CrushedVamp

Here in the United States anyway, "women" bikes do have step through frames were as "mens" bikes do. Some bikes are a sort of hybrid where they are nearly step-thru but not as low as a women's bike style. My daughter's mountain bike is that way, halfway between the two extremes.

I wonder deeply if it has to do with litigation? I see that everywhere, for instance new cars. It really is hard now to tell if a car is a Honda CRV, A Toyota Rav4, or a Ford Escape... they really all look very similar. And the reason for that is litigation. With ever car having to abide by the same crash worthy testing procedures, along with strict gas mileage allowances, etc, in order for everyone to meet the new standards, the creative box they can fit into means car's profiles, unibody, and seat makeup pretty much will be the same. Not sure what I mean? Consider the making of a pair of high heels. Lets say we come up with a contest where we all make a pair of high heels. The first pair has loose constraints. A pair of high heels, 13 CM tall, with Stilleto heel. In that, there would be a huge variation on what we all create. But, add in more parameters like color, made of leather and plastic, must enclose the toes via points, and have a closed arch, and suddenly all the shoes become incredibly similar. It matters little if it is cars, high heels, or even houses... everything to me is becoming bland because of fear of litigation. Couple all this with a more entitled society and I can envision a woman slipping on a banana peel, claiming it was not her fault because it was actually the style of shoe she was forced to wear, and soon everyone is wearing sneakers/trainers.

To me... and this is quite judgmental I know, it just seems those who are less disciplined enjoy AI whereas others of us do not. I do not even have voice recognition toggled on my phone, whereas my wife does. She has not typed a thing into her phone for a year and it is quite comical. A person without patience she screams at her phone often because it does not understand what she is trying to say and I just laugh because had she typed it out it would have just been wayyyyyyy faster. But as a teacher she uses AI for everything, especially establishing her lesson plans which to me means, she is proving she has little value. But she wants quicker/easier on everything in life. Me, I am more disciplined and like to work things out for myself. Often, when faced with easier to do or harder, I chose harder because life experience has shown that is the better path to take long term. A case in point: I walk 5-7 miles a day for weight loss, she uses medical injections. As for Fuzzy Logic and AI, I think that was a form of early AI. The washer and dryer combination units I see advertised as AI do indeed spin faster if they detect shaking, but also detect the moisture content of the clothes inside. There really is no fuzzy logic there as it either is or is not under a certain percentage of moisture content. But I think the AI part comes into play where the logic in the PLC allows it to keep going, or stop, based on what those sensors depict.

Because how much money you put into the house is immaterial because it can be wholly deducted off your taxes. It is however, a good way to show how much work had to go into a property. It is not perfect I realize, as it is possible to put in $50,000 worth of electrical work and be something no one would ever notice, but as a rule $50,000 generally shows a fair amount of work went into a property. $10,000... not so much. It is why I used the amounts to show how much work went into the place. But the actually amount spent has no basis on the profit of a house. It can be completed deducted off your income taxes.

I am NOT a shorts wearer either, no matter how hot it is outside. Here, I do not think I am in the minority, but a few men do wear shorts all year, enough so that no one gives them a second look. I remember being at my chiropractor's office and a man came in wearing shorts, I remember because he kind of looked funny stomping off his shoes because we were having a snow storm and six inches of snow (150 mm) was outside. For dressing up, which you guys and gals know I do almost always, for truly formal events I do wear true dress shoes, but about 80 percent of the time I do wear plimsolls. The reason is simple. I try and match my shoes to my pants. With so many color variations of plimsolls, I can do that easily. And they are comfortable, easy to wash, and look good in my opinion. In super formal settings, not so much, but they are a huge staple of my fashion sense right now.

That is great to hear @Puffer but atlas with my new home, all that is here is woman wearing much boots it seems. (Lots of fisherwoman). But as the saying says, "what is seen in Europe, will be seen in the United States the following year. I saw that myself. It was around 2008 when I was in Ireland and saw a new fashion trend I never saw before, the miniskirt worn with leggings underneath it so those who were more timid could feel a little more secure. I liked the look, and it was but a year later it was suddenly all the rage in the United States... in 2009!

This is so true and yet I find myself rather jaded. As many on here know, we buy and sell a lot of property. Not really flipping them, but in a way too... kind of. This last house though, to be closed on in two weeks, really did it for me. I bought it for $180,000, (154,000 Euro) put $50,000 (43,000 Euro) into it in just materials with me doing the carpentry work, and ended up selling it for $250,000 (215,000 euro). It took me 2 years to do, working at a full-time job, which is not bad, an additional $70,000 (60,000), or $35,000 (30,000 Euro) a year for what amounts to a part-time side-hustle. But it seems like a lot of work and effort for $35,000 (30,000 Euro) a year? With this new house, located on an island on a point of land where every window has an ocean view, we paid $116,000 (99,000 Euro). It needs a lot of work though, which I think will be around $40,000 (34,000 Euro). The insurance company tells me the replacement value for this house is $203,000 (174,000 Euro), so that is only a gain of $87,000 (75,000 Euro), assuming I can sell the rebuilt house for that much money. It is good to stay busy, and I like carpentry, but I am not so sure the numbers are really working. Maybe I am just getting old though and tired of building new kitchens and bathrooms! I am not losing money, which is good, but it just does not seem to be a huge moneymaker for me either. I am really starting to question my life choices.

