BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 3 hours ago, chisoxguy7 said: Good luck, my in-laws also want to retire to Florida. Many insurance companies are no longer offering homeowner's insurance in Florida, and auto insurance rates are very high there too on account of all the elderly drivers in addition to cars flooding during hurricanes. I've never understood the appeal of Florida. Sure, you don't get a cold winter. You just get to deal with year-round humidity on top of the floods and hurricanes. Not for me. I used to think I was going to end up out west, somewhere like Colorado or Oregon or something. We did a lot of travelling out there in 2021. Now, I'm just scared of the drought and the wildfires. On top of that, the heat out there just grows and grows. Colorado was close to 100 when we were out there, at that point why even leave Illinois? Sure, you can go up in elevation to make your summers cooler, but you're also just making the snowfall you get worse. I've always believed that dealing with winter is way better than dealing with scorching summers. In winter, you can at least layer up. In the summer.... well, you can't really go much beyond naked, and the police don't really care for that to begin with. I think the wife and I have settled on the Northeast to ultimately settle down in and build our forever (tiny) home on, probably Vermont. We have some experience living tiny. Our accidental pandemic project (we started in October 2019) was to renovate a 38-foot retired 1995 school bus that I flew out to California (was looking for a specific engine and body style), bought, and drove it home. It took 40 hours behind the wheel, and I did it in two and a half days, sleeping in the bus at rest stops overnight. It took us all of 2020 and into March of 2021 to get the thing built out and iron out all the kinks, get moved into it, practice living in it and get rid of pain points, etc etc. I was able to (using the University of Google and The Youtube Institute) teach myself all about plumbing, carpentry, electrical, and solar. We ultimately travelled about 20,000 miles in the thing over the course of 8 months and saw 22 national parks along the way. Eventually the money we had set aside for travel ran out, so we sold the thing (for a profit, too!) and came back to Illinois to fill the bank account up again. Our current house is a little over 600 square feet, which is probably about the right size, but the space here is so poorly utilized (because of the layout). Anyways, this has turned into quite a post. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If this post generates any curiosity from people, I don't mind answering questions or chatting more about it. I love stories like this and would probably be asking you detailed questions about adhesives and inverters if this were a bar and not a forum. It's also nice to hear how you're all doing. I really appreciate this place as the least insane place to discuss things online. We had a crazy start to summer where my wife's position at work got deleted without warning right after her spring of unpaid extra work concluded, so I went into overdrive at work taking on all kinds of projects I'd usually pass on. Truly sucked and then we found out my daughter has a ton of allergies that needed some lifestyle changes. Week later my wife got a job close to home making almost double her old salary and now we're just wrapping up a nice long vacation up in northern Michigan in a really pretty place with lots of water access. Taught my son and my friend to windsurf. Feeling ready refreshed and full of energy to withstand and eventually accept another bears season. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ty21 Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 6 hours ago, CBears019 said: You owe me some of your winnings then. Do you want your $0 on Venmo or cashapp Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardown3231 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 3 hours ago, chisoxguy7 said: Good luck, my in-laws also want to retire to Florida. Many insurance companies are no longer offering homeowner's insurance in Florida, and auto insurance rates are very high there too on account of all the elderly drivers in addition to cars flooding during hurricanes. I've never understood the appeal of Florida. Sure, you don't get a cold winter. You just get to deal with year-round humidity on top of the floods and hurricanes. Not for me. I used to think I was going to end up out west, somewhere like Colorado or Oregon or something. We did a lot of travelling out there in 2021. Now, I'm just scared of the drought and the wildfires. On top of that, the heat out there just grows and grows. Colorado was close to 100 when we were out there, at that point why even leave Illinois? Sure, you can go up in elevation to make your summers cooler, but you're also just making the snowfall you get worse. I've always believed that dealing with winter is way better than dealing with scorching summers. In winter, you can at least layer up. In the summer.... well, you can't really go much beyond naked, and the police don't really care for that to begin with. I think the wife and I have settled on the Northeast to ultimately settle