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Post by AeroCooper on Sept 4, 2023 6:36:28 GMT -5
Aerosmith singer and Maui homeowner Steven Tyler urges tourists to return to the islandWAYNE PARRY Sun, September 3, 2023 PHILADELPHIA (AP) — He's most often associated with Boston, the hometown of his legendary rock band, but Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler has a soft spot in his heart for the Hawaiian island of Maui. The singer, who has a home on the island, wants vacationers to return to Maui to help the island's economy — devastated by wildfires last month — recover. Near the end of the opening night of the band's farewell tour in Philadelphia Saturday, Tyler urged audience members not to be afraid to travel to the island again. “When you think about Lahaina, think about south Maui,” Tyler told the audience at the Wells Fargo Center shortly before performing the band’s biggest hit, “Dream On.” “Paia and Hana: it’s still there,” he said, of two other Maui resort towns unscathed by the fires. “It’s a place to go and do, you know, the love thing. It’s still open, it’s still happening. “Everything’s beautiful, except we gotta come there and make it more beautiful, OK?” he said. Immediately after the fires obliterated the seaside tourist town of Lahaina, officials including Gov. Josh Green told tourists to stay away during the island's recovery. But they soon reversed that advice, realizing how essential tourism is to the island's economy — and to the prospects of its residents returning to a normal life anytime soon. Tyler's daughter, Mia, was among those initially discouraging tourists from coming to Maui shortly after the fires. The number of people listed as missing from the fires stood at 385 on Friday, Hawaii officials said. The flames turned Lahaina into rubble in a few short hours on Aug. 8. Wind gusts topping 60 mph (97 kph) ripped through the town, causing the flames to spread exceptionally quickly. Half the town’s 12,000 residents are now living in hotels and short-term vacation rentals. Reconstruction is expected to take years and cost billions.
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Post by warmaker on Sept 4, 2023 16:56:22 GMT -5
I noticed this yesterday while watching the videos from the concert... Shitload of wildfires this year all around the globe, very sad...
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Post by ap on Sept 9, 2023 13:27:44 GMT -5
I noticed this yesterday while watching the videos from the concert... Shitload of wildfires this year all around the globe, very sad... Devastating. We were personally affected by Lahaina, and then hit again by fire at home. Just Google Kelowna Fires to see the mayhem we endured a couple weeks back. Scary times.
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Post by anaix3l on Oct 27, 2023 17:31:29 GMT -5
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Post by anaix3l on Oct 31, 2023 16:19:06 GMT -5
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Post by anaix3l on Feb 21, 2024 2:20:01 GMT -5
A Jimmy Crespo Aerosmith guitar pick on ebay for more than I make in a month. Some people sure are greedy. original link and screenshot
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Post by whatashame on Feb 25, 2024 18:59:22 GMT -5
hey Ana, cool find! Lotsa magic was sprinkled all over that pick by the mighty Crespo. Cool find hey not to rock the boat, meddle, pitch in, intrude, or any of the like, but that money comment is really interesting and worth a thread of its own. I live in Poland, a fellow European country, a shit hole to some, where an average salary is about a thousand bucks after taxes. Monthly bills amount to 200 bucks, there rest is for you. Or the bank, or the kids. I am not really economically up to date so I found your fellow European Union citizen comment shocking. That's not to say I am discrediting, it's just that I feel embrassed not knowing there is such diveristy in Europe. I thought we all are on peanuts and I thought what I make is the bare minimum. Then again, like I said, don't throw me under the bus, I'm not into economics or politics, I just do my job and live my life, and I'd really appreciate you write a post or two about Romania. I think I might relate, or at least I think I do. I had many a friend emigrate to the UK where they make few times more than I do for the same job. I wish them all the best and I am not at all jealous, especially since they kept telling me to go but I chickened out and at a time was in love with a chick that wouldn't leave her mammas and papas. I stayed and slaved away for 10 years working 2 jobs 7 days a week and I finally settled down in my apartment. But still, retrospectively I think made a mistake by not going. The chick cheated on me anyhow when I was at work all the time. It's not to preach, it's just that I'm sure you have a great story to tell, I saw your CSS course and your speech the other day on youtube and was hugely impressed, how come you're on peanuts and in Romania with that many skills and a language when there's some many lazy morons working with me? I hope you don't mind me asking if it's personal, I just think it's educational, please don't hold my ignorance against me, you and the rest of you guys
