Microsoft Office documents with some larger data sets as well. I don't plan on using it for photos, music, or video. I enjoy Drop Box's ease of use, but I do not really want to have to buy extra storage (my current storage needs are about 5-6 GB). I also could use Google Drive or Microsoft One Drive. I am leaning towards One Drive due to the relatively high free storage size, the fact that I am using Windows 7 and 8.1 on my computers, the apparently good file and folder syncing (as several reviews have pointed out), and the fact that my work might be moving to Office 365. I realize I'm probably way behind on this, so any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. Thanks! You know how pro Google I am, and even I use Google Drive. I used Microsoft's for a while, but ... nobody else in this dimension uses it. Yes, I realize they tout like 5000000 million users, but I've never met a single person that uses it, so it's obvious those people live in a separate dimension. As for space requirements, don't worry, the space war will end up with everyone getting more free space from all of these services.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Jun 24, 2014 -> 03:05 PM) They were hiding wait times. How does firing administrators who were hiding wait times fix the actual problem, which is high wait times? If the problem is a lack of resources, shuffling management isn't actually going to fix it. A doctor can only see so many people a day, so if you don't have enough capacity, you need more doctors. Turning the VA into the voucher system just means we can keep the same levels of under-resourcing as we currently do, but now it's not directly the responsibility of a single, democratically accountable government agency but is instead the responsibility of the larger healthcare system itself. For one, they should be fired for being unethical, not to mention without morals, as knowing that hiding those wait times was actually harming people that needed care, rather than bringing attention to it...so there's that.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jul 7, 2014 -> 02:56 PM) You complain about anything positive being "mocked" and then scoff at a 50% decrease in the murder rate. Most would consider that positive. You complain about our culture "now" being violent and negative and ignore the fact that the violence situation was vastly worse 20 years ago. A basic bit of thought would suggest that either your idea is wrong or that somehow we've become vastly less violent as a people in the last 20 years. I've tried, don't bother.

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Jul 6, 2014 -> 11:25 AM) Don't forget drinking crappy beer. But Pitch Perfect is awesome, how dare you. I thought this movie was pretty good up until the completely unnecessary puke scene at the end, and it could have become one of those high school comedy classics had it not been for that scene. The opening scene was one thing, but whatever the f*** that stupid s*** was at the end where the girl pukes all over everyone and one of them essentially makes a snow angel in the puke was just mind numbingly stupid, not to mention disgusting and unfunny, and for me it seriously cut major points off the entire movie.

QUOTE (Brian @ Jul 4, 2014 -> 07:55 AM) I think the Melissa McCarthy craze is on the downhill. She hasn't done a good movie, by critics standards, since Bridesmaids. I'll be watching Life Itself on demand in a few weeks. I never actually "got it" when it comes to McCarthy...she's not all that funny...but she's fat, so you know, we have to like her or something...

I'll begin by saying happy 4th of July/Independence Day to all my fellow Americans, while reminding you to be safe and keep in mind what this day means. It appears we have a perfect storm for Chicago violence -- an amazing weather forecast combined with a national holiday landing on a Friday -- and while it's sad I pose this question in the form of a Vegas wager, it's sadder that it's a question that's actually hard to answer... What say you?

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Jul 3, 2014 -> 02:26 PM) I don't believe you have to be upper middle class to have kids. You do not have to pay for your kids to go to college, etc. If you can afford it, great, otherwise, help empower them to make the right choices on schools / careers and get the right loans and take the next steps. You might not be able to travel the world and blah blah blah but you can have kids as a middle class person, no problem. The key costs of kids are food, clothing, and educational supplies (plus a bed, some toys (which don't have to be fancy...give them some sports equipment and they are good). Education is free, other things are free, and if you don't make significant money, you have one party stay at home and watch, so daycare has no cost (other then the cost of lost income) and the other party works. You might not have some 3000 square foot house or whatever, but it can be done. A typical middle class person 50 years ago lived in pretty small homes while sharing plenty of rooms with sibblings, etc. Cost of providing meals is at all time lows when adjusted for inflation / time value of money. Even cost of homes are pretty cheap, relatively speaking, with exception of certain areas, but if you can't afford those areas, move to other places. There are lots of cities (not dumps in the middle of nowhere) that have extremely affordable real estate and rent places. This is exactly it...middle class families in prior generations had a LOT less crap they spent money on in comparison to today. There were no computers, most had no cable tv and if they had a tv they only had 1 of them, 1 car, no cell phone, no tablets, lived in smaller homes, etc...today your average "middle class" family lives well beyond that...2 sometimes 3 cars, multiple cell phones, tablets, computers, 3 tv's, cable television, etc...