Lost Boy

It really depends on what you mean by soul mate. Do I believe that heaven created a woman just for me? No, not at all. I think there are millions of women out there that I could be madly in love with. If you just mean a person that you find a deep connection with? Yes. Some women are more compatible than others. My wife believes in something called a Twin Flame. Kind of like a soul mate. I absolutely don't believe in Twin Flames. I think this a teaching of Satan. If you asked my wife, she believes me to be her soul mate, but probably not her Twin Flame. She says she doesn't like the guy who she thinks is her twin flame. To me it is all non-sense. I think soul mate is a stupid term. Celestial Companion is a better term. I think we choose our celestial companion and develop that relationship throughout our marriage. I think if you view someone as a soul mate, you will think that there is some kind of magic love that will keep you together. Absolutely not. Don't view your future wife as a soul mate. View her as someone who you will always work for and do all you can to love. This is your key to a wonderful marriage. If you think of her as a soul mate, you probably won't put the effort into the marriage that is required and you will soon find yourself unhappy. So please drop the soul mate terminology. it does you no good.

I find it interesting where people draw the line. For alcohol to get to the consumer there are many steps. Someone has to grow the crops. Someone has to make the alcohol. The alcohol is most likely going to go to at least one distributor and then to a store , to a sales clerk to the end user. Any point of the chain that is broken prevents the alcohol from reaching the end customer. Why is one link in the chain any less of an issue than another link? I am just musing not trying to judge you. I don't have the answer. If you were a farmer and the local manufacturer of alcohol wanted to buy your crop for $50k and the next best offer for non-alcoholic purposes was $45k, would you sell to the alcohol manufacturer? Or sell to someone else and lose 10% of your profits? Is making coffee as one of your tasks in you employment any better than making coffee as your only task?

I don't know if the change in character comes from the atonement or not, but certainly some heavenly help comes when we seek to better ourselves. The atonement affects all men. You only get a change of heart if you seek it.

I've spent plenty of time in Japan myself. Lived there 6 years and speak the language quite well. Yeah, the Japanese are racist. That said their racism is somehow different from American racism. I am not saying it is good... just different. Basically, I think they think of themselves as intellectually superior. I've been to around 40 countries and what I can say is that there are smart and stupid people wherever you go. The Japanese are usually a bit more disciplined though. And yes, I will catch people talking about me all the time on the train and in stores, etc. However, when I first went there it was kind of shocking to them to hear a foreigner speak Japanese. Now not nearly as much. What is fun is going there with an American Japanese that doesn't speak Japanese. You go to a restaurant and the waitress will always turn to the Japanese person to take the order. Of course that person doesn't have a clue as to what is being said. Good times.

Dang, I thought I had moved around a lot. I like the North West the best, but I don't currently live there. Maybe some day.

Home is home, but man I love to explore.

Ouch, never been outside the country? So much to see. I lived in Japan for 6 years. Absolutely fascinating country. So much to see and do there. Temples, shrines, beautiful mountains, rivers, lakes, hot springs, food, ocean, etc. I go back on occasion and never tire of exploring.

I used to work in the kitchen of a hospital and I would have to make coffee all the time. No one ever complained to me about the taste. Of course that was no Starbucks either.

OK, so this kind of goes along with the selling of Alcohol question. Do you permit your friends to drink coffee and alcohol at your house? My personal take is that if they want to bring it, they are welcome to and consume it so long as they don't get obnoxious or drunk to the point that they can't drive. And they have to take it home with them. I will buy coffee on occasion for when the in-laws come to visit. I figure my kids know what is right and wrong. Showing them that interacting with people that drink is not something to shun is not a bad thing.

So essentially what you are saying is that if you own a liquor shop, you are in a sense similar to God.... Hmmm that might be a tad blasphemous...😶

Who wants the US government to take weapons away from North Korea or Iran? North Korea and Iran are sovereign nations. I don't think we have the right to "take" away their weapons. We have the right to make agreements with them. I guess there is no real entity that has the authority to forbid us from invading either country, but without real justification, I don't see the US doing that. The smart thing is to do is negotiate with them and persuade them not to pursue nukes. Turn up the pressure when they don't agree. Or you can do a nuke agreement with them and then give them billions of dollars, but I won't mention what moron did that.

How do you determine where you draw the line? I don't believe there is any rule against members owning establishments that sell legal items such as alcohol and cigarettes.

I found a better solution. I put together a simple table showing how much more we would have to pay based on the price of the house. She knows how much money we save each month. So I ended up telling her the real number for what we are approved and then went over the table with her. She agreed that the amount I proposed was about our limit.

My go to sauce is Endorphin Rush. it isn't the hottest out there at 33K scoville, but the flavor is good. The burn is quick and then subsides. Great stuff.

