ICanSleepWhenI'mDead

Couple factoids that don't get a lot of publicity: 1. Most people know that the 10% early withdrawal penalty (on top of regular income tax) goes away for IRA withdrawals made when you are over 59.5 years old. But if a person separates from an employer's service after age 55, he or she can take early withdrawals from that employer's 401(k) or 403(b) plan without paying the 10% penalty - - even if he or she isn't yet 59.5 years old. So if you think you might want or need to use some of the tax-deferred money after age 55 and before 59.5, you might want to investigate rolling over some of your old 401(k) money into your current employer's 401(k) plan, and/or rolling over some of your wife's 403(b) money into her current employer's 403(b) plan. This is only a benefit if you or your wife will separate from a then current employer's service after age 55 and before age 59.5. If you roll 401(k) plan or 403(b) money into an IRA, you lose the ability to take the money out before 59.5 without penalty. Actually, there is still a way to avoid the penalty before 59.5, but it must be done over a period of years and is much more complicated and beyond the scope of this post. 2. If your wife currently contributes to a 403(b) plan, she can DOUBLE the amount of her allowable annual tax deferred contributions if her employer also offers a 457 plan. The 403(b) plan and the 457 plan each have the same individual annual contribution limits, but you can max out allowable contributions to both plans without penalty. I was very skeptical of this when I first read about it, but it's true. I mention it because a lot of people in your "over 50" age bracket are trying to max out their contributions, and this tax wrinkle rarely gets mentioned. Apparently it may also be possible for an employer to offer a 401(k) and a 457 plan per this link, but I am certain about the 403(b)/457 combo: http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/401k_457plans.moneymag/index2.htm

The underwater UFO thread on a football message board in the offseason - - what were you expecting?

My brother Darryl says It's when coal dust from black lung disease crosses the areolae into the blood stream and migrates to the heart.

From his member profile (not sure when it was written, though):

Loved the commercials where he took the beer back from the snobs.

Just a suggestion - - when you've narrowed your search to a brand new crossover that you like and have a pretty good idea what it will cost, test drive a low mileage used Infiniti EX35 or FX35 (F is roomier for people and cargo than E) of whatever age that would cost about the same.

I was gonna rant about people who change thread titles in the middle of a contest, but then Darryl informed me that wouldn't exactly be random. Screw it, I'm not a sheep - - who gives a flying' f*** about thread control:

My brother Darryl says - - if you don't like the noises he makes then pick somebody more quiet to bring into the stall with you.

"post" I win.

A lone mosquito making sporadic flights in a darkened bedroom (I will not sleep until one of us dies - - and I'm still here).

This time of year, watching some small time but rising college basketball program with a good record (but no respect yet) use unselfish team play to beat teams from the "power" conferences in March Madness. Examples: Florida Gulf Coast - - I never even heard of the school and they made a run as a 15 seed while playing with a "bring it on" attitude; Butler - - one half court shot from winning it all; and Gonzaga - - when they were first on the rise (but not now).

I guess we have the answer - - too bad it wasn't a decent QB rather than a very good RB.

Don't know what level of detail you already have, but my brother Darryl thought this was pretty informative:

It was sort of a reverse Kobayashi Maru scenario. The coaches should be cast as Star Trek villains.

