Augie

I’m watching Aerial America on the Smithsonian Channel. The Arizona episode is the best you can do to understand the Grand Canyon without actually being there. It still doesn’t do it justice, but if you can’t be there in person, it’s a start! They also go to places @SinceThe70s, @LeGOATski and I think @Nextmanup mentioned like Sedona. If you get the Smithsonian Channel, look for this. It’s worth it.

Are you serious, or just punching me in the gut for giggles? 😋 I lived there for 18 years before the awful decision to end up in Atlanta. I would pack the car and drive back tonight if I could, but Atlanta offers job$ and Career$ Sarasota does not. The Sarasota real estate market has to crash again. I saw this in 2004-2005, then came the first quarter of 2006. CRASH! People would rather have an STD than real estate. I want nobody to get hurt, but I’ll be there in 5 years if they crash again. It has to come back to reality.

I use this theory related to golf and trees, and somehow I am almost always wrong! 🤷‍♂️ You’d think I would learn. No worries, I take a LOT of balls.

We had elaborate plans for my wife’s brother to bring his wife and three “kids”, with the youngest being a HS senior. His wife has stage 4 cancer and we were eager to see them. Our son returned from Christmas in FL with his wife’s family. She promptly became ill upon return, and tested positive. So far, he’s feels fine, but we can’t get more tests yet. The BIL is a doctor in hospital administration a few hours away. We were all looking forward to getting together, and I think they were looking forward to being taken care of as a family for the weekend. We were not exposed to the DIL, but our son came over while she was starting to feel ill. That makes it risky. Beside that, there are so many people testing positive at the BIL’s hospital they are finding it hard to adequately staff. I’m not sure what factored more heavily in their decision, but the trip is off. Looks like we will wing it. It will be just the two of us, and it just might be leftover spicy salmon with pineapple. I like to cook, and was looking forward to the gathering. I will admit, I’m getting tired of preparing food for people who have become so picky. My wife is best to avoid gluten and dairy, as is her family. My DIL is a vegetarian. My nieces will eat chicken, but not red meat. One will eat fish, but the other won’t eat anything that “swims in it’s own poop”. Another friend will eat shellfish, but not fish. WTF? I’m not talking peanut allergies here (but when did THAT start?), I’m talking picky %^$# people! Sorry, tangent and rant ends here! Have a fabulous and safe New Years Eve! .

I took both my sons when they turned 16 as a rite of passage. Cemented die hard Bills fans. Congrats on an event your kids will never forget. That beats “things” hands down! They probably don’t need an extra sweater. My kids have no idea what they got for their 16th DBay or. Christmas, but they will NEVER forget that trip! Well done! Tell the wife she done good! 😋

We went to Stowe (following Boston) on our February honeymoon almost 38 years ago. That might actually be nice to do again! My sister is a partner in a place in Killington so I’ve been there a few times too. I just checked and was surprised to see the USVI has a travel portal with testing restrictions. I’d LOVE to get there, and was surprised they made it a bit more complicated.

The USVI is VERY appealing to me, and it was in the back of my mind. I might be able to sell that to the wife, too. I always envisioned combining Alaska with some time in Vancouver, both high on my wish list. Nashville is awesome! We used to have a place there. It is so much more than country music, which people generally don’t understand! I tried to get a college buddy and his wife come visit but he said it wasn’t his cup of tea…….but he had never been there! How could he know? It’s also a college town and a medical hub, among other things. I’d rather live in Nashville than Atlanta, but I’ll hold out for better weather after the wife retires.

I won’t even give the OP a barf, because it feels like a cry for attention….. from someone not worthy of attention.

Wayward, you say? That just might be right up my alley!

Not at all! She seems quite content shackled in the basement. At least, I can’t hear her screaming any more, but that might be the awesome new sound bar on the TV. 😋 We are different in what we enjoy which makes the vacation thing tricky. I like small, quality cruises, she gets motion sickness but can pull it off with meds. That effectively crosses off my intrigue with a cool train ride (mostly in the bar car!) thru the mountains. Seems like once would be enough, but s bucket list item. She hates heat, I hate cold. I’d love to go to Hawaii, but the last time we flew to wine country she couldn’t wait to get off the plane, while half were continuing on to Hawaii. She felt bad for them, while I was jealous. Hawaii is too far for her, but she can fly to NYC to connect to Spain, no problem. There are certain places we both like to visit, but I’m getting sick of repeat destinations, hence the desire for new ideas. Now that Italy apparently canceled AGAIN I want to find something new and special without crossing borders.

I do very little caffeine, just an Arnold Palmer (half lemonade, half unsweetened tea) or two at lunch. The exception is when I’m driving long distance. Then I bring out the Big Guns and drink Diet Mountain Dew while munching on salt and vinegar chips. I don’t know how or when that started, but that is the routine. My wife used to do a Diet Mt Dew early in the afternoon until she realized how much she missed it when it didn’t happen. She decided to quit it all together and struggled. She’d even call or text on days when she fell of the wagon. She went thru a period of some pretty intense headaches trying to get off the devil’s juice!

I’ve got to tell you, I lived In Hilton Head, SC and work took me to Charleston and Columbia regularly. It was WAY hotter there than Sarasota. I promise! It NEVER hit 100 in Sarasota (the weatherman even said it, get past 95 and you get a thunderstorm. BOOM, back to 75), but did regularly in HHI. Like 3 straight weeks when I worked construction there during a summer in college. Funny story, I was nervous about SW FL after a dozen years in HHI. Moved to Sarasota in 1993, before everyone had a computer and printer in every room, and I went into a place to get resumes’ printed. The ladies in there were in a back room and didn’t here me come in. I heard one say “I just came back from the hottest two %$^ $%#^ weeks of my life in %^%^$#% Hilton Head!” That gave me hope!

