Today’s symposium: What to do with nosy kids and their talking dog.
No; my wife and I run a yard haunt (documented once a year in the pictures thread). She does work in the haunted house industry; I’m just the hanger on husband who gets to go to fun events.
I am currently at a ASPPA conference and half listening to a conversation about 199A and Compensation. It’s a bit above my pay pay grade.
Also, if you wonder why some of the IRS regs are as complicated and weird as they are, blame Lawyers. They are always trying to find insane loop holes, requiring more regs to cover the crap they try to pull.
Seriously, half the complicated rules seem to be an answer to some sort of set up that a Law Firm did at some point in our history.
Anyway, 401(k) and Pension Adminstration. Some of it is interesting, but it’s nice to see a lot of my team (I work remotely) and a few past coworkers.
Last weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to do a weekend jaunt to Paris from the U.S. west coast. We found cheap tickets on Norwegian, took Friday-Tuesday off work, spent 3 days in Paris and went back to work on Wednesday. I’ve never done a short international trip before, but it was great!
Some notes:
- We drove up to LAX (from San Diego) to catch a direct flight. LAX just opened a new economy long-term lot a month ago. (Lot E) It’s fabulous: $12/day, plenty of spots, relatively frequent shuttle to the terminals. Transportation to LAX has always been a nightmare before: there’s no train direct to the terminal, and long term parking has been a mish-mash of sketchy 3rd party outfits who own a few parking spots in dirt lots nearby. The new lot really makes all of this much easier.
- Norwegian is a budget airline. They include no meals or free drinks during the flight, don’t allow online check-in and give you a maximum free carry-on allowance of 10kg total for both your overhead and underseat luggage. And then they nag you via email for weeks ahead of your flight to upgrade (for ludicrous prices.) BUT, given all that, if you can operate within those constraints, it’s very smooth and easy and service was great. There, for instance, were tons of very annoyed people trying to rearrange their bags at the airport to get under the 10kg limit, but we just packed light (another advantage of a short trip), weighed our bags at home to make sure they were ok, and had no problems. We made sure we got there early so that we’d get seats together, and packed some food for the flight. My favorite thing was that we could order drinks and food for reasonable prices from our seat and have them delivered within a minute. No drink and meal trolleys crowding the aisles and bumping my elbows while I try to sleep. I wish all airlines would abolish meal service.
- Paris is as easy as ever. The Metro is fast, relatively cheap, and efficient, and dockless bikes and scooters abound if you want to travel that way. (We biked along the Seine for a bit, which was nice.)
We definitely could have found plenty to do if we’d stayed longer, and would have enjoyed a longer stay, but 3 days was about perfect for a no-stress trip. For some reason because we knew we couldn’t do everything, it made it ok to laze around, sit in a cafe for a couple of hours, sleep late in the morning, make our way wherever with no real agenda, sit on our hotel balcony overlooking Les Invalides slowly working through a bottle of wine. Bite sized international travel: recommended.
How was the jet lag? Did you just have enough adrenaline to muscle through in Paris & you didn’t have to readjust coming back to the US?
Whenever I travel, I try to go longer - 2 or 3 or more weeks because I want to get over the jet lag & enjoy it, but whenever going against the sun, it can be brutal to get back on time (so I would expect the trip over to Paris to have Jet lag, but return trip to be easy).
I can’t speak for Matt, but for me jet lg wasn’t too bad. Granted it was coming from Chicago, so 2 hours less shift (and a shorter flight) but the basic idea was leave on a Thursday, arrive on a Friday and take a nap on the plane and power through. We had no appreciable jet lag in Paris.
I’m normally an early riser (4:30am), so that helps. It’s a 9 hour difference, and I’ve found the best way to deal with jet lag on short trips is to just try to stay on your home schedule as much as possible, so in Paris, we’d wake up at 10am (just in time for the hotel’s breakfast) and go to sleep at 1-2am (i.e. a normal Parisian schedule.) It’s not a 9 hour shift, but it’s halfway there. Then we just napped for the first hour of the return flight, muscled through the rest of that long (33 hour) day, and have had almost no problem returning to normal.
I’m also planning a hike tomorrow morning that starts at 2am, on which I’m strategically hoping that residual jet lag will be benefit.
Jeez dude, all that sounds pretty awesome but a 2am hike sounds like asking for a twisted ankle.
I doubt the hike starts before 4/5. But you gotta get up early to get those satisfyingly long hikes in you know!
It’s Cactus 2 Clouds, which goes from Palm Springs to the summit of Mt. San Jacinto (an elevation gain of about 2 miles) and then back down to the top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to ride the tram down. Daytime temps in Palm Springs can be well over 100 degrees, so you start early, both to avoid the heat and to make sure you can get back down from the summit to Long Valley in time to catch the tram. We’re meeting at midnight to carpool up there, and intend to start hiking at 2am. Forecast calls for snow showers at the summit, so that will be fun. Definite Type II fun.
I have been awake for 2 days straight and can’t sleep still. Was also recently arrested for being a dipshit…so I have that going for me.
Ooh that type I, II, III fun classification makes a lot of sense. Thanks for adding that to my mind :)
Is the lack of sleep due to that? If you need to talk things out, we’re here for you!
OPPRESSION!
I had no idea they could do that.
Must be some new dipshit laws on the books.
That sounds like a great adventure Matt! I’d have a hard time doing such a long flight for a short trip, but it is so cool you could do that. It would be a great treat!
Haha, only in Wyoming would a dipshit law actually be on the books. But because I was a dipshit and decided to drink and drive, and wreck a company vehicle, I will be going away for a bit.
I have always been an insomniac, but usually can get a few hours in each day. I occasionally go 24-48 hours without sleep for whatever reason. I am sure my mind not shutting down and me thinking about everything I just lost and all the things I will miss the next few years because of it, definitely has a role in me staying awake. Did get 2 one hour naps in early this morning, and I am hoping tonight will be the night I get some decent sleep.
What’s the context of this? Are you in Israel and this is the Iron dome?
After several years of driving (big) scooters, I finally got a real (sort of) bike. It’s sort of real because it has an automatic gearbox, but I drive through too much traffic jams every day, so it’s a hard pass on the clutch.
That’s quite a bump from the scooter to 750cc! Also looks quite a bit more sci fi than the 80’s Honda bike my dad had growing up.