No.
Usual: If you voted 3rd party or didn't vote, you signed off on our current reality.
But you're not wrong, and I have plenty to disagree with AOC about, but they're all conversations for a better time; done and done.
"The road to wellsville" is hilarious, and over the top, but the parts you think are artistic license probably aren't.
hahaha see! All kidding aside as long as you have an RO system you're probably fine. I went for years making a gallon or so at a time with a sink adapter and collecting rainwater, but my background is in water and control systems, so I got bored and took it to far.
If you DO go for a full bog, I recommend those concrete mixing tubs you can get at home depot, and some bulk head fittings from amazon. A few things to watch out for are:
- Sizing plumbing to avoid siphoning/annoying gurgling
- slime mold/algae abatement.
I have all my "residents" in individual pots with sphagnum, so there's quite a lot of water, and lots of room for algae growth. I'm in the process of replacing one of the bays (the mixing bins I mentioned) with an artificial media I can grow a living moss bed across (no sunlight to the liquid phase means no algae), but I've noticed that does encourage slime molds. It also encourages fungus gnats but it being a carnivorious plant bed... that hasnt been an issue.
Don't listen to OP. This a gateway plant. Before you know it you'll have an artifical bog with automated RO systems and misters. Stay strong.
I can only hope, meet me at the corner of hollis and morris.
edit: seriously, from someone from a border town, we stand on guard for thee.
I can't stop laughing, it's like every inhibition has died.
THANK YOU. I know I can scroll through it, but I get tired of waiting.
Its a cheat code. It doesn't fix things but it helps everyone put the guns down and remember they're on the same side. Mix in when things are also good and it's aces. Just never forget it only works as long as you both do the other work.
Then you're doing better than most of us! I was worried I was to preachy lol.
Oh also, never underestimate the value of little things on the way home. Been friction at home? Spend $5 on some bath salts. If you guys are on the same page with the big stuff, the little stuff goes a long way. Shit saves marriages and heart attacks lol
Mimicking what others said here, but there is one very important thing: you and your wife need to be on the same page on this.
Owning a business involves your whole family, you can get better at it, but there's no way around it. Whatever your reasons are for taking this path, make sure they understand. When there's friction and you need to prioritize the business it will help a lot. The key that helping is to have it be a "we" decision though. You may reach a point where one of you wants to continue and the other doesn't. You will fight about it. But fighting about if this is getting you where you want to be better than an alternative path is a lot more productive than just fighting about stress.
Re: time: I always say that it's usually not the hours (although sometimes it certainly is), it's that you're never really off. You'll start to fall into rythem and realize what is critical and what can wait. It gets easier but it never gets easy.
For construction in general, without knowing the type: be very careful to set yourself up for success. Do not get saddled with loans for equipment that you don't need. Do not be afraid to rent on a per job basis for a while. If it helps you avoid oversizing/buying the wrong piece of equipment it's well worth it.
Grow your client base intentionally. You're going to have shitty customers. My best friend does a mix of residential, muni, and private. The shit developers have pulled on him is astounding ("I need to sell a house before I can pay you"). They will grind you on bills because they know their ongoing expenses are less than yours; you'll cave if they wait. Make liberal use of late fees (usually capped by state) and property leins. The art of "playing the game" and not getting rolled over is hard learned. When you get good clients that pay their bills on time and don't grind, do whatever you need to keep them. especially now, make sure there are material cost escalation and availability clauses in your contracts.
Last: avoid "the lifestyle". Do not judge your companys success on the fanciness of the equipment or what it's name is on. Judge it on the balance sheet. You have no idea what other firms books look like. Be intentional about your networking time. That vendor that hosted a golf outing, did you really get good connections out of it or did you go because you needed a break and could call it "work"? If it's the latter, would you have been more recharged taking a break with your wife around the house? Networking is intangible, you're going to be the only one who can make that call.
You will fuck all of this up, thats how you learn. But you CAN do this.
As someone who is generally on the more prepared side, the use case for most stuff falls far short of "doomsday". There is a ton to be said about things that are just generally useful in adverse situations. I've lived through a dozen or so storms that took out power for a few days (longest I think was 2 weeks). It's usually not a complete blackout everywhere.
Point being: I can see it being useful to have a bunch of info in something easily portable to say, double check breaker wiring helping your friend fix some stuff after the storm. Look up the emergency AM/CB/NOAA radio freqs. I have a lot of the resources on this thing on a server, but that's not mobile and would eat a lot of power just booting up. To package it nicely in a form factor like this would probably run me just about $189.
But the overall point is I think this falls on the extreme end of practical preparedness but I can absolutely see the use. Honestly the most practical thing on there are the books. Again, usually if a community gets hit bad you wind up with people that have power having a bunch of people stay over. Being able to allow multiple people stuff to read would help kill time.
All of that being said, its a distant second to the critical items that, again, have a huge range of uses: A solid first aide kit, 2 weeks of food (even if it's not awesome). I realize that's a luxury for a lot of people, but money is much better spent there first.
Strayed off topic a bit, but it's because while I don't think it makes a lot of sense to plan for SHTF scenarios, I do think we're going to see a general decay (but not elimination) of public services/utilities and an increasingly pissy climate. I think it's important for people to not fall into the bunker-prepper fantasy OR write off being more prepared than they're accustomed to.