Destiny Skywalker

She lost me in about the first 2 minutes with her fake emotional drama.

Q and I both have night skiing goggles. They're a very light green tint and block almost no light. I also have a pink pair for bluebird days. But since most of our skiing is at night, I don't use them super often. Truly, picking the right tint really helps. The green is better than no tint because it does block the glare from the lights and allows me to see the terrain in flat light.

Kids on blues is a game changer. It makes taking them so much more enjoyable.

That's so awesome! My family is ethnically Czech, and I need to take my dad to Prague before he gets too old to travel.

For sure, get it checked out. I never knew what a pinched nerve felt like, that's interesting. 

Now that I've had skin cancer, I get everything checked out too. So far it's been mostly fine (2 more big removals that were pre-cancerous), but getting checked out past 40 is like a part-time job. Ugh.

Took Q to Alpental tonight for the first time and it was glorious. No lift line longer than a 5 minute wait and much better conditions than Central lately. They got 3 feet of snow since last weekend and while it's not pristine corduroy, there were some glorious steep sections without moguls. We only skied 2 different runs because only the bottom half of the mountain was open for night skiing, next time I am going to try to get her to take Cascade Traverse so we can drop in on a few runs that are some really fun black diamond runs that are usually pretty powdery.

MRI? Is everything ok?

Mandatory retirement age for all of them, I'd be fine with 70. These people stay for the power and control, and nothing more.

Our permit was finally approved and we start our remodel in a week and a half. Here's to 2-3 months of no kitchen and no laundry. My husband tried to talk me into buying some sort of portable washing machine and I just gave him the sideeye and said I'd be dropping our laundry off every week and picking it up. Gonna be expensive but ain't nobody got time for this.

You need a dangly chandelier.

I fully admit my bedroom is minimalist. I need to change up the comforter but I can never find anything I like. It's white and teal chevron currently which I'm pretty sure screams 2015.

My BFF lives in Louisiana, they apparently split things up like you propose. Middle school is 4-6, junior high is 7-8. I think they might even do K-1 and 2-3 separately. I really liked E's K-2 school. (Well, really they also did ECEAP for the north end of the district, too, which is the more rural part.) They have a 3-6 school as well, but those are the only 2 in the district that aren't K-6.

I'm going to admit to being shocked that they changed their recommendation. I assumed it was a done deal when they announced it. But the uproar was huge. Most parents were opposed and loudly so. Apparently a lot of our middle school bus routes also pick up the high schoolers too, so that was a concern to be exposing 6th graders to high school bus antics.

Q's school is a mess. The kids are out of control and it stresses her out. Today the boys were squishing bananas and smearing them everywhere at lunch, and the principal had to come talk to the class after lunch because they refused to stop when the assistant principal showed up. The other stories she tells me too, it's like an asylum.

Woooooo, bullet dodged. Our school board tonight miraculously voted to not move 6th grade into middle school. This is such a relief to me. E has made so much progress but there's still so much ground to cover. It is my hope that he will not need paraeducator support in middle school. If we don't have to worry until 7th, I think that might be achievable.

If Q does well at the new school, they sounded open to accepting E if he no longer needs the writing support. I think that small environment would be much better for him, as well. When I brought it up, they said they had a few kids with ASD and they seem like they offer more 504/IEP support than other private schools in our area. I think if Q does well, we will have a good idea of whether they will be able to support E.

I still do! I definitely don't have time to consume all the content, though.

Q got into one of the private schools for next year. That's a relief. It's a really small school (22 kids max per grade/class) so I hope that's the right fit.

My husband was reading something on his phone tonight and I asked him what he was looking at, and he said he was trying to figure out when Trump was going to jail. I asked him if he was just hitting refresh.

We had a good laugh about some idiot saying the RNC should pay Trump's legal fees.

Getting ready to vote in our state primary. I like to identify as a Republican in our state because they don't require caucuses in the primary, and then I can vote for someone other than the dumbest Republican candidate and hope that the stupidest one doesn't get the nomination.

Oh and don't worry about getting an Oyster card or anything for the tube. Seriously just tap your credit card when you get on and get off. Not worth the hassle for such a short trip. I had to get from Heathrow to London City airport and it was very quick and easy.

If you're going to Picadilly, though, might be better off taking the Picadilly line from Heathrow. I'm not sure if it will take longer but it's more direct and you won't have to manage a transfer.

