Modern Vespa

I don't like stereotyping people, but Audi drivers.

On my way to work I was at the intersection waiting for the left turn ok. The FIAT electric is not fast but super quick. I could tell the guy in the Audi behind me was 'that guy'.

I rounded the corner into zero traffic and hit 55 (I will admit it was a 45 zone) very quickly. It's a cool rush because there's no noise associated with it. Audi driver behind me had to catch up and pass me. And pass me he did, like I was standing still, in his efforts to prove his Audi was faster than ... my FIAT. He had to be doing very bit of 70 to prove his superiority.

I laughed the rest of the way to work. I only hope he felt better, having clearly proven his point.

Just kind of weird at the moment. But I'll get used to it!

The funny thing about SS, is that the money you put in while you were contributing was distributed to those already retired. It's a pay as it goes system, no money is banked is separate personal accounts.

Tierney,

In fact, Social Security was originally set up as a separate fund that today would have been flush with cash. In past years, Congress and the Government just could not keep their hands off all this cash and actually spent it for other expenditures.

So, you are right. Current withholding by those still working pays those drawing SS. You probably are also aware it is mathematically scheduled to run out of money. This is such a politically sensitive topic no one in government is willing to change anything. So, we will pay for it out of increased fed income tax.

My Father passed at 65 years old back in 1973. At that time, average male life expectancy was 67 years old. SS was sound because half of everyone would be dead before they could draw much. White male life expectancy is now 79.25 years in 2024.

HERE IS MY TAKE: They really need to raise the age you are eligible to draw SS. Doing this is a poison pill for anybody in elected office. Still, it needs to be talked about. I say early retirement (reduced amount) 68 years old, full retirement at age 74 years old. Currently it is early age 62, full draw wait until 68 years old.

Full Disclosure: I am also the cause of SS going broke. I have been drawing full SS retirement (no offset for income - I still work full time) at age 68 - I am now 76. Eight years of milking the system. If you draw SS at age 62 and still work, you lose one dollar for every two dollars from your job. I made to much money and would have lost the whole benefit going early at 62. Over the last 8 years SS has paid me $296,000.

Bob Copeland Yes Cheering Me UP

I get a kick out of Mike Tyson, age 58 fighting (Boxing) Jake Paul age 27. The fight will be on Netflix Friday 11/15/24 at 7pm central time.

This cheers me up because I like following boxing. Further, this is crazy. This is a sanctioned boxing event. Probably due to Tyson's age, they are limiting each round of the fight from the normal 3 minutes to 2 minutes. Also, Eight rounds versus 10.

So, Brandy and Cigar in hand, it is "Friday Night at the Fights".

Bob Copeland
I boxed two years in High School (Golden Gloves) sponsored by my local American Legion. I hated it. We were too young and lacked the power to knock anyone out. Just stand there and pound the crap out of each other. Hint: My Dad made me do it.

Kinda like a Ponzi scheme, but it's legal because it's the gummint doin it.

I splurged on a half gallon of coffee and two apple fritters for breakfast. Returned to some old hunting grounds and Ruff Ruff (stalker vizsla) loved it.

If I stay with my current employer (a public school district) until I retire, I'll be 71 when I reach full benefit status with their pension system. I already qualify for the full SS benefit amount when I reach retirement age due to how long I worked.

What sucks for me is that I earned so little over the years in the private sector that my SS benefits will be very little. I barely made $40k/year at my highest earning point. I never figured I'd be able to support myself on SS benefits alone, and also figured that by the time I retired the benefit amount would be $0.

Another thing that sucks for me is that now that my annual pay is much better than before (>$60k/year and rising), I'm no longer contributing to SS.

I figure that between SS, my tiny 401k from before, my school district pension, and other retirement investments, I should do ok when I retire. My house will be paid off in less than four years. My truck will be paid off in less than one. My wife and I have very little debt, even with her spending the last 18 months unemployed. I also plan on working until I no longer enjoy it.

NB: I am not a tax professional.
NB: This may not be appropriate for the 'Cheering Up' topic.

