What I Learned Today

[Gravdigr]

Squirrels don't like Pop-Tarts.

What? It's all I got.

[infinite monkey]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Squirrels don't like Pop-Tarts.

What? It's all I got.

Well, see here, you were probably trying to pawn off some blueberry or strawberry poptarts. What you need to do is give 'em Brown Sugar Cinnamon 'tarts. It has to do with moles liking sugar and molasses. Or something.

[Gravdigr]

Holy shit, , they were the blueberry ones!!!

And they were stale.

[infinite monkey]

see? Blueberry poptarts. Your squirrels used to really like you. Now they're plotting your demise.

[FIRE]

Let's see, I learned a lot today...

1. My mom is still making an impact on the cellar almost a year after she has passed.
2. I have hours and hours of very (insert any appropriate adjective) posts my mom wrote I can't wait to read through.
3. You can get almost any cool username you want on this site, unlike Twitter. (Shameless plug: follow my fitness Twitter account @OhioExercise).
4. This site was established the same year I was established.
5. I really like the people on this website a lot. It's a different perspective from the drugged out, dramatic bullshit I encounter on a daily basis dealing with my peers.

[monster]

Hola Fire, welcome

[orthodoc]

Hello, FIRE.
I think I can safely say: your mom will never be forgotten here.
She was incredibly kind and supportive to me when I had my breast cancer diagnosis in 2012.
May I suggest that, rather than reading archived posts, you forge ahead and contribute to this community from your own perspective? I'd love to read about your goals, your values, your thoughts for the future. I appreciated your mother's help so much in my time of crisis; I'd feel privileged to hear from you about your current endeavors and your dreams of the future.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hello FIRE.

[glatt]

Hi FIRE, welcome.

Your mom was awesome, and we were saddened to lose her. I still think about her from time to time, and I never even met her.

I think as you read through her posts, you should keep in mind that she wasn't writing them with you as the intended reader. She was writing them to other people.

Also, reading individual posts by her will lose much of the context of those posts, you need to read through a whole thread and see what she said to get the full context. And to make things more difficult, conversations often are carried over from thread to thread with no obvious link. It's obvious at the time, but going back, you won't see it.

So keep all that in mind as you proceed.

But welcome!

[lumberjim]

Hey, bro.

[Sundae]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

May I suggest that, rather than reading archived posts, you forge ahead and contribute to this community from your own perspective?

I respectfully disagree, but only with the word "rather" I think.
She communicated so well and with such force of personality when she was writing, that her posts here are a treasure trove. Yeah, there are plenty of post-its and bus tickets and even things she would have wanted burned, but it's still all her.

Originally Posted by glatt

I think as you read through her posts, you should keep in mind that she wasn't writing them with you as the intended reader. She was writing them to other people.

Also, reading individual posts by her will lose much of the context of those posts, you need to read through a whole thread and see what she said to get the full context. And to make things more difficult, conversations often are carried over from thread to thread with no obvious link. It's obvious at the time, but going back, you won't see it.

So keep all that in mind as you proceed.

But welcome!

I second this wholeheartedly.
Especially the reading around the topic thing. Sometimes I go back to individual posts and have to work out why and who, and I've been here for over a decade. You'd need Cliffs Notes (dunno if that translates) to get the whole thing, and even then some of it is just of it's time or just plain craziness. Specially because you know, it was your Mum. And she was friends with some other crazies. Like me.

But it's worth at least dipping into.
Just remember that you probably wouldn't want your Mum, or your girlfriend or even your best mate to read everything you've ever written...

[BigV]

Welcome FIRE.

Good to have you on board. The high idea density of your first post does your mom proud. There is indeed a great deal here to read from her, and to her and about her. Dig in man.

I'm also looking forward to hearing your voice too. Nice to meetcha.

[DanaC]

Hello Fire, and welcome. It's so very lovely to see you here.

[wolf]

Welcome FIRE. I love(d) your mom's courage and her extreme cleverness. And I have a soft spot for psych nurses.

[glatt]

Today I learned that Skid Row is a real place, and not just the imaginary setting of a cautionary tale told by my teachers years ago, explaining where I will end up if I don't study hard. The teachers told tales of people sleeping in the gutter, with empty booze bottles still in hand.

How did I find it? I came across a link of old photos of Los Angeles, and even though I don't know Los Angeles well at all, I was looking through them. I went to Google Earth to see if any of these old buildings were still there. And as I zoomed in to the historic old section of LA, near city hall, I saw a red dot a few blocks away that said "Skid Row."

If you zoom in and enter Street View, this is what you see:



According to the Wikipedia page, it's got one of the largest stable homeless populations in the US, with 3-6K homeless.

It's amazing to me that it hasn't been gentrified. It's held the same role for over a century and is only blocks from the center of LA. I'd think it would be prime real estate that would be snatched up by developers and turned into office buildings and malls.