Daily "Check In" Thread For Us

[vnatale]

Greetings on this wonderful day to be alive. Come to think of it, every day is a wonderful day to be alive, even the sucky days have something good in store for us such as oxygen, and bodies to utilize that oxygen.

"You have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have." J. R. R. Tolkien

As soon as I complete and submit my second PPP SBA loan application for an a second organization I will be quite happy and relieved that both of those submissions are behind me and that I can now relax. All this necessary, critical work will have been done!

What a whirlwind of work it has been this week.

Generally, with changes in tax policies it's debated for months, there are all kinds of preliminary analyses done along the way, the Tax Act is passed, more final analyses our done, and have time to plan and implement your own strategies. It's a many, many, many months' long process from start to implementation.

In this case, the $2.2 Trillion Act was passed just a week ago. $349 billion is available for Small Business Relief (and its 800 pages of law just pertaining to this part of it).

Everyone is doing their best to analyze this law. I spent three days reading everything coming my way, trying to fathom what all the essentials are. What information would be needed to make an applications. What decisions to make. What strategies to take.

It's not until yesterday (Friday) that the SBA was even giving the banks the SBA guidelines for making the loans.

You have to decide whether you want to take this loan or go another route - deferral of paying payroll taxes for one and two years plus getting a payroll tax credit.

And, you want to decide this yesterday because $349 billion may sound like a lot of money but it's going to go FAST. Therefore you want to submit fast to try to be as close to the head of the line as possible.

We got a 3:22 PM email from one of our banks giving us the process to apply. Earlier in the day we had received another email from our other bank telling us this was so overwhelming to them and with the time they needed to assimilate and set up their process, they were not even taking applications until Monday.

We jumped right on the bank that was taking applications as of 3:22 PM yesterday and finally submitted that submission at 10:00 PM last night. However, during the first hour we were working on it the SBA application form changed from the one that had initially been on the bank's web site! Just an indication of how fast things were constantly changing and evolving during this process.

I'm now awaiting contact with a business owner so we can make the submission this morning for that business. Then I will no longer be chained to work!

Vinny

[Smith1776]

Hello, my fellow PPers. This morning is a great morning for coffee and a pastry. Mmmmmmm.

I had a phenomenal date yesterday with the girl down the street you all know about. We did some bike riding together down to the park and did a little Phantom of the Opera duet. Afterwards we headed to the Chipotle to get a couple of those burrito bowl things. Since eating-in isn't allowed, we took the food home and watched some Black Mirror. Other things ensued, then we had a great chat about where we'd like to travel after all of this is over.

Hope you guys all have an awesome day today.

[dualstow]

Ho hum, not nearly as good as yours, Smithers. I hope you wouldn’t have eaten in at Chipotle if it had been open. They were somewhat infamous for outbreaks even before corona.

But, the birds are singing, my cat is purring, and my wife is typing across the room. All comforting sounds.

[Smith1776]

Ho hum, not nearly as good as yours, Smithers. I hope you wouldn’t have eaten in at Chipotle if it had been open. They were somewhat infamous for outbreaks even before corona.

But, the birds are singing, my cat is purring, and my wife is typing across the room. All comforting sounds.

But Bill Ackman said Chipotle was fine!!!

That does sound like a great morning either way, my friend. How long have you been married?

[dualstow]

Twenty years, with a brief break & change after the first 10. Hopefully this one is for life. We’re doing well cooped up together, so that’s a good sign.

[Smith1776]

Twenty years, with a brief break & change after the first 10. Hopefully this one is for life. We’re doing well cooped up together, so that’s a good sign.

I hope to be happily married into the double digit years one day myself. Good for you guys.

[Libertarian666]

Twenty years, with a brief break & change after the first 10. Hopefully this one is for life. We’re doing well cooped up together, so that’s a good sign.

I hope to be happily married into the double digit years one day myself. Good for you guys.

22 years for me in a wonderful second marriage (my first wasn't that great ).

[Mountaineer]

Twenty years, with a brief break & change after the first 10. Hopefully this one is for life. We’re doing well cooped up together, so that’s a good sign.

