EssentialNPC @ EssentialNPC @lemmy.world

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14

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118

Joined

2 yr. ago

Ooh, I actually know the answer to this! I had cancer a couple years ago, and it got really dicey for a bit. While my story has a good ending and I am now effectively cancer-free, I had to look the potential of death clear in the face and start making some concrete plans.

My answer is unequivocal - I would prepare my family for my untimely demise. My wife and I got together when we were young enough that we entered adulthood together and grew that way. There is no me and her - there is only us. This is not some creepy codependency thing. We just became adults whose emotional and mental shapes are highly complimentary. That happens when you are with someone longer than you were not. We also have kids for whom I am the primary caretaker and stay-at-home dad while she works. Both boys are autistic though you might not notice it, and I am their primary coregulator. My family needs me in ways that are not universally true across families.

Most of my plan can be summarized as follows:

• Prepare my wife for life without me. Ensure she has the basic skills that I have taken over in our lives. Impress upon her the notion that while she has been the love of my life, I sincerely hope I am but one of hers.
• Spend as much time with my kids as possible. Cement myself in their memories. Record messages and fatherly advice in writing and/or video for every major life event I can think of.
• Set up therapy and support services for my family once I die.
• Get my friends and family on board for specific forms of help as time goes on. People who want to help do nothing when they do not know what to do. They are more likely to follow through when told, "I know Jimmy really looks up to you. After I die, please take him out for some bonding time at least once a month. He is going to be lost without me, and Wife cannot be a masculine role model like I was."
• Plan my funeral and write my obituary. Make it clear that any of this can be changed.
• Basically, do anything I can to prepare my family for life without me.

I know this is not terribly exciting, but it found that what I feared far more than death was the fate of my family without me there to care for them.

A couple friends have asked me if I would do this for money. I had to politely explain that they can't afford me. It's not that I am that good - I am just that slow! I can fake a lot with enough time and trips back to the garage to fix things.

Thank you kindly! Funny enough, that is also how I feel after the big push to get it done this weekend and daylight savings combined.

That is some ingenuity! Smart move.

I am lucky that I have been working with a trainer for a couple years, and she knows this info for every piece of equipment in my gym. It will get harder as I taper off working with her.

I am descended from Robert Drouin, who is only mildly famous for the ridiculous proportion of people with French Canadian ancestry who can trace their lineage back to him. It is like if Genghis Khan only had one wife, was really into subsistence farming, and still managed to be everybody's Great^X Grandpappy.

First, I am sorry for everyone just dismissing this question. There are many valid reasons for wanting to know the unloaded weight of machines, including just being curious. If you want to change up your routine or compare results between machines, you absolutely want this info.

Some machines will have this information in fine print on the main instruction panel or some small label on the machine. You have to search for it.

The most reliable way to know would be to ask the staff at your gym. A gym-employed trainer would be a great resource if they are off without a client. At my gym, I just put in a request that they label all of the machines with this info. It seems like a big quality of life increase for the cost of some printer paper and packing tape.

Keep lifting heavy and pushing for the details you want. I know on my leg press sled, I absolutely want credit for the 105 lb. sled in addition to the plates I put on it.

Thank you!

Thank you! This was my first big project after a few years of big health issues, so it was a real test of where my skills are now. Thankfully, it seems I haven't lost much.

Those are kind words - thank you. He is a good big brother who puts up with a lot. The kid deserves and needs a space that is just his, where he can get away from the chaos of life (and his younger brother).

Seriously, so am I. My room is very nice, but it doesn't have mountains!

I think this is a case where getting someone to look at it would be wise. Depending on your foundation, those stairs could be part of the structure of the foundation. Even if they were not pissy or the structure, removing them could damage the surrounding foundation.

As a small child, I feared that humanity would go extinct. I knew the following:

• Species can go extinct, like the dinosaurs
• In many million years, the sun will expand to encompass the Earth
• If we do not invent interstellar travel before then, say goodbye to humanity like the dinosaurs.

I stayed up at night worrying about this. I was precocious in this very difficult way, and it was hard for my parents.

As a teen, this fear was somewhat replaced by an increased understanding of entropy and a fear of the eventual end of the universe.

As an adult, that fear has been somewhat replaced by an increased understanding of human nature and a fear that we will ruin ourselves before either other fear can come to pass.

Looking to the future, I see that my oldest wants to be an engineer for NASA and has the chops to pull that off of his interest maintains. My youngest compulsively helps people. Maybe there are enough people like the two I was blessed with. Maybe one day we can get off this rock and scatter like seeds on the wind. Maybe raising them right will be my small contribution to the continued success of humanity.

I use Lemmy for discussion and reading the thoughts of others, like I used to do with Reddit.

I am old enough that I can't still use Facebook to check the lives of much of my friends and family. Discord is where I can chat with many of my younger friends.

YouTube gives me short video content for entertainment, and TikTok does the same for more serious topics.

I deep dive Wikipedia so regularly that my wife rightly insists we give at least $20 every time they ask for money.

I have a double basin sink with a strainer in each drain. I actually have two types of strainers depending on if I want to be able to plug the sink or not. Sometimes, things get by because it's not like a strainer always stays 100% perfectly in place.

No, this was just from general wear over time. It would be less bad if we threw it away at the first sign of wear, but that felt wasteful. Why ditch a sponge with a little wear on one side when the rest remains fine? Now we know.

I hear you and we are voting. That said, backup plans are a thing for good reasons.

My wife is Jewish and something she once said to me lives rent free in my brain. "The gross majority of the Jews you know are descended from people who left when they had a feeling. The ones who waited until it was obviously bad did not make it out."

Fascism is on the rise globally, but not every country will be led by someone who has actively courted neo-Nazis as part of their base. I saw how emboldened those people felt during his first term, and we anticipate it could only get much worse during a second. We do not want to leave, but we fear that staying may become unsafe for our family.

This is where I am going to get on my soap box (pun intended) and castigate the entire Scrub family.

When snaking my shower drain, I get to go pretty dang far down to remove a clog. I was easily to the point point where my kitchen sink joined the drain line. Among the last things I pulled out were several Scrub Daddy chunks of good size. Can I be sure that these caused the clog? No. Am I sure these could screw up my septic pump or cause clogs even further down? Absolutely.

The chunks these sponges shed can wreck havoc on your drain system. It's not worth it for a tool that cleans no better than a dish rag and a stiff bristle brush. Those actually clean better, last longer, and are more environmentally friendly.

I want to love Scrub Daddy. I just cannot afford the aggravation and potential cost they bring with them as they break down.

Are people down voting a link because they find the news it shares to be bad news, not because that news is inappropriate for the sub? Ann I missing something?

You are streets ahead with this recommendation.

Friend, I feel this so hard. There are times a pizza should have this feature, but they are rare.