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My mother was of the opinion that boys are not mature enough to start college right out of high school. My mother refused to provide my brothers with a college education after high school and pretty much forced them into the military. Which of course they did do. My older and next younger to me brother went straight to Vietnam. My youngest brother fortunately had stayed on a career path my mother chose for mom at age 5, he went to West Point. Vietnam was over by the time he graduated.

Basically my mother was pretty much a jerk to force her sons to go into the military knowing they were going straight into that war that had a lot of casualties for death, physical injuries, toxic chemicals as well as PTSD. Including knowing from news reports that there was lot of exposure to drugs including addictive ones and alcoholism plus the habits of being with prostitutes. .But our home had always been a war zone and the military was better than that or getting kicked out onto the street with no job skills that would have provided a decent roof over their heads.

The actual truth is that many young men are capable of going to college right out of high school while others need a break before they go. For the kids who hold down a job as well as get good grades in high school they are most certainly mature enough to go on to college.

There is no one right path through life for everyone and parents do not always know best because some parents are pretty messed up themselves. Certainly not all families can afford to send children to college. Military service is an honorable and worthwhile profession but it is not a good path for every person to enter. For instance, bullying is very present in it and that is something that can destroy a person or even start a person onto the path of becoming one.

There is no easy answer or right answer to this situation. But at the end of high school years a man pretty much knows which direction he wants to go even if it is following the path of least resistance from parental pressures.
 
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I removed some posts because they were becoming argumentative. Please avoid debating about the homeless issue in this thread because the posts will most likely get deleted. It's an unsolvable issue, at least by us.
 
Tomorrow, the 21st of June is the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere. Solar Power day!
 
My mother was of the opinion that boys are not mature enough to start college right out of high school. My mother refused to provide my brothers with a college education after high school and pretty much forced them into the military. Which of course they did do. My older and next younger to me brother went straight to Vietnam. My youngest brother fortunately had stayed on a career path my mother chose for mom at age 5, he went to West Point. Vietnam was over by the time he graduated.

Basically my mother was pretty much a jerk to force her sons to go into the military knowing they were going straight into that war that had a lot of casualties for death, physical injuries, toxic chemicals as well as PTSD. Including knowing from news reports that there was lot of exposure to drugs including addictive ones and alcoholism plus the habits of being with prostitutes. .But our home had always been a war zone and the military was better than that or getting kicked out onto the street with no job skills that would have provided a decent roof over their heads.

The actual truth is that many young men are capable of going to college right out of high school while others need a break before they go. For the kids who hold down a job as well as get good grades in high school they are most certainly mature enough to go on to college.

There is no one right path through life for everyone and parents do not always know best because some parents are pretty messed up themselves. Certainly not all families can afford to send children to college. Military service is an honorable and worthwhile profession but it is not a good path for every person to enter. For instance, bullying is very present in it and that is something that can destroy a person or even start a person onto the path of becoming one.

There is no easy answer or right answer to this situation. But at the end of high school years a man pretty much knows which direction he wants to go even if it is following the path of least resistance from parental pressures.
Bullying?
 
I want one day to go to a really funky solar Soltis celebration. There is one in Seattle that is supposed to be fun but...I don't know if I really want to see naked bike riders or skaters... Even if they are mostly painted up and funky
Mostly I like to hit the beach for the super low tides. The fuller the moon at this time of the year the lower the tides and that is when ya can find really fun stuff. There is one tiny island close to our island that can be walked to if the tides are right.
 
I want one day to go to a really funky solar Soltis celebration. There is one in Seattle that is supposed to be fun but...I don't know if I really want to see naked bike riders or skaters... Even if they are mostly painted up and funky
Mostly I like to hit the beach for the super low tides. The fuller the moon at this time of the year the lower the tides and that is when ya can find really fun stuff. There is one tiny island close to our island that can be walked to if the tides are right.
I saw those naked bikers now and again getting ready to ride in the parade. My home base is in that area of town. They would gather in the big metal building of a boat repair place to help each other put on the body paint. That business was on the bike trail near the start of the parade through the Fremont neighborhood.

I was living right next to a beach on Puget Sound for the last 10 years before I went full full time.
 
Finally got motivated and relocated my campsite closer to Flaggtaff. I did stop in at Williams Az for a few groceries and gas and to put air into the tires on my travel trailer. The wind gust of 30mph were starting to kick up by the time I got to Interstate 40 from the Grand Canyon Park, but as I am low profile for both my tow car and trailer I was OK with the crosswinds. But what must have been an empty semi with trailer just ahead of me on I-40 eastbound was weaving a bit side to side in the lane when we went past some open areas with no trees.

