+1 for Jitsi. Works well, user-friendly, lots of features without looking complicated, not too resource-hungry, lots of ways to extend it. All the other person needs it to click a link, enter a name and allow microphone/camera usage one time. There’s also an app for Android and iOS, though you can just as well use a mobile browser.

There you go. 🤗

Going great so far - as the work week has started a day late, today’s practically already Wednesday!

It’s finally warm enough to work outside most of the day, so that’s what I’m doing. Loving it. Behind the PC monitor I see mountains, a small forest and the dogs wandering around in the garden, trying to secretly dig holes where they think I can’t see them.

On a personal level, I find myself (finally) growing increasingly indifferent to various things that I can’t influence. If the world stays its current course, there’s a good chance I’ll lose some of the luxuries in my life, but in the grand scheme of things we’ll likely still be okay. Let the world burn if it wants to - I’ll save the rest of my sanity for the problems that affect me personally if and when they arise.
This mindset brings an immense sense of freedom. I’m much happier already.

Besides that it’s a pretty normal week, just busier than usual as there’s a lot to do in the garden and around the house. I still need to fix the holes in the lawn, get rid of a metric ton of weeds and paint some walls. It’s a lot of work but totally worth it.

FWIW - as a person guilty of sometimes not texting back: most of the time it’s not because I don’t want to talk to that person, it’s because I don’t have the time and/or energy to write something worthwhile, make a mental note to text back something witty ‘later’, and you can probably guess where this is going.

I’ve tried meeting new people but it’s not the same.

Give it time. New friends are made by spending time with strangers until they’re not strangers anymore. If the new people are nice enough, and you get to hang out with them for a while, some of them will probably turn into friends. You’re already on the right track by getting to know new people.

Welcome! And I hope you did take that nap. It sounds like it’s been well-deserved. Always remember, the most important person in your life is you, so take good care of yourself. You’re the only you there is.

Currently walking part of the Camino Primitivo and alternating between “what kind of utter idiot does this to themselves” and “holy fsck is this great”.
It’s my third Camino and I know the drill by now, and still I manage to surprise myself. It also immensely helps me clear my head and leave everything else behind for a couple weeks, which is my main reason for doing it.

Still now I’m looking forward to arriving in Santiago, recovering there for a few days and then flying back home. I’ve started missing my family (including the dogs!) and friends.
This spring and summer look like they’re going to be super lovely, and I can’t wait to put the finishing touches on the garden, sit there with other people, share a drink and watch the doggies chase each other and try to dig holes where they think we don’t see them.

The world keeps getting weirder and weirder, and it’s the bad kind of weird. Can somebody please have the tangerine bollock committed to a mental home, or at least tell our government to grow a pair and stand up to his bullying for a change?

If you’re going to be there between, say november and february, do let me know. If your travel schedule happens to fit ours, the first round of cold ones is on me!
(No Dos Equis. Pinky swear.)

European here. I’d say it depends on what you want to see/do and how much you’re willing to spend, resp. to what degree your willingness to spend is influenced by how much you like the place.

SO and me like to flee the dark and cold days a couple weeks a year and mostly fly to Egypt, Mexico or the Dominican Republic.
Last fall we went to Jamaica, which was super super lovely all around, but very expensive compared to every other caribbean place we’ve been to. Pretty much anything they want, they have to import from the US, so as a rule of thumb add a hefty markup to Florida prices.
Besides that, it’s easy to fall in love with the place and people.

Mexico:

Quintana Roo is hot and lovely pretty much all year round, except sometimes during hurricane season. Cheap-ish flights should be available from most larger US airports, and once there you can spend anything ranging from USD 25-500 per day and person for food and accommodation.

Things to avoid:

• The official airport taxis. They’re a mafia like you wouldn’t believe. Book a transport in advance for a fraction of the price and exit the airport through the small exit hidden behind the huge taxi/exit signs. The signs lead you through a one-way gate to the official taxis where you can expect to spend upwards of 80 bucks for a 5min ride. The same money will get you a private driver for several hours.
• Cancún, especially the zona hotelera. It’s the ‘party’ mile (using that term loosely) and full of drunken partygoers pretty much around the clock.
• Holbox - it is as beautiful an island as the ads say, but dramatically overpopulated with tourists, rather smelly (mainly due to the sewage collecting in the streets) and extremely overpriced. Also slowly drowning in trash and mosquitoes.
• Las Coloradas - never as pretty as on the pictures and a huge rip-off. Last thing a local told us is that they now employ guys on motorbikes to interfere with tourists trying to take a picture without paying an entry fee.

