SomewhereonNeptune

Given the experience that a lot of guys had in younger years with priests (maybe as altar boys getting flute practice), I see the logic in a church-as-cruise-spot. And every Unitarian service I've ever attended has been more like a seminar panel than a church service, so the comment about 'squishy' rings true for me.

Answered in another thread, but one was clergy (guess which religion) and the other was a somewhat distant friend, both at 15. I won't say my first experience with either gender but it was really, really, really young and posting that here would probably get me banned. Let's just say kids can get curious and we both were, and she took "Doctor" play very seriously. 😉

15, he was 46 and 'one of those priests'. I instigated it...that time. 😈 I'd heard rumors about him, and one day while out biking, I passed by the local haunt where guys would cruise for other guys. There was his blue panel van with all the rugs and pillows on the floor. I caught him by surprise and was the aggressor this time (he'd tried to engage me before). I decided that was the right time, so I parked my bike against the passenger side of the van and made it clear I was interested. I was horny, I wanted to experiment and I knew what he was there for. So I hopped in and we went at it in the back of the van. Not too much later in the same year, a slightly older friend (17) came out to me and we fooled around. He wanted to fuck me but he was small, constantly came in his shorts before he could even get it up, and he couldn't get hard enough to top me. Obviously that didn't go down so well. He did the same thing with a mutual friend, we've since talked about how clumsy it all was and had some laughs. 😂🤣 No regrets on either, other than wishing I'd started earlier on and had more fun when the opportunities arose, but I was really dense in reading signals. I feel like I missed a lot by being timid and not taking chances. As someone else said, I knew from an earlier age that I was either bi/gay/pansexual or...just a freak. If I could wind the clock back, I wouldn't be as scared to experience things.

I'm just shy of 60 now and I don't necessarily look it (no wrinkles, no crow's feet, no clear indications found in most men of a certain age). Recently hit on by someone 34 who couldn't believe my age. Same with a 29 year old who thought I was hot (I'm modest). It was weird at first for me, but I'm not complaining because -- again, bisexual perspective -- most women my age look that much plus a few, and guys haven't figured out you can't do constant sun without using facial products. I've stopped saying my age unless directly asked, then I'll let them guess. 😉

Too late, almost did. Many years ago I was being recruited by a bank in Perth for a role there. Things ultimately didn't pan out, but I was actually looking forward to the adventure. Ok, maybe not the heat and remoteness though.

I once worked with someone in Tucson who lamented his choice of locale. Heat is heat...sorta. Spent 2022 in the UK during their record heat (40C or 105F where I was) where no one had air conditioning, including the friends with whom I stayed. I consider us fortunate here because we deal with it better. OTOH, they have rail tracks that melt and warp and tarmac that becomes like the La Brea Tar Pits when it exceeds around 95F. Runways melted. I'm not kidding. I wouldn't consider Palm Springs. The lifestyle might be really fucking awesome, but it's a desert and as you said, they're racing headlong into water issues. Makes St. Pete look pretty good. 😊

That was the problem with the Philippines as well. 9 degrees north of the equator and living in 90 degree temps with equal humidity percentage and not much breeze. Makes hydration an issue and their public water isn't potable. I can confirm that it's like Hell in summer. And I stayed with friends who had screens and fans, no air con, so if you like heat, imagine that same temperature air being blown around in a hot little house. Baguio isn't bad because of the elevation and cooler climate. I'd wondered if Thailand had the same issues. The government stability worries me as to what next week's coup would be, but I'm not sure it changes very much for the average person. I've heard it compared to the notion of turning "Titanic" into a weekly series: at the end of each episode...the ship sinks. That or Groundhog's Day. 🤣 I don't think I'd settle in a city like Bangkok or Pattaya or Phuket, but don't know.

Thanks for the perspectives. Two countries are popping up on my list if I liquidate here and pick up for there. Philippines is one, though not Metro Manila, because I know people there. So I'd have a support structure. Thailand is the other, and I've heard great things about it but I need to hear more. Can you share your perspectives on having visited and whether a semi-adventurous traveler could have or make a life there? Would love to hear them if you want to DM.

"But it's a dry heat." 🤣 (So's an oven)

I hate to sound like everyone else, but you somewhat adjust to summer weather in Florida. It's still hot, sure. But you realize in some ways it's better than the frigid cold I endured in both NY and Philly. And we don't get the storms with 3 feet of snow. A couple other things make it more tolerable: Air Conditioning. Everyone tends to live in it during the worst of summer. Timing your tasks. We do things earlier and later in the day to avoid mid-day sweltering. I'll never be the guy on the links in the middle of the day. Did it once and that was once too many. Everyone (almost) has a pool. And ceiling fans. And ceiling fans at the pool. Beaching it. It's a good 10 degrees cooler by the water than it is further inland, plus you get the breeze off the water. Those help here, but a good 10 minutes outdoors in August and you've lost some water weight. It's better than the Philippines in the same months, which I've done without air conditioning when staying with friends. That's more brutal. And keep in mind that Philly in summer isn't that much different.

