I was once rear ended at a red light. I was knocked unconscious and the driver drove off. A few kind witnesses called police who took a report. They got half his plate imprinted on my bumper, but never tracked him down. I had State Farm, and I was even paying extra for the “uninsured driver coverage”. They said they couldn’t cover it because until they had another driver’s information I was automatically at fault, even with the police report and witness accounts. They said it didn’t count as uninsured driver because it’s possible the guy had insurance. I was flabbergasted.

In the end I had a concussion and needed to take time off work for recovery and my short term disability insurance ended up suing State Farm because they didn’t want to pay for my medical treatment. State Farm agreed to cover medical care but only if it was recorded as my fault and I paid my deductible. In anger I tried to switch insurance companies but found out they have a shared database and since it was recorded as a hit and run my fault, nobody else would take me. And State Farm jacked my rate up 30%…

Think of other topics and questions than work, Americans care too much about work outside of work.

Switch your phone apps to celsius and start your brain switching ASAP.

Knowing what country or region you’re going to would help

Lisbon’s main plaza was a parking lot from the 1950s to 1997…

Bens undelayed train experience reminds me of a story. Once I had a KLM flight delayed several hours at a major European airport. They sent an email and app notification so I planned accordingly getting to the airport with plenty of time before the new departure. Unfortunately they closed ticketing and stopped accepting checked bags at the original departure time cutoff. So despite being very early I still missed my flight. Why would you inform the delay but keep original deadlines? KLM I expected better

When I last visited Argentina Uber was using the official exchange rates which were just fantasy numbers. As soon as you match with a driver they’d message you and you’d negotiate the cash price. Then the ride in the app would be cancelled.

Uber didn’t mind because they were still getting the ~$1 or so cancel fee for basically being a messaging app.

In my junior high they had a mysterious urinal pooper. They spent months trying to catch the culprit. They even resorted to a $25 reward and a little campaign in the morning announcements. Then it turned out to be a handicap student who couldn’t bend his knees. The posters and campaign quietly disappeared without a word.

Adam should have taken that guys offer on the house!

Definitely watching when I get home!

I have a friend who can smell cockroaches no joke. We always take her restaurant suggestions very seriously.

Just like his income and assests, when filling out bank loan applications they are huge. When paying taxes they don’t exist!

The Portuguese word for turkey 🦃 is Peru

Don’t let them off that easy. They are not victims of some KGB style program or espionage trickery. They did this to themselves. They chose this knowing full well what they were doing.

They are willing allies of Russia.

It’s now being reported he died

A story from back when I worked in HR. Finance handed HR a list of teams to reduce. HR saw who had lowest performance metrics or was most recently hired and earmrked them to be fired. Then HR emailed the managers and said, ‘we want you to follow around Angela and Brian today, the first mistake they make, write it up and terminate them’. The company had laid off too many people and several states it operated in warned the company they would seek payment if too many more ex-employees filed for unemployment insurance.

Most employees skewed right politically and wouldn’t dream of fighting the company for their rightfully due unemployment benefits since they legitimately thought it was their fault, and many thought UI was socialism anyway.

After witnessing this I immediately began switching careers.

Remember folks, HR is not your friend, HR exists to protect the company from employee related lawsuits.

The same funding package gave the Bakersfield to Merced high speed project $3.1 billion so they could buy trains and start running by 2030. The San Francisco to Los Angeles project was originally supposed to cost $9 billion but it’s now estimated between $90 and $120 billion.

Brightline looks like a bargain compared to CHSR.

Personal cars and communities are mutually exclusive. Cars make sense in places too sparsely populated to have a community, or where people don’t want to be part of a community.