We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
If you don't care, good for you. If maintaining energy, vitality, and functionality matters to you, then it's worth thinking about.
While we recommend low-carb or even keto diets for weight loss programs (and even say skip the exercising - it doesn't help with that goal very much), the simplest and easiest body fat fitness plan is volume control.
That means volume of beer, soda pop, meals, and snacks. We've all noticed how avidly overweight people eat with no awareness of satiety - only of "fullness" (or of when all the food is gone). Portion control takes a little thought and planning.
My experience is that restaurants in the US and Europe (except for the fanciest ones) tend to serve the equivalent of two or three meals for a fit healthy person. However, there is no law that we must clean our plates. The Great Depression is long gone.
I've posted in the past, literally ad nauseum, about "false hunger," and ritual or recreational eating.
For devoted weight trainers, heavy-lifters, it is more complicated for any age.
Dress and comportment are important for men and women in careers and in regular life. The "suit does not make the man," but dressing right for the occasion matters a lot to other people. First impressions are everything. Of course, you have to have more to offer than your presentation, but it matters all along the way until you have fulfilled your dreams. Then you can do whatever the heck you you want. Flip flops and t-shirt, Unless you are in the rag trade.
If you look and behave like a professional, you can become one. Assuming some cleverness and, like the car below, attractiveness isn't enuf but it's a good start. Easy things for a career: Fitness, good clothing, agreeable attitude, even if fake.
Addendum: Scott Adams says good shoes are the most important part. Maybe, but good hair might be equally so.
Mrs. BD is car shopping. Has in mind a fun car that is happy with mud, gravel, rutty dirt roads, and sand, but which loves a road. Better off-road than Range Rover? Gee, I am suprised. Argue with me, but I think Range Rover is for driving kids to school in the rain, then stopping off at yoga class. While the door handle falls off.
How about this one? My theory is if you buy it in red, it's a cop magnet.
10:38 Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.
10:39 She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to what he was saying.
10:40 But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me."
10:41 But the Lord answered her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;
10:42 there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her."
" The dot coms and academics of San Francisco and Boston, the financial firms of New York and the lobbyists of Washington D.C. will pick the Democrat nominee. But will they pick the president?"
At this point, Google has the power to elect a president
A Scott Adams intervew with Dr. Drew explains that housing is not the issue. It's about mental illness, personality disorders, addiction, and mental insufficency and otherwise low-functioning people. That is a lot of people.
It is a tragedy of false compassion. Thousands of people who need help, when help is available, resist it. It's a free country. Freedom often means messy.
“Never before in all our history have these forces [the media and the opposition party] been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."
Poison Ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, is a vine, sometimes a standing plant, which is native to and common in the entire eastern US. It's a good plant for wildlife, both leaves and berries. It likes edges, roadsides, beaches, barren areas in sun.
Only humans have reactions to Poison Ivy. People vary in their reactions to the urushriol in its sap (and leaves). Some have no reaction, some severe. I am prone to an itchy rash from contact, but Mrs. BD can develop several days of dramatic migrating hives just from patting a dog who has passed through some. Benadryl helps.
Besides patting dogs, a serious danger in Poison Ivy is inhaling smoke from burning it when burning brush. Not good to burn it.
Little-known fact: Poison Ivy is a close relative to the mango. Some people react to mango skin just as they do to Poison Ivy. Me loves Mangos, no problem.
The gym on the Titanic. Might have been useful to have a rower...
In my experience, all modern ships have excellent gyms with ocean views. All modern or modernized hotels have good gyms. Luckily for me, because my day can not begin without 2 coffees and an hour workout of some sort.
It is parsley abundance season up here right now. I grow the curly leaf and the Italian flat leaf. They grow like crazy, and sometimes give you a second year after a milder winter.
"Pesto" means "paste." Sure, basil besto is delicious on lots of things and everybody loves it on vegetables, pasta, chicken, fish, whatever. But if you have lots of parsley, try a parsley-walnut pesto. It is perfect for grilled beef along with everything else you might use pesto for.
“Postmodern prose is perhaps best approached as an exercise in posturing and phonetics, of couching slim and trite observations in needlessly Byzantine language… Efforts to fathom deep meaning, or, very often, meaning of any kind, are generally exhausting and rarely rewarded. More often, what you’ll find is essentially a pile of language, carefully disorganised so as to obscure a lack of content.”
I
Simple, light, and good
Poison Ivy, 
It is parsley abundance season up here right now. I grow the curly leaf and the Italian flat leaf. They grow like crazy, and sometimes give you a second year after a milder winter.