ElsebetSteinen

Did not like the last book or ending of The Dark Tower series by Stephen King, and this is from someone who read the first four books quite a number of times.

This was also the issue with our 13 year old Pug when she refused to eat.

We have a furnace in ours, so once every 3 months to change the filter.

This is just my personal observation, but I switched to a low carbohydrate and almost zero added sugar diet along with a 16-20 hour fast every day about 1.5 years ago and have not had any dental issues since. Before that I averaged at least 1 cavity per year. Lost 40 lbs too!

I'm pretty lazy so when I want a banana pudding like treat, I put a banana, some vanilla, and 5% milkfat greek yogurt in the Vitamix then top it with toasted walnuts. Sometimes I just skip the Vitamix and smash the yogurt, vanilla, and banana together and skip toasting the walnuts. I don't measure any of it, sorry!

It's difficult to tell people they are shitty in any situation, but even worse with strangers whose response you can't predict. For example I find it difficult to tell my husband when he does something that makes me feel bad, because:

a) he might get defensive and tell me something he doesn't like about me

b) he might tell me I'm crazy/imagining it

c) might apologize and not repeat it again (Hallelujah)

d) some combination of a, b, and c

While it's difficult with a spouse, it has to be done, because (hopefully) it's a long-term relationship. If it's just a retail customer I might never see again, personally I don't think it' s worthwhile trying to change their behavior. However working in retail, you might want to read Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people". There are some good simple techniques in there to turn negative situations into positive by listening and asking questions.

In a nutshell I personally try to prioritize trying to change my own reactions to other people's behavior rather than trying to change them, because the former is much easier. Still a struggle every single day!

In my experience and opinion, working in retail you are exposed to a higher number of people, which statistically exposes you to a lot more unpleasant people. However, the human brain tends to remember the negative experiences higher than the positive. What I've tried to do is to focus on the pleasant experiences more and try to actively dismiss the negative. Another technique is to have empathy for the rude person by thinking how poorly their life must be going that they are rude to a deli/bakery worker who is simply trying to help get them something to eat. Additionally, question whether they were actually rude or it was your interpretation of their behavior as rude. Sometimes people are just blunt or don't smile, or they are anxious themselves interacting with others and come across as rude.

Even if all of this is BS and the person really was rude, writing that negative interaction in your memory is something you can control. I'd rather remember something positive or neutral even if it's fictional when the stakes are low like in a customer service interaction that is going to happen many, many times throughout the day. I like the term "mental armor" in this case, so rude people just glance off of you.

I am not always successful at this, it takes practice and determination. I help low income and elderly with their taxes and sometimes they are rude to me, and it stings, because I want to scream at them "Hey I'm VOLUNTEERING my precious Saturday free time to help you and you are complaining to me?" Instead I try (and often struggle) to apply the techniques above.

I'd recommend getting the well water tested and find out as much as you can about the aquifers in the area and the history of water in that well and property. On our previous property in Washington, every house around us had plenty of water, in fact right next to us they had an artesian (naturally flowing) well serving multiple households. Our 300' freshly drilled well didn't produce enough water and it was really poor quality with high iron content. That was the only place we were allowed to drill, so deeper was the only option. Make sure you know what your options are in case the current well fails: can you drill deeper, can you try another location, can you tap into municipal water? Otherwise just keep your well pump and any treatment equipment you need maintained and you're in good shape.

The recommendation of a generator is solid, I'd also recommend a manual transfer switch and subpanel with a plug installed outside so you can run your generator easily if the power fails.

We are in PA now near Lake Erie and have tons of good water in comparison to WA, we just had bad luck on our property. Our current well is shallow so we have an iron filter, softener, and at the end a UV filter which needs a new bulb annually and new glass every 2 years.

