09:00 – Amazon’s new video streaming box looks interesting. If I hadn’t just bought a Roku 3, I’d probably buy the Amazon Fire TV instead. In video streaming, the Roku 3 is the box to beat, and Amazon’s box is serious competition for the Roku, especially for those who want support for casual gaming. We don’t, so I’m perfectly content with the Roku 3.
I’m going to work on taxes today. Grrrrr.
10:44 – One of the aggravating things about working from home is that many/most chemical vendors won’t ship to residential addresses. I run into this problem frequently. A couple of months ago, for example, I was trying to order three kilos of bacteriological-grade agar from one vendor. They refused to ship to me because the ship-to address was residential. Geez, the stuff is edible. It’s not like I could use it to take down a building or something.
Fortunately, some vendors are reasonable about it. I just realized that I was very low on methylene blue, so I went over to p212121.com to order 250 grams. This is one of those sites that I can never get to accept my login credentials, so I called them to place the order. He warned me that there might be a problem because my ship-to address was residential, but acknowledged that they’d shipped other stuff to me and that methylene blue shouldn’t be a problem. Indeed, about 45 seconds after I finished the phone order I got an email confirmation that my order had been accepted and will ship immediately.
Fedex Ground charges more for residential delivery. That may be part of the issue for your vendors.
Three kilos is in the weight category where I take the shipment to Fedex Ground if I cannot fit the item into a USPS Priority Mail flat rate box. I don’t trust UPS with anything that is remotely fragile, and their unionized staff at the local depot tends to be indifferent at best since our state (WA) is not “right to work”.
Sorry about the pseudonym. I don’t want my Newegg packages arriving crushed.
It has nothing to do with higher residential delivery charges. The FedEx and UPS software takes that into account automatically, and any of these vendors are happy to sell equipment to me. Just not “chemicals”. Just as an experiment, I once attempted to order a liter of ultra-pure water (the kind used in instrumental analyses) for, IIRC, $40. When I tried to check out, the cart flagged that item and said it could not complete the order because it was being shipped to a residential address and so could not include a “chemical”. Geez.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/how-can-government-battle-a-suicide-epidemic-among-veterans-20140403
“At least 22 veterans commit suicide each day, according to the Veterans Affairs Department. This adds up to more than 2,000 veterans killing themselves so far this year alone, and the military community is facing what advocates refer to as a suicide epidemic.”
What in the world is going on here?
Regarding the ship from home thing, have you thought about renting a box from some place like Mail Boxes Etc. and have chemicals shipped there?
Doesn’t work, unfortunately.
“If I hadn’t just bought a Roku 3, I’d probably buy the Amazon Fire TV instead.”
Ditto. But it’s also twice the cost of the Roku that we just bought and set up. And we don’t game with the tee-vee, either.
“What in the world is going on here?”
Main problem is multiple combat tours, including for Guard and Reserve troops, repeatedly. I did a lousy two tours and it messed up my head pretty good. These kids are pulling four, five or more, with very short breaks, and zero support at home for spouse and kids, and then come back to the job gone, the house foreclosed on, and like for me, self-medication seems to help at first.
The causes are various and many in individual cases, but they can generally get ahold of weapons to do it with and it’s a fast and easy way to just bail out of the whole mess and all the pressure. There wasn’t much help for previous generations of combat vets but there is more now and we have to get to these kids and point them in the right directions; it’s an extremely hard row to hoe, believe me.
One of the things Mrs. OFD is doing point duty for on a national basis with the Mental Health First Aid program involves veterans and issues like this; we’re zooming down to Mordor in three weeks to the National Press Club to kick it off, with the assistance and/or face time of the two top wives, officially speaking, in the country. I trash this administration hourly, it seems, but credit where it is due; if this can help just a few vets adjust and get squared away, I’ll do the come-to-Jesus meeting and climb aboard for it.
