I thought it was milkweed seeds.
1 Like
You can give blood in 5 minutes! It used to take me a LOT longer than that, back before I decided the reaction I got was probably something to avoid. (The inside of my vein itched for 3 days after. I assume some sort of minor allergy to something? But it was really damn uncomfortable, and seemed to be getting worse.)
Donating stock is a very good strategy for charitable contributions. Way more tax efficient than donating cash.
2 Likes
It takes me five minutes to fill a couple of blood sample tubes.
I’d rather go twice rather than do double red. I have a hard time sitting still for that long.
The fields are so dense with them that you’ll drive by and think that one field is two feet deep in snow at first glance. Pull over to the side of the road and have a look, it’s impressive. Get out of the car and take one step towards them and the pic is what you get - they’re gone. So it’s not as easy as a net.
When I grew up in the area we didn’t have this. But with climate change I think, the migratory path has shifted a few hundred miles west, out of strictly Quebec and into Eastern Ontario, where the pic was taken.
There’s also moose back there now pretty regularly, some of my family hunt moose. And there for sure wasnt moose there when I was growing up there.
Had a deer walk by my block today. I live in a densely populated suburb. There is a lake a half mile away with decent woods where I see deer from time to time.
2pm I am out walking the dog. 300 feet from the house I see…a young deer walking up the middle of the street towards us. Poor guy was walking like he was lost. As in pausing and looking around every few steps. Got some cute video. he wandered away (in the wrong direction!). the spaniel was excited until deer took a step towards us and then the spaniel wanted to go home.
1 Like
IFYP. You don’t want to donate depreciated stock, but appreciated stock is a different story.
Especially if you’re forced to sell because the company is being bought out… donate the stock to a charity before the buyout date so you get a fat deduction instead of a fat capital gains tax. If it’s more than you want to donate this year, put it in a donor advised fund and gift it to charity over time.
3 Likes
I like being around other actuaries.
6 Likes
Have fun!!! 
1 Like
Almost on the plane!
5 Likes
This trip has just been whackadoodle. I got to DFW but they didn’t have a gate for us, and my layover was already going to be tight, only 35 minutes. Was supposed to pull up to gate A17, and my departing flight was D2. They got us a gate at A18, and I got off the plane with 32 minutes until departure.
The travel estimate between gates was 25 minutes - not going to cut it when they close the doors 15 minutes before departure. So I’m sprinting, and I am not an in shape gal. I get to the escalators to the tram, and they’re not working, so I’m running up what amounts to three flights of stairs, wheezing and hacking. I get to the top and squeeze onto the tram thing as the doors are closing, yeah I’m that person, apologizing profusely while crying.
My stop is the LAST one, takes a full ten minutes from when I got on to when I got off, and of course my gate is at the end of the concourse. Fat girl, coming through, asking people who are standing on the moving walkways if I can get through. I get to the gate RIGHT at 15 minutes before, as they’re about to close them, and they let me on.
I’m still trying to catch my breath, ugh, never again.
Have I mentioned I hate flying?
And yeah, I’m pretty sure at one point I bragged on here about not being that person throwing their body through the airport, running late. Karma caught up to me.
9 Likes
they don’t like wait for you when a connection is running that close?
they do not always. i don’t know how or why they sometimes seem to and other times don’t.
I hope they would have waited for me, because this is the last flight into my city for the night so it’s not like waiting 5 minutes would hold up another flight, but I wasn’t going to risk it.
It depends on a bunch of stuff including but not limited to:
- how many people are on the same connection (more likely to hold the plane if there are a bunch of people connecting)
- how many people are connecting in the next city (less likely to hold it if that causes others to miss their connections)
- flight crew rest restrictions (very unlikely to hold it if this will put anyone on the flight crew over legal limits for hours worked unless they have a lot of spare crew members that can take up the slack)
- availability on the next flight(s) to your destination
- impending weather situations (if the window on taking off out of that city is closing then they’re less likely to hold the flight)
- how many of the connecting passengers have checked luggage and whether they’ll be able to get the luggage transferred in time
I’ve had them hold a flight for 45 minutes before; I’ve had them not hold it for 2 minutes (like, I arrived at the gate 9 minutes before scheduled takeoff and the doors were closed and they refused to open them). It really just depends, but you certainly can’t count on it.
2 Likes
Chicken or beef or vegetable?
Oh, and I had one where I was connecting in Atlanta and the assigned gates at the time I took off were on totally different concourses, both at the very end of the concourse and it was going to be a doozy of a walk between them. I think the scheduled layover was like 31 minutes and we were about 15 minutes late getting into ATL, after sitting on the ground for about 45 minutes in the originating city waiting for them to change a lightbulb on the emergency exit sign or something dumb like that.
But I’d noticed a lot of baseball caps for sports teams of my final destination city on the first flight and I started asking around and yes, a lot of passengers were heading there on the same connecting flight. Like at least a dozen of us that I’d verified and almost certainly more that I hadn’t.
When we finally landed in ATL they had switched our gate to be right next to the gate of our connecting flight, so it was like a 25 second walk instead of a 25 minute walk. That obviously makes a big difference and we all made it, and the connecting flight was maybe 5 minutes late leaving which they made up in the air. I think there ended up being like 30 or 40 of us on both flights and I’m certain they made the gate change on purpose so we could make the connection.
Once had 34 minutes to transfer in Atl. Was a bit late and ran like hell to make the connection.
I show up at the gate sweating like crazy and out of breathe.
The attendant runs the boarding pass and looks confused. I ask what’s wrong and she says the computer says the connection is missed.
Bent over with my hands on my knees and through ragged breathes I look up at her and say “well, they’re wrong”
1 Like