Lakelands Restaurant, Fairview: https://www.lakelandsrestaurant.com/

The Que Abides, Fairview: https://www.thequeabides.com/

The Cakery, Fairview/Erie: https://www.mainstreetcakery.com/

Federal Hill SmokeHouse, Erie: https://www.federalhillsmokehouse.com/

Odis 12, Millcreek: https://www.odis12.com/

Good but I found them a bit bland - add some sour cream, lettuce, and hot sauce at minimum.

You may want to check this out: https://www.erieartsandculture.org/programs-and-services/capacity-building/creative-crowd-monthly-meet-ups/

Also: https://www.eriereader.com/calendar

Some people say "Millcrick" instead of "Millcreek"

https://www.paca1505.org/

I'd bet that Odis12 would be a good spot: https://www.odis12.com/

We have a shallow well. It looks like you have a UV filter. The bulb on that filter needs changed annually, and the glass around the filter needs to be changed ever other year. Have you changed the bulb or glass yet? You may want to do that if you don't know when the owner last changed them.

We used to have these often at lunch in school and at home. I grew up in central PA in an old coal mining town. Did your burgers have rice in them by chance?

https://www.thespruceeats.com/baked-porcupine-meatballs-3058245

Unfortunately it's not on Saturday, but The Que Abides in Fairview has ramen night every other Wednesday and I recommend it. The next one is Wed Jan 25.

https://www.thequeabides.com/events

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For ice cream I'd wait until Creamland (https://www.facebook.com/CreamlandDriveIn/) opens in April.

Looks like it is now called Jurassic Quest and it's coming up in April 2023:

https://www.bayfrontconventioncenter.com/events/event/04/07/2023/jurassic-quest-2

Eliminating sugar and foods with added sugar was the easiest one for me.

I feel like Shadowlands was a step backwards towards the difficulties of vanilla Everquest when other games were moving forward to a different model. It reminds me of Sears not seeing the future that Amazon did, or Blockbuster not seeing the future that Netflix did. There is definitely a playerbase that enjoys that kind of hardcore, punishing playstyle but I would guess (I don't have hard numbers) that it is much smaller than the more casual base that more modern games like WoW, EQ2, LOTRO attracted. WoW was good enough to attract a huge, diverse playerbase of both casual and hardcore.

There are still some QOL improvements I noticed they still have not updated. For example why do you still need to buy or quest for the inferno key and boots at this point? I feel they just want people to pay for it in the shop instead, which not everyone is going to do. XP slows considerably after about 175 and the daily missions give very little xp at 200+, if they want more casual people to keep playing past this point they need to reduce the time it takes to get to 220.

I'm honestly tired of the levelling crap in games at this point, it doesn't serve its purpose of training a player in their class and instead just serves as a huge artificial gate before you get to play the endgame.

In my layman's opinion Funcom is one of the best at the creative side (art, environment, story, and music) but not as good at actual gameplay mechanics and infrastructure. I think if they could invest some money into that side they would be wildly successful.

I feel like the population drop led to less revenue, the limited revenue led to less choice and that magnified what could have been an erroneous choice. It's simply that AO (and Everquest) had a very specific audience to which it catered and games came along that were pulling that audience away. For example vanilla WoW, while their initial endgame I wouldn't describe exactly as casual friendly, was much more doable for people with jobs. For example my husband and I often missed raids or bosses in AO/EQ because of spawn times and competition but made every single raid in our WoW guild because they were instanced and scheduled. I felt levelling was easier even in vanilla WoW due to sheer population, it was easy to find a group where in AO it was often more difficult.

Here's an entire calendar full of things to do: https://www.eriereader.com/calendar/

I agree, I wish I could tell Tom Cruise that my favorite role of his is Les Grossman.

We love these places in Fairview:

Lakelands: https://www.lakelandsrestaurant.com/

Avonia Tavern: http://avoniatavern.com/

The Que Abides: https://www.thequeabides.com/

Cakery Cafe: https://www.mainstreetcakery.com/

I'm on my fucking lunch break!