This is part of it here, mainly for existing active-duty troops and their familes:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/joiningforces/photo-video
The suicide problem and associated mental health stuff, like PTSD, is going to get addressed heavily with Mrs. OFD’s organization and her in the front lines, so to speak; as it is, she is probably gonna get detailed ASAP to Fort Hood again.
I will also say that the doctors and staff up here at the White River Junction VA Med Center do outstanding work with these vets and some of the latter, when they come back here, are in near-strait-jacket mode, as I have cause to know. I’m just a fellow vet who’s been in the shit that they can talk to, no more, no less, but we’ve found it makes a tremendous difference. We won’t bullshit them and they can’t bullshit us.
Hey Bob, here you go, “The Walking Dead Survival Kit”:
http://www.shopthewalkingdead.com/the-walking-dead-survival-kit/details/29322111
“Kit contains enough emergency supplies to assist two people to survive for 72 hours
Kit Contents Include:
High end military style messenger bag with brass fittings and custom The Walking Dead Logo
2 – Datrex 2400 Calorie Emergency Food Ration. Stays fresh for up to 5 years
12 – Datrex 4.22 oz packs of Emergency Water. Stays fresh for up to 5 years
1 – Premium Lifeline First Aid kit, 85 Pieces
1 – Lifegear Glow LED Flashlight. Lasts up to 400 hours
2 – Emergency Mylar Space Blankets
2 – Emergency Ponchos for Severe Weather
1 – Leather Palm Work Gloves for moving debris
1 – Waterproof match booklet (where permitted)
4 – Procedural Face Masks”
$130. Looks like $100 for the logo.
Can’t you get a mailbox at one of those retail postal places (one of those places that sells packing materials, will mail parcels for you, rents mailboxes, and so on. Mail Boxes Etc comes to mind) and many of them let you use their street address with no box number for letters and parcels, so it would appear to the seller that you’re at a business address as that is what the USPS has classified whichever strip mall unit it’s in.
It would serve a dual purpose as it would also take the focus off of your private residence as a business and put it elsewhere. Helpful for solicitors, junk mail, and aggravated customers.
My father was a Vietnam veteran. Retired as a CMSgt after 26 years in the USAF. He killed himself at age 60. I read that Over-50 men are the biggest at-risk group right now. Not teenage girls as the MSM would have you believe.
I’m very sorry to hear that, Chad; that sucks real bad. And my personal situation was such that if I had not been forced to VA intervention nearly five years ago, I would have been dead myself by now, one way or another.
Just got off the phone with Mrs. OFD; her and her organization are about to catch the huge wave of the millions that is about to be thrown their way for this burgeoning (only now being noticed) problem. As I told her, and she knows this, of course; the vast majority of combat vets come back and stay quiet and mind their own business and don’t cause problems (although we don’t often know much about the hell that goes on behind closed family doors, as we up here can attest). (See the movies “Hurt Locker” and “Stop Loss” for a pretty good view of some of this.) But let one or two or more be out there robbing banks, shooting up places, and creating mayhem, and with today’s instant media attention, someone eventually grasps that we have a serious issue here.
I’ve also advised her and others that there are millions of veterans out there who are trained and weapons-experienced, and if this country keeps going in the direction it’s going and these guys get really pissed off, we will have much more serious problems, not to mention all the cops who are also veterans, and who have stressors of their own, as I also have cause to know.
RBT, would it serve any purpose to compile and disseminate a list of which vendors are reasonable and which are not about shipping to “residential” addresses? Not necessarily put it here, but on a chemists’ forum or small business forum or something.
Just loaded MS Office 2013 on my Windows 7 x64 office pc. Ugh. What in the world possessed Mickeysoft to move to a flat window without a border? Ugh. Excel was never very pretty but it was highly functional. The new expanded ribbon bar is a total piece of … I cannot even find the help / about dialog.
One weird item is that it did not remove Office 2003 from my pc. However, Office 2013 is the default Office version as my software starts and talks with Excel 2013.
We’ve got Office 2013 on this Windows 8×64 machine, which gets used along with LibreOffice; Mrs. OFD mainly uses PowerPoint and Excel; I occasionally use Word and have never minded the ribbon.
