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So, you all know I lost my job with the energy company almost exactly a year ago. Then Covid hit and jobs became scarce. I got a contracting job in June with a local government as their Project Manager and also acting as Director of I.T. Well, Friday (tomorrow), my contract is officially up. My boss has decided to extend my contract by 30 days and then January 11th, hired me as a direct employee. I'll be getting a 5-digit raise to come on plus my health insurance costs will drop by about $4700 a year. We're still figuring out the title, but at the moment Director of Special Projects is most likely. I really enjoy working there and I'm happy to have this whole thing settled.

Don't do that. Blow it back onto the grass and then suck it up into the mower if you want it gone. Grass on the street is bad for motorcycles and bicyclists, plus it looks like crap.

The guy driving it looked exactly like you are picturing he did.

I know i want a EGO snowblower....

I would like to at least buy the leaf blower and string trimmer together but really doubt I would buy the mower at the same time, just because I don't really need it and it's tough to justify the cost at this point.

Yeah...a Cadillac store sells vehicles that can be expected to run forty thousand miles without stupid issues...not so much JLR. Sadly...yes. I think the Koreans actually will do very well in the future.

^ I know you know that, but the way it was worded ("overhead") implied to me that the 10 dealers were somehow connected. Maybe just the way I read it. My local dealer has Chevy-Cadillac, Buick-GMC and Ford-Lincoln. The Chevy dealer was a new Lincoln store (then they built the newer F-L store), but a couple years ago they built a stand-along Cadillac dealer on the same property. I haven't been in it. Personally, I think the 'dealership experience' is vastly overrated. Do I care if the floor is vinyl tile or marble? I do not. In fact, if the floor IS marble, I figure THAT overhead reduces their ability to bargain on the vehicle price. I have zero ambition to spend time in the dealer's showroom, other than the rare occasion of buying a new car. It can be shag carpet & paneled walls- give me a decent deal. I can't take the marble flooring home... Not surprisingly, I'd rather buy from a dealer like this:

Ahhh; the wiley ways of the Percentage Symbol!

Sorry, I meant while I mow. I accidently blow grass on the street and want the leaf blower for easier cleanup. I definitely do not try and blow grass onto the street! Plus, its typically illegal to do so but it is never enforced.

Yeah, I don't really plan to blow leaves with it. I mostly want it to clean off the sidewalks and if/when I blow grass on the street...I want to be able to clean that up a lot easier. I just mulch leaves. I don't let the yard get suuuuper covered and it never gets too bad. I cut the grass just last week to get what I think was the last bit of leaves.

I have found that the 530 is perfect, what I like about it compared to the 580 and newest 650 is that you have a airflow control. Maybe they have them on the higher power ones, but I did not see it as I am used to mine having it in front so I just reach in front and adjust. Allows for full blast to very gentle and I have used it on gentle mode to blow out the garage and go then back to full mode to blow off the grass and drive way. No complaints as it does the job especially in the much larger back yard where I have plenty of neighbor trees that have a ton of leaves that drop into my yard. EDIT: I forgot, you do have a turbo button that goes from the 530 to 600 CFM that you can use, it does use up the battery faster. I tend to use my lawnmower battery in turbo mode for the back yard to blow the leaves faster. So in this regards the higher power unit if you have a large yard which it looks like you do might help get the job done faster or get their commercial backpack blower to really give you battery life and yet light to use since the bulk of the weight is on your back. Except for the 480 that has 3 power settings, all of the blowers I just checked has variable power from a low 200 to their max rating. The models being 530, 575, 580 and 650 before you go to the backpack unit I posted below that has a 3hr run time if you use the 7.5 Ah battery. In regards to a Stripe kit, I have never used one and I know that EGO does not have one. The rubber edge at the back of the lawn does a pretty nice job. I always cut my grass in two directions with the second cut at a 45 degree angle and my wife always says it looks like a baseball field. Seems to come across clean and nice. I looked and did not find anything other than 3rd party stripe kits that you would have to make your own attachment point on the mower.

If you keep up with it once or twice a month over the summer, you probably won't need the commercial grade one again. It's when you go years without that you need the commercial grade one to catch up.

It's just one room that has the signal issue and is is diagonally the furthest distance away.

Congratulations Drew, that is awesome!!! I agree with you that being contract and up in the air about job security especially during this pandemic sucks. Stay safe and all the best for the future of your Job!

Here's what you do. Rent a commercial grade one from Home Depot to get it into decent shape. $32 for four hours. Then you can maintain it easier with the EGO tools.