I think the game could have gotten pretty entertaining at the end, if the referee had allowed each team to shoot at the wrong basket. The game would have switched from the team playing the worst getting the desired loss, to the team playing the best (but shooting at the wrong basket) getting the desired loss. It essentially would have turned into a "winner's outs" situation, too - - if a team A shot at the wrong basket and scored 2 points for team B, team A would get to take the ball out and try to do it again. But they would have a 10 second "score" clock (not a shot clock), because if team A didn't score in the wrong basket quickly enough, the refs would call a 10 second back court violation - - like they actually did once in the real game. But let's say team B starts playing defense to prevent team A from scoring points in the "wrong" basket for team B - - what does team B do when they get the ball? If they take the ball over half court in the wrong direction, it's an "over and back" violation. So team "B" either has to take shots at the "wrong" basket from beyond half court, or somehow be awarded the ball out of bounds. If I remember right, you can inbound the ball from the front court into the backcourt, so long as the player catching the ball is already in the backcourt when catching it. So if team B plays good defense and gets possession of the ball before team A can score in the "wrong" basket, does team B try to make the ball go out of bounds off a team A player - - so they can pass the ball into their own backcourt without being called for "over and back?" But there's some other wrinkles. What if team B starts fouling team A before team A can shoot at the wrong basket? The refs will make team A take foul shots from the proper free throw line. Team A could intentionally miss the free throw, but would have to make sure they at least hit the rim with the shot - - otherwise team B gets to take the ball out directly underneath the "wrong" basket that team B will try to score at. And even if team A successfully rebounds the intentionally missed foul shot, team A would need to shoot at the wrong basket from beyond half court or figure out how to be awarded the ball out of bounds - - because team A now has possession in the front court and has the same potential "over and back" problem when heading to score in the wrong direction. The possibilities are mind boggling. How about this scenario? What if team B fouls team A before team A can try a shot at the wrong basket, so the refs walk everybody to the other end for team A to take a foul shot. And then - - wait for it - - the team A player turns around and shoots a 3/4 court shot at the wrong basket? If the long wrong-way shot misses everything, then team B obviously gets the ball out of bounds at the end where the team A shooter was standing. But what if the wrong way 3/4 court "foul" shot hits the "wrong" rim? Better yet, what if team A's wrong-way 3/4 court "foul" shot actually goes in? Does it count as 1 point for team B? And which team gets the ball out of bounds if the long wrong way "foul" shot goes in? Wonder if there's a rule that requires a forfeit if you can't put at least say 3 eligible players on the court? At some point, would a team fearing that it might not be able to lose on the scoreboard, try to foul out enough of its own players to require it to forfeit the game? And even if there's no minimum number of players rule, what happens if a team fouls out every last one of its players, wouldn't THAT require a forfeit? And what if the ref refused to call fouls to prevent such an intentional forfeit - - would players fake injuries to try to reduce the number of available players (to zero if necessary) to get the forfeit? I'm not sure a ref would risk requiring a player take the court if the player claimed to be injured. What's the ref gonna do, award a forfeit against the team trying to throw the game? That's exactly what they want. I think it would have been fascinating watching how creative each team would get in trying to lose the game if the refs had simply let them play and just enforced the existing rules. Sometimes I ain't right.

As I suspected. Would anyone (anything?) but an alien make reference to "prevailing HUMAN THOUGHT?" If you were human, you would have simply said "prevailing thought." Only aliens have non-human thoughts. Has your society been monitoring us since before the time of Galileo? Hope your vaccinations are current. Ribbit. Ribbit.

You might be able to convince me that Cookie and Elbert played in the old AFL (Alien Football League). Maybe Otis Sistrunk really was from the University of Mars: http://slicethelife.com/2012/09/18/former-oakland-raider-otis-sistrunk-from-the-university-of-mars-66-today/ Little known fact - - Otis actually played for the minor league Norfolk Neptunes, so he kind of had a planetary-themed career: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-10-19/sports/sp-6283_1_columbia-football