40's? 40's!? Ha! We would have loved that where it got down to a record on the Gulf Coast a couple nights: Officially below freezing. Which in Florida only means one thing: Watch for frozen Iguanas and Geckos falling from trees. And my pussy spending the day burrowing into anything warm. 🤣 (For clarity, he's a male Tabby cat that thinks his name is "No!")

I'm inclined to agree with you because if you look at Bang Bros and the U.S.C 2257 disclosures, it continues to list their address as Miami. If it was illegal, I'm inclined to think that there would be a huge stink in the media and by politicians and a certain governor to make sure that was shut down. Probably true. But those of us familiar with NYC and Times Square pre-and-post Giuliani recognize that one of the things he cracked down on were "quality of life crimes" and ensuring that 42nd Street was transformed from the inherent sleaziness we all knew and loved (I still remember the theaters with live sex on stage and hookers working the crowd) into an urban Disneyfied experience that now just seems comical. Perhaps safer...but comical. I can't imagine eradicating all of that from Miami and letting more people go to Lauderdale. 🤣

Oh what will Bang Bros (BangBus, etc.) ever do if they can't produce around Miami? 🤣

I recall that as well being a student in NY's Greenwich Village not far from Christopher Street. Hearing about this sickness that was attributed to M/M sex and IV drug use, and being barely 18 at the time, was sobering. Do I live submit to desires or do I stifle that urge? I may be alive now because I chose the latter. And the only people who used condoms at the time were guys trying to prevent their girl from getting pregnant. How times change.

As often as possible. 😉

I don't want to sound like a Fauci conspiracy theory though there's potentially some valid linkage between NIH/Fauci and Gain of Function work. Simply, I don't support the curtailment of freedoms and think that we've gone a few steps too far with Big Pharma due to lobbying and massive campaign contributions. No big surprise to that. But locking down and jailing people is rather dystopian and represents the China approach where the CCP dictates everything you can do. If the US and other countries took such a heavy-handed approach, where could we then say we have a moral superiority over that?

It was Wuhan, think the other is like a "clan". 🤣 I think there's more to the story than just that. If I recall, he suggested shutting down the borders and transit and was panned for that approach and branded a racist without the benefit of explaining the protocols. But let's go back. China had evidence of this long before the first reported cases were in the US and also was not at all forthcoming to share their details in order to be a good global citizen. I imagine if they did so we'd have had much more information about how the virus developed, the etymology, transmission, and we could have been properly ahead of things before they'd gotten out of hand. But again, despite saying that this wasn't a political issue, people are quick to suggest "45 bad, 46 good" when there's a deeper story. We put the entire globe into lockdown but did that truly resolve anything? Did we "stop the spread"? We make decisions based on the knowledge on hand, and balancing that with the needs of the population. I'm sure we'll disagree on this point, or how the media handled narratives (e.g. if you believed the media, you'd think bodies in Florida were piling up when in fact they weren't and the truth was that we have a more elderly and susceptible population), but respectfully I'm inclined to suggest there was a balancing act and we were left to figure things out based on incomplete information.

Wasn't one of those protocols to have included screening and refusing entry from countries that were the origin? I think that was suggested and was roundly panned as being 'racist'. Anyone who's ever flown through Hong Kong understands how the Chinese government screens and pulls out anyone who exhibits an above-normal temperature through temporal and infra-red scanning, and no one's called that as racist versus being the prudent thing to do. If there is another protocol you had in mind, please enlighten us as I for one may not know.

I struggle with some of this because there are multiple causes, some perhaps political, others economic, still others supply-chain. Let's face it, we have a codependency issue with China now because of the amount of manufacturing that has been transferred into a single country. That needs to change to where that supply-chain needs to include other countries in both hemispheres to be manageable when a supply-chain issue occurs with one source. I question the need for government continuing to offer COVID supports into 2021 and beyond, making many people accustomed to not re-entering the labor market and letting jobs go unfilled. So the US goes into debt and spends, resulting in more money entering the economy, which in turn deflates the dollar's value and leads to inflation further down. So when all of that took root a year or so later, the Federal Reserve responded by raising interest rates to counter inflationary pressures, which caused mortgage rates to double or more and effectively killed real estate demand because housing prices had spiked before then. You can see the cycle. Now years later we still have COVID, we're finding out that there are issues with the MRNA versions of vaccines and that the "2 weeks to halt the spread" wasn't necessarily that answer. Plus we were fed a series of what ended up being misleading information about just what these vaccines would do. 'They'll prevent COVID...errr...well they'll prevent the recurrence after you've gotten it once....umm....well, actually it won't be as bad the next time around', etc. I got COVID post-vaccine, it was still pretty nasty but not more so for me than the average flu (your mileage may vary). But hindsight is always 20/20. I'm not in favor of tariffs. I had a business venture with someone that frankly went bust because trying to get microprocessors due to China closures became nearly impossible. Adding more tariffs? Not a great answer and it won't help open markets.