Being an “east coast guy”, I’ve been mildly surprised by how many west coast options are here. Well……maybe not. I’m all about new stuff, so I find that kind of exciting. It’s easy for us to drive to Blowing Rock, or Highlands NC. But I know what to expect there. I want to experience new places and new things. My sisters have a thing for Christmas where they prioritize experiences over things. I absolutely LOVE it! One year my older sister skipped every gift all year (birthdays, anniversary’s, Christmas, etc.) and did a budget trip to Paris in the cheap December window. Probably didn’t PAY for the trip, but it went a long way. The other sister is a traveling maniac! This year they are in Kitty Hawk, NC for Christmas. It changes every year, and they have memories that will last far longer than those sweaters we got that we didn’t like, barely fit and wound up at Goodwill when we needed to make space.

The heat gets annoying, just like the gray and cold does up north. It’s not that any one day is so hot, or so cold, but the season lasts a LONG time. I happen to like the heat. My wife hates it. Hence, our (MY) goal is a place in FL for 6 months and a day, to qualify as a resident and avoid state income taxes and get homestead exemption (your property taxes can only go up like 2-3% a year as a resident) and have a place to avoid the heat and get a break in the hottest months. I kinda like it, but the wife can’t handle the duration. For close to 6 months in Sarasota it’s a low of 75 and a high of 90 give or take 2-3 degrees. VERY consistent, but too long for her. .

Let the legend begin!

Most of the middle of the state is farmland, miles and miles of farming, not marsh, that produces your citrus and tomatoes. As you get up near Ocala it’s horse country and looks a lot like Kentucky. Be careful @JaCrispy who you listen to here. Also be careful with your timing on a buy in the area. A lot of people have been looking at GA and SC as far less expensive alternatives, so that’s worth looking into as well. Still mild winters, and not so ridiculously expensive. .

He needs better friends. I think we all know that.

But is he……”Immunized”?

It gets hotter inland, just be aware of that. If you’re not in a flood zone the insurance isn’t too bad. Most people want to be near the water and beaches, however, and then you pay. Unfortunately, nowhere I know of in the state is reasonably priced right now. Not great timing. My goal in life is to get at least a part time place back in Sarasota. We lived there 18 years, longer than I lived in WNY leaving for college at 17. I looked a couple month ago at our old neighborhood of over 400 houses. Not a single active listing, so I expanded to the place we rented our last year there (so our son could finish high school where he started). Now this is over a thousand houses between two neighborhoods….and there was only ONE active listing. A few more listings now, but they feel they can ask anything they want. Sarasota in particular is a hot market, but I’m not sure what areas are much better. Smaller places with less “culture” are far more affordable, but it depends on what you are looking for. I’m OK without the symphony or the opera, but I like the restaurants and bars, etc Sarasota offers. I was an appraiser there for 13 years after my banking days and watched the ups and downs. Going up 35% two years in a row is insane! That means roughly a $200k house (the cheapest thing in Sarasota then) went to $365k in 24 months. That’s what happened back then. Unsustainable. Then came the first quarter of 2006, and you couldn’t GIVE real estate away there. I’m hoping my roughly 5 year time line works out to buy back at the next bottom. I don’t know your situation, but I’d be careful about buying at the top, then finding yourself under water. I hope you find your dream place, whenever and wherever that may be. Good luck! .

No idea what the conditions would be at cruise time, but have always wanted to see Vancouver. It would be a bummer to be there and not get a taste, but who knows what the rules might be at that point……or tomorrow.

IMO, no. This is a fluid situation, and you change as the information changes. Can they regret the timing? Does it suck on some level? Yep, of course, but reducing the number of games missed makes this a better league with more players eligible, and I think that’s what most people want.

I left the strip one summer day, and by the time we got to the Reservation it FELT like winter. It must have dropped 25 degrees. I had to buy the worlds UGLIEST sweatshirt to stay warm, which it felt like it was kind of a joke on us tourists. That thing went to Goodwill as soon as we got home, but should have stayed in the hotel room! Never did the train ride, but I am curious about those upscale trains thru beautiful scenery and mountains. Like Orient Express, but nobody gets killed hopefully. Also interested in an Alaskan cruise as I know the wife would like that, but then we are likely dealing with borders and such again with Canada. It can be fine when you leave, but the situation is so fluid I don’t know what to trust.

Wait, you said we are 100% out if we lose, but all kinds of other things have to happen. That does not sound like 100% to me.

I have twice, on trips to Vegas, taken the helicopter ride into the Grand Canyon for a little picnic. It is both breathtaking and humbling! (On the second trip friends surprised us with this rather extravagant adventure, and we didn’t have the heart to let on that we had done it before!)

I mean, I had heard of Sedona, but never really knew much about it. It certainly looks intriguing. The wife had a birthday ending in a zero last year, and her special treat was almost a month in Blowing Rock, NC and the thing we did most was hike. Nothing overly exhausting or difficult, but tons of nice trails. We were lucky to have friends with a place near there to show us the ropes and take us to the coolest spots. That could be part of our annual routine one day when the wife retires.