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  • BOTL UPCOMING MAINTENANCE

    Hi Everyone, as mentioned in my introduction post, BOTL needs quite a bit of updating, patching and whatever else I might come across. Over time BOTL may be unreachable on occasion as I do migrations or updates, etc. Just be patient - we'll be back! I'll generally try to keep these maintenances until later in the evenings.

How's your day going?

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Took a new job at the end of August. I stepped into a management role at a national corporation and it has been way more stress and chaos than I imagined for the type of work I'm doing. Luckily my direct supervisor is a pretty cool dude and very understanding of my communication style. He hasn't been phased by my nearly weekly crash outs over the idiocy and unrealistic expectations. In fact, I've been mentioned as part of the pool for potential promotions in the next six months.

Plus, I've been dealing with a lot of physical and mental health challenges in the family. So, my limited smoking time has been mainly focused on disconnecting and watching mind numbing YouTube videos.

Overall, not great times, but I'm content and doing okay.
 
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I'm home alone with a fridge full of beer and horses, chickens, cats, and dogs to take care of.
Thank God for the beer, cuz my wife has quite the accumulation of creatures.
My father in law lives with us. So, every time he goes back home we get stuck with the 20 chickens, two yard cats, and half acre vegetable garden. I keep thinking, I structured my whole life to avoid ever doing farm work again, but it found me. :LOL:
 

highsierrasmokin'

The battle's fought, the deed is done
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Deep in the woods, Middle Georgia
I'm going to the grocery store this morning, then to the bottle shop:cool:, back to the house to get a rack of ribs going and watch college football all day.
Then down to Florida possibly tomorrow. We're gonna drive to Jacksonville and then down the Atlantic coast to Key West and then drive back up the gulf coast side and up through Tampa Bay. Fingers crossed @Alwayslit might be in town for a cigar. It's my wifes 50th birthday and this is what she wanted to do, so it should be interesting.
If any of you have been down there and have some advice or must see stuff please let me know.(y)
 

icehog3

Outlaw Hockey Biker
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It's final. We got a place on the beach in Santa Rosa Beach for a couple days then to New Orleans for 3 days.
Anybody ever been to NO??? There's a shit ton of cigar shops. I saw Cigar Factory on there and I have smoked a couple of their cigars before.
Any of you fellas been there?
I was in New Orleans a few years back for a herf, Matt. We had an amazing space at the Bourbon Orleans when they used to allow cigar smoking. Hit a few bars, but didn't venture into any cigar shops.
 

mitetak

Staff member
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We've had a bit of a rollercoaster here.

Scheduled the replacement of all of our windows in the house. We hadn't planned on doing that for at least a year or two. But the price was right (less than 10k to do 8 windows that are 3'x6' and two smaller windows).

We also lost one of our doggos. We had three dogs. A frenchie, a mini dachshund and an english/american bulldog mix. When the wife and son came down we brought the frenchie. The mini weiner was acquired down here. We left the english up in NY with my stepson. When we moved my stepson down to MS with us about a month ago, all of the dogs were united.

Well a week ago this past sunday our English woke up fine. But mid morning he definitely wasn't right. Spent trying the normal stuff and it just didn't help. So off to the emergency vet - they suspected inner ear infection. Started treatment for that and planned to get into our vet first thing in the AM. Wife calls them in the AM - we get him in around 9. They take him and do an xray right away. Notice he's got fluid around his heart, filling his abdomen, etc. So he stays. They work on getting the fluid out during the day, while trying to make sure he's hydrated, etc.

We call end of day - and they suggest they keep him overnight as he hasn't improved a ton. Interesting bit is that they dont staff overnight, so they ask us to take him back to the E-Vets who will watch him overnight and then we'll pick him up in the AM and back to the regular vet he goes. (this is weird but hey whatever makes sure he's got someone watching)

I take the stepson with me and we head to the vets to grab him and move him. We get there and the vet let us know they had just done an ultrasound because they didn't like how he hadn't improved significantly. They found a tumor at the base of his heart (amongst other things like a pulmonary artery that was about 4 times too large).

So we made THE decision. The wife and kid came down to the vets office and we said our goodbyes :(

That was a rough day - especially on the wife and stepson. They take pet losses real hard for quite a while after.

One thing we often do is visit local shelters after losing a pet. There's no interest in a new dog. But we just want to be around others, pet them, etc.

So we did that this past friday. And for the first time ever ... we adopted one. Again no intentions, but this guy was special it seems.

So he was on a stray hold, we had to wait until Monday and he needed a neuter. So yesterday afternoon we took him home finally.

He's a three year old great dane who is underweight at 95 lbs. His name is Otis. I'll follow up with pictures in a bit. But so far he's getting along pretty well with the little dogs and he's hating that we wont let him lick the neuter wound. He gets the cone of shame if he doesn't listen!

He definitely came from a home at some point. He understands sit and he gives a paw for treats. He did NOT want to get into my truck so I'm wondering if someone didn't just dump him because they couldn't handle his size.

But right now he's passed out on the floor behind me and he spent the night snuggling in my stepson's bed with him. So I think he's going to be ok.
 

highsierrasmokin'

The battle's fought, the deed is done
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Deep in the woods, Middle Georgia
How was the 50th
It was nice. Santa Rosa Beach was definitely the highlight. Great to finally see New Orleans but that place is a shit show. Especially the French Quarter.
Super shady. Not a very comfortable place to visit. That was the first and last time we will go to NOLA.
 
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