My dad died at 48… my older brother died at 47… as I approached 48 I had quite a bit of anxiety about it. Around age 40 I let my doctor know that I wanted to keep an eye on my heart (that’s what took them both out) and he said that he didn’t see anything wrong with me, but relented. The first thing we did was got a heart scan. It was a $50 imaging cost and even the woman doing the imaging said that she never sees anyone under the age 50 getting that scan, but they did it… and saw that my aorta was slightly enlarged. Then my doctor had me do a sleep study since I’m a snorer. Sure enough, sleep apnea. I got a cpap and both my wife and I are sleeping so much better now. I felt like I was doing everything right and then around the age 42 I started getting consistent heart palpitations. Even when laying down or resting. That’s when I started seeing a cardiologist. She put me on a beta blocker and that fixed the palpitations (or managed them because I’ll likely always be on these meds now). But my cardiologist says that I’m her favorite patient because I’m doing everything right (other than exercising)… with the meds, the scans and the cpap she said that I’m on top of it. And my last 2 scans have shown that my aorta is back to its normal size and I won’t need any other scans for a few years (likely when I reach 55). I turn 49 next month and as much as I was dreading turning 48, I’m really looking forward to 49 so I can put it all behind me and stop feeling like I have some barrier put up by my brother and dad that I have to get over.

Good luck to you over the next 2 years… I know that dread feeling and I wish I knew a way to get past it rather than just going through it, but make sure you’re seeing doctors and doing what you can to stay on top of your heath. That’s really the only thing you have control over.

Does he even need to step aside? Can’t the Democrat in the Senate just vote for a new leader any time they want?

When I left one of my prior jobs I wrote up several very cathartic resignation letters… it was good to get it out of my system before doing a proper and professional resignation letter. I’m glad I did because the tech community in this area is very tight and you end up bumping into a lot of the same people over the years.

The original, original version of the image showed US Soldiers up there… but I’m sure trump’s team decided that it might not be a good look to show US Soldiers in Heaven while trump is waging war.

The biggest loophole is that you drop bombs, you launch missiles.

Gosh, it’s almost like Israel is everyone’s enemy.

“ones”? That would seem to imply you did it more than once.

My cousin gave me a gallon bag of the stuff once… it was all he had left and he just wanted to be done with it. I packed a bowl in my bong and had a huge hit. It last about 10 minutes and I saw some pretty fun stuff (stuffed animals getting up and dancing), but the overall experience was not fun. I handed the rest of the gallon bag off to a friend. That was over 20 years ago and I’m pretty sure that same bag is probably still being passed around.

In 1998 I worked for a local ISP and would occasionally work the late night shift by myself since we offered 24/7 phone support. It was a great job… go to work and spend hours surfing the internet at insanely fast speeds. One night a huge thunderstorm hit and the lights went out, my computer shut down and then about 3 seconds later it came back. The whole time I could still hear the server room humming along. I thought to myself “battery backups are amazing” and didn’t give it another thought. Until about 20 minutes later when that server room hum went silent. I was dumbstruck. My computer was still on. The lights were still on. But the whole internet for our region came through that room and it was no longer on. I had no idea what to do… I sat there for anywhere between 5 seconds to 10 minutes trying to figure out what my first step should be and then the phone rang. I answered it expecting an upset customer wanting to know why her Netscape wasn’t working, but instead it was my boss, the owner of the company. He never called in, and he sounded chipper and said that he just wanted to make sure everything was ok with the storm that had just come through. I stammered “Uh, so, you don’t know what’s going on?” He lived about 30 minutes away but he was in the office in 10 minutes and had about 150 feet of extension cords. We ran the extension cords over to the outlets that were powered by the building’s generator and got them hooked up to the server room to get it back online.

I’ve never experienced a worse silence in my life since.

Out of curiosity how would you see someone not fitting into typical gender roles as clashing with your religious beliefs?

And to clarify, this is an earnest question with no judgement attached. I’m just hoping to get a better understanding and not looking to change your opinion.

Daisy is really Nicole, June’s youngest daughter with Nick (Max Mighella). Due to Hannah and Nicole’s age differences in the series finale of Handmaid’s, Miller confirmed Daisy is not Nicole in The Testaments series.