Don't make the mistake I did and try to walk from Paddington to Picadilly. I thought it would be a nice stroll and it took me literally all freaking day.

Our Gateway low-end gaming desktop from 2008 is still running. Didn't realize it was so robust!

You can catch the London Underground (aka The Tube) Elizabeth line from Heathrow to get to Central London. Absolutely worth it!

So I'm not a huge gamer. Dell did buy Alienware, though. And while the reputation has fallen a bit because of that, when I Google best gaming desktops, the Alienware Aurora series pops up a lot. I mean, honestly as long as you don't live on the thing, it's probably fine for what you want to do.

We just bought a new laptop because my kids think they will be YouTubers and want to make videos. Haven't done shit with it yet lol.

16 hours ago, Tank said:

Here's an amusing kid update.

O has always loved Pokemon cards. He watched the cartoons briefly, and I don't know if he's ever actually PLAYED the card game itself. I tried to learn the rules and play it with him once, but my ADHD could not fathom the rules and he much preferred the simple,e "war" style game he and his friends made up. He just liked collecting the cards and pretending they were worth money. He's played several of the DS games though.

After he moved out of my place he got all his cards in one place and over the last year has been picking through them. A few months ago he and some friends started hitting swap meets and flea markets for fun. Turns out they do in fact have to "catch them all."

Surprisingly, he's actually got a few cards worth a fair amount from when he was little-- as in a couple $8k cards. He and his friends have a "business" idea to hunt down old cards and resell them. You know-- a completely original, low risk, huge payoff business plan. 

I did my best to gently tell him not to "over invest." His step-dad helpfully told him "any card worth anything is already found and flea market folks check eBay for stuff like that." And his mom offered to give him legit proper business advice, and he has ignored all of us of course.

He just paid $350 to send off his valuable cards to get slabbed and rated. 

Basically it's one of those "spend a bunch of money dreaming of one big payoff that probably will break you even realistically" type business. 

I'm split between telling him to save his money, and just letting him have fun while he still gets to live rent free and spend all his paycheck on himself while it lasts.

Is this kind of like my Boomer pare ts hanging onto to all my old toys because they might be worth something someday, and missing out on the actual Beanie Baby craze?

I volunteered yesterday at Q's classmates party and watched the dynamics. It was interesting to say the least.

One of the bully girls moms showed up and pretended that she barely knew me. I said oh no, I remember you. I enjoyed making her nervous, not gonna lie. I was polite and neutral, not overly friendly. This way if she tries to talk shit later, I gave her absolutely nothing and she looked like a ditz.

The other moms who showed up didn't do squat. They literally stood there and chatted. I asked the teacher how I could help and got to work. Admittedly, this teacher has excellent classroom management. I was expecting total chaos and I was very pleased with how she runs her classroom. She gives clear instructions without being overly controlling, raising her voice, etc. I actually felt fairly useless, I don't think she needed me there, honestly! I was told the class next door was absolute chaos.

The class is something like 70% girls, 30% boys. The boys were not as rowdy as the ones I saw at Q's former school. The boys are pretty tight knit, probably for survival lol. There are 2 distinct girl cliques. 1 of Q's bullies is in one of them. They did not let Q take a group picture with them. She just wanted to get in on the fun. The other 2 girls, her former friends, are also not part of the 2 cliques. There's about 5 girls that seem to not have a place to belong. Q is one of then, and her former friends. There are 2 other girls, one of which I know has learning disabilities and some not disruptive but also not desirable behavior issues (sneaky, lies, doesnt do her work). The other girl seems to have some hygiene issues, but was very nice. So I found it somewhat surprising that Q's former friends turned on her like they did, because it certainly did not help their social standing. They seemed like they were avoiding Q, I think they were also intimidated by me being there.

The class went out to recess in the middle of the "party". The other moms bailed. I was the only one who came back. The teacher thanked me several times for my help.

Q came home sad, she felt very left out by her classmates. I can see why.

26 minutes ago, Hobbes said:

I am getting stressed reading this.  Youth sports is about the love of the game, building community, positive interactions...  Youth sports is now a cesspool. 

I hope to god my boys have no interest in team sports.  We have a youth club team here, but you have to give up your entire weekend for months on end to travel.  Even high school games are all 1-3 hour commutes.  There is a rec league here, but its all Team Hobbes plays Team Destiny and one team wears the blue side of the jerseys and the other team wears the yellow side. 

