zurch1818

My 2.5 year old son is literally deathly allergic to milk (to a point where we don't even keep it in the house). On his first day of preschool, they poured him a glass of milk. 🤦. Then after he ingested some, he started having an anaphylaxis allergic reaction. The school then didn't even come close to following our emergency protocol we sent them. 🤦🤦‍♂️. The school told us they were trained in using EpiPens which they clearly weren't as they didn't monitor for symptoms, didn't call 911, or time in-between uses of the EpiPen. 🤦‍♂️🤦🤦🏼‍♂️. I could write so much more about what else went wrong too. Anyway after spending most of Monday in the ER (which is standard for this type of reaction), my son is ok and appears to have no long term health concerns. My wife and I decided we weren't going to send him back...but we did meet with them yesterday and that went well. We could see that they wanted to change. If they can show that they can improve the situation, have a safety protocol in place, we would consider sending him back. Until then, there is no way he is going back.

Also it's not exactly crying. My wife and I alternate as "bassinets" while we try to rest on the couch. Hers has an optional feeding option while mine does not. Each of my shifts lasts from 1.5 hrs to 3ish hours (once they hunger cry). Sometimes on my shorter shifts, I'll "double shift" where I probably won't sleep for the half hour while she feeds them and take them again. My wife does not really sleep while holding them but I can if I'm tired enough otherwise I'm just mindlessly scrolling my phone. This is what my lap looks like when I don't have to hold them. My vote is we hijack this thread and turn it into the 2023 optimism thread!

There are too many doom and gloom sky is falling threads popping up here. I understand the field product is underperforming from the high expectations set from the start of the year, but we need some optimism after beating the Rays at home by 2 runs! The offense has also averaged 5 runs/game these last 2 days. *Bring someone that doesn't watch movies, I also have no idea where this came from. I'm also up in the middle of the night holding our newborn twins. I'm optimistic that Brewers will find their groove before the twins don't need to be held all night.

Oh that would have been awesome if they played in south of Scottsdale. Too bad that didn't work out. It's really odd that places like NY, LA, Boston, Chicago can successfully host multi sport facilities but Phoenix could make it work. I hear you on my overoptimism. Maybe I just like rooting for teams that performed like the 2002 Brewers. Using that analogy maybe we are in 2003 or 2004. I do like the direction this new GM Bill Armstrong is going after having a team of relatively expensive aging defensemen. They were more fun to watch last year (not setting the bar too high). I was expecting them to be just as bad as the year prior but they exceeded my expectations. They have a wealth of talent coming in the wings, so we will see what happens. It's hard rooting for Logan Cooley on the Gophers. The Badgers have been Coyotes bad lately, so it isn't the end of the world. I'm glad to see he's playing another season in Minnesota as that is good for his development. I agree with the Panthers! They are who I want to win it all this year. The one team I don't want is Vegas. I have some coworkers that don't want Dallas because they took the Wild out and they used to be the North Stars.

As the resident Coyotes fan on the site, I can say the ownership over the last 5 years or so has not been the problem. Their owners have actually been decent. They even traded for Taylor Hall in 2019. Although their stadium is/(was?) decent, I feel their location has been their problem. It is in Glendale (a western suburb) right next to the Cardinals stadium and most of the money is in the eastern suburbs (Paradise Valley, Scottsdale, Gilbert, etc). With traffic, it can be a 0:45 minutes to 1:15 minutes away through downtown Phoenix which just isn't really feasible for a snowbird population with other team loyalties. This is why Tempe was so attractive. They actually played last year in aptly named Mullett Arena, the brand new 5,000 seat ASU arena last year. I wasn't a fan of theirs until maybe 2011 or 2012 when I got good with them in the video game and was blacked out of watching the Wild (no FSN+ access) and thought they could move to WI someday, so I don't know why they built the stadium in Glendale in 2003. My guess is it must have been political. I'm also excited for their upcoming youth. It has the feel of the 2005 to 2008 Brewers. Hopefully if they relocate, it will not be in a city I despise.

