Drew Dowdell

I’m using one of my “my site, my rules” tokens to say: Fuck off 2020! If you haven’t done so recently, please take this post as a reminder to check your fire extinguishers, buy more to keep around the house, and check all of your smoke alarms. I had a house fire today and it all happened in under 3 minutes. I saved my house but I got 2nd degree burns on my hands and spent the morning in the ER. A stray broken match head ignited my shower curtain and destroyed my bathroom. Albert had a robe hanging in there and it refused to stay out even after multiple hits with a fire extinguisher. I managed to grab it and fling it into the tub and finally got it doused with water. At some point the heat shattered a glass doorknob and I apparently stepped on it and cut my foot. I bled all over the bathroom floor and into the rest of the house. Hope you all have a great holiday and stay safe.

Congrats @balthazaron the truck order! Happy Christmas everyone, and I hope a healthy and prosperous 2021. We had a white Christmas here with 3 inches falling overnight and another 3 - 4 inches falling until this afternoon. I've already been out with the snow blower and it made quick work of the driveway any my neighbors driveway. Since I wasn't going through 10 - 12 inches of snow this time the battery did all of mine and the neighbors with 60% battery left over. When I was done, I threw one battery on the charger and set an alarm for myself for one hour and then went down and swapped batteries. I like how low maintenance this thing is going to be.

The only issue with Jeep was w few years ago when you could stand on a Jeep lot and nearly every model with a Jeep badge was designed by a different company. You'd have the Wrangler harking back to AMC/Chrysler days, the Grand Cherokee with its heavy Daimler influence, the Cherokee by Fiat, and depending on the year the Compass could be Fiat or old DCX/Mitsubishi, and your choice of Renegade (Fiat) or Patriot (DCX/Mitsubishi). So durability/reliability was very very model and year specific.

When I was assembling the snow blower the other night, I looked up and was eye height with the installer's label on the water tank. It was installed in 1994.... hence the question.

It defenitely had enough power. The one I got was only rated for 8" deep max and we got 10-12 here. I was still able to do most of my driveway and my neighbor's driveway on a single charge. I did run out of battery before I finished my driveway, but again I was going through snow deeper than it was rated for and I covered enough ground to park 6 or 7 cars. The batteries charge in an hour or less, but I only have a single charger for now, so total charge time is 2 hours. Not related to the power train... it gets stuck on every minor imperfection in concrete where my old one would just slide over it.

@balthazar and @A Horse With No Name what’s the expected life of a water heater and should it be proactively replaced if it is well over that age but otherwise functioning normally?

I have not found any significant improvement in quality in the Icons over Trico NeoForms that justify the Icons being 3 to 4 times the price.

Mine is very much green rather than gray. It might get repainting to a lighter color in the summer. That color has been up 15+ years.

Cozy night

Yes Watson.

Don’t buy wipers at the store. Don’t buy wipers at Amazon. Buy wipers from RockAuto.com they are 1/3rd of the cost compared to any retail or Amazon. You can get the Trico bar wipers from the which are equivalent to Bosch Icons for like $6 each plus shipping. If you have a bunch of vehicles, order for all your vehicles at the same time and save on shipping costs. Getting 6 blades for my whole fleet was like $48 after shipping. That’s the same as 2 Bosch Icons at Amazon.

It takes 6 batteries? I hope you can just plug the mower in to charge instead of having to have a rack of chargers

The whole thread was super helpful. My gas powered snow blower bit the dust years ago and I’ve just been shoveling manually since then. With the first 8” of snow on the ground here for the season, I said Eff this. I dug myself a path out, put the Avalanche in 4 low, and crawled to Lowe’s. I picked up the EGO snow blower. I also ended up ordering snow tires for the truck because I’m still rolling on the OEs and they are dry rotted. Even with tread they are awful in the white stuff. So now Gus will be getting new Blizzaks on Dec 27th.

My ski slope is only 90 minutes from me. We’re getting blasted with snow today. 8 to 10 inches total expected here in the city. More out at 7 Springs.

I think in terms of the end of Next Gen / DS9 timeline. My Toronado is an old Constitution class Refit My Avalanche is a Galaxy class. Big. Previous generation of design. Versatile. Powerful, but not the fastest or most maneuverable, but definitely not something you want to pick a fight with. My Chrysler 300C is an Excelsior class. An old design that just keeps getting upgraded with the newest tech. Known for speed.

I got out a bunch this past summer. Not much else to do.

Tax avoidance is legal but a lot of it shouldn’t be. It doesn’t count as shortfalls

Well that’s certainly an interesting twist!

Uh.. I don't know. I haven't had to configure that app in so long. I'll check. Yup, there was a 10 item max I changed it to unlimited. You should be able to add stuff now.

Except in extreme cases, Individual taxes matter a lot less than corporate taxes. Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world, but his W2 salary has stayed the same ~$81k for 20 years. His personal wealth is 90% paper based on the share price of the companies he owns. But when he does sell stocks, his tax rate is generally only 15% because he only pays Capital Gains. On the flip side, the actual corporation of Amazon pays very little of their income to taxes. This is where the bulk of the cheating is. Walmart is not only just as bad with the cheating, they are actively predatory. They'll hunt down some financially struggling town and promise to build a store there if they get a property tax exemption for the next 10 years. The town, being short-term greedy, accepts. Walmart builds the store and starts placing a burden on the local infrastructure. After the 10 years are up, Walmart threatens to close the store if they don't get an extension on their tax exemption. They'll cook the books to make the store look like it is barely profitable or even losing money. They'll claim "they want to keep the store open because they care about the community". If they get the extension, they continue to be a burden on the local infrastructure without paying towards its upkeep. If they don't get the extension, they close the store and move 10 miles down the road to the next gullible town and repeat the process all over again. The store they close they "Sadly, wanted to keep it open for the good of the community, but it just wasn't a good business decision." All the while they are doing this, they are having their workforce subsidized by Federal Tax dollars by compensating their employees so poorly that they need to go on Food Stamps (redeemable at Walmart), Section 8, and Medicare. Then they funnel a huge amount of their profits back through the Walton fund as charitable tax write offs and pay the family huge sums of money to sit on the board. And it's all legal.

I just wanted to see if, in addition to all the car geeks, we have Star Trek geeks too? I've always kinda thought about my vehicles as classes of ships from the series. I just wondered if any of you Star Trek (or other Sci Fi series) thought about it in the same way. Like my Toronado is a Constitution Class - Old and out of date, requires a bit of tinkering down in engineering to keep running right, not particularly fast, but be good to her and she'll always get you home. I already have my other two thought out, but I want to see if anyone else participates before I share them.

Still way too warm for us here... but I can't wait for my first ski trip of the year.

An Audi having electrical issues?! I'm shocked! SHOCKED I SAY!

I ended up pulling the trigger on this pair of Linksys Velop Wi-Fi 6 for $299. Linksys Velop AX4200 WiFi 6 Mesh System 2-Pack https://www.costco.com/linksys-velop-ax4200-wifi-6-mesh-system-2-pack.product.100701373.html my airport crashed multiple times today while I was trying to work

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.