Useless Conversation

[Paelos]

Choose one:

1.  Shreveport
2.  El Paso
3.  Amarillo

Shreveport. I'd get a really nice house in Springlake-University Terrace near the river for what a fucking bungalow would cost in Atlanta. It's not far from Dallas either, which means I could visit friends and family pretty easily.

[ghost]

Those are the three options that I have right now for work unless I want to keep looking.  Here is what I'm looking at.  As an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, I can sit in an office and take out wisdom teeth and put in dental implants and make a decent living without too much stress.  Or I can do really kick ass surgery and be at the hospital all the time and deal with losers who get punched and/ or shot in the face or car wreck folks.  

1.  Shreveport-  straight up private practice wisdom teeth and third molars.  Town is questionable, lots of violence, raising three children that are small (8, 6, 4).  Overall, if you didn't think racial tension exists in the country, you haven't been here.  There is a group of about 50K gringos and the rest are a very, very poor group of African American people.  Not much culture, but generally people are nice.  I would say that this city is still in depression level economics, but we now have a Whole Foods....

2.  Amarillo-  white, middle America.  Seems to be ripe for growth.  The people are super nice, doesn't have a lot of crime.  It's flat, and super religious.  This option will provide the best mix of interesting hospital stuff versus private practice.  I actually really like the town, however, and think it's an area of the country that will be on the upturn in the next 20 years.  

3.  El Paso-  This is really an underrated town.  I was impressed by the place, has a very European/California type feel with the houses.  Has a lot of great restaurants.  Back in the super violent days of Juarez a lot of the restauranteurs across the border relocated because it became too dangerous to go over.  Has a cool "old west" feel to it.  Is very trauma/cancer/big surgery centric.  Won't see my family as much, but will get a little more job satisfaction, I think.  I worry about the water issue, because it's the fucking desert.  Also, I'm good friends with the guy who owns that practice, which comes with its own set of pro/cons....

Also, with health care, if you want to make an okay living you really have to choose towns that aren't super popular, like Austin, San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, etc.

[MahrinSkel]

Amarillo has to be the most boring city in the middle of the most boring place on the planet, with all of the faults that go with Texas combined with all of those of the rural Great Plains. I would live in a cardboard box before I lived there. And as much as they might like to kid themselves, they live and die by the economic leakage from the Oil Patch, which means boom and bust cycles.

El Paso is interesting, and within driving distance of more interesting places and with enough plane traffic to make it feasible to vacation just about anywhere (any trip from either Shreveport or Amarillo starts with a 2-3 hour flight to a real airport).

Shreveport: I've only visited it for brief periods, mostly on my way to or from New Orleans, so I'll defer to others.

--Dave

[Hawkbit]

As an actual, legitimate, non-bullshit story, I recently started reading through Lovecraft's work again. I finished Rats in the Walls the other night and woke up the next morning to some weird smells in the house. No fucking shit, found out we have rats in the attic and one died. Gross!

I'm almost afraid to start reading Dunwich or Cthulhu.

[Brofellos]

Those are the three options that I have right now for work unless I want to keep looking.  Here is what I'm looking at.  As an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, I can sit in an office and take out wisdom teeth and put in dental implants and make a decent living without too much stress.  Or I can do really kick ass surgery and be at the hospital all the time and deal with losers who get punched and/ or shot in the face or car wreck folks.  

1.  Shreveport-  straight up private practice wisdom teeth and third molars.  Town is questionable, lots of violence, raising three children that are small (8, 6, 4).  Overall, if you didn't think racial tension exists in the country, you haven't been here.  There is a group of about 50K gringos and the rest are a very, very poor group of African American people.  Not much culture, but generally people are nice.  I would say that this city is still in depression level economics, but we now have a Whole Foods....

