I know it’s weird, because they have a lot of call center employees that handle various situations. Maybe those aren’t counted in the graphic for some reason, because there’s no way a call center employee is making close a quarter million dollars.
That’s not true in TX cities. I’ve lived in DFW, Houston metroplex, and Austin and have never had less than 15 polling places. They might not be next door to your work, but they are within a few monute drive.
TX was also the first state to allow early voting and mandates that polls are open at least 9 hours the first week and at least 12 hours the second week and final day of voting. That’s the minimum, not maximum. There were also polling places open on the weekends.
That said, I have heard (although haven’t researched it) that some very rural areas are more difficult to vote in with only a couple polling places in the county. So that could be the case if you live in the middle of nowhere, but you’ll pass polling places on your way to/from work. Just think of it like you would a doctor appointment and put it on your schedule.
TX is pretty purple and is turning more blue each cycle.
2004: Kerry lost by ~1.9 million votes 2008: Obama lost by ~990,000 votes 2012: Obama lost by ~1.2 million votes 2016: Clinton lost by ~800,000 votes 2020: Biden lost by ~640,000 votes
In 2020, had just 3.5% more of the registered voters cast a ballot for Biden, he would have won. That’s about how many people voted each day of early voting in this election.
No caffeine after 2
Take magnesium glycinate and threonate and hour or so before bed (threonate helps me sleep but it can cause vivid dreams)
Make sure you’re comfortable in the bed both in terms of bed firmness/softness and temperature
Use a fan to regulate temperature and create white noise
Create a regular bedtime ritual (brush, floss, skincare, etc) and stick to it
Chamomile tea can help relax
I’ve also found drinking some cool/cold water right before attempting to sleep can help, because your body temperature drops as you go to sleep. I’m also a hot sleeper, so that also helps to cool down my core.
Make a regular sleep schedule and stick to it as much as possible
Write down any persistent thoughts, journal emotions, or create a to-do list from whatever might be running through your mind. Getting that out of my head and onto paper helps to alleviate any anxiety and can help stop my brain from planning and running amok while I’m lying there.
I turn off all the lights and only use some color-changing LED lights an hour or so before bed. White lights are too bright and can keep me from sleeping. Red is darker, yet still bright enough to see where I’m walking. Red lights are also best for night vision, if you go stargazing, make sure you have red flashlights, because white light will destroy your night vision for 20 minutes or so.
I also use a screen dimming app on my phone to bring the brightness down lower than the brightness setting will allow. On Apple devices, this is a regular setting in accessibility called “Reduce White Point”. Android still hasn’t figured out how to mimic that well and the best app I’ve found is Screen Dimmer Plus. It basically puts a Grey layer over whatever images show up on your phone and will mess with screenshots taken and it doesn’t change anything with the top 1/4" of the screen. The Reduce White Point setting on ios doesn’t mess with screenshots and changes the brightness for the whole screen. It’s one of the big disappointments I’ve had with android.
Get Blackout curtains to block light from the windows
Don’t exercise too close to bed. I also can’t take showers or baths too close to bed because they will disrupt my sleep.
Slow breathing and closing your eyes will lying in bed can help if you’re restless. I’ve also found that if I’m having a particularly hard time falling asleep that getting out of bed and reading a book or fiction story before returning to bed can help.
Choose something light and calming to watch as the last thing before you turn off your TV. Nature documentaries like Planet Earth or a light comedy can help you unwind and be a little more calm than watching an action, horror, or drama movie/TV show.
Another thing I’ve read about if you’re restless is to work your way uo your body squeezing your muscles for a few seconds. So start with your feet and flex them a couple times for a couple seconds, then go uo to your calves, all the way up to your eyes. The flex and release is supposed to help release any muscles that are still clenching from the day.
Spending time in nature during the day is supposed to help calm the mind and body, so finding 20-30 minutes to walk around a park could be helpful.
Don’t stress out about not falling asleep. Lying there with your eyes closed with relaxing breaths is supposed to be restful for the body
Potassium might help you relax and I think it’s also supposed to help with blood pressure if you’ve been consuming too much sodium. Not 100% sure on that, but I figure getting blood pressure under control can help you get better quality sleep.
I’ve heard there are people that do something similar to get on those reality shows about fat people’s lives or the weight loss competitions. I guess some think it’s easier to gain 100 more pounds and then get on the TV show to lose 400 pounds than it is just to lose 300 pounds themselves.
