That is cold!

Man, that’s rough.

Now, I’ve never actually parented a newborn full time. All the kids that I’ve been a parent to were past that stage a good bit.

However, I was a nurse’s assistant. And I had a double handful of newborn patients for one reason or another. Obviously, it’s a little different on my end than yours, but I have that glimpse into the sheer insanity that is a newborn, and some of the parents of my patients were in the same place you are. Hell, one couple hired me for their second kid a few years after I worked for them because they just needed someone they could trust to give them a night of solid sleep once or twice a week.

I think that shows exactly how draining an infant can be, that they’d pay out of pocket for my company to send me out, with how expensive babies are, even at their income level.

My dude, I genuinely hope you have someone, family, friends, whatever, that can give you both the break you need. And you both need breaks. What you’re doing is physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausting. If not, look into a home health agency. They’ll be insured, have certifications, the whole works. No way insurance will cover it, but you would be amazed how many people need respite help for newborns. You won’t have much trouble finding a company that will set you up with whatever frequency you need, just be honest and up front about wanting someone trained for first aid and infant care rather than for an existing medical issue. There are some that are under staffed and can’t fill that need, but they’re out there.

Even if it’s just a few hours a week, you need relief.

I dunno, I think if you lived through the era, even as a youngster, the story hits home harder. There’s some brutal reality behind it all. Helps even the weak parts resonate for me

Man, Lumley is a hell of a ride. Obviously, the necroscope series is his most famous, but the guy has a twisted genius for darkness, in everything. I think you’re gonna love psychomech all the way through.

Yeah, if I could tolerate thc, I wouldn’t mind the occasional toke myself. But almost every time I’ve tried anything with thc in it, it has been anywhere from bad to horrible. Only times I’ve ever managed a pleasant high was with my cousin helping me along, and there were still bad moments here and there. So it isn’t something I can relax with, sadly.

I have discovered that CBD doesn’t do it, so I’ve gotten lucky in that regard, and I pick up a little when I can afford it for pain relief. It isn’t a total relief, but it helps more than any of the pills I ever had prescribed.

Never been a drinker with any regularity, and I hate being drunk lol. It’s a silly thing, but my wife actually remembers every time I’ve had more than a single finger of bourbon or scotch. And in the almost twelve years we’ve been married, it hasn’t hit double digits.

That’s me, Mr fucking sober buddy lol. I’ve done more designated driver runs and trip sitting than I can recall, but I’m not a user of even the light drugs now that I quit tobacco.

Damn, I’m busted!

Take a puff for those of us that can’t/don’t :)

It’s neither beneficial nor an inherent detriment.

It doesn’t provide enough padding to matter for anything, and the dangers of it bring grabbed are vastly exaggerated (been doing martial arts and grappling in one form or another since jr high, if you count a little wresting then, so over thirty years with breaks here and there, and bearded the entire adult time).

At best, blows will slide more and cut less, but not enough to really matter. At worst, having it grabbed hurts, which can be a bad distraction, but it isn’t so sturdy as to not be easy to escape. It either pulls loose if their grip is bad, pulls out if their grip is good enough, or makes sure their hands are easy to reach, and allows you an easy access inside their reach.

Every little pro has a con, and vice versa, with none of it being a deciding factor.

A ponytail is worse, and a braid worse than that.

Besides, anyone with a beard that isn’t just full mountain man is going to be oiling or otherwise treating their beard. This makes bare handed grips next to useless on them. And if you’re in a full contact sparring session, you’ll have other options to keep it from being a horrible thing.

Seriously. I have never once been tapped out because of my beard. I’ve never had any idiot during my years as a bouncer be successful in using it against me. Now, I have had to trim or shave it back because of having wads of it snatched out, but that’s still a very minor issue compared to the other things that can happen in a fight.

If anything, the fact that people tend to have this weird reaction to a big, bearded guy compared to just a big guy, you get in less fights in my experience outside of training or a job. Going places with a full beard, even drunks wouldn’t fuck with me the way they would other big guys. There’s a bit of some kind of reaction where people think a beard = tough sometimes. No clue why, just that it’s often enough to have noticed.

Blasphemy! Rent is bloody amazing, and you, sir or ma’am or other, are a philistine!

Which is jokey over the top so you know I’m just playing, but is also true, minus the philistine part; tastes vary, and we don’t all have to enjoy the same things :)

I dunno about yins, but you’ns is crazy if’n y’all don’t use alla’yous’n’em

Neither, and also all of the above, plus the list isn’t long enough.

Seriously, it’s not the only two options.

Sometimes cool people do drugs. So do people with mental problems. So do all kinds of other people. But, doing drugs can’t make you cool if you aren’t already. And you don’t necessarily have to have mental problems to use/enjoy any given drug, though some drugs may change that for you eventually.