I hope to be happily married into the double digit years one day myself. Good for you guys.

53 years in May. Dated 5 years before marriage and were classmates 5 years prior to our first date. We know each other quite well! And, we still like and love each other. I wish the same for you.

[Smith1776]

53 years in May. Dated 5 years before marriage and were classmates 5 years prior to our first date. We know each other quite well! And, we still like and love each other.

22 years for me in a wonderful second marriage (my first wasn't that great ).

Wow, you guys are really something. My parents' marriage hasn't exactly turned out to be an exemplary one. I may have to seek your sage counsel when I think I may have discovered "the one."

My dad's advice has pretty much just boiled down to "get a prenup."

[Smith1776]

That is the BEST fatherly advice I have EVER heard. You guys are smart, fact based people. If you enter into a legal contract (marriage) knowing that the law favors women and that you have a 60+% chance of the marriage ending before death, why would you not want legal and financial protection against the most likely outcome? You can 'hope' or 'be sure' it's forever all you want, statistically you will be wrong.

This sounds like experience. This sounds like hard earned personal experience. Or am I way off base?

[Libertarian666]

53 years in May. Dated 5 years before marriage and were classmates 5 years prior to our first date. We know each other quite well! And, we still like and love each other.

22 years for me in a wonderful second marriage (my first wasn't that great ).

Wow, you guys are really something. My parents' marriage hasn't exactly turned out to be an exemplary one. I may have to seek your sage counsel when I think I may have discovered "the one."

My dad's advice has pretty much just boiled down to "get a prenup."

My advice to a young man in the US or Canada is "emigrate to a less misandrist country".

[dualstow]

• A prenup is excellent advice. We have one, and although it may not be ironclad, I wouldn’t have gotten married this time without one.
• Since you guys like to pick on the Bagelheads, I have to add: those are some of the ugliest threads on that site. There are a lot of oldsters there whose attitude is: “I didn’t need one, so no one else should. It’s insulting to make your spouse get one.” Really made my blood boil.

[Smith1776]

My advice to a young man in the US or Canada is "emigrate to a less misandrist country".

LMAO. I recently had a conversation with a really stuck up girl who was of the social justice keyboard warrior type.

She asserted billionaires were evil. I asked why. One of the rationales was "because they're men." Uhhhh.

That kind of attitude does seem to be more and more prevalent.

[Smith1776]

• A prenup is excellent advice. We have one, and although it may not be ironclad, I wouldn’t have gotten married this time without one.
• Since you guys like to pick on the Bagelheads, I have to add: those are some of the ugliest threads on that site. There are a lot of oldsters there whose attitude is: “I didn’t need one, so no one else should. It’s insulting to make your spouse get one.” Really made my blood boil.

That seems incredibly short-sighted and even naive on their part. I'm going to have to check out some of these threads for myself.

[dualstow]

Do you know the English actor Lawrence Fox? I used to watch him on a detective show on public TV. Now he’s more famous (on twitter) for stating how he refuses to date woke women. I believe he’s a single father.

He said it succinctly. Something like, If you believe from the outset that you’re the victim of the other person, that’s not going to be a healthy relationship.

That seems incredibly short-sighted and even naive on their part. I'm going to have to check out some of these threads for myself.

The more recent threads have more pro-prenup voices than the older ones. Breaking news: Bagelheads is not the best source for relationship advice, even where it meets up with finance.
{Edit: combined posts}

[Smith1776]

Do you know the English actor Lawrence Fox? I used to watch him on a detective show on public TV. Now he’s more famous (on twitter) for stating how he refuses to date woke women. I believe he’s a single father.

He said it succinctly. Something like, If you believe from the outset that you’re the victim of the other person, that’s not going to be a healthy relationship.

Holy crap that just hit the nail on the head. Well said.

I'm all for the traditional definition of feminism: wanting equality. It seems now that there's so much of it that has morphed into wanting to "get back" at men or wanting to show how women are superior. Ummm that's not what it's supposed to be about.

p.s. when anyone says "English actor" the only face that comes to mind is Rowan Atkinson.

