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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: December 19th, 2023

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  • It’s not rude at all!

    It’s best if you stack similar plates together and put the silverware on top or leave it separately. Its also hekpful to have any leftover food on the top plate rather than smushed in the middle. If all the dishes are different shapes, biggest on the bottom like a pyramid.

    At the restaurant I worked, we had a bun for compost, trash, and recycle. So it could be helpful to keep trash out of the food scraps still on the plates. Please don’t leave trash in the cups, because we have to fish it out. Water is heavy and we can’t just throw out all the ice with the straw wrappers and the wrappers can’t go down the sink.



  • Your state likely has a web page designated for election results, so you could get information straight from the source for everything you voted for in your state and see which way your state goes for the presidential election. Your county website may also have a page to show whether any propositions were accepted or rejected.

    I’m not sure about a better source to see where all 50 states’ results are reported. Maybe Balllotpedia has something that updates. I’m not sure the federal government would have something because the official results won’t happen until January 6 when a joint session of Congress reads and counts the votes from the Electoral College (who doesn’t vote until December 17).


  • That’s not true in TX cities. I’ve lived in DFW, Houston metroplex, and Austin and have never had less than 15 polling places. They might not be next door to your work, but they are within a few monute drive.

    TX was also the first state to allow early voting and mandates that polls are open at least 9 hours the first week and at least 12 hours the second week and final day of voting. That’s the minimum, not maximum. There were also polling places open on the weekends.

    That said, I have heard (although haven’t researched it) that some very rural areas are more difficult to vote in with only a couple polling places in the county. So that could be the case if you live in the middle of nowhere, but you’ll pass polling places on your way to/from work. Just think of it like you would a doctor appointment and put it on your schedule.

    TX is pretty purple and is turning more blue each cycle.

    2004: Kerry lost by ~1.9 million votes 2008: Obama lost by ~990,000 votes 2012: Obama lost by ~1.2 million votes 2016: Clinton lost by ~800,000 votes 2020: Biden lost by ~640,000 votes

    In 2020, had just 3.5% more of the registered voters cast a ballot for Biden, he would have won. That’s about how many people voted each day of early voting in this election.


  • No caffeine after 2

    Take magnesium glycinate and threonate and hour or so before bed (threonate helps me sleep but it can cause vivid dreams)

    Make sure you’re comfortable in the bed both in terms of bed firmness/softness and temperature

    Use a fan to regulate temperature and create white noise

    Create a regular bedtime ritual (brush, floss, skincare, etc) and stick to it

    Chamomile tea can help relax

    I’ve also found drinking some cool/cold water right before attempting to sleep can help, because your body temperature drops as you go to sleep. I’m also a hot sleeper, so that also helps to cool down my core.

    Make a regular sleep schedule and stick to it as much as possible

    Write down any persistent thoughts, journal emotions, or create a to-do list from whatever might be running through your mind. Getting that out of my head and onto paper helps to alleviate any anxiety and can help stop my brain from planning and running amok while I’m lying there.

    I turn off all the lights and only use some color-changing LED lights an hour or so before bed. White lights are too bright and can keep me from sleeping. Red is darker, yet still bright enough to see where I’m walking. Red lights are also best for night vision, if you go stargazing, make sure you have red flashlights, because white light will destroy your night vision for 20 minutes or so.

    I also use a screen dimming app on my phone to bring the brightness down lower than the brightness setting will allow. On Apple devices, this is a regular setting in accessibility called “Reduce White Point”. Android still hasn’t figured out how to mimic that well and the best app I’ve found is Screen Dimmer Plus. It basically puts a Grey layer over whatever images show up on your phone and will mess with screenshots taken and it doesn’t change anything with the top 1/4" of the screen. The Reduce White Point setting on ios doesn’t mess with screenshots and changes the brightness for the whole screen. It’s one of the big disappointments I’ve had with android.

    Get Blackout curtains to block light from the windows

    Don’t exercise too close to bed. I also can’t take showers or baths too close to bed because they will disrupt my sleep.

    Slow breathing and closing your eyes will lying in bed can help if you’re restless. I’ve also found that if I’m having a particularly hard time falling asleep that getting out of bed and reading a book or fiction story before returning to bed can help.

    Choose something light and calming to watch as the last thing before you turn off your TV. Nature documentaries like Planet Earth or a light comedy can help you unwind and be a little more calm than watching an action, horror, or drama movie/TV show.

    Another thing I’ve read about if you’re restless is to work your way uo your body squeezing your muscles for a few seconds. So start with your feet and flex them a couple times for a couple seconds, then go uo to your calves, all the way up to your eyes. The flex and release is supposed to help release any muscles that are still clenching from the day.

    Spending time in nature during the day is supposed to help calm the mind and body, so finding 20-30 minutes to walk around a park could be helpful.

    Don’t stress out about not falling asleep. Lying there with your eyes closed with relaxing breaths is supposed to be restful for the body

    Potassium might help you relax and I think it’s also supposed to help with blood pressure if you’ve been consuming too much sodium. Not 100% sure on that, but I figure getting blood pressure under control can help you get better quality sleep.








  • It’s definitely been getting worse. The written directions aren’t always accurate. Exits sometimes have the wrong label. Lanes are missing on the highways when they merge and separate.

    I’ve also seen a similar thing with routes not always showing up or giving bad directions. It attempted to take me through a school bus barn and even through someone’s yard once.




  • Yes in 2018, the TX Supreme Court struck down plastic bag bans in Laredo even though the small city was saving something like $250,000/year in waterway cleanup. The other cities, including Austin, that had a plastic bag ban lifted their ban after the court ruling.

    It was great under the bag ban, the cities were so much cleaner. Grocery stores all had some thicker Reusable plastic bags that could be bought and would hold up for a long time as long as you didn’t overfill them. They also sold cloth bags, not to mention the people carrying Ikea bags around the stores.


  • They were at it at least a year before the 2016 election cycle. I believe it was the CIA that said Russia was the one that created the Jade Helm scare in 2015 through social media influence.

    Jade Helm was the name of a training operation of the US military in central TX near Temple. The Russians created a bunch of posts claiming that Obama was taking over local Walmarts and emptying them of all merchandise to use as prisoners for his political opponents. They even drew diagrams of the insides of the stores with the holding cells and everything. So great was the Russian influence that Abbott (who is still Governor of TX) ordered the TX National Guard to watch the training exercise and make sure that the US military wasn’t storming homes and taking prisoners.