2.  Amarillo-  white, middle America.  Seems to be ripe for growth.  The people are super nice, doesn't have a lot of crime.  It's flat, and super religious.  This option will provide the best mix of interesting hospital stuff versus private practice.  I actually really like the town, however, and think it's an area of the country that will be on the upturn in the next 20 years.  

3.  El Paso-  This is really an underrated town.  I was impressed by the place, has a very European/California type feel with the houses.  Has a lot of great restaurants.  Back in the super violent days of Juarez a lot of the restauranteurs across the border relocated because it became too dangerous to go over.  Has a cool "old west" feel to it.  Is very trauma/cancer/big surgery centric.  Won't see my family as much, but will get a little more job satisfaction, I think.  I worry about the water issue, because it's the fucking desert.  Also, I'm good friends with the guy who owns that practice, which comes with its own set of pro/cons....

Also, with health care, if you want to make an okay living you really have to choose towns that aren't super popular, like Austin, San Francisco, LA, New York, Chicago, etc.

Do El Paso. Living 5 years in TX, I rarely heard anything negative about it. Plus there's lithium in the drinking water.

[schild]

I'm writing this here so I can copy and paste it into Yelp when the restaurant gets added to it:
=========================================================



Austin has been missing a Jewish Deli for a long time. We used to have a mediocre one. Then we had another mediocre one. Then we had none. Today, now, we have Biderman's. Which, besides being off on the damn moon for most people, promises to be a Jewish deli.

This. Is. Not. A Jewish. Deli.

Let's ignore the fact they're doing some kind of staggered opening where they don't have all the Right Stuff that makes a Jewish deli. Bagels and Knish aren't easy. Rugelach isn't easy. Like, it's cool guys, work up to the tough "real" stuff. I refuse to ding them for not bursting fully New York from the bedrock of Austin.

But if I come into your Jewish deli (third day your open or WHENEVER), and I get told you're outta pastrami, well, I'll probably just order a reuben. That's cool, pastrami is popular.

Oh, what's that? You don't have corned beef?

Well. I just drove all the way out here to eat Jewish deli food.

First of all, Jews don't know how to make roast beef. My poor wife ordered the French Dip, because she loves a french dip. Fully expecting saw dust on a bun, I let her order it because everyone has to learn that lesson. My people make the absolute WORST brisket. And our roast beef? Yea, somehow worse. It's not fit for horsefeed. So, I suppose, arguably, this deli made their french dip completely as expected. The herbed jus was a nice touch. Just in case you thought the roast beef was passable the jus would throw that thought right out the window.

Second of all, I better never see a hoagie roll in there again.

I ordered...

a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato.

I, uh, yeah. Ridiculous.

This is just the Jew in me speaking, charging more for fountain drinks than cans is an interesting choice. Also, everyone on EARTH knows Dr. Brown's costs more than Coca Cola. So, like, you're just cheating yourself out of getting to charge $3 for Cel-Ray (which is just garbage for old Jews with shot taste buds) (the black cherry is baller though, obviously).

Anyway, look. The menu - given the missing items - needs to be gutted of the extraneous stuff. Start adding in actual Jewish Deli food. Otherwise this place is just going to be a depressing footnote in the already depressing history of delis in Austin, TX.

I could forgive ALL OF THIS, every last bit of it - if you hadn't run out of corned beef and pastrami. What made all of this great is that my wife thought I was being unfair. Then the next customer who came in after we sat down asked for the same sandwiches, was given the same answers - and proceeded to leave. Not before asking how the hell a Jewish deli runs out of pastrami and corned beef though.

I envied him. My wife thought it was surreal. All I could tell her was "Jews get it." I'll leave you with the parting words of one of my east coast friends:

"If a jewish deli is out of pastrami and corned beef then what they're really saying is they're out of business."

I didn't have the heart to tell him how you treated the pickles.

[schild]

If it wasn't clear, the Jewish deli is a sacred thing. More sacred than Israel to the modern Jew.

[Fraeg]

Ghost - El Paso and then live in las cruces NM?

