Just need to vent...

Are you thinking of the Mountain House subdivision? It was mostly wiped out when it was discovered that they promoted junk loans to the buyers. Can you imagine the bank's reaction when they fore-closed on a new house and found that the house sold at auction for 3/4 the price that is owed to the bank.

 

i'm not sure, could be. i read about it awhile back

 

When I stopped knocking holes in the Atlantic for a living I was divorced, homeless, and jobless for.....about 3 months.
Two months were spent on a 15,000 mile US corner-to-corner-to-corner road trip with a friend.
I then got a job with a realtor as a handy-person and a 'male secretary.'

I learned a thing or two about a thing or two including the fact that REAL ESTATE is about location, location, location.
Meaning:
SCHOOL location.
CITY LIMIT location.
....and Property location.

If you live in a resort town?
(I've visited MANY and talked to the locals)

Relax and....rent.

Otherwise?
Observe the three rules.

They CALL it 'Supply and Demand' for a reason!

 

Our unexplainable food choices.
I grow a seasonal garden and do freezing so I do take control of my food sources as much as possible.
Much to my wife's chagrin I am going to begin running a few chickens in our suburban back yard pending city council okay.

My vent is our food pricing paradigm in America

What cost more:
a bag of plain pop corn with nothing added
or
a box of microwave popcorn with 12 mini bags loaded with sodium, unhealth oils, butter, fat, and many other unhealthy additives
= Just a bag of plain popcorn costs more.

A can of 8.5 oz of unsalted, unroasted plain cashews
or
a can of 8.5 oz roasted, sodium loaded (sea salt),sugar loaded (honey), roasted (coated with unhealth oils then put through a heated source), modified potato starch and to top it all off xanthan gum.
= just the plain cashews cost more.

This is just the tip of an unexplainable nightmare for finding non processed food .

Won't even begin to discuss natural grain fed meats vs industry raised hormone/antibiotic sodium added packaged meats.

Something is very, very wrong and a_ _ backwards in our commercially available food chain.

 

Economies of scale - Wikipedia

Americans tend to be um.......'larger' people.
If you're gonna eat smart it's going to COST you.
Time
Effort
Money.

We once had a First Lady who tried, perhaps sincerely, to get school lunches to be less salty, sugary, carby, and fatty.

In other words?
Food that no kid will willingly eat!!!
I have a for-real, genuine, school Lunch Lady in my family and she informs me that this programme ended disastrously - except for the local chicken raisers who put the thrown-away food to better purpose.

In my daughter's school they just contract local restaurants to feed their kids delivered, pre-cooked food because a lot of schools cannot afford for-real state employees who are lunch ladies.

TIFWIW.

 

@ETC(SS)
"If you're gonna eat smart it's going to COST you.
Time
Effort
Money."


agreed- and..... that is the part that's a_ _ backwards

 

Yes, you know we have a serious health problem in the country when over 70% of us are overweight and even morbidly obese. But you can't call anybody obese or even fat, it'll hurt their feelings, even if you're a health professional and know they'll cut many years off their lives.

I graduated High School in 1981 and we had just one "fat" kid...just one. I never dieted or avoided hamburgers and fries and remember buying a Coke and big bag of Doritos often and eating the whole bag yet I was 5"10' and weighed 135 and had a 6-pack.

So what's changed? Why do our High Schools look more like Sumo Wrestler Academies?? Big food has really done a number on what's in our food, that's for sure. Imagine the government telling us that a bowl of cereal, loaded with processed crap and dyes and empty calories is actually healthier than a steak?

Y'all like Girl Scout cookies? You probably should read this before buying any....and I'm amazed the US Govt has "safe" levels for things like mercury, lead, and aluminum.

Toxic Girl Scout Cookies Linked to Autism Risk | New Study 2025

It, really, is time to Make America Healthy again...and it's not by shooting folks up with Ozempic, either. (Which is showing to now have around 19-side effects, some irreversible but year to big pharma for making some serious profits off the jabs.)

 

That's not on big pharma, big macs, or big government.
That's on US.

Even "that store that shall not be named" is chocked full of fresh, frozen, or even canned vegetables - lean meats or even Vegan options and healthier forms of bread and other cereals that were not even dreamt of as little as 10 years ago.
There are a vast array of 'ninja' appliances and so-called air friers now, and even in the Deepest part of the Deep South one cannot drive more than a few miles without encountering a walking or cycling trail or track.
There are a dizzying array of 'foodie' videos that you can listen to, stream, or even watch OTA for free.
As much as I'm a critic of America's state funded media - even THEY have healthy food programming.
Much the same can be said for aerobics, body building, the various yogas and Pilates, etc....etc....

Americans are lard-butts because they CHOOSE to be.

