24/7 Chat About Anything

maki2 · Aug 19, 2024

I have zero desire to move to a tropical island with the heat, humidity, insects and high cost of living. I also do not want to go through a string of hurricanes every season. Nice places to visit… in the winter …for a month or three with a decent sized budget. But I would want to do longer stay house sitting to keep the cost down.

The last time I was doing a six week long house sitting job in Honolulu Hawaii I was able to keep my grocery budget under control by shopping at Costco which had close to mainland prices and also stocked local produce at a reasonable price. The use of a car was included in the house sit but no cash was involved. Of course a free to stay in 2 bedroom bungalow and car is worth a lot of money! I just needed to water the landscaping and look after an indoor/outdoor cat.

Morgana · Aug 19, 2024

The last time I tried to make ends meet living in Honolulu was 2004. It was tight but manageable. (A comfortable year-round climate, good public transportation [on Oahu at least], and lots of free things to do helped.) I can't imagine trying it today. I sometimes wonder how people in my then income bracket (and below) are handling it. Maybe wages went up too (I hope!) There's a lot of extended-family mutual aid, I think, but that doesn't work for everyone.

The last few places I have lived (Florida, NM, AZ) have had surprisingly few bugs; I'm sure the landlords are pesticiding the crap out of them. My feeling is don't ask don't tell, I like being bug free. (My place in south TX had a lot of the little indoor roaches but I basically put everything I owned into plastic boxes and blast-cleaned the place until I got rid of 'em.)

In the olden days (haha, 80s to 00s), the private school where Barack Obama went (Punahou School) had the best thrift store b/c all the rich ladies left their clothes there. But it was never open on weekends .... The YWCA was right across the street from it and used to be a great bargain but they eventually stopped renting rooms to just anyone and reserved it for drug rehab.

I think you'd have to have a lot of money or be really well connected to make a go of it now.

maki2 · Aug 19, 2024

I am very happy with my current nomadic life. Only a mild tickle of travel lust to get around to visiting Taos New Mexico area. But when I do go I will likely stay most of the summer in that area of New Mexico.

frodo2222 · Aug 19, 2024

Morgana said:
The last time I tried to make ends meet living in Honolulu was 2004. It was tight but manageable. (A comfortable year-round climate, good public transportation [on Oahu at least], and lots of free things to do helped.) I can't imagine trying it today. I sometimes wonder how people in my then income bracket (and below) are handling it. Maybe wages went up too (I hope!) There's a lot of extended-family mutual aid, I think, but that doesn't work for everyone.

The last few places I have lived (Florida, NM, AZ) have had surprisingly few bugs; I'm sure the landlords are pesticiding the crap out of them. My feeling is don't ask don't tell, I like being bug free. (My place in south TX had a lot of the little indoor roaches but I basically put everything I owned into plastic boxes and blast-cleaned the place until I got rid of 'em.)

In the olden days (haha, 80s to 00s), the private school where Barack Obama went (Punahou School) had the best thrift store b/c all the rich ladies left their clothes there. But it was never open on weekends .... The YWCA was right across the street from it and used to be a great bargain but they eventually stopped renting rooms to just anyone and reserved it for drug rehab.

I think you'd have to have a lot of money or be really well connected to make a go of it now.

I totally agree

maki2 · Aug 20, 2024

Not any excitement today. Lovely weather and an excursion to the nearby Truck-stop to use their Wi-Fi to download some more library books, I buy a smal iced coffee to pay for indoor air conditioned space rental of a little table and disposing of a small bag of trash. There is one small table that has an AC outlet under it. If I avoid rush hour at lunchtime I might get lucky enough to get that table

. Cell service at my campsite is too slow during business hours for streaming videos so I have been doing a lot of Ebooks and audio books for entertainment. But it is really time I start putting in more work hours on my online business but I am having trouble getting back into the work groove focus for that business, for chores or “home improvement” projects. Not so much depression as just outright laziness and almost total lack of motivation. Even caffeine is not helping.