And oddly enough my dad is oral maxi has private practice and then teaches/works at ucsf one day a week. He went from being the only show in town to one of 7 in a town of 60k

He is looking forward to retirement soon

[Trippy]

I'm writing this here so I can copy and paste it into Yelp when the restaurant gets added to it:
=========================================================

I can't read that menu very well but I don't see anything Jewish about it, like where's the chopped liver sandwich or matzo ball soup (chicken noodle soup WTF?)?

[Sky]

Also needs sandwiches named after famous Jews. I want a goddamned Morey Amsterdam!

I'm about as non-Jewish as you can get without being imported in the hold of a ship and I will order two things in a deli: pastrami and corned beef. I fucking love them. I expect them piled to suspiciously high levels. But not even having a single sandwich's worth in the shop means you hang a sign that says "Sorry, closed for the day because we ran out of pastrami and corned beef" and then leave town because what the fuck.

My fiancee's been around long enough to understand why we'd walk out of that place and find a decent place to eat.

Now that I think about it, I'm Irish enough for it to be sensible to be ravenous for corned beef. Thanks, old-timey NY jews for turning us onto that jam. Hope we return the favor with St Paddy's and discount briskets.

[Merusk]

I don't think I've been in a deli that had bacon much less called a blt a deli classic.

[HaemishM]

If it wasn't clear, the Jewish deli is a sacred thing. More sacred than Israel to the modern Jew.

It's like going to Taco Bell and they've run out of beef, only with religious connotations to make it even more of a slap in the goddamn face.

Or like what most pizza joints down here call "New York style pizza" which makes my wife want to burn down the joint. This is a woman who grew up around the corner from two of the greatest pizza joints in the world in New Haven, CT. You do not get to claim New York style pie for this shit.

[Yegolev]

It's funny that you refer to the meat from Taco Bell as beef.

The picture of the menu needs to be larger for maximum comedy.  Although it's hard to beat: "Bagels    Coming Soon!"
Why even open the doors?

Are there no Jews at all in Austin?  Must check the threads on how Austin > Other Cities.

[Sky]

We used to have so many great pizza and subs joints around here. 2 or 3 pages in the phone book. Now it's all just bready shit with can sauce, except two little joints. One is actually a guy who came up from the City. The other is a brick oven joint that struggled their first year, learning how to use the oven, we wrote them off. But we tried them again last year and they've got it down, their ingredients are tops and everything is made in-house. Fiancee won't get their pasta, says it's too expensive...but it's sooo fresh and good, it's crazy.

But if they ran out of pasta or mozz, we'd burn the place to the ground.

[schild]

There's a shmedium jewish community here. We have some specialty bagel houses (all they make are bagels) but none of the delis can make bagels. We have had, on and off, jewish delis in the past. None were great.

Also, Taco Bell is real beef. It's not 1992.

[HaemishM]

We have a local breadmaker here who is an older Jewish guy from Jersey (he married a Mississippi woman and when he retired from finance, he became a bread maker and they moved here). Every once in a while he makes biyalis and those are the tits.

[01101010]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-virginia-panda-idUSKBN15A188

Lost: One Red Panda. Free to a good home?

[schild]

I'm writing this here so I can copy and paste it into Yelp when the restaurant gets added to it:
=========================================================

I can't read that menu very well but I don't see anything Jewish about it, like where's the chopped liver sandwich or matzo ball soup (chicken noodle soup WTF?)?

There was a menu with other soups on it, I do not recall seeing Matzoh Balls. Which is a staggering admission of failure.

[Paelos]

We have a few jewish delis in Atlanta, some more commercialized, some local and better. The best is the General Muir in Emory. The most mediocre is Goldbergs which isn't bad.

[schild]

that's useful information if I ever go to georgia

the chances of which are effectively 0

[Paelos]

Which is odd because it's a cool place to visit, and there's a massive Jewish population that moved here. Almost 200,000 last time I checked.