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Post by whatashame on Feb 25, 2024 19:00:05 GMT -5
A Jimmy Crespo Aerosmith guitar pick on ebay for more than I make in a month. Some people sure are greedy. original link and screenshotsorry for the double post, I just wanted to get your attention by quoting your post
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Post by anaix3l on Feb 26, 2024 6:46:36 GMT -5
A Jimmy Crespo Aerosmith guitar pick on ebay for more than I make in a month. Some people sure are greedy. original link and screenshotsorry for the double post, I just wanted to get your attention by quoting your post I'm on my own - I'm not employed by anyone, I'm registered as an individual enterprise. If I were employed (legally because a lot of people here aren't working with paperwork in order), Romania does have a minimum wage which is now... about twice what I currently make? But as things are, I need to constantly convince people my work is worth paying for and... let's say that getting people to pay me for my work is not something I'm good at. And it got worse over the past couple of years as I lost income sources left and right. I last got a research grant in 2022, none in 2023. The publication I used to write technical articles for until the end of 2021 has closed shop. Even big conferences selling tickets for quite heavy sums aren't willing to pay - they'd rather have speakers from big companies who are going to cover the costs for the exposure they get there. Some of the people who offered me work in the past have way bigger problems than me. So it's mostly left down to Patreon, I now make little other than that, and even that shrank to half of what it was in early 2022. On a day to day basis, I wouldn't say I'm struggling financially, my life has been pretty good. I don't have a lifestyle that requires much money. I don't have a lot of other people's expenses. I don't have a car, I mostly just walk pretty much everywhere in the city. I've never been to a gym when working out in my room or on the public exercise machines in the park is free. I never go to a hair salon when cutting my hair in the bathroom in front of the mirror is free. I rarely ever buy clothes - I'm not obsessed with the latest fashion and my clothes last a long time because I take care of them and I don't work in an environment where they'd get damaged. I almost never wear makeup so that's another expense less. I don't have a TV or a radio. I still use the same phone I bought in 2005, so I can do with a 1.70€ phone plan. I also don't have any subscriptions to any online services. I never eat out or order food, or buy ready-made stuff that costs more than just cooking myself. And I can fix a lot of things on my own rather than calling a plumber or an electrician. The Crespo pick... it's like the Aerosmith M&G to me. Too expensive, I'm not in the target, move on. Plus I got to meet everyone in the band except Steven for free anyway. I'm amazed at how greedy some people can be, but that's it. Not like I lose any sleep over it. Obviously, there are the things that aren't within my reach financially... or not easily anyway... but I'd still want/ need. Up until now, that has mostly been traveling for concerts. But as time passes and the body degrades, that's starting to get replaced by health issues. Romania is a sanitary disaster, there's always a very high risk of leaving the hospital with a nasty bacterial infection. Private hospitals seem cleaner, but even more than like public hospitals, they lack the equipment for anything more complex. Everyone with money just goes abroad if they have a health problem... Vienna, Geneva, Paris... but that's nowhere within my reach. Travel for concerts was a lot cheaper. Cheap Ryanair flights, FlixBus night rides that saved accommodation money. Train station lockers to leave my stuff during shows when I had no hotel room to leave it in. The 9€ ticket for all regional transport across Germany in the summer of 2022. The 40% off BahnCard promos. I could make it work without spending that much. I don't know about such shortcuts when it comes to taking care of health problems. It is what it is, I guess. As for writing a post about Romania... I don't think it's going to happen. Not now anyway. Since last autumn, I fell down pretty deep into some rabbitholes when it comes to work and I'm finding little time for anything else. Plus I'm not the best person to talk about the topic given I do little else other than bash on my keyboard. But for anyone interested, Recorder have some videos with English captions. Some of the problems of the healthcare system
Mafia clan of the Romanian church
How people were used and abused at the grand opening of their hideous cathedral
Pedophilia in the church
Illegal deforestations
Bribe at the border crossings
Corruption
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Post by whatashame on Feb 26, 2024 10:25:45 GMT -5
thanks for the heads up, great post!