Really astute observations. I think we now know that Mr. Biden is about as sharp as a marble, and we've watched as his mental faculties have rapidly declined. Our media has bent over backwards to make us believe the opposite. Not surprisingly, the American electorate had an even worse view of Kamala Harris, and it's shocking how people have suddenly rallied around her like the second coming of Christ after complaining that she wasn't what they selected or voted for. Not sure I'll understand that. (Disclaimer: Not a huge fan of Trump either, but I'm holding my nose since I know what we'd be getting). In this country in 2020, the media and Democratic flacks outright lied about the existence of a Hunter Biden laptop as being "fake news" or a "Russian conspiracy". About 15 months later, the story was released that it was real and so was the content found on it, including Hunter using his father's status for enrichment. After you witness that, you realize that you either disregard all media as propaganda tools a la Soviet-era Russia, or recognize that most of the major media sources are owned by a handful of people who can easily tilt the narrative as they like. People in China already know not to trust the media because they know it's propaganda. They haven't figured that out in the US. The Europeans I know are much more savvy as well. Every political candidate promises things they cannot deliver, including grandiose and outrageous things. In this country, the President needs a plurality of Congress of the Senate to ratify that, and that hasn't been overwhelmingly the case for quite some time. Even Constitutional amendments need to be ratified by 75% of the individual states, and those are so divided as to be unlikely. No one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people. - H.L. Mencken

I do appreciate @nanana's premise for the post. Often here, I feel as a pariah for having a non-left-leaning view. I think all folks should have a right to self-express without feeling trolled. Although I self-describe as center-right leaning -- fiscal conservative, social libertarian -- a couple other folks have made the point that our more left-leaning friends here bring a great deal of passion to their points. That isn't always a bad thing. But the national dialogue has more become "them versus us" focused, a tactic designed to divide rather than unite us. Ultimately, we have more in common than differences when it comes to the desire for equality, inclusion, basic human respect, and the needs for quality healthcare and social care for those more at risk or vulnerable, affordable housing, and decent jobs that are not undermined by runaway inflation. Those aren't always values that have a D or R associated to them. For all sorts of reasons, we've watched as people can't afford housing, food, basic necessities, and face an increasing cost of living. Economically, and for me personally, the labor market isn't in a healthy position -- I and others have seen salaries and compensation shrink and the quality of jobs has dried like a puddle in the desert. But here we are being divided over "he vs. she" arguments and media biases that are designed to foment dissension. We're more focused on more esoteric disagreements on items like drag queen story hours. I for one am not buying it because once you get past those things, an almost permanent division in the population will still be there arguing on whether we should say "six or half-a-dozen" (or tastes great versus less filling, or what have you) when in reality as Americans we come together in times of crisis. Meanwhile, we're all still breathing the same air, walking the same ground, and just trying to make happy lives for ourselves. So is that a point on which we can generally agree?

I recall Irma (I think) where they advised people on the Gulf to evacuate to Orlando, and everyone went in that direction only for that storm to follow them there. I'm out beyond Zone E here and 60 feet above sea level, so I'm where they evacuate Zones A-E into. I've told others that my place is somewhat like a bunker in that it primarily faces into its own courtyard versus being exposed on four sides by windows to winds. It's held its own through a Cat 4 hit, not sure I want to see a Cat-5 as anything other than a network cable.

And apparently no limit to how much you insist on extending your arguments and inflicting your views on everyone in a way that frankly becomes ever so arrogant and annoying. We're never going to agree, and it's like rolling in slop with a pig: You both get dirty, but the pig seems to enjoy it. Let's make it a point to avoid one another, shall we? I fully intend to since we apparently cannot put you on mute as a moderator.

I'm only going to ask this question: What exactly was Harris expected to do other than divert attention away from the task at hand, which was managing a crisis? I'm from Florida. Milton passed directly over me on its way from the coast as a Cat 3. Know a lot of people who were wiped out completely between the two storms. DeSantis doesn't owe Harris a return call, but he does owe the residents of this state his full attention and focus on a very massive situation and its response. And that he's done. While people may disagree with some of his stances or agree with some inaccurate media portrayals, I cannot fault him for the attention he's given to being governor and directing efforts in a difficult time. The only benefit for anyone is Harris getting a photo op. Floridians don't need a photo op with a candidate.

Same for me, no other damage, but some relatives south of me were flooded out.