NC is the only place I've lived where there are tripplet metro areas like Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill and Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Piont.
Interesting then how Charlotte, Concord, and Gastonia are Charlotte sprawl and not another similar regional three pointer.
As the title says I have a FIV cat that snores. He's a bit overweight but not huge. 12-13lbs for a stalky gray shorthair with a flatter Scottish fold looking face. The vet does not think his weight is an issue or as I joke to my cat his kitty sleep apnea. I do not think it's actually sleep apnea but ole boy snores like a dog and sometimes makes the same sounds when breathing. It's not purring. He does that plenty too and that's great and reassuring. You'd think there's a pug sleeping in my living room sometimes though.
He's FIV positive, was neutered as an adult so he has the tomcat jowels, and I've had him for 2 years. My vet and I estimate he's 5-8 years old.
He's always done it. He does normal cat stuff and seems healthy. The vet has never found issues. It's just worried me the whole time because he has FIV, definitely faught for his meals on the street before, is fat, and snores. Seems like if he were a person I'd be concerned about that situation.
I basically goof around on some single track and would like to legally ride fire roads and on designated forest trails. Bring it with me camping and get around the mountains kind of thing. My friends and I are different levels of intermediate on bikes from old XRs up to new 300XC-W. I had a 01 KTM 200EXC and other than it being 25 years old and not road legal I enjoyed that.
So from that perspective are the KLX300 and CRF300L bikes going to be my modern electric start headlight having options for that? Are the service intervals decent? Or are they too close to the early 00s TTR250s I remember smoking on my CR125 as a teen?
I like a 2 stroke but if I have a plate on it I'm going to ride it to work occasionally. So I don't know if I want to deal with mixing gas and possibly cooking the top end especially if I pay adult money for this. Not sure if I want to deal with a race bike 450 overheating on trails or the service they require.
Also for the purposes of this question if it has a headlight and a way to recharge the battery I can make it street legal.
I have a couple permitted yard improvements such as a deck and fence. I have the water heater information from having that replaced.
I know when I bought the house I had no information on anything in it and it was basically just lived in since 1990 with things being replaced as they failed. Including the roof that had to be done before it would qualify for a FHA loan for me turning it into a seller concession.
So if I document things on my computer/Google drive is that fine now? Or does it help the value when I do eventually sell the house, even in 20 years, if I have a stack of receipts?
I've had mild issues with this my whole life. Ive found that using pH balancing oil control shampoo helps with my scalp. I never grow my beard out and exfoliate my face and eyebrows with a salicylic acid wash.
Im noticing now that I'm in my 30s if I do not stay on top of this it comes back fast in my eyebrows and around my hair line to the point its absolutely disgusting and I feel like it ages me 10 years.
Again I've had this my whole life and had bad acne as a teen. I still get back acne as an adult. I know its all oil related.
Im not a pizza eating overweight dungeon troll. I want to try and change my diet still before going to a dermatologist who's just going to at best prescribe me something.
Im (33M) not saying it doesn't happen or anything. I was having a conversation in a different thread that got me thinking. I was saying the handful of times I had sex on a first date the whole thing has been completely unserious. Sex on a first date usually means I'm not even expecting this to last a month. That seems pretty normal. Then I started wondering how often it happens where people hook up and then go on to have a successful marriage. Success can be defined in different ways but I want to also exclude people who suffer through compatability issues and get divorced after a few years.
Not as a flex post. I just have a few multi thousand dollar projects. Turbo Z31, 4 eyed foxbody, OBS F150, car trailer, and salvaged NB miata I autox and do track days with. They all run, 4 have tags, and other than the miata are objectively nice enough cars to hold on to. I don't live in a HOA but I have a regular house in a neighborhood and its starting to look kind of WT. I don't want to sell any of it considering I got all these things at a good deal and fixed them myself. I know if I sell any of it for "driver example" value Im just going to put that money towards my mortgage and never justify buying something else. Then I'd be a sad mid 30s guy with a daily and a truck in suburbia.
The RV storage places either don't want the miata without tags even if its on the trailer or want like $75/mo per vehicle. That's $300/mo if I put 4 of them there and assume I'm working on one at my house.
Located in North Carolina USA.
Can I just write a will that says cremate me when I die and give my crap to my brother to do whatever he wants with it?
Then if I get married and maybe have children later reassess the situation.
I'm in my 30s and don't have that much stuff besides a few cars and my house that I still owe 80% the value on. But if I sit down and think about it if I were to sell my cars, tools, motorcycle, things, and house that is probably $120,000 worth of equity and that's only going to go up as I pay my mortgage and live in my house. So if the motorcycle kills me or whatever I'd rather that stuff not go thru the state to make a mess of it.
If anyone is considering getting an account with them to take advantage of the new account bonuses its honestly not worth it. Use a different bank.
My neighborhood is getting better but there's a reason I was able to buy a house for $260k in 2023. No real crime just a lot of people who have been here since houses were $100k and they don't care about staying on top of staining their fence, getting the gnarly poke weeds out of their yards or if their deck is rotted and falling off their house. We don't have a HOA nor would I want one.
Honestly I don't really care that much what my neighbors do. Its their house. I offer to help them when they want it fixing issues like broken cars getting overgrown in a side yard. Or trimming out of control bushes. I have 4 cars and motorcycle myself so maybe pot meet kettle? At least they run. I keep my stuff washed and it in a car port in the back or in my driveway.