The Zestimate of our house in the Madison area has gone up in value by almost 45% from the time we bought it 4.5 years ago and we have done nothing to the house to increase its value. I'm not even certain we would purchase our home today if we were on the market given our budget. However, we would have had more time to save...but I'm guessing the rent prices have also gone way up.

Maybe you were late to the party and they already had someone that they liked? I can say that interviewing is a full-time job and when you have other things to do, it is difficult to interview every qualified candidate. I am an advocate of turning in your application in person. This almost acts like a first interview...even if you don't actually talk to the interviewer. Make some small talk and work in your story and also be thankful for the consideration.

Could this be merged with the existing Weimer being called up thread? I find it to be duplicative. Thanks!

Oh yea...title insurance, that is definitely a bigger scam. When we refinanced our house, I don't recall getting our house getting valued again. They only looked at what the remaining balance was on the mortgage. I don't know if that was because I refinanced less than 2 years after we closed and the original one that we did was close enough. We refinanced in the fall of 2020, so maybe COVID had something to do with this too. I'm guessing refinancing probably isn't a very popular thing to do these days. In the refinance, I was also trying to get the monthly payment as low as possible, so we actually brought money from a recent bonus to the refinance closing. It turned out that I received some inheritance a little over a year later and it was enough for us to feel comfortable draining some of our emergency fund down and pay off the house. I figured I wouldn't need as much of an emergency fund with a paid for house. When considering closing costs, we saved a whopping $157. We showed them who was boss. If you have a really healthy emergency fund, I would recommend doing some math and possibly throwing some of it at your house just to increase how much goes to principal (besides ridding yourself of PMI). You won't see a huge gain in interest saved until the mortgage gets paid off...but it could definitely save you thousands of dollars in interest alone.

I feel for you. That sucks. In my opinion, PMI is a complete scam. I feel the mortgage company shouldn't be allowed to pass that cost onto the homeowner. I'm guessing when a sports contract gets insured, the player isn't the one paying the premium, the team is because they are also the beneficiary if you default. If they think you aren't trustworthy to buy the house with less than 20% down then they shouldn't give you the mortgage. There are plenty of mortgage brokers out there that will give you the loan, so it should be their lost. If they do give you the mortgage, the insurance should be something they should have to cover with the interest they are receiving from you.

Haha. I'm coming up on my 9 year anniversary of getting outvoted 1-1, so even ignoring the pending twins, it is true. Our plan was to have 2 kids and my wife was on the fence...now that it is 3 our whole world is about to turn upside down. My wife's sanity is already upside-down. We are lucky we can get 3 carseats to fit in our current vehicle but we are going to probably have to buy a minivan. I also bought a bike rack for 4 bikes last spring (whoops!). We do already have a double wide bike trailer, so that wasn't a complete waste. Now we've got to look into hiring a nanny and all that fun stuff. Kids are expensive...especially since the "hand-me-down" stuff only accounts for one of them. I don't care what kind of "tax break" there is. It's a net pay more. Thanks for the congrats. I just wish there was a way to sort of fast-forward the first 6 months so I can sleep a little bit better and they aren't going to be 100% helpless but more like 90% helpless.

Wow. That's really awful. My wife outvotes me 1-1 all the time, so I can understand. I think that's how successful marriages are built. Hawaii is where we went for our honeymoon and we want to get back there again some day. Unfortunately, we have 2 year-old and are expecting identical twins any day now, so it will be 5-10 years out.

It's bugging me that in our fantasy draft we are allowed 2 keepers. Somehow ESPN glitched and one team had their keepers go in the second and third round and they were able to snag a 1st round player too. It was also weird that it snaked the second round which I've never seen in a keeper round. So now that team has Trea Turner, Aaron Judge AND Gerrit Cole. The only reason Trea Turner was even available was our league as a keep limit of 3. I guess that guy is going to have to make a tough decision next year.

