Bvance

Hi, when I do various ski length calculators it typically lands me around the sweet spot of 176-178cm. The range I usually get for my height and weight is 170-190cm. I found a pair of all-mtn. skis that were too good of a deal to pass up that are 184cm. I used to ski a lot about 20 years ago and just moved back to snow so I started getting back into it. 

I'm finding it a pain to parallel turn smoothly. In the long run is it better to re-learn on these skis or invest is something shorter? 

Reading opinions on forums it seems like I'll eventually want longer skis as I do more advanced stuff. Any advice?

Earlier this year, my wife and one of her good friends started drifting apart. Partially because her friend hated me, and my wife likes me, and because my wife had other priorities like devoting a lot of her time to flight school. Every few months my wife would check in on her friend and see how she's doing and always received the cold shoulder. 

This week, her now ex-friend dropped off a plate of cookies, but didn't say a word when she handed them to my wife. A little time later that day she texted my wife to tell her what an awful person she is and many other hateful things. My wife has felt horrible all week, so of course this move by her ex-friend put a damper on Christmas. 

My wife is beating herself up over this, but all I can see is major selfishness on the part of her ex-friend, especially her attempt to make my wife's Christmas a horrible experience. The fact she would wait till this week to bring it up and bring cookies before chewing her out seems to be one of the biggest jerk move she could have done. 

Should my wife feel bad?

I have a full suspension mountain bike with a 3x9 drivetrain. It has front and rear Sram derailleurs. It was having issues with ghost-shifting and since tune-up appointments at the bike shop are scheduled months out, I found the manuals online and have adjusted them myself. The ghost-shifting is gone and when I have the bike in the clamp front and rear both shift flawlessly. However, when riding it, it will not shift on to the largest cog in front. I’ve tried the barrel adjustments and it’s not helping. Is there something I’m missing? Should I adjust the derailleurs with all the air out of the rear shock? If so, why do no YouTube videos or manuals say to do this? I just don’t get how it works flawlessly when in the clamp, but riding it won’t shift right. Any thoughts? Thanks 

Here are two clips from two TV versions of Sherlock Holmes. These clips are "funny moments". Based from just these clips, which would you rather watch?

Sherlock BBC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OmdF290gOg

Elementary CBS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfRCwy3n0hM

The truth of the matter is that my in-laws could be a lot worse, but I find myself biting my tongue a lot, when I am around them or when they make time to be part of our lives. Each situation is different, so giving specifics is pointless. It is very difficult for me to complain to their faces about some of the things they say or do, so I am looking for a way to "cope" with their **** when it occurs. Any tips would be much appreciated, especially as we head into the holidays this week.

Thanks,

Sherlock is one of those TV programs where practically every episode is good. It is probably due to the fact that they don't make a lot of episodes, but take the time to make the few that they have REALLY good. What episode is your favorite?

My wife's sister is a professional photographer (professional as in she has a nice camera and occasionally people pay her for photo shoots and she has a facebook photo page), so she always volunteers to do our family pictures for free each year as a gift, which is great, but we always hate the finished product. The photos are good pictures, but with every photo she washes everything out so it always looks like my family and I are porcelain dolls. All of the photos I have seen her take of others look exactly the same. Apparently that's her style. She just took some pictures of us for our Christmas cards and I told my wife that they make us look horrible and I don't want to use them. So we asked if she could send us some un-edited photos and she said no. My wife nicely mentioned to her that we don't like her washed-out style, at which point she blew up and said that if we are complaining she is never going to take our pictures again. I suppose if we were paying for the pictures, she would be willing to make them the way we want them, but not when she is doing it for free. Altering her pictures myself or going to another photographer would cause major divides in the family that I don't think we would recover from! That's how my in-laws are. Another option I suggested would be to take some photos ourself with our cheap camera. They wouldn't be the quality of professional, but at least we would look decent. Thoughts, ideas to make us all happy?

It seems that more and more of my family and friends are going to white only Christmas lights on their Christmas trees. In-fact, this year I may be the only one who has multicolored lights. I think white lights look elegant, but are boring! I'm going to have kids over, the colors are what they want to see. What do you guys think? Also, not to offend, but the people I personally know, with white lights, are snobby and judgmental that I have colored lights. Just sayin'!

Should I be bitter that my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, over Thanksgiving dinner, said that they didn't choose my wife and I to become their kids parents should they both pass away? Especially since they said they didn't choose us because our "situation" isn't as good as my other in-laws, which I disagree with. Or should I just be happy that I won't have to adopt their 4 annoying kids someday??

Anyone want to make me feel better? I guess they think we are failures at life since they didn't consider us for this job.