I think when it comes to the high heel height of what is acceptable to wear or not, I get the win for being the most dumb! When I first met my wife, and found out she LOVED high heels, I wanted to get some for her as a gift. At the time, about 2012'ish, there were far more choices in stores, but the clerk working there was not a whole lot of help. So when a woman was there buying shoes I asked her what would be an appropriate pair for my wife to wear to church. She helped me pick out a pair and said something I will never forget, "just remember, for heels at church you never want to go over 3.5 inches (9 CM)". My wife does have a few 10 CM's, and a very few 12 cm's, but when I buy her shoes I never go over 9 cm so she can wear them on dates as well as to church. But yes... my height standard for church was set by some literal random stranger in a store 14 years ago! Yep; that is dumb! (Edited after I found a picture of her in those first heels I ever bought for her. The lady in the post above helped me pick these shoes out. Just keep in mind this was in 2012).

This in no way relates to what many of you are seeing in scale, but I was talking with a doctor; a woman who told me she was 29 years old. When she found out where I lived, she mentioned she had been there to hike the many trails. Since I walk the 4.5 mile loop every day, we got talking about the difficulty of it, to which she said, "it's not a difficult hike. Not one I would do wearing my high heels though..." It just surprised me as she looked a bit more earth-based and yet used high heels to make a point on the trail's difficulty. In the office she was wearing high heeled knee-high boots so I guess it should not have been a surprise. I was glad to see and hear the younger generation at least has some in their closets!

I love sweater dresses as a whole. My favorite dress of my wife's is one. You would have to know us, but we banter back and forth a lot and often make these silly bets. Well, we were at the local mall and eating at the food court and beside us was a small woman's boutique. Way up high they had this sweater and so it began. I said it was a sweaterdress, and the wife said it was way too short to be a dress and was just a long sweater. So after eating we asked the clerk and sure enough I was right, it was a sweaterdress. A good clerk, her next words were, "would you like to buy it?" Sure enough, one in her size went home with us. I actually see it in several pictures now. We buy and sell a lot of property and on one such purchase, we are pictured with her wearing it. She likes it because she can tame its truncated hemline with leggings for a demure look, or go sassy and leave it short pairing it with pantyhose/tights.

I'm back. Nothing serious, I just moved to the new place and did not have internet here for awhile. I got things switched over this morning... As for your outreach... good for you and your church @mlroseplant I have always said as a Christian myself that we need to get up and get out there. When I was a kid we went to a church that was close to the local high school and the kids who had cars and drivers licenses use to park at the church every morning, and one Sunday the pastor told the congregation, "he was scared to death, but went out and invited these "bad" kids to a youth group pizza party". I am glad he did, but even 40 years later, the question has to be asked, what possibly could the pastor be scared of? Teenagers... in cars? I just wanted to scream, "they are just kids. They aren't going to break your ribs because you invited them to church". So good for you for getting out there for our youth. Thanks to recent events colleges are on fire right now! So glad to hear it.

Where I live, it is not high heels that are a problem for a lady (or a man perhaps) riding a bike, but her dress. Around here there are bikes everywhere because of the Amish who do not believe in having cars. That means both genders ride bikes, but it is not uncommon to see a poor girl or woman who has the long hem of their dress wrapped up in the sprockets and chain. A few times I have had to stop and help them get their hemlines unwound. Since they ride at night even, you quickly learn where the Amish typically tread and drive slowly.

You must use an oil heater of some sort? We do not have canal boats where I live, but we do have lobster boats and those guys use smudge pots to heat their cabins. It works I guess. as here it can get pretty cold. The coldest I have ever seen was -32 degrees (F) which is pretty darn cold if anyone considers -36 degree (c) cold! Either way, I hope you get some heat in your canal boat. We are in the same boat... but not... as the heater in our new place is not working, but I think a simple matter to get it going. The water system is not working either, which makes me more concerned. As I told the wife, this will be a lofty adventure, but should get better with each passing day.

Wow, that is crazy. Up until last Friday I worked at a large hydroelectric dam and knew the realities of being sucked into the intakes in the forebay of the dam. We NEVER wore life vests when working in that area because it was so dangerous that we wanted death to overtake us quickly! And because of freeing debris coming down river we worked there a lot! We had 2 divers get killed doing what that woman went through in some ways. It is known that all dams leak but on the front of a dam the water pressure is so great that even a hole too small for a person to pass through can kill you. The pressure sucks you up against the dam and pins you there. These divers ran out of air before they could be unpinned. There is a plaque on the headwall that forever depicts their deaths.

My wife is an attractive lady, and while older now, at the time she always wore high heels and was 30 years old. She however, has a heart condition. Just a heart murmur, but pregnant with our last child, they were concerned the extra strain of the baby would put both at risk, so she was sent to a cardiologist for examination. So she has her short skirt and over-the-knee boots on, and she has to take them off. I am sitting in a chair overlooking her, but behind her is this older doctor who gets mostly older people in his office and she is unzippering her long boots and wearing a pretty short skirt since it was early and not really showing even a baby bump yet. and oh the smile that was on his face! He definitely liked her struggling to pull off her boots!