I think the pandemic will definitely have an effect. If I recall correctly, Fox News changed gears and started promoting the vaccine after realizing that their base was dying at a faster rate than Democrats.
It could have been a co tributing factor to Georgia voting for Biden in 2020 and could be a reason why Biden was closer to winning TX than Hillary was.
Florida is hard to say, because a lot of retirees move there. So while the Republicans there may have been hit harder during covid, those may have been replaced with more Republicans moving in to retire in the sun.
Kind if reminds me of the scene in The Truman Show when they talk about the cereal to the hidden camera.
It’s only fair for the pets to eat us as well.
Omg, that’s basically how it’s been in TX too. Just 3-5 degrees cooler up there. Y’all shouldn’t be burning up like that
Don’t forget, insurance covers 50% before the deductible is met, not after. When a policy has that verbiage, usually there’s a footnote that states how those claims are handled in the future. From what I’ve seen, that could mean that insurance will cover 100% of said procedure after the deductible is met or it could mean a co-insurance of 30%.
After the deductible is met, OP won’t necessarily pay 50%. The percentage of the bill that OP and/or insurance will pay will be on a footnote at the bottom of the blue plan overview page (at least it’s blue when looking at plans from the ACA marketplace).
If you’ve met your deductible, you may not owe for the upcoming procedure.
However, you’d need to look at your policy or call the insurance company to see if the procedure counts towards your deductible. Normally the plan specifies that its 50% before the deductible and by an asterisk or buried somewhere in your plan’s terms, it may say that it’ll be 100% covered after tour deductible is met.
Is your deductible and out-of-pocket max the same? If you’ve met both, you may not even owe a copay. If you still haven’t met the out-of-pocket max, you will still owe co-pays.
Your plan documents or the company will be able to give better answers, as companies and plans can be very different in how they cover things.
Is there a particular VPN router that you suggest?
Also, is there a subscription fee or something for the VPN usage?
Thank you so much for the info!
Is there a way to put a VPN on the router, so that all devices are covered?
He set out buckets filled with water like Davy Jones to keep from setting foot on land.
Enya can be helpful for me. Otherwise soothing classical music, the fast and loud works can be a little too distracting. It also helps me to listen to the same thing when doing a task to train my brain to focus when listening to it.
I found that while popping popcorn, the finished kernel (mushroom or butterfly shaped) depends on popping conditions. I only use Redenbacher and if the heat is too high, you get the mushroom shape and the kernels are dense and if you set the heat a little lower you get fluffier butterfly kernels.
Is the popped kernel shape really supposed to be different based on what kind of popcorn you buy?
The antibacterial soaps also help create supergerms that can survive the antibiotic used. They should only be used in medical settings when necessary. The overuse of antibacterial soaps and antibiotics are going to help create more pandemics should enough bacteria become antibiotic-resistant.
It’s probably because they can remember how convenient and cheaper it was to see any movie or show that could be streamed. Streaming was supposed to disrupt TV by eliminating ads and allowing you to choose whatever you want to watch. Nowadays, in order to get the same amount of choices, you need to spend about as much as you did for a TV subscription and now many platforms have ads.
I think it’s more a frustration at what we lost than anything else.
If you don’t believe the official counts, than where would you go for a source?
We were only 600,000 votes away from a Biden victory in 2020 because we didn’t have enough voters. TX has pitiful voter turnout, even with 2 weeks if open polls, with polls required to be open at least 12 hours a day on the weekday.
In 2020, even with what’s called amazing turnout, with a voting age population of 21.5 million, 17 million were registered, and 11.3 million cast a vote. Then in 2022, when we had the entire legislative branch, almost all of the executive branch, and a good chunk of the judicial branch up for election, only 8.1 million people voted.
Even with these numbers, Biden still received more votes in TX than he did in NY! There’s potential for us to get some better representation, if we can just get more people to get to a polling station (usually open 7AM-7PM during the second week of voting).
We need more people to turnout this year, not only to keep Trump from our electoral college votes, but to kick Ted Cruz to the curb. There is a lot in the news pushing people away from the pills and making people mad at the DNC just like in 2016 and its really scary because those tactics helped keep people from casting their vote.
Turnout number source https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/historical/70-92.shtml
Meet up has a lot of groups with a variety of activities. You can find hiking, biking, swimming, reading, knitting, quilting, art of various forms, board game, DND, video game, canoeing, kayaking, trivia night, yoga, meditation, foodie, singles, couples, and ither groups to be part of.