down in and build our forever (tiny) home on, probably Vermont. We have some experience living tiny. Our accidental pandemic project (we started in October 2019) was to renovate a 38-foot retired 1995 school bus that I flew out to California (was looking for a specific engine and body style), bought, and drove it home. It took 40 hours behind the wheel, and I did it in two and a half days, sleeping in the bus at rest stops overnight. It took us all of 2020 and into March of 2021 to get the thing built out and iron out all the kinks, get moved into it, practice living in it and get rid of pain points, etc etc. I was able to (using the University of Google and The Youtube Institute) teach myself all about plumbing, carpentry, electrical, and solar. We ultimately travelled about 20,000 miles in the thing over the course of 8 months and saw 22 national parks along the way. Eventually the money we had set aside for travel ran out, so we sold the thing (for a profit, too!) and came back to Illinois to fill the bank account up again. Our current house is a little over 600 square feet, which is probably about the right size, but the space here is so poorly utilized (because of the layout). Anyways, this has turned into quite a post. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If this post generates any curiosity from people, I don't mind answering questions or chatting more about it. You're like the first person I've ever heard duplicate what I always say: in winter you can add another layer, but in summer there's only so far you can go before you end up in the clink. On the other hand, you don't have to shovel humidity. I'd love to retire in a place like Washington. Nice summers, rainy & cool winters but not FREEZING winters as long as you can get near Seattle. I'd like to work until I'm 65 so I'm a long ways away, but yeah Florida is a nightmare between the people and humidity 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardown3231 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 9 hours ago, Ty21 said: I got a trivia question right the other day that was about what college Marvin McNutt went to and I literally wouldn’t have gotten it right if not for Cbears being a fan of him years ago lol Without looking, wasn't it Iowa? I loved McNutt too, so HA @CBears019, the joke is also on me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ty21 Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 I had a dream last night we opened the season vs Carolina and I didn’t remember til the tail end of the game that it was on. Turned it on and we were up 42-28 with 2 mins left with Peterman in. “Huh, that’s weird why isn’t Justin in”. He went 1-5 passing and 5 interceptions (my dream math doesn’t add up) and got benched. Please don’t happen in real life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ty21 Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 4 hours ago, chisoxguy7 said: I think the wife and I have settled on the Northeast to ultimately settle down in and build our forever (tiny) home on, probably Vermont Vermont is nice. I like that whole area for the most part. I’m descended from Ethan Allen so I tried to demand the land back at the Ethan Allen homestead but it wasn’t to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ty21 Posted July 31, 2023 Author Share Posted July 31, 2023 37 minutes ago, beardown3231 said: Without looking, wasn't it Iowa? I loved McNutt too, so HA @CBears019, the joke is also on me Yep. This website made me pretty familiar with useless Iowa athletes 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLunatic88 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 11 hours ago, Ty21 said: I got a trivia question right the other day that was about what college Marvin McNutt went to and I literally wouldn’t have gotten it right if not for Cbears being a fan of him years ago lol Fun personal Trivia, I beat Marvin McNutt for the AAU Basketball State Championship back in Middle School Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HuskieBear Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 47 minutes ago, StLunatic88 said: Fun personal Trivia, I beat Marvin McNutt for the AAU Basketball State Championship back in Middle School I guess you got the last McNutt? Looks like you McNutted on him? idk im still work shopping some things 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZBearsFan Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 34 minutes ago, HuskieBear said: I guess you got the last McNutt? Looks like you McNutted on him? idk im still work shopping some things Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisoxguy7 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 Are we witnessing the birth of the six degrees of Marvin McNutt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chisoxguy7 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 5 hours ago, BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW said: I love stories like this and would probably be asking you detailed questions about adhesives and inverters if this were a bar and not a forum. So, so many self tapping wood to metal screws. So many hole saw bits. As we were closing up the walls my Mom was generous enough to put a screw where she