I have a question for the "Seasoned" humans that wish to chime in.

Flatiowa said:
Every household should have a NON pet pig that is replaced each year. Each year start with a little new one and process the big old one. Turn that waste into bacon, hams and pork chops. Wasting a bit of food doesn’t feel so bad when it’s going into growing more food that will taste better from eating it.
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That's... Hmmm. That's actually a fantastic idea. A 100% natural garbage-to-bacon converter!

Of course, SWMBO won't go for it, but it's a great idea! :D
 
Every time I visit my parents, their house is as dark as a tomb. In the winter it's freezing inside, and in the summer it's sweltering. They have more money than they could ever spend, so there is no real good reason for this. My dad will spend way too much time on trying to find the cheapest gas station to fill up the Mercedes SUV he drives so he can save $.10 on a fillup. I don't understand the logic, I like to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and I don't mind spending the money on the HVAC.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Rabbit hole:
Kind of weird to think about. I had my great grand father until I was 20.
I recall pantry in his house floor to ceiling front to back with canned goods. Never spent a penny that he didn't have to.
My kids' reality is significantly more wasteful by comparison.

Also his job was something they probably will never even realize was a thing. I didn't understand it until I started flying.
He made magnetos that started the fires that burned off the waste gases on offshore drilling rigs.

He always had enough components to electrify a random crap around his house / shop. He loved shocking us.
His nickname was "Maggie" because apparently he used those magneto parts to shock his co-workers as well.
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Now that’s a memory worth keeping!
kyleb said:
I'm living about 60% of it too.

We really need to figure how to unburden ourselves from a formal dining room and all of the furniture, china, and silver that goes with it. All inherited, BTW. But it is "too good, too sentimental, too..." to unload.
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My wife had her great grandmother’s China…bought at the docks from the first ship that made it up the St Lawrence to Detroit. She actually used it before I met her…she and her ex did a fair share of entertaining. Unfortunately it became associated with ex, and she wanted to get rid of it. She contacted all her cousins… “I’m getting rid of Great grandma’s China. Anybody want it?” A couple of cousins took multiple place settings, but most just took one for display. Voila, China gone!
kyleb said:
Serious question - does she wear a device that alerts you when she falls? She probably needs that.

My father lived alone after mom passed. During that time he had a knee replacement and one thing he couldn't do for a while was get up off the floor. Anyway, one night he got up to pee and fell. He wasn't carrying his phone (despite being told, I mean encouraged to do so.) Eventually (like several hours) he worked his way to a phone and called me. Problem resolved in 20 minutes, but if he'd hurt himself he'd have been up the creek.
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When my dad passed away, my wife and sister-in-law convinced Mom to get an Apple Watch…not as obvious an “old person protection device,” and it’s given us a lot of peace of mind.
 
I'll stop for fuel when an airport has gas that is $1.50 a gallon cheaper than my home airport, and I have 40 gallons of air in the tanks I need to replace.
 
MauleSkinner said:
When my dad passed away, my wife and sister-in-law convinced Mom to get an Apple Watch…not as obvious an “old person protection device,” and it’s given us a lot of peace of mind.
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Good move. It's not an "old person thing". You can set it up with Family Setup so they don't need another device if they don't want one... And the protection is fantastic!

Case in point: My mom was leading a biking group (Yes, at 79 she still bikes A LOT) and someone who wasn't watching carefully plowed into her, knocked her down, broke her collarbone and a couple of other things. Her friends were there but didn't really know what to do, and when she hear the watch ask if she was OK and warn that it was going to call 911 in 15 seconds or whatever, she let it do so because her friends were still in "what should we do?" mode.

It called 911 and of course gave them her location, but it also immediately messaged all of her emergency contacts (my dad, myself and siblings) saying that she had fallen, 911 had been called, and her location. My dad, the only one in town, didn't have his phone on him. I think I was flying at the time or something because I didn't see the message right away, but my brother saw it and called my dad.

When the ambulance started moving, we all got an alert that she was moving, and when she arrived at the hospital we all got an alert telling us what hospital she had just arrived at. I expect a lot from Apple already as a long-time user, but I was impressed.

I don't know how many lives they've saved with their new tech in the last few years, but it's definitely nonzero:
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Good move. It's not an "old person thing". You can set it up with Family Setup so they don't need another device if they don't want one... And the protection is fantastic!

Case in point: My mom was leading a biking group (Yes, at 79 she still bikes A LOT) and someone who wasn't watching carefully plowed into her, knocked her down, broke her collarbone and a couple of other things. Her friends were there but didn't really know what to do, and when she hear the watch ask if she was OK and warn that it was going to call 911 in 15 seconds or whatever, she let it do so because her friends were still in "what should we do?" mode.

