mike carey

Ouch!

I read Eric's comments rather differently than you, perhaps I was missing the point. I took his point to be that there is sticker shock in being presented with a monthly HOA bill when people living in stand-alone houses have no such bill. While houses have no equivalent, if you add up all the necessary expenses in owning and maintaining a house it can come close to or even exceed HOA fees over time. I say over time because it may be possible to defer payment for housing maintenance. For example, you pay a monthly contribution in your HOA fee towards expenses like roof repairs or painting that may be years off, whereas if it's your house you don't need to find the money until the work is required.

Most Monday nights the ABC screens an episode of 'Australian Story', a half hour show charting some interesting aspect of the life of an Australian. Sometimes they are famous, sometimes just interesting, but it provides a generally sympathetic look at its subject. Last night's was searing. In 2014 an Australian couple, their three young children and the wife's father were on holidays in Amsterdam. The couple decided to stay on for a couple of extra days, while the grandfather took the children home to Perth for the start of the school term. They waved their family off in their taxi to catch their flight back to Australia, on flight MH17. You know what happened next. The program documents their grief and how they have rebuilt their lives since the world ended.

Oh, I'd meet up with you to talk about why that would be a good idea.

@WilliamM I've been to the US five times in the last three years or so, but for 10 days to two weeks (not for a weekend). I appreciate that people would not want to travel long distances for short periods away. I also appreciate that many people will limit their trips away to those they can take travelling by land. But if you're going to fly, I don't see any real difference between going to Florida and going to PV or Mazatlán, if you gotta fly, three or five hours is much the same.

I have as many avocados as I need. But wait, I crave that extra room .

If you're going to travel for a weekend, and going to fly, what does it matter how long (within reason) the flight is? Maybe it's because of where I am, but I would consider an 8 hour flight for a long weekend away. Like going to Singapore or Hong Kong. Even Bali is six hours.But I wouldn't go to LA for the weekend. Of course, I'd be happy to meet @Benjamin_Nicholas to discuss the various options. I won't comment on his recent blog post suggestion about his photos.

Touché. I can endorse the High Line and the transit museum was somewhere I wanted to see. And I can vouch for Eric as a delightful luncheon companion. I'm sure others would take that further.

I wouldn't pay much attention to the multiple of the escort's hourly rate, but rather to a multiple of the going rate in the city where you were. You need to consider that an escort might use the ratio between their hourly and overnight rates to signal which of those two types of sessions they prefer. If someone charges $1200 for an overnight you shouldn't care whether their hourly rate is $100 or $500.

I'll have you know I eat full-priced meals at Maccas!

The ending to this is a doozy. [MEDIA=twitter]1137658720698228736[/MEDIA]

Generally take your cues from how they identify. In this case you have the written text in the ad as well as physical appearance to go by, and he uses 'boy' so you're fairly safe using male pronouns. I said fairly safe because some prefer to use the singular 'they' so if there is any doubt you could do that (and if you have grammatical purist views that 'they' is always plural, get over them and remember even Shakespeare used it in the singular).

Pet feeding tip: Don't give your dog avocado because he won't be able to afford a dog house. [MEDIA=twitter]1011731090007052288[/MEDIA] (Maybe millennials being priced out of the housing market because they go to cafes and eat too much avocado toast is just an Australian thing.)

Oh, that's exactly what he was doing, but I thought @azdr0710 was using @BasketBaller's son's presence in California as a pretext for him to attend.

Nice try, AZDR, but I suspect you'll find that Navy Twin is only in San Diego for summer or part thereof, and that he'll be back in Annapolis in April.

Great to hear the latest instalment of this evolving story.

I wonder whether non-US flagged cruise companies will set up cruises from Santo Domingo or Kingston (or somewhere else).

That's one of the great things about Forum gatherings. You get to sit across the table from guys so you don't need to ask for a picture.

You wouldn't want an animal so big digging a burrow in your yard. As you said, not so much the household pet but some are raised in sanctuaries and may stay there if they can't be released successfully into the wild. A lot of rescued animals are pouch joeys and raising them can be tricky, when they are very young they can't regulate their body temperature. I've seen TV coverage of a carer keeping a [koala] joey in a pillow case next to their body.

Not about a 19 hour flight, but a somewhat shorter long haul sector. In the last couple of days the US Department of Transportation has given tentative approval for a Qantas-AA joint business venture for greater coordination of routes, fares and schedules between the two countries. As part of the proposal Qantas has indicated that when the venture receives final approval it will begin flying from Brisbane to Chicago, the airline's first service to ORD. They will also add BNE-SFO adding to existing routes from Sydney and Melbourne.

@quoththeraven and @latbear4blk I didn't like the idea of a GPS talking to me in a car, and have always been fairly good at reading a map in advance and driving according to what I'd worked out, and I didn't mind stopping to check. That said, I had one in my rental car in April and didn't mind it. I let it take me via a route I'd rather not have taken but from having checked on a map in advance I knew where I was going. What I liked about it was how it could redirect me back on course when I had taken a wrong turn, and how it told me which lane to get in on LA free-ways. I don't know that I'd buy one but for a rental I think I'll be using one.

[MEDIA=twitter]1135867176865357826[/MEDIA]

He does? I must check that out.

Spot on @MrMattBig.

No, from what my dealership says it's a weight issue, the suspension was just too heavy. So maybe that is 'boring Peugeot' but it's a serious practical issue.