I'm crippled and have a handicap tag for my car, but I'll still park in the back, depending on the store. Trying to get out of handicap spots at Target, Trader Joes, or Costco is always a nightmare because people have no patience.

Another UTC person! I thought I was alone in my odd crusade; nobody even knows what I'm talking about when I suggest it.

My insurance denied me a MRI and physical therapy because having 2 working arms was a luxury. Had to pay out of pocket to be able to lift my arm above my head. Private insurance can go shove it.

If you're making $8 and hour and get bumped up to $12, that's a 50% bump but you still can't afford to live and need a second job. Based on the job postings in my part of the US, that's pretty much standard.

I replaced my old Elegoo Neptune with a Bambu A1, and what a huge difference! I hated FDM printing for years, but now I use it all the time. I'm upgrading my resin printer next year, and can't wait to see what advances have been made in that realm.

ACE 7 here.

I'm doing OK in life. It took a long time for me to stop running away from things because I didn't trust anyone for a long time. I'm still cynical and paranoid, but I have a steady government job, a solid early retirement plan, and a supportive wife that loves me.

People are surprised I didn't amount to more in life, but I live my life 100% on my terms, and that's what's important to me.

Not rich, not poor, but I enjoy life in general.

Sometimes I like to imagine what the US would look like if we took a fraction of the trillions of dollars we wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan and used them to help our southern neighbors develop and modernize. Happy and content people don't risk their lives to cross the jungle.

It's a bit late for that these days, what with all the climate change and all that. Migration (in likely huge numbers) is coming and likely already largely underway around the world. There's gonna be more and more places humans simply cannot physically survive anymore and that alone will drive people to move elsewhere. This of course will likely lead to violence, because that's what far too many humans do when other humans try to "muscle in on their territory". It's a sad fact that unless most of the human race grows up and starts acting like adults for a change, we're likely in for war pretty much everywhere soon enough.

That would be a rough ride for your health. I remember back when Adam Richman was doing the original run of Man vs Food and he was looking like death towards the end.

I mean, that wasn't a show about "food" or "restaurants" it was about gluttonous, over-the top food "challenges". Unless you were doing an equally extreme amount of work to counteract those meals, a season would absolutely destroy someone.

I see all the pearl clutching comments about how bad eating at restaurants is (former restaurant chef, I'm extremely biased and refused to be moved), but an over the top entree coming in at 1500 calories isn't even close to a 7 pound burrito IMO.

My wife wears her rings, but I don't find jewelry comfortable, so I never wear mine. I wonder how many snoopers think we're having an affair when we go out.

I'd spend my days painting miniatures and reading. Don't really care enough about the rest of the world, to be honest; I'd turn inward.

And those books you're reading. They came from where?

From my collection of Soviet-era Russian fiction I've accrued over the decades. One of these days I'll get to reading it instead of dusting it off every few months.