EGO switched from Home Depot to Lowes. I think it was the end of summer, or so, they announced it. When looking at the tools on EGO's website, they only list Amazon, Lowes, and Ace Hardware. The wording on this is very confusing because I believe this is JUST the attachment for that price. I believe that's stating the power head, battery, and charger are not included. I say this because $130 for the powerhead and attachment(without battery and charger) is still damn cheap. "EGO Power+ ME0800 8-Inch Edger Attachment & Power Head Battery & Charger Not Included" This is $143 alone: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072Q646G1

Love the (could it be candy apple?) red paint job on that pick-up. I could tolerate the cream bumpers and grille and the cream coloured wheels. I HATE the style of wheels though spoiling the whole look of the pick-up for me. The wheels make it look too much of a toy for me. About the all white '55: LOVE the all white motif. I dont mind the white wheels. But again, the style chosen ruins it for me negating everything that I love about it. Had the Chevy was wearin' big white wall tires on 15 inch Cragar SS-es, I would have lusted over it.

Interesting that I see Home Depot tonight no longer is listing the EGO tools. I have to think they are getting bigger profits selling direct on Amazon so Home Depot decided to drop them. Crazy. Amazon.com : EGO Seems that the Power Head unit and a single device is about $130.00 Amazon.com : EGO Power+ ME0800 8-Inch Edger Attachment & Power Head Battery & Charger Not Included : Garden & Outdoor Combo Unit is $400 for stringer and edger. Amazon.com : EGO Power+ MHC1502 Multi Combo Kit: 15 String Trimmer, 8-Inch Edger & Power Head with 5.0Ah Battery & Charger Included : Garden & Outdoor

I think we need a different measure of how much a vehicle has been used rather than just mileage. I'm sure we've all seen those ads for used cars saying "All highway miles!", but I think in addition to that, we have to start to take powertrain setup into consideration. When I bought my Avalanche, it only had 12,800 miles on it which is insanely low for a 7 year old truck. But for all I knew, those could have been all city miles where the truck was idling and going through short bursts of acceleration. But I actually know it was mostly highway miles because these trucks also have an engine hour monitor on them. I don't remember what it was when I bought it, but I think somewhere just over 400 hours. It has 534 hours on it today. That means for its entire life it has averaged 34 miles per hour. This is part of the reason I think we need a better measurement of vehicle use. The other part is that on my suburban commute to work, I rarely break 2,000 rpm, but in the Encore, I was regularly going well over that because the little 1.4T had to work so hard compared to the 5.3 in the truck. A hybrid or Voltec powertrain also changes the calculus. I am helping my part-time employee pick out a new to him car and I've semi-sold him on a used Volt. I had to explain to him that the Volt motor only runs 50% of the time, so a higher mileage example is still okay. I think some sort of calculation for this should become standard. Probably a function of (Average RPM per mile * miles)/engine hours. This would give you a better idea of how hard the engine worked and for how long rather than the somewhat meaningless miles.

November 28 sighting, in a suburb of Atlanta, GA I was in one of those 'burbs with an antique row and indie eateries. I'm not into antiques, but I am into food. I was about to turn night. To my left was a very unique sight ... so I turned left. As it were, the owners of these 2 vehicles knew each other. I slowed down, pulled over, let them know I knew these cars well and liked them, talked with them for a while, and they let me take these photos. Two versions of the 2-seater Buick Reatta - a convertible and a hardtop coupe. Their owners were very fond of these cars.

I didn’t say GM did run the stores. I’m saying the sales are spread thin over 10 stores compared to Benz with 4. That makes the dealership relatively less profitable and less likely to do upgrades and add luxuries. The difference between the interior of a Cadillac dealer and a Jaguar Land Rover dealer is striking. I’ve recently been in both.

If GM ends a franchise agreement, I can understand some sort of compensation. If a dealership ends a franchise agreement, I hope that's not also the case.

True, but culling dealerships is still expensive since STATE agency laws require compensation to shutter a franchise these days. Eleven years ago, about 900 dealerships were shuttered for good because of the last recession. All of them were GM/Ford/Chrysler dealerships.

The man definitely had a type.

Call it the Cadillac Escalade 16. I like the Blackwing name for an engine, but it is too contrived for an opulent trim a la Denali.

Hahaha no sh!t Illinois is a dumpster fire. Our lovely politicians haven't had a balanced budget since 2015. They firmly believe in raising taxes instead of cutting wasteful spending. They attempted to pull a fast one this past November with a "fair tax" bill. It was to "only raise taxes on people making over 200 or 250k" a year but had wording in it to allow them to increase every tax bracket at any time along with the ability to tax retirement accounts and pensions.

Good on him. California can frig off.

Redoing the master bed room so ran to home depot for some supplies and found the following F250.

If this was verbally described to me, I think I would say it would be horrific. But... I like this, and for the life of me I couldn't explain why.

Miss Belvedere :