Happy Camper · Aug 21, 2024

Maybe some fun songs and good music to get things moving? Sometimes that's what helps me. Other times not lol

maki2 · Aug 21, 2024

Happy Camper said:
Maybe some fun songs and good music to get things moving? Sometimes that's what helps me. Other times not lol

I now have fairly severe tinnitus. Listening to high pitched notes in music hurts my ears a lot and that certainly does not put me in a happy mood. So I rarely play music anymore. Talking to women with high pitched voices is very painful as are being around children who shriek in high pitched voices.

JohnnyM · Aug 21, 2024

Maki,
I don't mean to discount what you're saying here, but the extreme sensitivity to noise and high volume you're describing is known as hyperacusis, and it's my understanding that it's not particularly related to or a result of tinnitus, though many tinnitus sufferers also have hyperacusis. I have both, and I use earplugs and/or headphones whenever I'm going to be exposed to high volumes of sound. As you know, it helps a lot.

Fun story hyperacusis folks may enjoy : Just yesterday I was outside buying ice at one of those free-standing ice machines, one that happened to be located at a peaceful little rural intersection right next to some train tracks. I thought I was starting to hear something approaching on the tracks, and before I could run to my van I turned to see the train just as it got to where I was standing. It was the Santa Fe Railroad, four red and yellow engines pulling at least fifty cars headed straight at me. Just as the train got to my intersection, all four engines lit up and held open their air horns to clear the path and then roared on by at 60 mph.

I thought it was the end of the world.

Dang !!

Johnny

maki2 · Aug 21, 2024

^^^ I am not at all hypersensitive to noise. I do not come even close to having the condition you describe. I can get a good nights sleep at truck stops without using ear plugs. I can sleep right through my friend working at 3am running tables saws, routers, drills, etc. I spent many years working in a very noisy factory and a lot more years working with lots of power tools in my own workshop.

Tinnitus is exactly what I have and it is due to all those years working around very loud noises many of which are percussive in nature such as riveting and using nail guns. I am a real life Rosie the riveter who built aircraft driving rivets in with a river gun. High pitched sounds and percussive noises can temporary increase the volume of the tinnitus ringing. The ringing is constant so I often listen to audio books which masks the noise. Once I am asleep it is not an issue as stated I sleep through just about any noise. I do not have a sleeping disorder. But audio books or a TV show will put me right to sleep if I am tired so pretty much the opposite of the condition you are suggesting I might have. I am not noise sensitive other than two types of sounds increase the level of noise from tinnitus.

Consider yourself fortunate that you can’t relate to what I have, so you have instead turned to mentally fishing around for explanations as to what the cause is and what it is like. I have tinnitus, that is it. I have no other hearing issue. I am, as stated, also not feeling depressed, I am just feeling the ordinary state of being lazy and unmotivated to work on projects. It happens, there are lots of lazy people on this planet and often I am one of them.

Morgana · Aug 21, 2024

JohnnyM said:
Just as the train got to my intersection, all four engines lit up and held open their air horns to clear the path and then roared on by at 60 mph.

That must have been fun (not)!
It's intense enough for someone without the hyperacusis.
I lived for 7 years right behind a freight rail line. There was just a good-size backyard between us and the trains. (The rail right-of-way turned out to be a great place for walks during early Covid when we all thought we shouldn't even pass each other on the sidewalk.) The landlord had invested in really good windows but it was still loud. The train whistle was always a sort of early-warning signal -- if I found myself getting seriously annoyed by it I knew I was stressing and it was time to chill out. Most of the time I (w/o ear condition) could tune it out.

So when you're stuck without your earplugs like that, does it help at all to plug your ears with your fingers?
Does it work the other way too, can you hear whispers that other people can't?

maki2 · Aug 21, 2024

I had almost forgotten the several years I lived in house just a couple of blocks from a rail yard where they unloaded the trailers from semi tractors and craned then onto the flat b d railroad cars. They did that all night long as well as in the daytime. Once in a while they would drop one down too Donn in a huge crash of metal on metal. In the daytime there was also the noise of jets and other planes as the house was in the flight path of nearby Boeing Field Airport. If I was on the phone conversations had to pause as I could not hear what the person was saying over the noise of the jets. It was also in a flight path for the even larger planes that went into the Seattle Tacoma Airport. I needed to live there as it was the best rental available near a friend who was willing to let me drop my son off at 5:30am so he could ride the bus to school with her son of similar age. Boeing shifts started very early in the mornings on a stagger of 15 minutes so that the highways were not clogged up with a huge onrush of commuter traffic. Also that way early start time kept employee tardiness to a minimum from traffic jams.