I'm guessing a lot of those people without college degrees may be in the trades where a degree isn't technically required. They may have gone through an apprenticeship or some other training/certification. Also, I know there are coding boot camps that people can go though that aren't technically a degree but you can get a great paying job. Just speaking in facts (don't want to get political), the cost of a 4 year college degree has gone up from the time I received my BS in 2009 and MS in 2011. I can only imagine what my parents would have had to pay for the same degree and credentials I have. I was lucky to have my parents pay for my BS and fortunate enough to have my MS funded through a research project but I can completely understand people not wanting to get a huge student loan. Maybe people are starting to comprehend that a 4 year degree is expensive? As you can tell, this is a topic I am very passionate about and I can probably discuss more. Would I do what I am doing right now if I had to pay for my education? I don't know. Over the last 5 years, I learned that I really like coding and I have automated a lot of my current job. I find coding to be way more fun than my current job (not that I hate what I'm doing). I would probably give a hard look at doing a coding boot camp instead of going to college. I probably could get to my same income level I'm at now at a fraction of the cost (if I had to pay for my school).

I heard from our accountant in our 401k meeting that a lot of people in our company are taking their 2022 Q4 quarterly bonus (which for me was 10% of my annual salary) and pocketing it instead of investing into retirement. I am still running the course and keeping my contributing 18% towards my Roth 401k. I guess if the market tanks, I'll be buying at a low time. It shouldn't be going down forever and with me having low expenses, I guess I don't really short-term care what my retirement account does as I'm 20+ years away from retirement. I have stopped contributing to my brokerage account and started putting money in a HYSA. My plan is to use the HYSA for more short-term expenses, the brokerage account for a bridge retirement account until I can start using my actual retirement accounts. With son #2 and #3 on the way, we are going to have to buy a minivan, so I guess that we will have to use the HYSA for that. It's going to be interesting having 3 kids under the age of 3. I just learned that I can convert the company match and profit sharing 401k contributions (pre-tax) into Roth (after-tax). Does anyone think this is a good idea? Our 401k advisor is not very big into Roth because he thought the government would tax it sometime down the road, so take the tax advantage now. I on the other hand think that tax brackets are going to be more variable and I would much rather have a better pulse of how much money I'll have in my retirement accounts. I look at it a different way. When I pay taxes on it now, it has a smaller basis and it is effectively like investing more money because I am investing the taxes + the actually contribution. I guess if you invest the tax savings into a brokerage account, this wouldn't be true. With the Roth, I won't have to pay taxes on the contribution + growth. Sure my tax bracket could be higher now than when I retire, but paying taxes on the growth seems like it could actually be more costly. @GAME05 - Is your 401k Roth (after tax) or Traditional (pre-tax)? One thing to consider is if it is Roth, you can always withdraw from the principal (not growth) without any penalty. I don't know if your 401k allows for this or not...but when you retire, you should be able to roll over your 401k into an IRA and do this without issue. Obviously, this is only beneficial if it is Roth as I don't think you can do this with traditional.

My dad's criteria for wearing shorts is if it is above freezing. I really don't understand. It is kind of comical when he walks past someone in full winter gear and he is wearing shorts, a sweatshirt, and a baseball hat. Speaking of presenting yourself, although I disagree about his opinion about what temperature to wear shorts, there is one thing I've learned from that I do agree with. Whenever you go and buy something from a commissioned salesman (car, furniture, etc.), wear your bum clothes. A dirty sweatshirt and sweatpants are quite effective at keeping those pesky salesmen away. When they do finally come at you, they already are starting at the low end because they think you don't have any money. From my experience, they sometimes can really push the financing but I just pay with a credit card (or check if it is a new car). This strategy obviously doesn't work with buying real estate as the buying agent is sort of on your team.

I think the last game I was at was at least 7 years ago. However, my family swears by tailgating/parking in the Blue Mound lot (I believe it is called the Molitor lot if you look at a map). It's usually easy out after the game and seems to be more of a local crowd that parks there as it really isn't advertised on how to get there from the interstate. Coming from Madison, you actually have to get off at Hawley (or earlier if traffic is really bad) and turn East on Bluemound. The walk to the stadium is pretty painless too. For whatever reason, it seems this lot fills up slower than the other lots, so if you aren't planning on tailgating and just get to the game, it can still cut down on your walk time.