1. So what if your premise is wrong? What if the speed of light somehow increases in ultra-low gravity environments that we are incapable of testing or have not yet tested? People say that manned space capsules operate in "zero gravity," but anybody who took basic Newtonian mechanics knows that's wrong - - gravitational forces are just extremely low - - not zero. What if the laws of physics that apply in even lower gravitational fields haven't been discovered yet? There are certainly changes in the characteristics of materials that change drastically when those materials are cooled near zero degrees Kelvin. What if something analogous happens in ultra-low gravitational fields (just in the sense of drastic changes compared to what happens at more "normal" temperatures)? BTW, how do you know how far man's deep space probes have traveled? Aren't you just extrapolating what you presume to be the speed of light under the street lamp in our solar system's gravitational field (where you can hope to find the keys you dropped) to deep space conditions? Maybe our probes sped up and traveled much farther, and everybody just assumes that we can still calculate the distance they've traveled by how long it takes radio communications to travel back and forth to any given probe. Find the notion heretical to current thinking about the speed of light as an absolute "speed" limit? There was a time when prevailing scientific thought branded the idea that the earth revolved around the sun as heretical. Maybe there's more yet to be discovered about the "laws" of the universe than you think.

I get the sarcasm, but no punitive damages were requested in the case - - trying to get them would actually be counterproductive, because, among other things, the wife's [driver's] liability policy wouldn't cover and pay for those kinds of damages. To get a better understanding of what is really going on here, read this: http://www.loweringthebar.net/2015/02/utah-court-says-woman-can-sue-herself.html Here's the full Utah Court of Appeals decision (unanimous, BTW): http://law.justia.com/cases/utah/court-of-appeals-published/2015/20131077-ca.html I haven't read the full opinion yet, so I don't know if it applies here, but sometimes the law is an ass: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-law-is-an-ass.html

The "heyday Bills" didn't win a Super Bowl with Jim Kelly, so what you're really asking is - - is the rest of the current Bills team (sans QB) better than Kelly's teammates in the "heyday." No way. The current Bills are improving, but it's not even close.

Some possibilities: 1. For the exact same reason that there is serious debate on this planet about whether SETI should passively listen or actively send messages; 2. For the exact same reason that nomads covertly scout desert water holes for bandits before openly walking into the oasis; 3. For the exact same reason that bandits lie hidden at desert water holes waiting for visiting nomads while letting frogs continue to live at the oasis; 4. Because they saw an early TV show where the cavalry followed the Indian scouting party back to the Indian village and killed all the Indians, and they don't want us to track them back to the wormhole leading to their own planetary system; 5. Because maybe alien life forms are on a scale so small that we can't see them - - why does alien life have to be human-scale? 6. Because they saw Mike Tyson proclaimed in a TV broadcast as "heavyweight champion of the WORLD" and they don't want to mess with him, just in case. Maybe they stumbled into some other backwards-appearing life forms in some other planetary system and got more than they bargained for. Better safe than sorry; 7. Because on some other planet they revealed themselves and all the frogs committed suicide and it took them hours to clean up the mess. 8. Because there is a shortage of meat on their planet and there aren't enough of us yet - - why make the cattle nervous?

If you lived on Stopthepain's home planet, would you want to see what appeared (from your planet's perspective) to be an alien frog trying to have sex with your planet's picnic tables, pool toys and couch cushions? I think not.

Seems to me like if aliens ARE among us and studying us like frogs, they would do their best to discourage the frogs from traveling to the aliens' home planet and bringing frog diseases. They would use their superior intelligence to convince the frogs of all the reasons why space travel was either impossible or very impractical, and persuade the frogs that UFO sightings were the result of misinformed and irrational frogs. In particular, they wouldn't want the frogs to find the wormhole. So I figure "stopthepain" is an alien alias that describes your mission here ("PreventFrogSpaceTravelThatBringsDisease" would have been kind of obvious). Based on how much effort you spent warning about the dangers of space rocks, my guess is that one end of the wormhole is in the asteroid belt. What better place for an alien life form to influence frog decisions than a message board that allows all posters (whether or not they are frogs) to remain eponymous? Ribbit Ribbit.

I've been there and it's beautiful, but you know about the weather, right? http://www.craterlakelodges.com/find-us/weather/ 533 inches = more than 44 feet of snow! Guess you and the GF will need to figure out some way to stay warm. Xanterra Parks & Resorts?