So my sister and sister-in-law are obsessed with using essential oils for everything. I have used them before for various things and they have never worked for me. I fail to believe I am immune to the effects of essential oils, but that it is more likely the placebo effect is working on me. Even when they tell me of all their miraculous experiences, it's something like, my daughter had a cough for a week then I gave her the oils and in two days it disappeared. Now I am thinking, In 9 days the cough probably just went away on it's own, but not them. They feel like it was all due to the oils. The thing that really grinds my gears is that when the oils don't work, which is often, they never doubt their effectiveness, but they go and buy more at $20+ a pop. The medication in the pharmacy to cure whatever ails them is probably cheaper.

Anyone else with the same thoughts?

When I see questions on here about chemistry, math, physics, biology, which I used to be really good in, I have no idea how to answer them without looking things up. Is this normal? I've only been out of school for 3 years. I remember general concepts and my masters degree stuff, but my bachelor degree....what was the point of all that organic chemistry!!?!

Hello, I got into an argument with my sister-in-law who claims: "Pumpkin pie is disgusting and nobody likes it but you!!" The reason for her anger stems from my mother-in-law asking what kind of pie we wanted for Thanksgiving dinner, and I asked for pumpkin and apparently she can't imagine that anyone in their right mind would like it.

I know I can't be the only one who like pumpkin pie, so PLEASE take my survey so I can rub it in her face! I love using statistics in my petty arguments!

Thanks in advance for your help!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JRNJSWD

The holidays are coming up, and for many like me, this means family time. I have been married for 7 years and for the most part, my in-laws are ok. Not the best, but not as bad as the horror stories that I have heard about. Still, my sister-in-law drives me INSANE!

Her biggest problem is that she and her kids MUST be the center of all attention! I spent three hours with her family today and I wanted to die. An example out of the blue is she will say things like "Isn't my girl the cutest girl ever?" or "It's impossible for children to be cuter than mine." The grandparents will agree, and it continues on from there. What really pushed me over the edge today was when we were talking about how cute my baby smiles and she butts in and says, "Is that all you are going to talk about today?" I couldn't believe it! Just ignoring her is one thing, but it is really rough for my kids because their grandparents don't give them the attention or time they deserve because she is always: "My kids, my kids, my kids." So my dilemma is thus, we have to go for Thanksgiving, there is no getting out of it. I see my options as being 1.) tell her off and enjoy the rest of my life as the villain. 2.) put aside all manners I have and act like her and be as annoying as can be. 3.) just ignore it. 4.) one of your suggestions.

Anyone else dealt with this sort of thing? Also, I usually get so pissed when I am around her that I just sit in silence or act really ornery, which results in me being the stick-in-the mud uncle who is no fun. It really sucks and I get 5 days of it in two weeks. :(

So, it's time to buy my first home. I am reading about the first time home buyer loans and it sounds too good to be true. One particular bank is offering a $275,000 loan (OAC), only $1,000 down, no mortgage insurance required, low monthly payments, etc. So what is the catch??

Assuming I qualified for the full amount, which I am pretty sure I will, I could buy a brand new home in my area. How can I have all of those wonderful things and still pay off the loan in 30 years with very low down and a low monthly payment. There has to be something hidden I don't know about right?

My wife and I have excellent credit, we only have a small student loan payment, and a few current lines of credit. We have enough in savings for a good size down payment on a modest home. We are also first-time home buyers. The problem is that I just took a new job where I am required to be on probation for a year and my current salary is only $35,000. Once a year passes I should get a fairly good raise, but what are my chances of getting a first-time home loan with such a low income if we wanted to purchase a home right now? I estimate that a home payment would be a little less than half the cost of what we are paying for rent right now. Thanks for your help!

Hi Ladies, please have a look at my post on craigslist and take the survey! I think it's kinda fun, plus you get to see a picture of my ****, so please do me a favor and take the survey! Thank You soooo much!

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/cas/3874002939.h...

I have a co-worker that I am definitely clashing with! Just a little background, I have only had the job for 4 months, I moved a long way to take it, I got a graduate degree to have it, and there aren't a lot of jobs around like it so I can't just "go find another job". So this guy I work with honestly has nothing to do, for example this week I had 9 meetings, he had one. He gets paid double what I do so that pisses me off, but the real problem is that since he has nothing to do he spends his time gossiping about people and planning things like basketball and volleyball games to go play during work time. He even planned a beard growing contest in all of his spare time. The thing is I am too busy to participate in everything he plans, or I just don't want to, but the other guys in the office love them and they go and hang out together. I am the "new guy" so it already is awkward and I can tell that I am quickly becoming the outcast. What am I to do about this? I try and be friendly and start conversations with him, and he is usually pretty nice, then goes and blows me off to do buddy things. My plan was that I was going to work at this place for a long time. If it is already like this with only four months, I don't know how I will survive.

What would you do?