The paragraph where you listed ways of saving money, I can totally relate to that. It might be kinda creepy to our fellow American posters, I think, but not that long ago, during Communism and few years after its collapse, there just wasn't that much stuff to spend money on, so yeah, we were brought up in that way not to spend money. That's not to say we are Scrooges, but just like you said, your mother teaches you to cook, your dad teaches you to repair stuff, you put some clothes on your back and what else do you need? Me, I'm 37 years old myself, but seeing younger people, they go through their salaries like it's never ending. Kids eat daily breakfast at McDonald's, where a sandwich costs me an hour of work, 2 minutes of work for a sandwich at a supermarket. I see a kid at McDonald's, and they travel in packs, I always think "man, your mother doesn't cook for you? where is she now?" Then there's the Starbucks coffee, that's so expensive over here. It sure must be tasty because my girl loses her shit over it, but I find it somewhat funny you go to work for 2 hours to pay for a cuppa coffee to work for another 6. But yeah, I'm sure you know how a kid says "mum, can we get some ice tea?" and mum says "there's ice tea at home". And it resonates, it's a good piece of advice. Hey, wanna grab a lunch? 30 dollars? No, i"m brown bagging, there's lunch at home . That shit got me a budget for my entire music collection, which is hundreds of cassettes, vinyls, thousands of CDs. Another weird thing is, back int he day people would get married on a very, very tight budget - just pay for food and drinks for the guests. Once they get drunk, they will have fun. And guests would bring cash in envelopes as gifts, so that the just married would have a fresh start and move out, leave parents behind. Logical. These days? Man, kids get married and end up with a 4 year debt, take a loan from the bank! It's nuts! A slave to the bank from day one. Who taught them that? They are gonna be slaves to the bank forever. So yeah, I'm totally with you on that. And as for concerts, that too, me and my buddies, that was part of the fun, taking a cheap night train ride. Beer is cheap, homemade food is cheap and healthy, let's go!
One thing I was hoping to learn from your post was, how come you never left Romania if your skills are universal and you speak a language? Do you mind me asking?
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Post by anaix3l on Feb 29, 2024 4:00:37 GMT -5
One thing I was hoping to learn from your post was, how come you never left Romania if your skills are universal and you speak a language? Do you mind me asking? I thought it's obvious I can't afford to. I don't make enough money to afford living anyplace where I wouldn't lose my remaining sources of income (life in Sudan is cheaper, but it's not like Sudan exists for the payment processors I'm forced to use). Bottom line, me making under $350 a month has everything to do with me and nothing to do with Romania. I wouldn't make any more money than I am making now anywhere else in the world. Maybe less, but not more. And it's not like I really want to leave anyway.
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Post by redvers76 on Feb 29, 2024 6:03:13 GMT -5
One thing I was hoping to learn from your post was, how come you never left Romania if your skills are universal and you speak a language? Do you mind me asking? I thought it's obvious I can't afford to. I don't make enough money to afford living anyplace where I wouldn't lose my remaining sources of income (life in Sudan is cheaper, but it's not like Sudan exists for the payment processors I'm forced to use). Bottom line, me making under $350 a month has everything to do with me and nothing to do with Romania. I wouldn't make any more money than I am making now anywhere else in the world. Maybe less, but not more. And it's not like I really want to leave anyway. Given your skills I would imagine you could probably work for a "near source" company like Godel, who offer the services of people in Eastern Europe for cheap labour to the UK market. You could probably get a direct role in the UK as a web developer, or even work here in the contract market, where you'd get your monthly earnings in Romania every day. However there's the whole "right to work" thing since Brexit and as well as that you'd potentially find the cost of living in the UK much, much higher. And the quality of life isn't strictly that much better...
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Alicanto
Got a Grip
Posts: 56
Join Date:
Jul 3, 2020 17:36:47 GMT -5
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Post by Alicanto on Mar 8, 2024 0:11:09 GMT -5
New single out by Slash and Brian Johnson, with Steven on harmonica... I suspect this was what they were working on. Not bad, reminds me of Honkin' On Bobo.
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Post by AeroCooper on Mar 20, 2024 5:45:44 GMT -5
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Post by warmaker on Apr 11, 2024 3:39:06 GMT -5
That's kinda old news, ain't it...?
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