shouldn't have and totally fried the first inverter/charger, which of course had been easy to install initially but now was accessible, but extremely inconvenient to service (which can probably be said about most, if not all things RV/camper related). We had such bad luck with the thing overall. We had a mouse start a small electrical fire, went through a few fuel lift pumps before identifying what was burning them out, new front suspension, we had our water pump freeze up literally days before we were going to leave town, I have so many stories. The one I like to tell most of all is this one: we had just wrapped up staying at Glacier National Park. We were there for six weeks, it was incredible. While there, we hiked the Highline Trail, the longest hike I've ever done, I think it was 17 or 18 miles for the day. Up at 4am, on the trail by 6AM, and the parking lot at that point was already almost full. I digress (but absolutely do go see GNP before all the Glaciers have melted away, estimated to be 50 more years at most). At this point we were very tired as we had just finished three little expeditions, my Aunt flew out and lived and travelled with us for three national parks (Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, and Great Sand Dunes), then my brother flew out and did the same with four national parks with us (Great Sand Dunes, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, Yellowstone), then we met my mother-in-law and her boyfriend at Glacier. And of course all of this was on a very tight timeline (exacerbated by the fact that we REALLY didn't like huge travel days, we generally scooted along 50-200 miles in a day, stopped and checked things out, slept, and then moved on until we reached our final destination. We had travelled east out of Glacier and had spent a little bit of time at a place called Nelson Reservoir. Well, as we left from there to head into North Dakota, we're going down Montana Highway 2, a 2 lane country highway. Our bus wasn't that fast, so getting passed was a regular occurrence. We didn't mind. A car passed us and merged back over pretty close in front of us, not unsafely close but a little closer than I would have liked. In a flash, the car kicked up a rock directly into the windshield right in front of me. Luckily it didn't shatter, and the breakage was such that I could still drive safely. That was a real bummer. Not even half an hour later, an ONCOMING truck kicks up ANOTHER rock, directly into the other, UNBROKEN windshield (our windshield was flat, and two pieces of glass with a center partition, it was a flat nose bus). All I could do at that point was laugh. That's life, especially bus life. 5 hours ago, BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW said: Truly sucked and then we found out my daughter has a ton of allergies that needed some lifestyle changes. A couple years ago I did a food sensitivity test (which many say is pseudoscience). I took the results of the test and did an elimination diet to determine how much the things on the list actually affected me. Long story short, I can no longer eat beef, or broccoli (and I was a beefaholic to begin with). My wife's results revealed allergies to cucumber and avocado. Weirdly enough, if you have an avocado allergy, you ALSO have a latex allergy. They contain the same chemical compounds, something like that, I forget the whole reason why but if you're allergic to one, you're definitely allergic to the other. Anyways, here are some photos of our former skoolie, today is one of those days that I'm really missing it. The one photo that is clearly very different from the others is the state of the interior when we bought it. Someone had started converting it, we ended up stripping a lot of it back down and starting from scratch. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardown3231 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 5 hours ago, Ty21 said: I had a dream last night we opened the season vs Carolina and I didn’t remember til the tail end of the game that it was on. Turned it on and we were up 42-28 with 2 mins left with Peterman in. “Huh, that’s weird why isn’t Justin in”. He went 1-5 passing and 5 interceptions (my dream math doesn’t add up) and got benched. Please don’t happen in real life. How can you possibly go 1-5 with 5 int's? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beardown3231 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 4 hours ago, Ty21 said: Vermont is nice. I like that whole area for the most part. I’m descended from Ethan Allen so I tried to demand the land back at the Ethan Allen homestead but it wasn’t to be. Vermont, New Hampshire, and RI are awesome. I'd definitely retire in RI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StLunatic88 Posted July 31, 2023 Share Posted July 31, 2023 2 hours ago, HuskieBear said: I guess you got the last McNutt? Looks like you McNutted on him? idk im still work shopping some things Ooof. I can tell you, back then you did not clown on Marvin, he would put you in your place But it is a fun little anecdote Ill always have. Ran into him years later and he was still salty about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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