• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

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    Posted 08/15/2025
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    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

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    Addendum: 01/10/2026
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    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

The shocks of coming out of the woods....

WebSlave

It is what it is, but certainly not what it was.
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Many years ago, Connie and I went on vacation down to Florida (we were living in Maryland at the time) and when stopped at a rest stop, I went into the men's room to do my business. When I came out I went to wash my hands and was flustered by the water faucets that had no handles to turn them on. Fortunately a guy pointed out the sensor that enabled the water stream. I guess he thought I was fresh from the boonies coming to modern civilization. And maybe I was...

So recently I am taking a trip and took some routes that had toll booths attached to them. I had money in hand, but was astonished to see signs saying that vehicles should not stop, that they will be billed for the toll. Hmm??? How does that work? There appeared to be cameras that I assume took photos of the license plate of the vehicle, and I was wondering it the bike carrier on back of my vehicle was going to obscure my license plate. But even so, this brought interesting thoughts to mind. Does this mean there is a system in place linking the license plate info all across the USA such that a billing system of this nature even exists? Do they send me a bill in the mail or do they also have it linked to my credit card info? And what about rental vehicles? How would that work?

To top this off Pim and I went to a state park and then again I had money in hand to pay for parking. But WTH? They just had signs up stating that visitors needed to text a number or else log into a website via their phone. So what if someone doesn't bring a cell phone to the beach? I will be honest, I have never texted a number to a numbered code on my phone, so didn't have a clue about how to do that. And neither was I going to stand around there all day long to register on some website and provide any sort of identifying info to anyone in that manner. So I just said "screw it all" and we went down to the beach. Beats me how they are even going to know I am there, unless someone comes through the park periodically and scans everyone's license plate and this parking fee system is also tied into the above mentioned license plate database. Then I guess I might get some sort of fine sent to me. So this is saying that it is a REQUIREMENT than anyone going to such state parks MUST have a cell phone and MUST bring it with them to the park? Again, WTH???

Yeah, maybe I am some rube now living in the wilds of Wakulla County. Maybe I should just stay there.
 
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