vanbrat · Aug 21, 2024

As I was getting ready to retire I had an ear ache and went to the Doc. yea just the start of an ear infection, anti stuff proscribed. She turned her back to me and talked and I had no idea she was talking, so she insisted on a hearing test. Some very real hearing loss. She asked me if I had ever worked in a noisy environment. Yep 30 yrs in the block area with noisy munchkins . Not machine noise, not trains, or traffic not anything like that but lot's of days going home with my ears ringing. And all the noise and work was VERY necessary and good for the kidos. But still loud. We have always had people ask how we could stand the noise. Loved my job 99% of the time. (Infections are part of the job)

I too have ringing in my ears not fun, and I jump because of high pitched noise and sharp sounds. Hubby giggles sometimes as I shake my head when it gets loud. When my folks lived with us for a few months it was hard because they did not think they had a hearing problem, and the TV was really loud so they could hear it. I invested in some noise cancelling ear buds.

maki2 · Aug 21, 2024

I am going to drop out of this conversation. My mother was hypersensitive to noise and beat us 5 siblings with a leather belt if we got too loud. She drugged my brother’s children with sedatives with they made too much noise. Bad memories I do not need to revisit. Hypersensitivity to noise is real. So are people’s bad reactions to it, itcan create violent reactions and people kill over it including the guy in the news who killed his neighbor this week because his dogs were noisy.

Nomad life has the advantage if get in the driver’s seat and leave the area. Or leave a chat …

vanbrat · Aug 22, 2024

So a better subject... I just finished my yearly jam making. I now have 20+ jars of strawberry, peach, peach pineapple, plum and tried a new flavor someone at a concert talked about spiced plum. I hope it is as good as it smells. Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year. I still have the booze to make and the cookies and the fruit leather and the cider, but I make sure everyone gets fat for Christmas.
My family always laughs when I start Christmas stuff this early but they all like the goodies.

Happy Camper · Aug 22, 2024

vanbrat said:
So a better subject... I just finished my yearly jam making. I now have 20+ jars of strawberry, peach, peach pineapple, plum and tried a new flavor someone at a concert talked about spiced plum. I hope it is as good as it smells. Guess what everyone is getting for Christmas this year. I still have the booze to make and the cookies and the fruit leather and the cider, but I make sure everyone gets fat for Christmas.
My family always laughs when I start Christmas stuff this early but they all like the goodies.

Morgana · Aug 22, 2024

So, piggybacking on the noise conversation, does anyone have a recommendation for a brand or type of earplugs that you've found works especially well?
Budget travel related question in my case

maki2 · Aug 22, 2024

Camping drama story today. My part in it was very very small.

Yesterday at 6pm an 8 year old boy went missing from the entrance area to Lava Caves where his family had done a short hike to from the parking area. They did search all night with people, helicopters and dogs.

I got a child missing alert about it on my phone this morning. A little later after I got the alert on my phone a ranger stopped at my trailer asking if I had seen the child. I am camped along the same Forest Service Road that goes to the Lava Cave, potentially a walkable distance for an 8 year old so it makes sense the ranger stopped by. I just came into town to ship out a package and checked the news and the boy was found just before noon! So happy it turned out that way.!!!! No word yet where they found the child or where he spent the night. There is nothing but forest and a few campers and some logging operation equipment out this way. I am sure that info about where he might have sheltered will get mentioned in a news update later today.

Just enough time to grab a couple of items at the grocery store and get back to camp before the next big thunder storm cell showing on the weather radar pours down. Driving on the freeway in a torrential downpour with lightning strikes all around is definitely an experience to be avoided!

maki2 · Aug 22, 2024

I make Christmas stuff all year around. But it is not edible unless you are into eating little pieces of paper.

Of course I am perfectly willing to eat Christmas cookies and candies any time of year. Walnut fudge would be lovely today as would a Turkey and cranberry sandwhich.

abnorm · Aug 22, 2024

"COOKIES" ?

vanbrat · Aug 23, 2024

one of the reasons I could not give up my sticks and bricks is cooking. My family agrees...

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