Well, yeah. Me, my wife, and my kid live with my dad. I’m almost 50.

Mind you, I bought the house from him. But the whole “can’t have a family home” thing where you have to live separate from parents or grandparents to be an adult is utter bullshit. It is often easier to navigate the interpersonal stuff when it’s the classic nuclear family and the kids move out to start their own, just because relationships and the work of them is exponential based on the number of people and the number of relationships between them. If you’re the parent and the landlord to an adult offspring, that’s two complicating factors in making things work peacefully and (hopefully) happily. Add in another generation, especially when grandparents are part of the child rearing, and shit can get messy fast.

We make it work by the framework of: my house, our home, your room.

The house itself is mine, I have final say in structural changes, repairs, etc, because I’m the one on the hook for any legal issues that derive from such. But the running of the household is by consensus of the adults, and input from the kid, with agreed on boundaries. Within those boundaries, if you’re in your own room, you do what you want. The kid is aware of what the boundaries are, and that they won’t be changing when they become an adult, and they’ll have the freedom of choice to stay or head out, knowing there’s a safety net here they can rely on.

They ever have kids, those kids would have the same choice.

Yeah, a house can only hold so many people before it becomes a chaos that isn’t bearable. No matter how big the house, that remains true. But a family home is still a very valid and good choice where life makes it useful/necessary.

Shit, on my end, if the kid stays here until they’re in their fifties, I’m happy as hell, as long as they’re here because it works for them. They’ll be inheriting the place if I get it paid off before I die anyway.

I moved back here as a temporary thing in my late twenties. Left the city I had been working in and was looking for a place of my own. My best friend came with me, and when my mom finally moved out post divorce, it just kinda worked until I had to buy the place. After that, it still worked, and the people involved have changed a few times, but there’s this wonderful sense of connection and security knowing that we all have a place to be if we want it.

Ehhh, you’re dealing with an idiot kid (and all kids are idiots to some degree) and a supposedly trained professional.

I would place the weight of fault on the officer and/or whoever trained them.

Yeah, you should always teach your kids about firearm safety and drill into them to never, ever carry one at all until they’re adults. And that includes anything that can propel a projectile that isn’t obviously and visibly a toy.

But the truth is that a 13 year old was target that got shot. By an adult in body armor, with training. No shot had been fired because you can’t mistake a bb gun sound for even a 22 going off. So there was no active shooter here.

It’s another bad shooting that’s going to get swept under the rug.

I always love telling people about the butt load. The looks I get are gold

Hmmm, I was looking for an excuse for a newer light lol.

The fc11 is the one I carry in my every day bag, and another at the back door for chicken checks. They really are great lights. But those improvements would sure be excellent to have :)

I feel that.

Back when I was a caregiver, pain assessment was a bit of a pain lol. I’d have patients with cancer, and they’d just not notice something like a sore forming because it just got drowned out by chemo, or whatever. I’d do the daily thing of asking about their pain levels, and how the hell can they answer? They’re at a constant 8 to 10 range, so it’s kinda pointless to try and rely on pain signals to find new pains that need help.

Mind you, I was doing other checks, so nothing got missed, but it could have.

And, like you said, the usual “script” for checking on pain breaks down with chronic pains. You have to really get detailed, focus on tiny changes in pain with them.

And, even knowing all that, I still have trouble communicating my own pain and issues because it’s just so overwhelming sometimes. I sometimes joke with a new doctor or nurse and tell them it would be faster to list what doesn’t hurt. Except it isn’t really a joke.

So I just keep compartmentalizing everything and try to be a good patient lol.

Yeah, might work if the starter he used was fully isolated, but I kinda doubt that was done.

But it always kinda trips me out how even experienced bakers think sourdough has to have some kind of magic seed to work as sourdough. It doesn’t matter what you start with, the flour you feed with, and the environment you’re in are going to have yeast already present, so you’ll eventually end up with whatever is in those being what’s doing the work, not what was in the inoculation.

Same with the lactobacilli, whatever strain is present locally is going to end up as the working strain.

That’s the clap, there’s treatments available.

nice

Yeah, good band overall. I’d say they’re a natural evolution of the kind of hard rock AC/DC founded. All the members are at least skilled on their instruments, the lyrics vary in quality, but never get bad. And when they’re at their best, they did the kind of balls out rock that gets butts into seats, and then jumping out of them to enjoy the show.

That’s kinda what rock n roll is about, imo. Yeah, rock can be deep, it can be emotional, it can be damn near anything. But it started as party music, and that’s something that doesn’t always get focused on the way nickelback does it. It’s music to get hyped to and cut loose with.

Nothing wrong with that, ever.

Yeah, they get formulaic, but there are a shit ton of bands that have succeeded doing exactly that. Aerosmith comes to mind, so does AC/DC for the most part. Nothing wrong with a formula that works.