NIKAL

You might want to look into pavers. Use to be more expensive, but when I was going to do a color concrete with a top cast finish. I found pavers were cheaper, gave a better look and you have so many more options. 
 

Jerry Larimore raced off road and owns Signature Pavers. I used them to do over 2000sqft in my backyard. Since then several who have seen their work at my place have had them do their jobs. They have given discounts or perks to referrals from my job. If your interested Pm me and I’ll get you more info. 
 

https://gowithsignature.com/

Their IG has lots of good pictures of jobs they have done. 
https://instagram.com/gowithsignature?utm_medium=copy_link

Well if not fake then I would expect the Oscars to ban Will Smith and make him take Anger Management in order to get reinstated. SAG should freeze his membership for assaulting another Black actor.
 

Can  you imagine the race card being played and the uproar if it was a white actor that slapped a black man! Especially for saying a joke. 
 

If you rewatch you see Will laugh as Chris makes the joke. Maybe it was Jada that told Will you go up there! I still think there was some theater in there. I would have thought Chris’s first reaction would be WTF man! Someone does that to me, my first reaction would be to swing back. 

More like a open hand bitch slap. Probably all fake! 
 

Its been said ratings are in the tank and the Oscars and other award shows are on life support. 
 

Less then 20 years ago they said the Oscars would net 56 million viewers, only a few years ago they were able to get 26 million. Last year they barely had 9 million viewers. 
 

It would not surprise me one bit if this was set up to build ratings and bring all of tomorrows talk be about the Oscars. 
 

Remember these are actors, acting. These award shows are away they can award each other for making millions of dollars. It’s all about their own egos and to spout their own agendas. 
 

Until proven real, I’m going to call it FAKE, BS and set up for ratings. 

With all the current technology if they can’t find something buried in the 1800’s. There’s probably nothing really there. Yes lots of little evidence leads you to think something has to be there as they have legit questions as to how these things they are finding are 200 ft underground. Or buried roads & boat ramps. But if there really was this vault or buried chest, they should have found it by now.. 

Used to watch pretty regularly. Wife hates the show! She said it’s the same thing. They dug a hole, find a piece of wood or a rock and get excited, then nothing. So I would record and watch when I had nothing else to do. Now the recorder is stacked and I watch one show every few weeks at most. 

Have a friend who had his RV registered out of state (Montana I think??) but kept it at his house here in CA. Years ago he had two drivers license, one from each state, but California changed allowing that I think? So he just had his CA DL and his RV with out of state plates. He never had an issue. 
 

He said if he ever got stopped and questioned, he would tell them they have two residences and travel in between. 
 

If I was you, I’d register as much as I could in AZ or out of state somewhere. 

Today my daughter raced the Alpine Ca, Soap Box Derby race at Viejas. She’s been doing it since 2018, and today she won her 3rd local Championship. So that gets her an invite to the Soap Box World Championships in Akron Oh this July. 
 

Great day for her,  long day for Dad and probably an expensive July!  

Akron’s no joke, it’s a 7 day event not including travel days. First time we went in 2019 was overwhelming. 

 

6 hours ago, RayClay said:

Those 9,000 leases are not what they are reporting them be. They are not all viable and all are mired in mountains of red-tape making it damn near impossible to drill the precious few that are viable.

Correct. I was listening to a show with a expert on drilling & mining. The way he explained it is the Government or Private lands will offer these oil companies a lease on a plot of land, which the they then buy. But after they buy the lease, they then have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to find out if there could even be oil to drill for. There is no guarantee it’s even a good place to drill. And in order to even be able to test for oil they have to go through all sorts of permits & Environmental impact studies. This can also determine what type of process they can use to extract oil safely in that area. Just because they grant you the lease does not mean they will grant you a permit to drill on it.
 

The drilling expert said it can take years before your even ready to drill, and that’s only after your sure it’s even profitable to drill there. 
 

He said hearing their are 9000 untapped leases sounds like allot. But the fact is anytime a lease is available your going to buy it for possible future drilling. But that many never come to fruition and not all are good locations. 
 

His example was not all locations are good for drilling for oil, just like not all land is good for building a house on. You don’t build a house on a marsh or in a swamp. 

Today I figured at $5 a gal, it’s costing me $15 a day to go to work & back. I might consider asking to work from home one day a week to make up for the increase in costs. Unless he wants to give us a cost of living raise, which I don’t see that happening. 
 

As far as desert, river or just camping trips, I can see that getting cut way back. If the RV is on empty it’s going to cost close to $500 to fill it at yesterdays gas prices. Who knows where we are at next week. 
 