Now about to watch S01E03 of “Southland.”
As a Vietnam Combat Veteran, I was in pretty rough mental shape when I got home… America’s “Hippie” “Welcoming Home” wasn’t any mental reprieve either… Alcohol did its number on me as well… Even today, I have to walk away from any “Gut Feelings” that might put me behind bars for the rest of my life… BTW, alcohol free for 24 years
Dave B. wrote:
Chad wrote:
Just realized I wrote the same suggestion that Dave B. wrote after Dave B. wrote his. That will teach me to skim instead of read. I will now go punish myself.
1. Go to images.google.com
2. Type “michelle obama nancy pelosi harry reid three-way” in the search bar
3. Do not share the results with the rest of us
Speaking of UPS, unions, and shipping, I was down in Uni Town having lunch with my son at one of the locals’ diners. It’s the chopped steak with gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans type of place with coffee and lots of local talk. Son had to make a pit stop at one point while a UPS guy was behind me talking loud to his buddies about doing his taxes last week. He was upset because for the first time ever, he had to actually pay money to Uncle Sam, instead of getting a couple grand back (which is what he said he got back last year). He had to pay a hundred and eighty-something dollars. “They withheld twenty thousand, and I had to pay them even more,” he lamented. Now he also said he has a wife who is a teacher, who makes only a little less than he does. If I take the figures for a single person, to pay 20k, he would be making about 80 g’s. But he’s married with 2 kids, so likely paying less than 25% marginal rate, so he is probably making somewhere between 90 and 100k. He also blabbed out that they sent him a notice that the value of the medical insurance they paid for him and his family of 4 for last year, was 40k.
Geez, I knew those guys did well, but never imagined it was quite THAT well. No wonder they are always happy, energetic campers when I see them here at Tiny House.
“As a Vietnam Combat Veteran, I was in pretty rough mental shape when I got home…”
Welcome home, bro. I know how it sucked for ya. And still sucks, kinda.
“…alcohol free for 24 years.”
Sweet. Nice going, Bob. I’m closing on five years sober. In nineteen more years I’ll be closing on eighty on the planet. Shit.
“Geez, I knew those guys did well, but never imagined it was quite THAT well.”
I just did some fast calculations of my own here with a side trip down memory lane; if I’d stayed married to my first wife, who is one of NJ’s “top 100 super lawyers” now, and I was doing the same IT work down there that I’ve done up here, we’d be rolling in cash. Probably a quarter-mill easy, per year, probably more. But we’d be living in NJ.
Case closed.
One of the best documentaries I’ve seen regarding PTSD
and vet suicides is “Wartorn 1861-2010” – an HBO film.
You can watch it on Vimeo here …
http://vimeo.com/56551714
or here …
http://vimeo.com/60896514
It’s also available on YouTube.com
but it’s in 5 parts – here’s the links …
WARTORN 1861-2010 ~ on YouTube.com
1.) WarTorn – Part 1 of 5 – 14:47
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swsX8Q51Fj4
2.) WarTorn – Part 2 of 5 – 15:00
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsxLBSn8_l0
3.) WarTorn – Part 3 of 5 – 14:57
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lei-PWmRNIY
4.) WarTorn – Part 4 of 5 – 13:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1icb0rotiY
5.) WarTorn – Part 5 of 5 – 12:46
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY3rtohydQk
Here’s the HBO link for a synopsis …
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/wartorn-1861-2010#/
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/wartorn-1861-2010#/documentaries/wartorn-1861-2010/synopsis.html
It covers from the American Civil War through Iraq and Afghanistan.
SteveF, your too pessimistic. The worst I could find on the first page of Google was someone claiming to have irrefutable proof that Michelle Obama is a man.
HAYeeee OFD: “I’ve Never Been Sober Today, Before”… ODAAT(One Day At A Time)
Yeah, it’s ODAAT for the duration. As we all know, there are a zillion stories.