Things to do:

• Look for a nice apartment in Cozumel (do stop by Señor Frog’s next to the Playa del Carmen ferry port) or Isla Mujeres (try Villas Najo’). If you don’t feel like feeding The Man, find a nice place on booking.com and book there directly - most landlords will give you a better price and still make more money themselves that way.
• In Cozumel, eat at Casa Denis and then visit that tequila bar on the way from there to the main road that has swings instead of bar chairs. Ask for samples.
• If you feel like scuba diving in Cozumel, go to Jungle Divers and ask for Stéphane. He generally hates having to babysit customers on his dives, but if you manage to get on his good side you’ll have great dives and learn a lot. Only take courses there though if you don’t mind a very impatient teacher.
• On Isla Mujeres, talk to Sharon of Aqua Adventures Eco Divers. She’ll be happy to make suggestions for a great dive. (If it’s whale shark season, don’t miss that experience)
• In Isla Mujeres, eat at Sonny’s. Don’t order more than half a pizza per person.
• Playa del Carmen is nice for a daytrip or shopping. If you want to stay there, find a place a bit on the outskirts or bring earplugs.
• Chichén Itzá is half a day away and very impressive to see firsthand.

General tips:

• Whenever possible, ask you driver / guide / … if they offer private tours. Sometimes they can’t or are loyal to their company, other times you’ll get a private driver / guide / … for a much lower price.
• You can save a lot of money by buying stuff at the supermarket and cooking yourself.

Two thoughts in case unexplicable stuff happens again:

• SMART doesn’t detect all possible errors, especially not on SSDs. (It was originally designed as an early-warning system for mechanical failures on spinning rust drives, and later somewhat expanded.)
• A faulty RAM chip can cause all sorts of subtle (and not-so-subtle) mayhem but is often overlooked as a possible cause for disk troubles. If in doubt, MemTest86 is your friend!

Well that’s good news, isn’t it? Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

I have skills; they’re just no longer valued.

They may be valued somewhere; and even if that place is too hard to find at the moment, you seem smart enough to adapt and enhance your skillset as needed easily enough.

If the flight is the main issue, I might be able to help with that (and the first couple of days of accommodation), provided you’re moderately flexible concerning the date. Everything else you’d have to arrange yourself, but if a flight ticket (or the lack thereof) is all that’s missing, do get in touch!

There’s been some talk about Brother imitating HP lately. Last thing I heard is that they’ve been attributing it to a ‘faulty’ firmware upgrade and offering a ‘fix’. Personally I’m not yet sure what to think of it - it’s one thing I’ll be keeping an eye on though. My current HP printer will still happily work with third-party toner but is slowly approaching the end of its lifespan.

Generally speaking, for the average user who doesn’t need special hardware to produce ultra-quality borderless photo posters on a regular basis:

• If you only print a few pages each month, the cleaning cycle of an inkjet will waste an insane amount of ink to the point where a laser printer is cheaper.
• If you print a lot, the cost per page will be lower on a laser printer, so you should buy a laser printer.

You repeatedly mentioned that you’re a Swiss citizen. If all else fails, you could always come here and have guaranteed shelter, food and medical care for as long as you need them. I know people less deserving than you living quite agreeably that way - it sure would beat crashing in a van.

Also, if that’s a concern, one part of unemployment support is that you’ll attend paid courses to help you gain more marketable skills.

Moderately talented DIYer here - with what you describe, I can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be easier and cheaper to build this thing Lego-style from relatively cheap pre-made floor cupboards plus a series of custom-cut big boards as a countertop, and then stack some shelves on top.
In Ikea-land this could be e.g. Metod or Knoxhult ‘Unterschrank’ and Kallax or Billy shelves - I’m sure most furniture shops have something similar with a different name. Then all you’d have to do is arrange them nicely, connect them with some screws and attach them to the brick wall at some neuralgic points.

Feeling rather burnt out lately. A lot of stress-inducing things beyond my control have happened this winter, and I’ve found myself forced to violate the self-imposed ‘no more than three prescription sleeping pills a week’ rule on several occasions, which is probably not a good sign.

At least things are looking up now! Most problems have been solved or at least defused, and starting today I get a whole week away from work and family.
The weather helps too! It’s getting warmer and I love that the sound of birds singing in the morning has returned.

The downside is that the dogs feel spring too, which means they do a lot of stupid stuff and consider my increasingly angry yelling to be non-binding recommendations at best, which means lots of walks on a short leash, which in turn means even more pent-up energy for the next walk. Just when we started being grateful for having made it through our youngest daughter’s puberty…

Anyways. Things are mostly looking up, so yay! I’m going to use this week to refuel and work on some absolutely useless but entertaining projects such as an analysis of our collected hotel key cards with respect to their contents and cloneability. So far I’ve found exactly one keycard that used some kind of encryption. Most keycards are just Mifare Classic cards that rely on the UID alone, and one just had an unprotected data block with the plaintext room number. That’s basically one small step above the door locks accepting a handwritten note saying “master key”. This is going to be interesting.

I’m sorry about your experience - I’m afraid for you Yanks it’s usually in dubio contra reum. If you ever visit us again, it usually helps to casually mention that you’re unhappy with the current government or didn’t vote for Trump. Us Europeans aren’t necessarily mean, just jaded, and it helps if you give us something to let us know that you in particular aren’t one of the idiots.

Thanks for the suggestion! Sadly it was ‘only’ the two Covid shots. I’ve had combined vaccinations in the past and it’s never been a problem. Something cotained in Moderna’s finest specifically seems to have made my immune system extremely unhappy. That’s why I was wondering about the rather similar flu shot.

Thank you!