I think you may be a victim of geography here. When you live in remote areas, commutes are longer. Traveling that far for HS is nuts but makes sense given where you live (in the mountains). He furthest games from us currently are about 2 hours drive, and these are maybe 1-2x a year. Most others are within 1 hour. We quit right before the weekend where they have a game thats 1.5 hours north on Saturday, and then 2 hours south on Sunday. Have fun!

However, her old old team she wants to go back to? Usually only plays 2 weekends a month, but they travel 5-6 hours to games a couple times a year, and a west coast regional showcase once a year. FML. But Q did say last year that she thought it would be fun to play on a team like that and enjoy traveling. But you have to really like your team. You can't be doing overnights with a bunch of jerks.

17 minutes ago, Cerina said:

Jesus! What little bitches are people raising up there? I know kids are mean and cruel at times, but this just seems over the top. I don't see how the adults in charge can just let this behavior continue. 

My friends tell me that we need to move some place more chill. Honestly, if I get this next big promotion, we might consider moving back to Florida or something. But my husband and I have talked about this and there's a few reasons we think the coaches let them get away with nonsense.

1. Lack of experience. The coach is 26 and working on his college degree so he can be a history or math/science teacher and coach at the HS level. He's also a dude and apparently completely clueless about Mean Girl dynamics at the middle school age group. I find that men think you can just ignore the Mean Girl behavior, as a woman I think you need to police it hard. Most soccer coaches are just big soccer nerds who weren't good enough to go pro, but lived soccer in their youth. They don't know what else to do with themselves, and they need to make money. And if we are being honest, they really don't want to coach kids, they're hoping a pro or college team picks them up as an assistant. Most of them have no business coaching kids. Her coach is very nice and good with kids, at least. I think he does best with his U9 boys team (no drama), but I think he really wants to coach HS because he definitely falls into the soccer nerd category.

2. Money. They barely had enough girls to put together 2 teams at this age group. The A team apparently plays a lot of basketball as well, and they have had to call up some of our players to fill in. There's a core group of about 5 girls whose parents drive a lot of the team dynamics. I would say only 3 of the girls behave unacceptably, the other 2 clearly don't like Q but behave themselves. Only 1 of the girls is actually good enough to move up to the A team next year. I really think they may cut most of these girls next year and make 1 large team of 17-18 girls instead of 2 teams of 15, especially if the A team girls continue to play basketball. But more teams = more $$$$. The coach has had this team for 2 years, and they usually switch up every 2. So he's just trying to get through April. If those 3-5 girls walk because they get scolded for their behavior, they're screwed. And I can tell you from the behavior of their parents, they absolutely support their daughters' shitty behavior. 

There's only a couple cat tracks (service run roads) and they are narrow and steep. It feels like going down a kid's slide standing up. Mildly terrifying. I've told Q how much I hate it. If someone goes down on it, you are going to run them over. It's also not well lit. But it is how we get across at the end of the night to go to the parking lot.

I think they might groom the beginners area regularly and that's it. They used to groom some of the blacks and it was glorious. Now they think everyone wants the back country experience on the front side. No thanks. I haven't skied my favorite run in 3 years because it's straight dangerous. It's like a literal cliff face.

I have thought about practicing on some of the easier blue runs, but the lift lines make me avoid them.

What do you ski on at Purg? Do they groom pretty well?

I think we will definitely have to do one of the shark tank/aquariums. I'll have to see which one is easier to get to.

Do you guys recommend the arcade at Circus Circus or Excalibur? We are next door to CC. My friend said it would be fun to stay there but also loud af, so we opted for something quieter.

I think the plan is one kid friendly thing a day, lots of pool time, and maybe some fun restaurants. Hoping to also get a nice dinner or lunch with my husband, but might need to do that before we go, his birthday is the week before.

They stopped grooming? I've bitched about it when they sent a survey after our last visit. Really the problem is you've got people heading to blue runs that have now become black runs because of no grooming, and it makes it a shitshow for those of us who actually belong on the runs. I'm just trying not to die here, folks. And then the blacks are nothing but deep moguls. The only thing they groom are the crappy flat blues and greens at the bottom. However, this past week they've been bragging about their new grooming equipment so maybe they finally got the message. Or the base is so low they were forced to groom more. Not sure which.

You may have mentioned it. I may have, too.

I think we are settled on going back to her old old team since the club fired the old coach. We are going to watch them play this weekend. We might wait until May to tryout, because I think she could use the time to heal emotionally.