ObviousGazelle

ObviousGazelle t1_jdpv6zc wrote

This city and the ADA exist in two different dimensions. Stick to the county perimeters if you need to drive the scooter to accomplish everything survival dependent, like getting food. There are horrible stretches of the city they call "Food Deserts". We used to have a neat old tradition where a group called "Arabbers" would cart fresh vegetables and other goods by a horse drawn cart. We could use that back in some areas, it was the only way many disabled city residents could get decent food. Now those alleys are filled with ramen noodle packs and it really makes me wonder how many people in the city are living off cheap and salty ramen.

I am in a wheelchair and even in the counties, people around here will yell at you to hurry up in the grocery line. So, a 300 year old city with severely lacking public transit and large areas of food deserts isn't a great choice for someone completely wheelchair bound. Public transit pretty much acts like disabled people don't exist, there are some very basic state services to help transport disabled around but it's always a major problem to deal with. You're better off calling a transport company with a wheelchair van. Going downtown for anything like hospital or official business is a complete nightmare in a wheelchair.

It's been getting worse the past 5 years, not better. Be very careful about selecting where you're going to live. Make sure to research the hell out of every aspect, especially be careful of the real estate related scams. Like random people renting you someone else's house while they are out of town, or buying a nice little rowhome only to find out some 86 year old widow in new jersey owns the "ground rent" rights and it's a headache entirely central to Baltimore.

Make sure you understand this outdated bullshit concept and the fact that no matter how hard you check, someone may secretly own the rights to a property that has been fully legally and correctly sold to you and you own nothing until it's sorted. There have been some nasty situations evolve from this bullshit, and it's pretty much unique to this city. https://www.peoples-law.org/understanding-ground-rent-maryland

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ObviousGazelle t1_jdptk4c wrote

The only reason these things happen is because people are dumb or desperate enough to do it. And then when they realize they been had, are too embarrassed to do anything about it, which encourages these piece of shit owner types to be even more brazen.

Don't worry they'll cross the wrong MFer one day who will be well connected enough to solve their problems.

Also is it just me or is the whole industry going to shit fast around here...

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ObviousGazelle t1_jbzenrp wrote

Yes but asking nicely and receiving it thankfully, or going about it professionally and just asking for a good sale price and buying it outright or thru a community outreach program instead of coming out the gate swinging confrontationally and demanding something for nothing like you are owed this doesn't scratch that narcissistic itch or make yourself look like a martyr in this day and age of social media or the whole "Fuck you Pay me" mentality Baltimoreans tend to have.

Has anyone contacted under armor? Has there been any effort to put together a bid with sponsorship backing? Or is this just another half assed knee jerk reaction to finding out it's getting sold thru the grapevine?

Don't get me wrong the city has 19,000 properties, sometimes whole city BLOCKS of abandoned fire hazards, trash piles and late 1800's/ early 1900's dilapidated and unrepairable commercial properties that would better serve the community as bulldozed and flattened pieces of public use property but the city would rather cry about "food deserts" and firefighters dying constantly trying to keep the city from burning to the ground, or completely ignored the fact that the few places people are getting away with doing these gardens are basically just where squatting on one of these delinquent properties to grow some kind of food is the only way some people had survived in these wastelands, by pulling themselves out of the blight just to have big business or city hall come along and snatch it away.

Maybe r/Baltimorecitydot could enlighten us on what efforts are being made to control the growth of current blight and reduction of food deserts in the city? Because Locus Point is just one of a handful of gardens in the city that are working and have been for 20 years, one of the FEW positive forces in this city yet completely ignored by city hall.