High wind gust warnings for the next several days. I have not yet unhitched as I wanted an afternoon lie down. I will make sure to point my trailer mostly into the wind which should also work OK for solar gain on my panel when I put up my popup top. There are some tall pines nearby where I can hang up a hammock. I am also camped near a girlfriend I have camped with several times over the last couple of years. There are other HOWA/cheaprvliving living followers around the area should I want to make more new friends. Most likely I will not do a whole lot of socializing as I have some work task and projects I want to get around to. Plus trips into the town of Flagstaff for picking up forwarded mail and Amazon orders, getting a haircut as well as a trip or two to Walmart.
 
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Just out of curiosity. A while back right after the big rains and snow I40 was in really bad shape from what everyone said. And eating tires. How is it looking now?
 
New Van living game, "Where in the world is Maki12". j/k.
 
Just out of curiosity. A while back right after the big rains and snow I40 was in really bad shape from what everyone said. And eating tires. How is it looking now?
I do not know. The bad damage was west of the town of Williams AZ all the way to Kingman AZ. The segment of I-40 I traveled on yesterday is East of Williams and it is in good condition.

I will not travel over that bad segment until late September, early October. Then I will most likely only use I-40 west as far as the town of Seligman where I will take old route 66 all the way to Kingman AZ stopping to disperse camp here and there along the way if the weather is not too hot.
 
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Your pretty busy there maki2... you might wanna run up to Winslow and sit on a corner for a bit...
It is on my list to do someday. But it is much hotter in Winslow than in Flagstaff in the summer 🥵 several 100 degree days there this week.
 
Might seem like I travel a lot but I do not. My Honda Element is a 2006 model. It had 22k on it when I bought it in January of 2008. It now has 83k miles on it.

It is not that I have not done longer distance driving camping trips since 2008, but many of those were done with my friend in his van.
 
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I was pretty amazed at myself. I only put <25,000 miles on last year... retirement has its benefits!!
I’ll have to try for under 15,000 this year...
But everyone is all over the place this summer. So a lot of zig zagging on my trip coming up.
 
This campsite near Flagstaff at Bellemont has its pluses and minuses. The minus is that the Verizon cell tower speeds during the daytime remind me of the overcrowded towers in Quartzsite. I will just have to do most of my internet stuff in the late evenings or early mornings.

There are a number of other people camped near me but that part is working out just fine. It is a friendly group of folks and fortunately also a pretty quiet group, no loud music, no loud generators, everyone is an experienced nomad so they are mellow people. Even a few people have dropped by that I met last summer when camped near Flagstaff. So old friends and new ones too.

This location is about 15 miles one way on I-40 to Flagstaff to the big Walmart or 12 miles to the Post office and an Amazon Locker. But I did find what I hoped to in a semi rural subdivision that is under 2 miles away, which is a postal box unit for that neighborhood that I can drive up to and securely drop my outgoing mail into it. That makes a big difference to keeping my Etsy store shipping done on time with minimal fuel consumption. Plus I have to pass the local truck stop which means I can stop in and reward myself with an iced beverage on these now hotter afternoons. This truck stop also has a laundry room.
 
How messed up is Medicare?

You go to the doctor, the nurse asks you "so, are you depressed?" while typing away into the computer in the middle of a dozen other questions (like, wow, way to get a troubled person to feel comfortable opening up!), and they get to charge $X extra for a "depression screening."

The PT says "go to this website every day and check off after you do the exercises," and they get to charge $X extra for "tele-health." (Yesterday I found out that they were billing me for this too so uh no. The exercises aren't even listed correctly on the website.)

I'm sure both of those started out as clever solutions to genuine problems. But now they're :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:. I swear, if there is one thing I have absolute faith in, it's the power of the human mind to screw up every good idea 5 minutes after it gets out the door.

You just so gotta be your own advocate in health care. It's a pita but it's real!
 
I hear you on the health care issue. We’d have been better off being born cattle... but vets are cranking up their services and rates the same way. Glad we could enjoy good healthcare while it lasted...
I see BCM mailing service is following suit raising their rates... I didn’t really understand the email we just got really. Is that 13.00 to receive or send a letter?? $7.95 + $5 handling. You can then only pick up packages like between 10 and 2?
More money for less convenience? Maybe I’m reading it wrong. Hard to read their emails with the format. I’m still a little miffed they lost a good order of mine and didn’t want to even investigate.
 

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