 

There's also a causal relationship between vigorous exercise, that will allow you to eat all the tons of junk you ever wanted. 2hrs heavy weight training 6 days a week after cycling 16mi to & from work?
You can easily polish off a couple Nestle's Toll House cookie ice cream sandwiches, heavily buttered apple fritters, ¾ of the half gal of ice cream - in addition to handfuls of desiccated liver tablets & ½gal of milk & egg protein ....
Then ......
your boss needs you on graveyard for several years. That sucks the life out of you.
In addition - in your 30's metabolism changes, parenting, marital life, post graduate work create exercising compromises.
You go from 15rep bench press warm-ups of 225lbs during the 1980s ....



to year 2025 - & the once 2' chest to waste ratio tries to reverse order ... unless you stay on the treadmill all winter long. - just so you retain enough stamina to push the mower come spring.

Yep ... tons of exercise mitigates eating crap food. Miss the crap food. Miss the metabolism of youth too. Not looking forward to seeing how my '70s will play out. That'll be the next vent

 

I’m off alcohol, sweets, snacks, ice cream, coffee (mostly) carbs, etc, just to try and stay even!

 

Exercise is great and am a firm believer however - nothing mitigates eating crap- it is going to catch up with a person sooner or later.

Crap in = crap out.

Medicine continues to more strongly establish the link between heart disease -sugar and unhealthy eating habits.

A similar scenario is smoking and drinking.
Crap in = crap out.
Eventually the tobacco use and alcohol use will catch up with you regardless of how hard you exercise the same way bad food will.

Unfortunately for men weight can be an indicator of bad health - but clogged arteries- high blood pressure are much better indicators of overall health. You cannot see bad blood lab results by looking at the outside of a person.

100% support your statement that exercise is good for you.

Unfortunate example -see Jim Fixx- may he rest in peace an ultra marathon runner in excellent shape who died of heart disease while running
Running guru Jim Fixx, who collapsed and died of... - UPI Archives

 

The mortality rate for humans is still 100%.
My goal when I retired from the canoe-club was to maintain physical norms for my age band (They go up to 65+) and for a while I tried to pass a notional USMC fitness test for my age group.

The last two years or so have been rough on my ego in that department but I'm back to doing 'office Olympics' and closing the rings on my iwatchthingy.
Telco Central Offices tend these days to offer something akin to an indoor track, and unlike the old days they ARE air-conditioned but the set point is between 75-80 degrees (in F - for Freedom units.)

USN standards are probably the easiest in the military to stay current with - and a good place to start if (like me) you were blessed with more of a 'dad-bod' than not.
https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Support/Culture%20Resilience/Physical/Guide_5-Physical_Readiness_Test_PRT_JAN_2023.pdf

 

We can't all be George Burns (smoking cigars & sucking down a martini everyday & still living to 100)

 

My goals are being able to eat regularly and sleep indoors and not being a burden to my family.
I've left instructions to the ladies in my orbit that if I forget who they are to just drive me to Portland and leave me at a bus stop.

 

You're making me miss my PT days! Mon/Wed/Fri 0600 at the base gym....we'd do 30-minutes of stretching and group exercises then go off to play basketball or racquetball (my favorite) or hit the weight room or run on the track outside or treadmills inside. We'd wrap it up around 0800, shower, then head to work. (No such thing as a 40-hour work week...you stayed until the job got done...sometimes that meant working 90-hours, especially if we were getting things ready to deploy to Europe or the Middle East.)

 

I dropped off my 2014 Tundra at my local mechanic...he's going to reseal the gasket in my beautiful 5.7L V-8 (it's been oozing out for a couple of years.)
Anyway, he had a 2017 Ford F-350 diesel with turbo up on the lift! Ginormous truck! I asked what she was having done and she needs a new engine and turbos. WHAT? Yep, the owner drove her over 15,000 miles without an oil change....that'll do it with a turbo. Estimate was $27,000 OUCH! Made my $933 estimate for resealing my front timing chain seem like nothing! (Toyota dealer quoted $2,600)

 

Won't be jogging this morning



Treadmill here I come

 

Dodge Ford & GM diesels have ALL been using a high pressure Bosch injector pump that has failed due to less lubricity in USA fuel than in Europe. Big class action meant GM & Dodge had the good sense to switch injector pumps & start paying out for damage caused when the pumps fail. Ford? They've doubled down and haven't changed out their pumps as that would show proof & acknowledge fault. imo fault looks evident either way. Anywho the failure rate is 4%, so they are playing the odds.
.

 

What gets damaged when the pump fails?

 

Toyota Tundras are beasts! I recently decided to have the timing belt replaced on my 2000 Tundra V8 before it stranded me due to aging rubber.