[Libertarian666]

My advice to a young man in the US or Canada is "emigrate to a less misandrist country".

LMAO. I recently had a conversation with a really stuck up girl who was of the social justice keyboard warrior type.

She asserted billionaires were evil. I asked why. One of the rationales was "because they're men." Uhhhh.

That kind of attitude does seem to be more and more prevalent.

Here's the real problem.
Let's say you find a girl to marry who seems perfectly reasonable and not at all misandrist.
If she changes her mind later under the unceasing barrage of propaganda spewed by the lamestream media, you are hosed.
Society, including the legal system, is on her side against you. And the more successful you are, the bigger a target you become.
An iron-clad prenup will help to some extent but it can't do anything about child support. It also can't keep you from being thrown out of your house if she calls the police and says "I'm scared".

I'm fortunate in that my wife isn't at all likely to try to use the legal system against me. But that's just good luck on my part.
Relying on good luck is not a plan.
Moving to a patriarchal country in Latin America or Eastern Europe might be a plan.

[dualstow]

My situation happened very close to pug’s: late 2008. But to be honest, I should have been the one to get out instead of holding on. She was the stronger one and now I’m grateful for it. In fact, we’re still friends. Just not meant to be under the same roof.

here’s a short-sighted post from Nov 2018:

Wow. I was expecting you to say one of you has millions of dollars or a start-up business. With the assets you have, and a lifetime to build together, are you that focused on money that 50/50 and 70/30 is such a cause for concern for community property? I'm a finance person, who has been divorced, and it wouldn't occur to me to have a pre-nup with the assets you have.

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=263839

[Libertarian666]

That is the BEST fatherly advice I have EVER heard. You guys are smart, fact based people. If you enter into a legal contract (marriage) knowing that the law favors women and that you have a 60+% chance of the marriage ending before death, why would you not want legal and financial protection against the most likely outcome? You can 'hope' or 'be sure' it's forever all you want, statistically you will be wrong.

This sounds like experience. This sounds like hard earned personal experience. Or am I way off base?

Correct. I have commented on this before you joined the community. Long story short, my wife of 25 years told me after our youngest left for college 12 years ago that "she just wasn't happy" and wanted out. In the middle of the 2008 recession. The amount of financial and emotional pain that followed can not be understated. Friends I have given specifics to have stated that a less stoic person would have ended up on medication or even killed themselves. I thought it was forever when I said "I do". If you think this can't happen to you, well, the data proves otherwise.

Here's my story:
My wife S and I met online. I wasn't looking for anything personal, just someone to help me by acting as a "test reader" for a technical book I was writing.

We spent about 6 months on that project, and for the first 3 months or so, I was enormously careful not to get into any personal discussions, since both of us were married and I took my vows seriously.

However, at some point in the project, S got annoyed at the fact that she was doing all this work for someone who wrote "like a robot", as she described it. She knew I had a pretty good sense of humor because I had used it in an apparently fairly successful attempt to keep the very technical material from being as dry as dust. So why was I being so "robotic" with her?

The answer, of course, is as I said before: I was being careful not to get into personal discussions because I was married and wanted to remain faithful.

But her sister egged her on to get some personal reaction to me, including getting her to send me a (perfectly safe for work) picture of her, and asking for some personal interaction with me.

So I sent her an essay that I had written about a college reunion, which was full of emotional reactions that I had experienced during the reunion. This made it clear to her that I was far from robotic, but nothing further developed for another month or so.

Then one night, I was having chest pains, and my wife said "Don't wake me up if you have to drive yourself to the hospital."

S is an RN, so I called her for advice, and after describing my symptoms, she said "It doesn't sound like a heart attack, but if you need anything, call me."

After I hung up the phone, it occurred to me that I was married to the wrong person.

So I called her back and asked her "If we were both single, would you be interested in a more personal relationship with me?"

There was a long silence, and I said "If that was the wrong question, forget I asked it." She said "No, it's okay. Yes, I would."

Then I went into the other room and told my wife I wanted a divorce. I proposed marriage to S the next day, if I recall correctly.

This probably seems a bit risky, especially considering that we had not met yet, although we had spoken on the phone a few times.

