I’m an ‘assistant DJ’ I help out one of my friends at a lot of his gigs (mostly weddings last year, bit more variety this year). From what I’ve seen, their importance can not be understated, we did weddings with good ones, with bad ones, and of course the “save money and do it ourself” ones.

Five years ago I would be right there with you, but something has happened that has really changed how I view this. Laptops have become almost disposable computing, via pricing. When my cousins went through school, due to cost, it made sense to buy a moderately priced laptop to last all four years, but at this point?…

I’m going through a huge burnout ‘now’. I’m iffy on some of this...not because they don’t work, but they are more bandaids. Working out makes you feel better - sure, but it doesn’t prevent or stop burnout, it may slow its advance, but its still coming. I meditate frequently just to re-organize my thoughts as they…

And that transition is why I started looking up International markets and recipes. I came from the DC area to Raleigh NC. In and around DC is so diverse that down the street from my townhouse there is a shopping center with fresh fish pretty much any style, Jamaican spot, Peruvian chicken joint, Hibachi Grill (like…

The irony - at least as I’ve seen it, the better job you do at ‘one’ aspect of life, it often impacts others positively. Stop eating out to save money, you end up cooking more, that food will - unless you just added water to a bowl of salt - have less sodium than what you get at a restaurant, unless you dipped butter…

I’m listening to a podcast at work right now...with one earbud in, for a pair of headphones that only cost me about $20. they use a 3.5mm plug. I don’t have to worry about interference like I do my bluetooth phones that don’t work right when mowing the lawn. I can plug in one ear with no problem. when I don’t have…

I look at it this way - my wife would eat out at a restaurant - everyday, if she could. As a family, us going out is at least a $40 bill. That means depending on location, we could not go out to eat twice - and have enough for a hotel room for a night. Do that over the course of a couple months and you have the money…

And for me, sure my folks helped me move in on moving day, but moving out during holidays, and then for real at the end of the year - that was all me. Doing that solo sucked, pack light.

Aye. My wife and I go back and forth on this, she misinterprets frugal as saying no to anything not essential, when its IMO really just prioritizing where cost go, and being smart about non-essentials. Going on a trip to the beach, instead of planning on buying snacks along the way, just hit a grocery store before you…

Vertically is the biggest thing, it sums up everything. When I went to school (2000-2005), it was raise your bed up on cinderblocks (I was too big to trust it honestly), put your dresser in the closet for some - we put our TV on the dresser, so that was a no go, some folks turned their setup into bunkbeds of sorts,…

It’s meditation IMO. You just blank out and ease your mind, calm your focus, erase the fears, reset your frustrations. I’ve been doing a lot of coding at work (I’m not a programmer anymore, its a skill not a job title) and every now and then I catch myself possibly walking into bad code, or writing myself into a…

On second thought, with the way the market has gone, you might be better off finding an old PS2/PS3 controller from Hori/MadCatz, taking out the internals, drilling additional ports, and putting the Pii inside. Will come with buttons, everything wil lbe mounted, and it will be sturdy. The price will be comparable to…

I HAVE to cosign this. If your Plan A requires you to push yourself to extreme limits, then there is no room for a Plan B. I know my plan A is difficult and rarified air - so I invested in my Plan B first, unfortunatly, I had no understanding of how quickly and hard “life after school” would hit me, leaving me with…

Can’t do more than glance now, but if that controller is what they built, I think you are wasting your time - functionally. I’ve built a lot of joysticks - since the 90s really, my smallest was a little bigger than that, and it is simply too disproportionate to actually use. Hitting up will easily cause it to want to…

Interesting...I came up in 94-96 for middle school (for reference)

No, we’ve reduced over time greatly - as I mentioned its based around what you have to carry because of age. On us we typically just have wipes and a few diapers for short trips, in the car we have the change of clothes and additional supplies, and my daughter can eat ‘whatever’, so we only bring food when we are…

Dog poop bags - that’s brilliant.

Meh, I’ve never been peed on (its how i change the diaper), was pooed on once (oh it was a HILARIOUS story to see MY child like reaction due to consistency and location), and have only been spit up on like once (used wipes and good to go). I get more ‘damage’ done to my clothes via messy hands touching my jeans before…

Two, one boy 5 and one girl almost 1.5 now

I think the diaper bag role devolves as the kids age as well. Once they no longer need SPECIFIC food (milk/formula), things start to shift drastically. I think you CAN pack the perfect bag, there are just times where the extreme happens. To cover ourselves, we have a diaper bag, and a car. The car we always try to…