You may be subject to the Windfall Elimination Provision that could furthur decrease your SS benefit. My wife, retired from a California school system, is in this boat.

My encounter with the county treasurer (who issues titles and license plates) to get a new title issued with the correct serial number of my Vespa (VL1 instead of VLI) took all of maybe 10 minutes and cost me zero dollars. Showed the clerk my cell phone pic of the SN, he asked me to email it to him, zip-zip-done. First time since 1957 that there's been a correct title for this thing. Just (re)mailed in my application for the lifetime historical plates. Just wish I could get that personalized, but they don't offer that so it will just be a random number.

I did pretty well with "Random Numbers" in another genre, here's to you and your hysterical plate!

In some states they allow you to use a plate from the year of manufacture, which in your case would be 1955. If you are inclined, there are sales of these plates on Ebay, Hemmings, etc.... Sometimes, it's a nice touch.

I've got a Dealer Plate from the 60's, yeah I set pretty high standards for myself.

It's not all about you...

Do you have proof? My latest Psychic Reading says otherwise.

Does your psychic have a crystal ball that has been upgraded with LEDs?

It's a sno globe, and yeah.

A decent selezione of sippycups.

We were totally fearless. Survival instincts to keep one from freezing up in the face of death. I am guessing that's the same reason our adrenaline kicks in when we are wounded.

I can tolerate sitting on my bike seat today. Yesterday, not so much.

I don't have butthole problems yet. I have gotten the dreaded upper inside thigh working man's rash more times that I care to talk about.

On a hilarious butthole problem note.........I woke up at my brother's place after a long night and wandered in the bathroom to brush my teeth.....I laid some cortisone cream on my toothbrush and went about my routine thinking it was toothpaste. I mean, I can't tell my brother to keep his butt cream off the bathroom counter.......fucking hell.

Discussions of buttholes always brings a smile for me.

I'm happy my self-installed 10kW (35,000 BTU/hr) mini-split (air-air heat pump) is heating the house very economically indeed, and works just fine even when it's below freezing outside.

Gas furnace was removed during the install, so the only use for gas is now the tankless water heater. I'm now trying to work out how to get rid of that - the standing charge is way more than the cost of gas used.

The "standing charge" being the amount Pigs, Goats, and Elephants charges for the residence remaining hooked up to the gas meter?

I had to read that twice and I think that is what you meant?

I am curious to hear more about the plans to eliminate the gas on demand or tankless water heater.

Years ago (early 80's) I got to work for McGlashan's heating and appliance in Santa Barbara. We were working on dorms at UCSB and even back then they had a pretty cool and very simple setup for adding solar to the water heating system.

It was just some recirculating pumps and some strategically placed coiled black hoses but the kicker was two electric water heaters greatly expanding the storage capacity of hot water.

The beauty of it was only one water heater was hooked up to electricity with water being recirculated between the two. If the solar hot water feed kept it hot enough it would use no electricity and if it fell below holding temp the electric powered water heater thermostat would automatically turn on (just like any water heater) so it seamlessly kept you in hot water even with no sun.

Obviously this system was set up for lots of people using hot water. It would have to be dialed in for your particular usage and surprisingly hydraulics plays a big part. A bit of a puzzle to work out to balance the recirc system but easy to do. I always install two butterfly shut off valves either side of the recirc pump so it can be removed for service. Butterfly valves allow you to restrict the water flowing through and reducing energy costs for the operating of the pump although I forget whether it was the before or after valve that could be throttled down to reduce electrical consumption, a hydraulics engineer explained it once live and in person but I have slept since then.

If you already have solar on the residence and just switch to an electric water heater that would eliminate the gas hookup standing charge. Tweaked a little with extra storage alone you could probably use just a simple timer to make sure the system was only using electricity to heat water when electricity is cheapest (or free) and if you need extra hot water for something like say guests at holiday just temporarily bypass timer.

Also speaking of plumbing and hydraulics, back in the day in the Santa Barbara area we got to work on quite a few really large houses.