She said, "We have to meet first before I can answer that." So we made plans to meet, which were a bit complicated by the fact that she hadn't told her husband about this situation, although he knew about the book project.

We met a couple of months later, and things went very well. She wanted to wait to initiate her divorce until her daughter graduated from high school the next summer, but I didn't want to wait, and talked her into starting it right away, which I probably should not have done.

My divorce took about a year, as there was a waiting period and I got some resistance from my wife, although I didn't try to get any of her assets, which were much greater than mine. S also bent over backwards to be fair to her husband, with my complete support, since after all it wasn't his idea to get divorced. Why should it be worse for him than it had to be?

All this started 25 years ago, and we have been married for 22 years, at least as happily as anyone else I know.

[Smith1776]

Wow guys. I'm honestly blown away from the perspectives and wisdom here. It's not just the words. The underlying atmosphere of the posts speaks to a melting pot of grief, heartbreak, introspection, and growth. Thanks all for sharing.

I do want to get married some day. And even before reading your posts, making a lifetime promise of that magnitude has always seemed like this huge and insurmountable thing. Now it seems even more fraught with danger.

Libertarian666, between your unique portfolio and your shoot-from-the-hip marriage advice, I am mentally labelling you as "unorthodox but curiously practical."

[Libertarian666]

Wow guys. I'm honestly blown away from the perspectives and wisdom here. It's not just the words. The underlying atmosphere of the posts speaks to a melting pot of grief, heartbreak, introspection, and growth. Thanks all for sharing.

I do want to get married some day. And even before reading your posts, making a lifetime promise of that magnitude has always seemed like this huge and insurmountable thing. Now it seems even more fraught with danger.

Libertarian666, between your unique portfolio and your shoot-from-the-hip marriage advice, I am mentally labelling you as "unorthodox but curiously practical."

There's no question that I'm unorthodox and proudly so, but my marriage advice isn't really shoot-from-the-hip. I'm speaking not only from my own experience but that of hundreds of other stories I have followed on several marital advice and evolutionary psychology fora, as well as research into the legal hazards of getting married.

The takeaway is that marriage is extremely hazardous to men in most first-world western countries due to bias in the legal system.

[Smith1776]

There's no question that I'm unorthodox and proudly so, but my marriage advice isn't really shoot-from-the-hip. I'm speaking not only from my own experience but that of hundreds of other stories I have followed on several marital advice and evolutionary psychology fora, as well as research into the legal hazards of getting married.

The takeaway is that marriage is extremely hazardous to men in most first-world western countries due to bias in the legal system.

Your advice is definitely taken to heart. Based on what happened to my father, I am very inclined to believe you have it right.

[Libertarian666]

There's no question that I'm unorthodox and proudly so, but my marriage advice isn't really shoot-from-the-hip. I'm speaking not only from my own experience but that of hundreds of other stories I have followed on several marital advice and evolutionary psychology fora, as well as research into the legal hazards of getting married.

The takeaway is that marriage is extremely hazardous to men in most first-world western countries due to bias in the legal system.

Your advice is definitely taken to heart. Based on what happened to my father, I am very inclined to believe you have it right.

Thanks. If I can prevent one man from having his life ruined then I'll consider it a win.

[Mountaineer]

A blessed Palm Sunday to all. Hope all are well. I've not seen anything from Ad lately, maybe I've just missed seeing his posts?

Perhaps some of you would enjoy seeing a church service this morning. Here is one that is rather "normal" (except for the lack of congregants); it is not a big fancy production.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWJJg5_bXio

[Smith1776]

I'd like to take this moment to wish a blessed Palm Sunday to everyone as well!

This looks like another great morning for coffee and a Costco pastry. Yummmmm.

Today's agenda: workout, hang out with mom, finish module 2 in C programming class, finish final exam review for calc chapter 1, do readings for english, gather tax documents, watch movie, phone call with girl down the street, continue Resident Evil 2.

As I lay my head down on my pillow last night, the thought of adding TIPS to the PP occurred to me. It further occurred to me that you would have to name such a portfolio "Tip of the PP."