[Merusk]

that's useful information if I ever go to georgia

the chances of which are effectively 0

You just guaranteed your next big industry event is in Georgia. 

[schild]

I care about pastrami. I don't care about jewish populations/communities.

Also that's not odd. At all.

(I already skipped the Atlanta event - twice)

(I actually have veto'd going to ANY industry events ever again)

[Johny Cee]

pffft

Montreal Jewish deli or bust!  We used to make my sister-in-law bring us Montreal bagels and smoked meat whenever she came to visit.  Right up until the mad cow scare and they stopped letting you take beef over the border.

Montreal smoked meat for life!

[calapine]

From the Guardian: Cannibal Hamsters!

Only 5%, however, of the baby hamsters whose mothers ate corn instead of wheat made it that far. What was most disturbing is how they perished.

“Females stored their pups with their hoards of maize before eating them,” the scientists reported. “Pups were still alive at that time.”

The cannibal mothers showed other signs of abnormality. The usually cute-and-cuddly hamsters ran in circles, “climbing and pounding their feeders,” when scientists entered the room.

The females also had swollen and dark tongues, and blood so thick it was difficult to draw for samples.

But don't worry, it's only a Vitamin deficiency! 

"Vitamin B3 deficiency has been linked to black-tongue syndrome in dogs, and a condition in humans called pellagra, also known as the “3-D” disease: diarrhoea, dementia and dermatitis, such as eczema."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/28/frances-wild-hamsters-being-turned-into-crazed-cannibals-by-diet-of-corn

[Rasix]

A new feature I'm working on has the acronym OOPS. Seems appropriate. Plus it's essentially an error condition.  

I can't wait for the product to tell the customer it hit OOPS.  Launch this procedure to fix the OOPS.

[Yegolev]

That is pretty blatant.  I am interested in putting 'dead:beef' in some IPv6 addressing once that ball starts rolling.

[Rasix]

I am not sure it'll pass sales, honestly.  Our ISIS server didn't last very long past the first youtubed beheading.

[Chimpy]

Come on, you know as well as I do that the acronym will be replaced by some random string of digits and the error description will be turned into a "call IBM storage support" when you click the "run fix" button. 

[Rasix]

I apologize beforehand for what I rushedly qualify for your consumption. If you hit the OOPS, just know I hit it before you. Many times.

[Sky]

So we have this nutter lady at work. Always into fad diets and home remedy nonsense. Nagged the office into buying a bunch of standing desks, only she uses it. Needed a keyboard/mouse tray (for a shared pc on a deep desk, keyboard/mouse were on the desk top after a week).

Her new thing is a sunlight lamp for her 'SAD'. She uses it in the break room (by a window that lets in direct light) with the blinds drawn. Also has the other window desk in the office, always keeps her blinds drawn.

Stupid smart people befuddle me. And also amuse me when I can see sunlight behind the drawn blinds while she's got the stupid light beaming in her face while squintingly trying to use her phone.

[Yegolev]

Clearly her ailments are due to something other than herself.  One day she will purchase the fix.

[Nebu]

I've known many really smart people with 'health' problems that were nearly 100% psychological.

[Trippy]

For many of those types it's not really their fault. Science and health reporting is really really horrible. And people are justifiably confused about what's good and bad because of it.

[schild]

So we have this nutter lady at work. Always into fad diets and home remedy nonsense. Nagged the office into buying a bunch of standing desks, only she uses it. Needed a keyboard/mouse tray (for a shared pc on a deep desk, keyboard/mouse were on the desk top after a week).

Her new thing is a sunlight lamp for her 'SAD'. She uses it in the break room (by a window that lets in direct light) with the blinds drawn. Also has the other window desk in the office, always keeps her blinds drawn.

Stupid smart people befuddle me. And also amuse me when I can see sunlight behind the drawn blinds while she's got the stupid light beaming in her face while squintingly trying to use her phone.

This woman is only stupid.