I've fixed my landscaping, replaced the gross carpet with LVP, built a privacy fence, and I plan to redo my deck so its safe. On top of typical maintenance.
Im wondering at what point are upgrades an absolute waste of money in this situation? I feel some desire to update my 1980s kitchen countertops to butcher block (or something cheap), get rid of the dented stainless sink, and upgrade bathroom floors to tile. Especially for having people over. I can't shake that it'll be an absolute waste of money. I can just live with linoleum, off white appliances, and chipped formica.
I imagine a scenario where I sell the place to get something bigger in a slightly less eyesore neighborhood due to a future wife. Or keep this as a rental. There's a point where the ROI on anything non essential is a total waste. Since the people who have lived here longer than I have aren't going anywhere and are going to let trash accumulate in full view.
Sorry that turned into a rant. I do want to hear opinions.
Im starting a new job that hopefully is something I can work for a significant portion of my career. Still as a general rule I update my resume the week I start and add skills as I go. Then there's no panic to update my resume should a better opportunity come along or I get laid off.
However I left my last job back in April. Im not starting until August. I had a severance that carried me through some of that and I also worked various technical and labor jobs that pay more than unemployment. Wondering if I should just put self employed on my resume or something. Im an engineer but I am handy enough I was making ok money between building decks and repairing laptops for a small business.
Seeing as its literally 1930s Germany and history doesn't repeat itself but it rhymes what can I do to help some poor undocumented family escape?
Does anyone have a factory in Canada who can employ some of them like Oskar Shindler?
Maybe there are friendly countries that can issue visas to these persecuted refugees?
As the title states I will soon be a government employee with the overall good benefits that come with that. I know I can still contribute to my 401k but is there a way to contribute to my HSA? When I have the regular high and low plans offered?
Basically I'm not sure if im going to be with the state until I retire and I want to keep growing my HSA.
TLDR: Im looking for suggestions on branches of Christianity and keywords to look for find a community of people around 30 who have Christian morals. I don't take the Bible literally but think the lessons in it are important and have helped shape society.
33M. As I stated in the title I think Christianity has a lot of great values and I align with it a lot more than just about anything else going on culturally right now. I have a lot of respect for pope Leo. I grew up Catholic, spent about half of K-12 in religious schools, before attending a public university and getting my engineering degree. Generally conservative leaning.
However as the analytical person I am I really can't get behind the literal beliefs as ways to explain real historical events or some imagery in the Bible that I believe is definitely meant to be metaphorical. I can happily enough see God as the unknown or undiscovered forces in the universe and beauty in nature. Believe in Jesus's teachings and do right by people within Christian morality. I feel that's the hurdle in going to church for the community. I tried that a bit in college and people wanted to save my soul as I don't belive there's anything coming after I die. That and I honestly find sitting in mass a bit stuffy for my attention span. I can do the big ones like Ash Wednesday, Easter, and Christmas. I enjoy the morals of the stories and a community coming together. I imagine I'll get married in a church with a conventional ceremony.
Im realizing Id like to meet a woman with similar experiences. I'd take going to church more often than I would on my own over a lot of other things I've dealt with in dating. It would probably be good for me to make some male friends with similar values too. What can people recommend without me changing my beliefs as a prerequisite? I do not want to pretend to be more religious than I am either.
Maybe find a church group or something to volunteer with? Im all for helping people and already volunteer at a co-op.
I want to reiterate that while I'm single and do want to meet a woman. I would honestly also like to make friends who are more community oriented than just having gym and drinking buddies. I want to broaden my horizons.
I'm talking about the phenomenon where I get a bumble match and its someone there is no way I would have swiped on. As a normal looking guy with conventional taste I find it hard to believe I am accidentally swiping on women I do not find attractive in such large numbers I am matching with multiple per week. To say that another way I would have to be matching with every woman I accidentally swipe on. Its like of the 5-8 weekly matches I get half are women I swear are engagement bait from the app.
I noticed this the last time I was single and saw there are threads from a few years ago mentioning it. Has anything come out about it? I'm about to delete bumble again as I really don't want my real profile and pictures being matched like this. Not that these are bad people but we know how people have fun swiping for each other or I don't want to end up on "are we dating the same guy?". I think this is a real problem.
I have a PC that I purchased from my university surplus a while ago and updated to decent 2019 era specs. 32gig DDR3 ram, a terabyte of internal storage, and Intel Xeon E5-1650 processor. So its fine for doing CAD or whatever. I'm sure its plenty good for backing up photos and I would like to store my important documents on it. I haven't gamed much in years and the computer is just sitting neglected with its dual monitors and RGB mousepad.
It seams like I should be able to have my personal laptop set up like how they are at most jobs. Where I have a shared drive to work out of for both machines. Then storing everything on the tower and I can use my laptop in my living room for most of what I do at home.
Ideally I would like to set up my phone to integrate into this too. Ultimately getting a plex or jellyfin system set up to watch my repository of pirated movies on my TV.
Is there a nice unified way to do that in 2026? Or should I just map a network drive between my computers and keep manually backing up my phone and cleaning up space in the free 15 gigs on google drive?