CheezWizHed

I've heard there aren't any sure-fire QBs for the 1st round this year, but I'm guessing someone will reach because of the position. Likewise with TE, I've read that there aren't any worthy of a 2nd round pick and a bunch that are similar in the 3rd-4th rounds. Granted, that will all change once the combine hits.

None of those are great blockers though. Perhaps Davis becomes that, but no one else is built to replace Mercedes. It wouldn't surprise me to see someone like Charlie Kolar (6'6' 260 - Iowa) be drafted in the middle rounds.

Yes, WR is going to be a clear need. We won't keep everyone that is a FA+Cobb. And even if they did somehow, we still don't have a clear #2 WR. And the WR isn't getting younger. TE - Another clear need. Tonyan will probably be out a while at the beginning of the season. Lewis is getting pretty old. We don't have much upside at TE. DL - This was a weakness last year. Just need to keep drafting guys here. Slayton looks like he will be good if he continues to improve. But we don't have much at either DE position. LB - This is certainly dependent on what we do with Campbell, ZSmith, and PSmith. But not much depth regardless, so a 4th round ILB seems like a safe bet.

Grammarly, Grammarly, Grammarly! As an engineer I'm bad at grammar. Which is why I have Grammarly installed on my personal PC (can't use it at work unfortunately). The basic (free) part will even grammar check your BF.net posts! *hint*, *hint*...

As a hiring manager, I'll give a few bits of advice as I've seen it (from a software engineering perspective - other industries might be different): 1) Cover letters: Few people use them anymore. The few that do rarely do it well or add value to the resume. If you do it, make sure you write one for the job you are applying for and it should detail succinctly why you are a fit for THIS job. It should show me that you did some research on my company and/or my position/product and connect it to your experiences. Don't give me a summary of your resume or a generic cover letter. 2) Focused Search: The fact that Indeed, Monster, and other hiring tools allow you to spread a BROAD net of applications out there does not mean you will have success finding a job you like. Quantity does not equal quality. Examples of how to do a focused search: - Read and understand the position you are looking for and know it is a position you want. - Read up on the company and know if this is a company you want to work for. - If you lack of experience in something they want, do some research on it and have a plan for how you would address it (i.e. need training, willing to take classes, request a mentor). I never expect a new hire to fit perfectly for what I'm looking for (I'm a little suspicious if they do). I love seeing someone that can evaluate themselves and has thought through how they will meet my needs as an employer. - yes, it is easy to broadcast 1000 resumes and hope someone bites (and someone probably will), but there is a good chance you will be walking into a bad situation or one you simply don't fit well. Bad examples: - Someone mentioned to me as I was interviewing him, "Which job was this one again?". We talked longer, but the interview ended there. - Another applied for an "Embedded Software Engineering" position with a resume that did embedded 10 years ago, but more IT work since. When my recruiter asked him if he wanted to do Embedded Software Engineering again, like he did 10 years ago, he responded, "No". 3) Know what type of job you want to do. I realize this might be hard for some of you thinking about changing careers, but you have to know yourself and how your strengths. If you have an interview, you should have a good idea that you actually want the job. Certainly, not all information is available initially - don't be afraid to say this job probably isn't a fit for me. I gave someone an offer recently, but was very open as to the expectations of how I would use him. I told him that I was confident he could do my job, but unsure if he'd be happy doing it. I let him make the decision on if he'd be happy...he declined the offer. And that was probably best for both of us.

of course that depends on whether you are already in an itemized deduction for other reasons (charity, taxes, school $$, etc..). The new levels for std deductions nearly eliminated my itemization, but I still itemize.

First rule of investing is start early. Second rule is start now.

What sort of real estate? Flipping? Rentals?

Paid off my college debt after 3 years of working after college (didn't have much). Carried over a CC balance for one month my entire life. Paid off my last car loan in 1997 (my car payment goes into my pocket now). I try to buy cars that are 2-3 years old and sell them around 10 years old. Though technically I have a 10 year old and 16 year old cars right now because they run fine and this current COVID market is making used car sales crazy. So I'm waiting. Been maxing out my employer contribution to 401k since I started my professional career (7-8% min. Doing 10% now). I'm 47 and plan to retire at 60. Will still have a mortgage, but at 2.25%. Will have raised 6 kids at that point too. My advice: - Mortgage debt and college debt (assuming it leads to an improvement on your career) are the only debt worth carrying. - Start saving for retirement early. If it is too late for "early" start now. Max out your employer contributions as they are the highest possible ROI you will ever make. - Live within your budget, not your credit. - Don't be paralyzed by investment options. If you don't like investment lingo, hit the easy button and do the 401k "retire in year XXXX" mutual funds. Then learn more as you go. I didn't understand much about the retirement rules until just this past year. My approach when younger was simply to save as much as I could (targeting 10%) and dealing with the details later. Things change in 40 years anyway. - I'll have put 3 of my 6 kids (college isn't for everyone) through college and paying at least half of it for them (it is important that they earn it also and not just given to them). I started investing in a 529b account for them when they were pretty young. About half of what we are getting out of the account is earnings on the money put in... Starting early is important. So they are getting half of their college covered, while I'm only paying for 1/4 of it out of pocket.

If you do that, pay your mortgage every 2 weeks (half your monthly mortgage each payment). That essentially will add 1 monthly payment per year, plus save some interest as it won't compound as fast. Plus, most people are paid every two weeks, so there is good alignment to the paycheck.