How about this policy: there are a lot of places where the city could come in and bulldoze out half a city block where there's constant trash, shootings and drug activity. Write a law that simply states in areas of high level blight, crime and especially abando fires (which threaten the lives of everyone in the neighborhood including the firefighters who have to put these things out over and over) any properties not maintained, deemed unrepairable, etc city hall can designate it a "high priority zone" for redevelopment. Condemn and foreclose, take ownership by the city like many already are, and bulldoze the whole thing down to level ground. Offer the site for sale to commercial development with a 10 year tax free incentive to build there as the two main problems holding back companies from doing this on their own are the expense of the teardowns and the ridiculous mentality of city hall where they salivate over "getting something for themselves out of it or it ain't happening". Give it a 2 year maximum period on the market and if nobody bites, it's made into a field with a fence around it and a community board set up to start a garden. Some other ideas, convert a rowhome or building next to this plot to a police substation/community center where basic supplies for emergencies can be stored, a large meeting room for public use like meetings, and so on.

There's some pros and cons I'm skipping over. Obviously. But it's obvious in this city the only way forward is to help ourselves or leave. And I'm not seeing very many ideas that end well. The few things that do work against the blight in the city that don't involve complete gentrification are completely ignored by city hall and if it's not on social media or the news it's ignored.

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ObviousGazelle t1_jadjfrh wrote

It was 15 total technically. 13 penetrated. Two hit the ground right in front of me and flattened out, and spent just enough energy to not penetrate. One hit my thigh which already took 6 rounds and the other hit me in my right arm pit. I woke up a week later and still had a softball sized mound of purple and black flesh that took a drain installed and over a month to go down. It about dislocated my shoulder. And that was the least of my injuries. It was a .40sw Taurus handgun copy of a Glock like cops use. Stolen out of the county. I'm almost there. I'm still in a wheelchair but doing ok considering I died on the way to shock trauma, lost 6 of the 10 units of blood in the human body, and had 16 hour marathon surgery to save me. I hold the record at shock trauma for surviving the most large caliber handgun rounds, according to my doctors. I'm a tough old bastard lol

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ObviousGazelle t1_jac3dmy wrote

Check here every couple of days. If it shows up in a city impound lot it'll appear here. Edit posted wrong link. It's the link to findmytow below. Apologies

Make sure your MDOT.gov contact information is up to date.

And count your lucky stars. I was shot 13 times for my car just over a year ago and barely survived. I'm still in a wheelchair. Count your lucky stars.

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ObviousGazelle t1_jaakxbz wrote

I haven't been but I love Cherry Springs in Pennsylvania. Actually caught a shadow at my feet from only the milky way there, on a moonless night. It was magical. Check it out it's a state park built for astronomy and the only dark territory on the east coast.

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ObviousGazelle t1_jaaiwqt wrote

Reply to comment by MoreGull in The Case for Callisto by MoreGull

You forget mars has an atmosphere. Thin, but it's there. The question when choosing the two will be this: Can humans build radiation shielding good enough to live permanently on Mars, and of not then what are the trade offs because Callisto has no atmosphere for aerobraking... So which challenge is solvable first?

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ObviousGazelle t1_jaaf4ku wrote

Each seat is a money maker. Don't just sit and expect people to wait on you for 5 hours while you sip coffee when that 5 hour period could have produced a 100 dollars in tips for the waiter alone, not even considering the amount of money you're burning on their dime in return. It costs money to turn on the lights, heat the place to comfortable in these conditions with the front door constantly opening, and have everything on the menu ready for you on a whim. If the lights are on the grill is hot and the taps are pressurized and that costs a lot of money too. The trick to making money in that game is fast happy turnover of customers. A seat is the real estate. Don't park your big rig in front of it and block it up on sale day.

ASK FIRST.

Find a slow bar and tip egregiously well because someone is going to feel they need to make sure you're well taken care of the whole time you're doing it, so regardless if you order or not that deserves payment.

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ObviousGazelle t1_ja9rvo5 wrote

The two absolute best tattoo artists in MD are on Facebook. Look for Justin Holcombe in the northeast corner of MD, or Ashley Cooksey in southern MD.

Justin Holcombe might be the best portrait artist in the US. Possibly the world and he's relatively cheap and easy to work with but works only limitedly now. I'll attempt to post links... Remove the extra dots ...https://www.facebook.com/JustinHolcombemd?mibextid=ZbWKwL...

...https://www.facebook.com/ashley.cooksey.5?mibextid=ZbWKwL....

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