It called 911 and of course gave them her location, but it also immediately messaged all of her emergency contacts (my dad, myself and siblings) saying that she had fallen, 911 had been called, and her location. My dad, the only one in town, didn't have his phone on him. I think I was flying at the time or something because I didn't see the message right away, but my brother saw it and called my dad.

When the ambulance started moving, we all got an alert that she was moving, and when she arrived at the hospital we all got an alert telling us what hospital she had just arrived at. I expect a lot from Apple already as a long-time user, but I was impressed.

I don't know how many lives they've saved with their new tech in the last few years, but it's definitely nonzero:
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Great feature once they improved it. Steamboat Ski Resort had a flock of false alarms when people had uneventful falls while skiing. Got so bad the Mountain Ski Patrol asked they be turned off. People in ski gear apparently had trouble hearing the watch ask if 911 was appropriate.

No problems like that recently that I'm aware of.
 
kyleb said:
Other signs you're dealing with a much older mindset:

There's a piano. But nobody plays.
China Cabinet. With China. Unused for decades.
Formal Dining Room. Also never used. Sometimes temporarily repurposed as Amazon holding area.
Formal Living Room. Only used for special occasions. Which are special enough the room hasn't been used in 3 years. Often features an unused piano.
Silver set(s).
Antiques. <Extremely valuable until you decide to sell them. Then you realize antiques require a buyer who wants a specific antique or the antique is just something unwanted and old.>
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One of my happiest days was getting the piano out of our house.

After years of ‘someone will want it’, I worked it into the demolition of our house remodel. Which…also took care of the formal living and dining rooms…and a great big chunk of money.
 
Groundpounder said:
Every time I visit my parents, their house is as dark as a tomb. In the winter it's freezing inside, and in the summer it's sweltering. They have more money than they could ever spend, so there is no real good reason for this. My dad will spend way too much time on trying to find the cheapest gas station to fill up the Mercedes SUV he drives so he can save $.10 on a fillup. I don't understand the logic, I like to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and I don't mind spending the money on the HVAC.
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This entire thread is hilarious. We all live in the same boat.

I switched to an electric car about 15 yrs ago. Couple years ago, my parents decided to make the leap and bought an ev (and had a home charger installed). Each week (needed or not), my Dad drove the car about 30 min away to a charger to recharge…and sat there waiting. When I asked why, his answer was that the car came with a year of free charging. So, I asked if the local laundromat offered free clothes driers, if they would head over and use them. The answer was no, that would be silly. He continued his charging ritual. After about 9 months, they sold the car. Charging it was too much of a hassle and they were not going to pay to charge at home.

These are intelligent people with beyond ample resources. Age. It kills you.
 
I am 80. We keep the house at 69 degrees. My folks lived during the Depression, so I grew up with the habit of turning off lights when I leave the room, but we do keep a few lamps turned on in the areas where we spend most of our time. I am not a big fan of leftovers, so our refrigerator isn't going to alarm anyone. I do like to recycle as much as possible - plastic, glass, cardboard, aluminum, etc. We don't have a formal dining room, and we use the furniture in our living room and family room and none of it is covered in plastic, though I do know some people who do that. I have a Class 2 medical and still fly as an independent instructor - the flight school insurance company won't cover me at my age, but there is a club and airplane owners who use me for primary or flight reviews. I have liability insurance from Avemco. And I still ride a motorcycle. In September I turn 81 and my medical expires, so that may trigger the decision to give up flying, but I want to see how the first nine months of the year go, first.

MackMooney, around here, the grocery stores all sell lottery tickets. I bought one this year.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
...none of it is covered in plastic, though I do know some people who do that
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I knew a guy who did that, though it was his car. He was an engineer I worked with on my first job, he would have been in his late 20s at the time. Drove an old 1970s Chevy Nova (this was in 1981), not one of the fancy ones, which he thought was the greatest car ever. Clear plastic on the seats because he was convinced it would help it hold its resale value, despite it being horribly uncomfortable in the summer with no A/C. I guess it still had pristine seats when somebody T-boned him at an intersection a couple of years later and totaled the car.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I am 80... I have a Class 2 medical and still fly as an independent instructor...And I still ride a motorcycle.
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Much respect. May we all be so lucky!

Gilbert Buettner said:
In September I turn 81 and my medical expires, so that may trigger the decision to give up flying, but I want to see how the first nine months of the year go, first.
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If you're still healthy, you can CFI on Basic Med and skip the FAA physical.
 