The easiest way IMO is to project out what your income needs would be. Most places I've seen say that you need 80-90% of your current income in retirement (based on whether you have a mortgage or want to travel, etc..) Then your income times 25 would be your retirement need to last approx 30 years. https://www.fool.com/retirement/how-much-do-i-need/ If you are X years from retirement, you can project your current 80-90% income by the typical 2-3% average inflation and use that as your target. Of course, there are many special circumstances that may factor in. Your retirement income needs might drop considerably from current if you have kids that move out of the house. Or pay off your mortgage. Or you may have kids still living with you... The idea is to project out your potential future annual income needs. Do a best case and worst case scenario and see what variations might be there. I did this for myself a year ago and feel much better about my plan to retire at 59.5. Plus, I know what my variables are and can work on them to mitigate the "worst case" scenarios (e.g. pay off my mortgage sooner).

Back in December, my company gave me a compensation adjustment based on the market rate changes. It amounted to a 6% raise. And I'm still eligible for my merit raise in a month.

I consider the sauce as equal to any single topping on the pizza. Keep it light so it doesn't drip everywhere then pair the flavor balanced with the toppings. Pizza is not spaghetti drowning in sauce. The dough is as much about the texture as it is flavor. No rock-hard carboard, no doughy-goo (looking at you, Rocky Rococo) with crispy (not crunchy) crust edges or preferably no solo crust "edge" at all (toppings go to the edge). I mean, it is pizza, so I'll eat just about anything...but those are my preferences.

I like good pepperoni, but prefer sausage myself. A good SMOG pizza is my favorite. The Motor City pizza I mentioned earlier had two types of pepperoni (both flavor and cut different) and it had a really good flavor.

Given the amount of bread it in, you are probably right. But it was certainly surprisingly good for frozen pizza. I think I tried Jet's pizza a while back... Can't remember exactly what it was like though. We eat frozen pizza weekly (a quick meal for one night that we need to eat and run), so this was pretty good. We eat out far less frequently (maybe once monthly or less).

I came across Motor City frozen Detroit-style pizza at Costco. Two pizzas for $13. Great pizza and a great price. The sauce is a bit sweet like Pizza Hut. Obviously, a thick bready crust, but not doughy like Rocky Rococo's. Nice crispy edges.

I'm just not crazy about having a device that is pretty much just a single use item like that. Of course, last night I spent a bunch of time reading on amazingribs.com about grilling pizzas. Looks like I'll be making some dough during my holiday break.

Loki was really interesting because it was a very unique story. Hawkeye is fun, but predictable. Frankly, for Marvel, I like the individual character movies because they have a bit of depth (like learning more about Hawkeye's struggles and humanity; love of family, etc..) The Avengers just felt like you were bouncing from hero to hero to make sure everyone got their scene in. Big flash and special effects and less substance with endgame being the worst of it.

Hawkeye is good, but pretty standard Disney fair. Good action, but semi-predictable story-line and an obvious hand-off from the "old heros" to the "new heros" for the next-gen of movies.

Very nice! I assume you have it on a patio or something? I want one of those at some point in my life. I've done frozen pizza over a campfire (tripod grate with a weber cover on top) and if you can get the distance right, it is incredible. One thing I've not done much of in my Chargriller 980 grill/smoker is pizza. I did one time with pre-made crust and it was good, but not something to keep going back to. I want to try homemade crust one of these days. The grill will go up to 550 closed or 700 open, so plenty hot enough for pizza.

If a few companies can hold a monopoly, then you are probably correct. But there are two back breakers that differentiate streaming services from sat/cable companies: 1) Entry into service is much lower. There is no hardware that you need to install from the company to enable their services. This is very much a BYOD setup and that device can generally stream many different sources. Also, new streaming services and content is being added all the time. YouTube is still relatively new to TV even. Along with Sling, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, Peacock, Fubo, Paramount, etc... there are plenty of people out there competing. 2) No contracts. Streaming services not only don't have contracts, but they have enabled account pauses or just simple cancel/re-enable of services. Sure, they could retract those features, but it is really hard to undo that once the cat is out of the bag (assuming there is enough competition). Look at cellphones as an example. Could you imagine staying with a cellphone company that made you sign a 2 year contract and pay per minute of talk, each text, and MB of data? By comparison, most markets only support satellite and one cable company (if that). And they are maintaining the streaming services, infrastructure to get it to your house (dish or cable), and the HW inside your house. It is much easier for these streaming services to simply support the content stream alone. Assuming something doesn't happen to drive down competition, I tend to doubt streaming services will get that bad, simply because it is too easy to switch to something else.

I agree with you, the pizza in Italy is too simple and didn't impress me much either. It was ok, I don't want to say it was bad, just not what I was hoping for. As a whole, the food in Italy didn't impress me, pasta included. I fully recognize that it's because I'm used to Americanized Italian food but sadly the fact remains. Where did you eat in Italy? I found Italian food incredibly rich and delicious...with dirt cheap local wines to boot. Daily, I'd venture to the Markets and grab cheese, fresh bread, produce...go grab a couple bottles of wine. LOL. I think I gained 15 pounds? Everything else I ate in Italy (Turin) was great. But the pizza was kind of meh. I followed the advice of a friend and ate a style I wouldn't normally otherwise (artichokes, hardly any cheese, etc...). I'm sure a different type would be better. I had a brick-oven pizza in Germany that was excellent (ironically).

Ironically, I didn't care for the pizza I had in Italy. But a good wood-fired hand-tossed or chicago-style deepdish (i.e. Eduardo's in Milwaukee in the 90s) pizza I would go out of my way for. But thin crust... nah.

This is an interesting twist to these negotiations now. In the past, you had cable or a satellite carrier do this, you just sat without the channel and waited for them to resolve it. Now, there is a pretty clear ability for both the channel and the carrier to know exactly the value of their channel - people that leave to see that channel on another streaming service make it pretty obvious the value of that channel.

Thanks. I'm in the south side and have friends that head up to Stillwater on occasion, but I've not spent much time there. Will have to give it a try.