My wife and I just made 2023 Roth IRA contributions. With that said, we still have a little bit of money that we have earmarked for more short-term expenses. I'm looking at getting a high-yield savings account since with my dad retiring in a few weeks, I am going to be losing my sweet deal of prime interest rate (7.5%) for our emergency fund/short-term saving fund. I'm looking at the bank being part of the FDIC, the interest rates, minimum account balances and it seems that UFB Best Savings has an APY of 4.11%. Does anyone have any experience with them? Does anyone else have any other recommendations?

Or you can just use the Brave browser and block scripts (works on Android and Windows). This also works remarkably well on the New York Times.

Thanks for the insight on individual stocks vs mutual funds. I completely agree that not all mutual funds beat the market. That was pretty good insight to buy Nvidia and AMD at that point. I think that's a average 50% ROI, which is crazy! Nice work doing your homework on that one! It doesn't seem like that is sustainable forever (similar to a high babip). I just looked at one of the mutual fund I bought and that ROI was 15% since 2012. I feel like in the long run, I don't want to be buying lottery tickets and do "set it and forget it" instead. I feel like for every one of those, I would lose out on others. If I can get 10-11 percent returns on mutual funds that beat the market (which is what I've done), then my money will double every 7 years. With my income level and how I'm investing, in the long run that will more than enough to sustain the lifestyle I want to live. Maybe I would buy some rentals with cash in 5 to 10 years? Real estate with a rental does seem to have a pretty good ROI and seems more sustainable and something I would have more control with than an individual stock. I can pick the property, the tenant, and the monthly rent. The value of the house will also go up too. If I ever needed to get out, I could sell the house. I believe there are only 2 times in the last 100 years where housing prices crashed, the great depression and 2008.

Investing in single stocks is too risky for me. I know a lot of people do it but it something I personally wouldn't ever do. If I were to invest in something more risky like that, it would be into a business that would play a physical active role rather than with a public company. For retirement, I believe in very boring compound interest from slow and steady growth style mutual funds. I'm happy my work has a pretty good mix of them. The stock market is on sale right now, so my wife and I just decided to start our early retirement brokerage account, something to tap into before we can touch our main nest egg. It can also double as big purchase fund. We invested in two Vanguard index funds, their growth one, VIGAX and their total stock one, VTSAX, to try to diversify a little bit (yup very boring). They seem to have a very good track record.

Awesome Jimbo! Congrats! Glad to hear you landed something. Hopefully this new place has a great culture that matches what you were looking for and also gives you an opportunity to add value to the company and gives you room to grow.

My educated guess is your resume may not be making it through a software keyword scan. You likely are competing against the same people. Some of which may be employed by other places you are actively applying to. Online job application is both a blessing and a curse because it can take so little time and effort to apply for a position. Link As someone that has manually scanned through dozens of resumes in one sitting, I can tell you it is very time consuming, mind-numbing and also very difficult to judge character and how well a candidate would fit with the company culture. As someone that works for a small company, I can't imagine the volume of resumes a big company gets. This is why I'm a big fan of cover letters. A good cover letter showing your character can easily put you in front of the line. There are 2 ways I can think of to get past this barrier and slip through the backdoor after already submitting an application online One, hand deliver a resume and cover letter to someone at the office. Since they are all so close to you, pick a few out and make a little road trip out of it. Link Two, if you know someone that works there, try giving your resume to them. A personal reference from someone from within is such a huge asset.

Sorry to hear that. That would be incredibly awkward training your replacement. At least they were honest with you. Just curious, what type of engineering do you specialize in? Part of the reason I ask is I'm a structural engineer and we hired a mechanical engineer a year or so ago and it has really worked out great. There was a huge amount of up front training, but it was a good personality fit with our group. We aren't looking to hire right now, but I can say that there is no reason why you have to pigeon hole yourself into looking into something that exactly matches your education and past work experience. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but a good personalized cover letter and resume hand delivered definitely helps for an outside the box application.

Brave has a built in ad blocker that you can whitelist sites on. It's currently what I'm using on my phone. Brave also has an experimental dark mode setting (I think it is under display in the appearance menu) that makes this site much nicer to read. Chrome has one too, but it isn't as easy to activate on and off.