Maybe this is all part of the “Green New Deal” plan. Price us out that we surrender and are begging for electric vehicles. Have not heard a single peep out of Newsome. The President does not see the urgency. 

6 hours ago, jailbird141 said:

Who in Needles can even afford that?

Who in Needles would even buy gas in Needles when you can cross the river and buy in AZ? Arco across the river is $3.76 per Gas Buddy. 

Does not sound like the Coughlins are upset! They wanted to sell, but still get to keep a minority ownership. 

1 hour ago, Crusty said:

When I read this thread over the weekend, all my thoughts went straight to the list of ordinary things my disabled daughter will never experience  

Walk her down the aisle, grandkids, etc.

 

...but then I started to think of all the THINGS we have DONE! 

I'll have to think on what I "Can't" do....Sky Dive is probably one because i hate heights...but somebody could push me out the plane right? just pull me cord

 

This is why I started the thread all the things I want to do in 5 years. Think of all the amazing things you can do & share with your daughter in the next 5 years. I bet you find more you can do with her, then can’t? 

2 hours ago, John@Outfront said:

My list looks just like yours, but already done

1  I did that exact thing on my KTM EXC500 on a Malcom smith ride (Ensenada to Cabo) we did meet our wives who flew down a few days earlier 1700miles in 7 days

2 would that be a bike or sxs trip?

3 i bought a 45x55 (2 20x14 doors) metal building from a guy who was losing his house, paid $8k and i dismantled it, i have the plans done just need to submit

4 i moved to my retirement home 11 years ago, but it put me 70 miles from work, decided i couldn't do the drive every day so i take Wednesdays off, now im trying to figure to right time to start taking 2 days a week off, as im not ready to retire but have lots of things to do (other than work

HAHA, great minds think a like.....im probably just older than you (@60)

 

now what do we have planned and recently done...........................

we just got back from an incredible trip to the Galapagos islands on a cruise with celebrity  it is a custom smaller boat with only 50 rooms (100 people) it was expensive but everything included, even tips. 3 gourmet meals a day, trips to the islands with tour guides, snorkeling that i was swimming with sea turtles, sea lions, shafts and a manta ray and thousands of fish

this summer our "couples" are going on an adventure bike ride in California 6 days 1600 miles and am promised there really are places in calif that are breathless...ill keep you posted

next summer our couples trip will be to do the Swiss alps on rented dual sport bikes 

this fall we have reservations to go to the balloon festival in new Mexico ......and fly!

 

I’ve done tons of Baja play buggy trips, raced Score for years etc.. but never did a full play run to tip. I was planning on using my Baja Bug Prerunner, but then that evolved into using the UTV as a few other guys will use UTV’s. I want to keep the vehicles as the same as possible.  This trip is not part of a paid guided company. I’m doing all the logistics myself, including arranging transport of all the vehicles back to the boarder. I’ve looked in using a company like Baja Adventures, but there are points and places I want to hit on the way down. 

As far as the Colorado trip that would be in a 4wd like a H3, Bronco or Jeep. We would tow out behind the MH. 

I like the sound of your “Couples” trips. Those sound great! 

John@out front started a thread about Bucket List things you just can’t do. So I thought it would be interesting to hear what Bucket List goals you would like to do in the next 5 years? 
 

Here are a few of mine. I’m planning to do a full Baja Peninsula buggy trip. Start in Tecate and end in Cabo. Then while we are working our way down in the buggy’s, have the wife’s & kids fly down and spend the week at a Cabo resort until we get there. Looking at 4 buggy’s doing this trip. This trip will happen this fall, or next spring. 

Another trip I’d like to take is a trip to Colorado and run all the trail systems around Telluride including Black Bear Pass.

If property prices ever come back to reality, I’d like to look for a lot I can put a metal building on to keep all the toys in and to have a place to work. I have a BIL and a couple of friends that would probably want to store a trailer or rv there too! 

Lastly in 5 years I’d like to cut my work week to 4 days a week. Way to young to retire, but want to find a way to have more time to do things. 
 

So what are your 5 year Bucket List goals? 

1 hour ago, 1tonfun said:

Everything else on my bucket list can be accomplished with time and money.

This is me! My bucket list is not so extreme or scary. But it’s just time & money, but mostly time and the general responsibility of life that keep much of it from happening. 
 

I haven’t done crap all day. Lots of wondering around the house, tinkering here & there, but not really getting anything done. 

Have dinner plans tonight, so that it!