The standard setup was to have a recirculating system set up so that it would not take 35 minutes for water at the tap to get hot for the great distance between the bathrooms/hot water outlets and the water heater.

All done in copper, this was pre-pex. Imagine the piping loop keeping hot water recirculating throughout the system so that only a small leg to the faucet was out of the recirc loop. Typically we would use an oversize pipe for the recirc system so that if you were taking a shower in a large house and someone flushed a toilet at the same time the water temp in the shower would not change.

Wes, the old guy at McGlashans calculated the hydraulics to determine the correct size of the piping for the length of the system and then it was fine tuned by adjusting butterfly valves that segregate the pump.

Also of note the piping that was part of the hot water loop was all insulated with wetsuit material type pipe insulation and the insulation went on first before securing the piping to the structure as per code. This way of rubber mounting totally eliminates any type of "water hammer" or the vibration heard when a faucet is turned on just right to cause it in a non rubber mounted system. We would usually use a small piece of the rubber even on cold lines where it would be secured to the structure just to prevent water hammer/vibration.

A pretty good sized loop of piping that is well insulated just increases the storage capacity of the hot water tank. Pretty expensive to have somebody do all that work but if your are doing it yourself just the time and materials.

Reminds me of the story about the player (male) who in a moment of weakness gave a young lady a key to his apartment.

The relationship did not last long for obvious reasons and he was really worried about getting his key back.

Finally after many weeks and repeated requests for her to return the key one day he came home and the key was on the coffee table next to a disposable point and click camera.

Only a few pictures had been taken on the camera so he waited to get the pictures developed until he had taken the rest of the pictures.

It had been a few weeks when he got the pictures back and the first few were of his toothbrush with the business end inserted in his dog's butt.

armedferret that last post was just for you, hope you haven't heard it before...

A friend told me she used to clean the toilet with her roommate's toothbrush because it meant he was contributing something to the cleaning. I recounted this to my flatmate who had similar domestic habits. Never saw her toothbrush after that.

Yeah my toothbrush goes into a ziplock baggie and gets hidden in a toolbox whenever the queen of the castle has any reason to be upset at me, real or imagined.

This is a common misconception. But it's false. The government has borrowed from the SS general funds, but has always paid them back (with interest!).

But don't take it from me. Here's AARP's explainer:

https://www.aarp.org/retirement/social-security/info-2020/10-myths-explained.html

SS in my country drastically cut poverty, especially with the elderly and children. It's one of the most successful programs in my country. When you hear politicians screaming, "We can't afford it", I guarantee they are the same ones borrowing against the SS surplus. Starve a program of funds, then point and scream, "We can't afford it!". You can politely suck my balls, bro.

?si=eBfUwfRUpado7QuO

Can we all agree that SS is a good program that massively cuts poverty?

People in the dog food business would disagree. Social Security cut the demand for dog food by 68%.

znomit would be proud of you

So all the time?

Cat food is in higher demand every day, almost exponentially

Yes indeed - I don't know the local phrase for it. We no longer have any reservoir of hot water, the old US-style water heater went out some years ago - though we might buy a couple of under-sink 8 litre units for the kitchen sink and bathroom basin.

Showers will be the problem. A decent 15kW tankless heater takes over 60A at 240V - I'd have to upgrade the fusebox, and that would be expensive, as the wiring isn't strictly to local code at the moment. So space would have to be found for the reservoir tank that would be needed to enable a far lower wattage heater to be used, as we won't want to give up our luxurious 'rain shower' for a weak and feeble one.

But all that's for the future, we need to recover our savings levels after just buying a camper van in the UK.

Have you seen the price of pet food lately? I can get boneless chicken breast BOGO for cheaper. Eating out is where people really bust their budgets. God, I sound like my parents more and more........

Hey come on. You make Bruno forage for his own dinner.

We have gas in Prescott to a normal water heater, but we also have hot water re-circulation to all the hot taps, starting in the mail bath. It is so good to turn on the hot tap and have hot water in seconds. Could you add a small hot tank and accomplish similar?