AI6YR BenSep 14, 2025

The Stepford Wife Suburbs

Own a picture perfect bungalow
No hobbies but the kids
Paint your face perfectly
Inspirational posters in the hall

Expensive car in the driveway
You cheer his favorite ball team
Your fashion is always flawless
Decorations at Christmas pumpkins in the fall

Can't cook but you always order out
Your nails done like a dream
Hairdresser on Wednesdays
Spent weekdays at the mall

No clutter allowed in the house
Take the kids out for ice cream
Pom poms from when you were a cheerleader
Always answer the husband's call

Alas, I think you live a nightmare
Things are not always as they seem
Living your life as a kept woman
You might as well just be a doll

#poem (human)

Show threadAI6YR Ben
This inspired by my checking out out an "estate sale" around here, which I suspect *actually* is a "divorce settlement" sale, and the million dollar plus house is being sold to be split between the parties. But, just my random theory, LOL.
Sep 14, 2025 at 7:51pmWeb
Show thread`Da ElfSep 14, 2025

@ai6yr Heh. Saw someone Giving away a 42' Yacht up in Alameda.

I came to almost the same conclusion:
"Someone got the yacht, and then they got the Slip Bills."

(Were it a sail boat, I'd be on my way to Alameda right now...not that I can get a slip anywhere near Santa Cruz, well, Moss Landing perhaps.)

Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 14, 2025

@elfin @ai6yr

Or there's something broken.
I did a look-see at a Hunter 52(i think?) that was real cheap in Galveston.

Figured out the price after a few hours. The deck join was completely fecked. Someone had removed the connections to the lower chain plates, putting all the mast stress directly on the deck, not the hull.

I think it was done as a temp measure when they refurbished the interior. But they never put the bolts back before sailing.

Show threadAI6YR BenSep 14, 2025
@johntimaeus @elfin OUCH
Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 14, 2025

@ai6yr @elfin

I still advised my friend to buy it. He paid <$5k for it. Had a yard strip it and dispose of it for about another $5k.

The yard got lots of good condition pieces parts, including the mast, sails, and rigging

He got a barely used Volvo penta that fit his old 32, a multifuel marine galley oven/range, some nice teak planking, a reverse osmosis unit, and about $10k in electronics

Show thread`Da ElfSep 14, 2025
@johntimaeus @ai6yr Sweet!
Show thread`Da ElfSep 14, 2025

@johntimaeus @ai6yr *Groan* Eight years ago I was here working on a project for the InterTubes and ...

There was a sail boat With A Slip. WE didn't want the boat. In fact, I stripped to my undies and dropped in the water and swam up under the keel. I got my fingers To The Knuckle in between the hull and sides and pulled myself flat. Popped back out and shook my head and our friend pointed to the silicon and RTV around *all* the eyelets for the rigging.

I decided to not go sailing that day.

Show threadMaxSep 15, 2025
@elfin @johntimaeus @ai6yr I'm thinking of buying a sailboat. When I inspect them I am always finding a reason not to.
Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@MaxUK

I'm reasonably convinced you can get a not badly broken or abandoned sail boat for about $50-100 / ft; and as long as you don't want it pretty, make it safe and well found for about the same.

Assuming you look carefully, and the boat is under 40ft/12m.
Above that the square and cube rules start kicking in hard.

@elfin @ai6yr

Show threadSupermoosieSep 15, 2025

@johntimaeus @MaxUK

With old fibre glass boats coming up to their end of life, we have basically scamers shifting old boats to unsuspecting people, so they don't have to pay to get them removed from the water and disposed of.

https://archive.md/NwcuZ

@elfin @ai6yr

Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@SuperMoosie
That sucks for all involved. I haven't seen anything near that bad in the US, but i don't explore backwaters in Florida. I suspect it may be that bad or worse there.

Most places I go, if a boat begins listing more than a few degrees, letters are sent. If there's no response and correction in a few months; lawyers get involved, boats get pulled, and fees begin racking up.

It usually ends with someone's estate paying 30% of 'costs' and claiming insolvency beyond that.

@MaxUK @elfin @ai6yr

Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@SuperMoosie @MaxUK @elfin @ai6yr

I've generally found it stupid. When I lived in Austin 20 years ago, I helped my local dock master clear about 10 early 70s abandoned boats.

I lost money on one, made not enough money on a couple, and did well (for the time - and my income then) on the rest.

Ebay will pay well for a "2kg box, misc Catalina stainless screws, hardware, and turnbuckles". It did help that they were mass produced, and very common type in the area.

It took about a week of afternoons and a hard weekend with a friend sawsalling the hull into bits. The mast, boom, and standing rigging usually covered the cost of haul off to landfill. Teak hatch cover sets sold for $400, plastic for 100. Winches were basically gold. Rope was gravy and beer money.

Show threadAI6YR BenSep 15, 2025
@johntimaeus @SuperMoosie @MaxUK @elfin So, you were basically taking and disassembling boats for parts? LOL. Always wondered what happened to abandoned boats that aren't sold!
Show thread`Da ElfSep 15, 2025
@ai6yr
i approve of this.
@johntimaeus @SuperMoosie @MaxUK
Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@elfin @ai6yr @SuperMoosie @MaxUK

Yep, pull it up on a gravel beach on the east side of Lake Travis with a tractor. Any trolling motors are sold in an hour or two. The Austin yacht club was almost always ready to buy a mast/boom/rigging before we could get them loose. Bass fishermen always wanted the small anchors for half retail, especially if we threw in an eye and chain. Box the miscellaneous bits and drop it on ebay.

Two people, four days: there's nothing left but blistered fiberglass and punky plywood. Put on eyewear and a mask and start sawing. Chainsaw where it's safe, Sawzall otherwise.

Monday a waste management truck comes by and picks up the bits with a claw.

Call the old guy who does bulk metal. He takes the keel, and owes a favor.

Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@elfin @ai6yr @SuperMoosie @MaxUK

I was a lot younger then. It'd probably take three weeks to do that dance today.

Show threadMaxSep 15, 2025
@johntimaeus @elfin @ai6yr @SuperMoosie I've been watching Christian Williams on YouTube sailing CA to Hawaii solo. 78 years old. What a great guy.
Show threadJohn TimaeusSep 15, 2025

@ai6yr @SuperMoosie @MaxUK @elfin

Sadly most get pushed into a landfill whole. Or burned on a beach making an environmental hazard. Or taken to the first deep water and scuttled, environmental and navigation hazard...especially if there's a storm that washes it into shallower water.

Big ships become hazardous waste in places like Indonesia and Pakistan. Beached and cut for bulk scrap by guys making under a dollar a day with no safety equipment.

Show threadMuro deGrizecoSep 14, 2025

@ai6yr

One local estate sale, omg, was so fascinating:

Vacuum tubes, some big, size of football, sign says "assorted lightbulbs".

A bedroom that had been converted to a library, with rows in the middle too. Didn't see a card catalog.

Display shelf with sexy naked cheetah woman statuette!

I said, "Wut dis? Errrr."

Room with many many so many teddy bears. Online obit said, deceased was well known in teddy bear scene! "Will miss her!"

#estatesale

Show threadAI6YR BenSep 14, 2025
@murodegrizeco 😂
Show threadMuro deGrizecoSep 14, 2025

@ai6yr

Found pictures. 2019.

#estatesale

Show threadAI6YR BenSep 14, 2025
@murodegrizeco LOL nice "lightbulb"