Until we get our RV back from the repair shop we can’t do any trips. Allstate insurance has been a nightmare and I’m pissed off they are not not authorizing the claim. They use 3rd party adjusters now and those guys don’t know s#it! They lost the quote, then they did not know how to read an RV repair quote. Everything takes up to 10 days, then nothing! It’s been elevated twice and even my local agent is not getting responded back. I told the shop to start charging Allstate storage. 

17 hours ago, John@Outfront said:

im working on a refi of a 30 year loan that i am 7 years into.  doing a refi at 3% 15year to shave off 8 years of payments at $3k per month, thats a savings of $192k in payments. 

Note: old payment $3k per month, new payment will be in the  $3200 range.  old interest 4.25%, new 3% possibly slightly lower 

I did pretty much the same thing last June. I went from a 30 to 20 year and took 6 years off. Like you, even with the new lower interest rate, my payment was going to go up a bit.
 

So we calculated what the payoff would be to keep our payment the same and I put that amount to paying down the loan. But another cool deal was my broker was able to get a lender to buy our loan and pay the fees, so we got a $5K credit, so the loan cost us nothing to refi, and we actually made a few hundred dollars. Lol! So the $23k I put down long term was like only putting $18K out of pocket as I did not having any fees or refi costs added to the loan. 
 

Our goal is to make a 13th payment a year directly to principle, and doing that should knock off another few years on the loan. We are looking at the long term. If your not planning on staying then all this effort probably is not worth it, and you could invest the money and make more. 

Paid $4.55 for regular at the Santee Costco this evening. 

I’ve special ordered two cars from the dealerships. The pro is getting exactly want you want. The con is you don’t have any negotiating power as the dealer has no incentive to negotiate as you special ordered it. Its not a car on their lot that they are paying for.
 

Both cars I ordered I used the Costco discount pricing. It was a strait forward discount & price. I think in both cases it was a $500 deposit and when the car arrived you either complete your financing or pay cash. 

It’s not a sought out model, so your not going to see many for sale. I would price it in the middle of what the Polaris XP900 4 seaters or early 1000 4 seaters are going for. This will make it more attractive price wise for someone new looking to getting into the sport. Also being different then what everyone else has could attract a new buyer. I’d also be open to negotiating as you might not get multiple offers, so don’t blow off a legit offer either, thinking you might get more holding on. 

Started the day making window cleaner and cleaning all the windows on the house inside & out. Did a few other chores as I was also charging batteries for our RC cars as part two of the day was getting together with family & friends to play.

Since Covid started we bought a few RC cars to go out and play with friends & family. It was away to al hang out, stay 6 ft apart bla, bla bla. Well it’s was a hit and more friends & family bought Traxxas Slash RC trucks to come play. I came up with our version of Robby’s Stadium Super Trucks but with RC slash trucks. It’s a street track with plywood jumps. 

We now have 12 trucks that us dads & kids race around, while our wife’s hang out & talk, eat, drink ect.. 

After that my wife made a Birthday dinner for her cousin & her family at our house. It’s been a good day! 
 

39 minutes ago, Justgetnby said:

Thats a good opinion. But one not shared with most current servicemen in the fact they serve their country first. Who was elected president makes no difference if the actual military is weak or strong. I assure you they are as strong as ever and ready when needed.

The service men & woman serve their Country first. But I can testify that Military Government contracts that Trump put in place to grow and make are Military stronger. As soon as Biden took office they have been pulling out of many of those contracts. My wife works for a very large Defense Contractor and all branches of the Military have been backing out of long term contracts that still have years left on them as the Biden administration has cut the fundings to those programs. 
 

When the Government reneges on these contracts it’s stops the Military support. Just a few months ago a contract that had several hundred people employed was shut down. Those Def Cont employees were left to find other teams & contracts to get on or become unemployed. 
 

Some very sophisticated equipment that was used by several branches of military and was successful in previous wars was mothballed, not because it was outdated, but because this current administration no longer wants to pay for it or give it to our troops.

China is watching. I give it a month before China starts messing with Taiwan. 
 

I think we are in big trouble! I pray I’m so wrong. 
 

China, Russia & Iran. 

If you don’t already have someone to build your BBQ island. Check out Pete with Islands in the Sun.

@Pete@Islands in the Sun

He did mine and it turned out great. I would highly recommend. 

 

Rebuilt my trailers suspension this morning. After 26 years, It was wore out.  New bushings, new shackles, new equalizers, new bolts, nuts and lug nuts. Should be good for another 30 year as I used zerk fitting bolts, so it can be lubed up now. 
 

Now if I can’t just get my RV back from the repair shop, I’ll be good to go!!