Was in Japan a week or so back. I have been doing a low carb diet this year, but I was unable to resist temptation and hit up a kaitenzushi place with Lost Girl... I hadn't had sushi for so long and it was soooo sooo good. Kaitenzushi is a sushi shop that has all the sushi on a conveyor belt that goes round and round and round and you just take what you want. Or you can make specialty requests and they send the sushi to you on a mini bullet train. Pretty fun place to eat.

As a member of the church can you sell alcohol for a living? Own a liquor store? Own a supermarket that sells alcohol? Own a hotel that has alcohol available? Own a restaurant that sells alcohol? Be a waiter or waitress that serves alcohol? How about owning a starbucks?? Where do you draw the line? Of course the follow up question would be related to weed...

He knows how to make money for himself.

You know... So am I. She does the tithing and I do the taxes. Our money is in joint accounts and we both have access to it on line. She knows what I spend. I know what she spends. She does have money in an account that I can't access. but there is a reason for that. She is not from the U.S. and when she goes home she just spends money from that account. It usually only has $1k in it or so. No biggy. Btw, I ended up telling her the actual number. But told her I still didn't want to go over the amount I had suggested. She agreed.

I always wanted to meet someone who did a negative amortization loan.... That is a sign of an insane bubble.

Real Estate has many vehicles in which to make money. If you are just buying property and waiting for it to go up in value, you will certainly beat the return on a savings account, but not much more. But if you want to make money, you need to get into something else. I am going the way of rental properties. I should be able to at least do 12% return, which is less than I do in the market. I average about 18% in the market. So why not invest that money that I am putting into rentals into the market? Because it is already in real estate. I figure I will leave it in real estate. Diversify a bit. My parents have done quite well with their real estate investments, probably as well had they put the money in the market. They can afford to live well in retirement. They can pay for missions, tuition, etc. They paid for a family cruise a couple of years back.. 37 people on a week long cruise. Best family reunion ever. No cooking, no cleaning, just enjoyed each others company. They say money can't buy happiness, but it certainly can buy memories.

I disagree. Things have essentially gone up for ever. I mean you get a few drops here and there, but there is always the recovery and things continue to grow. Real-estate always retains some value even when the economy goes bust. It is unlikely to be upside down for long if the economy goes south.

Yeah, after all is said and done, my housing payment with everything will be around 40% at most. After 25 years of marriage, I have a decent handle on what we spend. Actually, I am getting into the slum lording business. I am keeping the first house and turning it into a rental. Time to start making some cash on the side. My parents started doing rentals when they were about 5 years younger than me and now have 8 rental properties that are almost paid off and generate twice my salary... I would like to get to generating the same as my salary when I retire. Then Lost Boy with travel the world with Lost Girl in search of fun and adventure. She works in the airline industry and when she retires we'll have free flights to many world destinations.. That is the plan..

Pretty much, yes. The conversation we had the other night went like this. I told her about how much house I am comfortable buying. Let's just say it was $300k. She then comes back and says her friend and her husband whose combine salary is less than half that of my wife's and I just bought a house for $250k, why can't we get one closer to $500k? So I respond, "Why don't we sit down together tomorrow and go over our current expenses?" Response... "No, but I just don't understand why we can't buy more. Her husband only works 4-5 hours a day waiting tables and you are an engineer." So I respond, "Well let's look at our expenses tomorrow and decided how much more we can afford." Nope. Now to her credit, she doesn't just willy nilly go out and buy expensive things. Anything that is out of the norm and a big expenditure we talk about before purchasing. Could we be more frugal with our expenses? Absolutely. We only live once and you are only young once. If you save all your money till you're too old to enjoy it, you will have missed out on life.

She is far more likely to run with the highest number mentioned and not worry about how to pay it.

I am in the process of buying a new home. I am an engineer and know my way around numbers. So I have thoroughly researched property taxes, insurance, the whole nine yards on areas I am interested in buying. I also know how much I can afford based on my income and spending patterns. So I basically sat down with my wife and explained how much home we could afford and why. She is more of a touchy feely type that doesn't really like to be bothered with the why. Anyway, I finally decided to get the pre-approval letter from the mortgage company. The amount they came back with was nearly double what I can comfortably afford. What-the-heck??? I could very uncomfortably do 50% higher than the amount I presented to my wife, but not double. I thought the lending industry was supposed to be mostly cleaned up? Am I nuts? I have 100% of the time faithfully paid off my credit cards every month since I first got one 30 years ago. Never been late paying on any loans. All of my cars are paid for. I have a good handle on my expenses and there is no way I could do the amount he offered. The loan offered would have been about 50% of my income. That is absolutely insane to me. The amount I told my wife was much less (that was before I heard from the lender, so it wasn't a lie). But now do I tell her what the real number is knowing that she really doesn't try to understand our finances? Or do I just keep mum on it?