I for one am looking forward to the lactose parade this year.

I’m imagining parade floats with cheese wheels

Has tolerance gone too far??

I needed to renew my passport while I lived abroad. I had 6 months do do it, so I was in absolutely no rush, but I chose this one particular week to get it over with. Then this volcano thing happened, and I got stranded with the long term effect that I’m now a family man with four kids and a mortgage.

I remember my first paycheck that wasn’t from temp stuff. I was 25, it was 2008, and I had just started a job that would become a proper career. I was used to living with almost nothing as a freelance computery guy, but not knowing how much I’d have the next month was getting really tiresome.

The new job was steady and it paid reasonably well. Seeing that first sum tick in was such an amazing feeling, especially knowing it would happen every month. The shift in personal finances was cinderellesque.

I’m not good at comforting words, so I won’t even try without sincerely stating the obvious: That sucks.

What’s your trade, and are you considering moving to a different one?

Here the day is going alright. Today’s workload was very low, and this suits me fine as I work from home and daycare is closed today. So I attended a meeting online with one ear, while I had Ganbys Dollhouse in the other.

In that case, the newest season of Phineas and Ferb is awesome

Reasonable. Just out of curiosity, are your hyper fixations usually related to tv/movies, or can it be anything?

We noticed. Seeing as this is CC, may I ask why? I mean, I love Wallace and Gromit as much as the next guy, but you seem obsessed in the literal sense…

Not judging, just curious. Hell, this being the internet, benign obsessions over Wallace and Gromit is miles better than many of the other things we see people being way too concerned about these days.

Beefy yes, not that much luggage. The 3rd row of seats comes at the expense of luggage space. So when everyone is onboard there’s only room for a couple of suitcases in the back. What is convenient is that the seats fold down completely flat, so when I need to haul something alone it’s quite roomy.

We did do the 16 hour drive to visit my mom this summer, and for the occasion we got one of those roof mounted ski boxes for the additional storage/luggage space. That gave us room for 5 extra suitcases, fishing rods, life vests et.al. (boating was on the agenda).

Despite being a lot heavier and more powerful than the old car, the fuel economy is much better as it’s a chargeable hybrid. For long trips this clocks in at roughly 25% less fuel spent. When it’s just the daily driving stuff I switch to full electric. The battery is enough for 40ish minutes of driving.

Right after I bought it I took the kids on a small trip up this mountainside close to where we live. While driving I explained the concept of power-to-weight to them, and then told them some figures about the old and the new car. I could see them in the back mirror, thinking hard about the numbercrunching. I quietly switched to the “power mode” which basically connects all three engines for performance over economy. Just as they started to answer that the new car had a much higher PWR I floored it and I heard four surprised happy cheers from the back as the car practically jumped up the 30 degree slope.

As for the dreaded in-laws trip, for me that’s almost every day, as they live 300 meters away. For my GF, that was this summer.

You sure have gotten heavily into The Curse of the Wererabbit lately…

I don’t know much about Mazda, except a vague memory of my dad having a moss-colored one when I was 5 or so. Other than that, I have absolutely no experience or knowledge with the brand.

My old one was manufactured by welding I-beams together at 90 degree angles, so there’s only so much that can go wrong with that design. But I still needed to park it at my local shop for a few weeks for some extensive repair, and in the mean time I borrowed a Ford (a brand I absolutely detest for personal reasons, but that’s a whole other story on its own). One day while visiting a town about an hours drive away I had an hour to kill, so I stopped by the local Volvo dealership out of curiosity and spoke to a guy about what I needed. Long story short, he gave me one to test drive for two days: A brand new Volvo XC90.

I parked the Ford, and I phoned up my GF to confirm that there was nothing scheduled that day. I revealed nothing about what plan I had in mind, but I told her to make sure that the kids stayed home once school had finished for the day. Just before arriving at home I phoned again and told them to get ready. It was fun seeing their surprise once I drove up to the house and told them we’d be driving to this niche/specialized candy store that had just opened in the aforementioned town. All of us would be going at the same time for a change.

Last day, when dropping the kids off at school they unanimously agreed that I should buy one. And this March I was looking through available vehicles at the dealership, and they had a 2019 model that was reasonably priced and with almost no wear on it. Well, the guy at the dealership worked there for a reason, because I just wanted some information - The next morning I picked up the car.

I was aware the entire time that the new Volvo and the old Volvo had almost nothing in common, and I’ve never been much of a brand loyalist. It just so happens that the XC90 was what I needed, was available, and a car I really enjoy driving.

When heading to the head office for work stuff, I used to fly for an hour. Now I don’t mind driving for 7 hours.

And three cheers right back at you. May I ask what you bought?

I’m not much of a car guy, as I see them as utilitarian more than anything. The only important factor in our cases is that they do what we need them to do, with as little grief as possible. Anything more is a nice bonus.

Single car household, here. Mostly because we don’t need more than one. My GF walks to work, my kids bike or walk to school, and I sometimes need to drive pretty far for various reasons (work, mostly).

I drove the same car for ages. A 1996 Volvo 940. Reliable as hell, and what little broke on it I could easily fix myself. It used to belong to my dad, but I took it over in 2005 or thereabouts.

However, with four kids the only “flaw” of that car was that we needed one more seat. So I sold it to a friend back in March after doing something I’ve always dreaded: Take up a car loan, and rely on a car I did not know very well.

I’m really satisfied with my new car, and I have no regrets. Everyone is more comfy, everyone can go at the same time (previously we used to send the oldest kid via airplane when visiting my mom), and it’s really comfy for long haul trips.

Having the ability to “just go” is such a load off my mind, now that we don’t have to sort out timing and capacity when doing anything far away.

Reverse Lemiwinks

Back in 2009 I was working nightshift onboard a ship in Nigerian waters. I was stuck where I was, operating the machinery, so I radioed in if someone could please bring me a coffee, because I was sure I just saw a flying dog.

“Oh, those are fruit bats, you’ll see more of them” they replied from inside, knowing exactly what I was talking about without needing more details.

And yes, I did see more of them over time; they liked hanging from the back deck work crane when it was not in use. Awesome creatures, and pretty large too.

Yes. Water + spicy rocks. Everything else is solar power, which is also nuclear power, but with the spiciness in the sky instead.