X3 Skier said:
Great feature once they improved it. Steamboat Ski Resort had a flock of false alarms when people had uneventful falls while skiing. Got so bad the Mountain Ski Patrol asked they be turned off. People in ski gear apparently had trouble hearing the watch ask if 911 was appropriate.
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Yeah, Cedar Point had a rough time the first week or so as well. Those are the sorts of things that show up once you're not hiding the new hotness on the person of a few engineers wandering around Cupertino.

TCABM said:
I broke three ribs in a biking accident last summer and the iDevice I had on me didn’t even recognize the event.

Color me less than impressed with the feature.
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It's never going to be perfect - Mine alerted when I hadn't fallen down a couple weeks ago, though that was the first time in 8 years. (I already forgot what I was doing to get it to do that, proving I'm old enough to need it. Sigh. Whatever it was did involve significant acceleration of my left wrist...)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
It's never going to be perfect - Mine alerted when I hadn't fallen down a couple weeks ago, though that was the first time in 8 years. (I already forgot what I was doing to get it to do that, proving I'm old enough to need it. Sigh. Whatever it was did involve significant acceleration of my left wrist...)
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Mine didn't activate during my one fairly hard fall while skiing last year, but did during a soft, slow fall the year before. That's when I learned how hard it is first to know that the thing is asking if you are OK, when buried under all that ski gear, and then to get at it under all the gear. Left sleeve up, left glove off, just seconds left before the auto-call to 911, then right glove off after realizing it was impossible to cancel while wearing a glove...

It does trigger a fall alert whenever I forget to take it off before chopping firewood.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
…It's never going to be perfect - Mine alerted when I hadn't fallen down a couple weeks ago, though that was the first time in 8 years….
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I get it won’t be perfect, but in my mind erring to a false positive when there’s an unusual acceleration/stop event is better than ignoring it. At least ask the question if I’m okay.
 
Am I "old"? 661/2 years. My thermostat habits have not changed; prefer cool-ish all the time, so 69-72 F in winter, 74 or so summer. Sometimes turn it cooler more for humidity control than temperature - most often needed when outside temp is moderate (high 70s/low 80s) such that AC runs less.

Lights off only when they disturb sleep.

Selling our home in Dallas and moving south was the Big Purge Event; many "treasues" left behind, including china, piano, lots of once-treasured furniture. Liberating, I'd say - but it sure is good having the barn / workshop for tools (because, "I have too many tools" said no one, ever).

My life goal is to have as many cars as @Ted, a goal I'm unlikely to achieve, but hope springs eternal.
 
SCCutler said:
Am I "old"? 661/2 years.
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No.

SCCutler said:
My life goal is to have as many cars as @Ted, a goal I'm unlikely to achieve, but hope springs eternal.
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Having as many cars as me is simple, just make poor financial decisions. Having those cars actually be fully functional and not anything more than a bunch of hoopties, that's the harder part. Not sure if I've achieved that second portion of the goal yet.
 
A little younger than Spike, we set the thermostat at 68 all winter. Summer is 75 by day, 72 at night. Lights as needed.

I like cars and do all of my own mx and repairs. My cars have only gone to a dealer for warranty or recall work, and they go to an indy garage for tires. Other than that, I roll up my sleeves and git er done. A rough calculation a few months back estimates that I’ve saved ~$100k over my lifetime by doing my own car and motorcycle work. Invested, that ain’t chump change.

That said, I don’t enjoy the mechanic work like I used to, so only three cars now. I always have subscribed to owning number of drivers +1. That way if one goes down, we can use the third and I can deal with with the repair when I have the time instead of being rushed and having to pay the dealer big $$$ for repairs.

The Ford went in yesterday for recall work, the Ford dealer now charges $200/hr. That’s nuts!
 
When I visit in Michigan, 87/89 or so, I often have to turn the heat down when they are occupied. My dog is panting like it’s a hot summer day. The light thing varies, usually kinda dark.

Can I mention all the game shows? Many I’ve never heard of.

Another big thing is always food, talking about what well ahead of time. He says ‘don’t worry about it’, to her. Then later he’ll quickly ask, ‘what’s for supper’?

A bad one the other day was his morning coffee routine, at the diner 2.5 miles down the road. This was after the big storm, 4-5 days ago, northern U.P. of MI. A relative swing by to plow their longish driveway. He had the car stuck, one car length out of the garage. Mind you, the relative could barely plow their longish driveway driveway with his plow truck, excellent winter tires, ‘V’ plow.

He had to walk to the detached garage to head for morning coffee, they got 14” of heavily blown slow. During the short walk you’d think he’d figure it out that morning coffee wasn’t going to happen. It never did go, but now the car had to be dug out.

I could go on.
 
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