I’m having a hard time understanding this line in the article. Anyone know what they are trying to say?

*James

James Cameron is an incredible film making technologist. His accomplishments in film will not be remembered for the stories but will be remembered for the technology that he developed and how he pushed the envelope. I wouldn’t go so far as saying that he doesn’t care about the story and getting the details all right… but I will say that creating the best looking version of his vision is his #1 priority.

I think I prefer ‘2 WEAK TRUMP’ over ‘TACO TRUMP’.

It is even more important after retirement… gotta keep the market healthy so you don’t have to go back to work.

I thought the whole partial shutdown was over ICE funding, surely they aren’t still getting paid while the rest of DHS isn’t?

When my daughter was 7 she got really interested in graffiti and had tons of questions about it. She asked if there were any famous graffiti artists and I told her the names of some of the more prolific local artists, but of course told her all about Banksy.

I told her that she’s really lucky to live during a time when Banksy’s identity is unknown because at some point it will become known and the magic will be over.

That was 2 years ago, and I haven’t told her about this story yet because until Banksy confirms it, I don’t accept it. And because it makes me sad that the magic might be over.

We can unmask Banksy but just let the Panama Papers fade into obscurity.

We’ve effectively put sanctions on ourselves, amazing.

Our healthcare in this country does suck, and should be criminal. But, it’s the system that we have and until it changes it is the system we have to deal with.

I am assuming that this must be the first time you’ve used your insurance, so you are either young, in relative good health, or both. During Open Enrollment you were likely given a few options of insurance plans to choose from and it sounds like you went with the cheapest option without fully understanding what that entailed. The High Deductible Healthcare Plans (HDHP) are generally lower cost per pay period than a traditional plan because of the high deductible part. A HDHP is actually a good option if you are in relative good health and often don’t go to the doctor for a few reasons, the first being the cost of the premiums is much lower even if you do go to the doctor once or twice a year. Another reason the HDHP is a good option is that it gets you access to a Health Savings Account (HSA) which lets you put pre-tax money into the account each pay period. There are limits, and this year it’s $4400 for individual and $8750 for families. If your deductible is $7k, I’m guessing you’re part of a family plan… so you can either plan each year to put in the max out of pocket for your plan into your HSA, or you can max out your contribution. Maxing out your contribution, if you can do it, is the way to go because the HSA account is also another avenue for retirement savings. And, when you get a certain amount of money in your HSA you can start investing that money… I put anything above my deductible into the S&P and I’ve seen amazing growth over the past 20 years.

So a few things for you to look into:

1. Do you already have an HSA account? And how much are you contributing? If you do, this is where you will find the $288 to pay the bill, even if you haven’t contributed enough to fully pay it yet, you can let your doctor know that you have an HSA account and they’ll setup a payment plan.
2. Is your $80 per paycheck, plus the $288 still a better deal than the cost of a traditional plan? If that was a one time visit and you likely won’t go back, then it probably is still a better option.
3. If you don’t have an HSA account, ask your employer why. It’s part of the HDHP and you should have access to one. If you don’t have one, still contact the doctor and ask about payment options. And keep your receipts because even if you don’t pay out of the HSA, the money you pay towards your high deductible is still tax free and you’ll get a bit back on your taxes next year.

Sorry this happened to you… I do hope you’re young and that this is just a learning experience. Our insurance setup in this country sucks, is difficult to understand, and no one really does a good job of explaining it, you just have to learn by trial and error, sadly.

And that guy almost gets it… trump is successful at burning everyone else and walking away with the money. Which is exactly what he’s doing with the presidency.

He isn’t a successful businessman, he is a successful conman. Idiots can’t tell the difference.

Isn’t Nova Scotia poorly located to be an efficient spaceport since it won’t get nearly the same boost from the Earth’s rotation as it would if it launched closer to the equator? I imagine that a Caribbean or South American country would gladly take $200 million to lease them a spaceport location.

Time to pivot to Cuba!

I’m actually shocked that he hasn’t already declared victory and pulled all ships from the area.