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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Your car's jack is your friend, and not just for fixing flats.
If it were more of a pain in the ass in terms of weight or angle then I would have resorted to that, but it wasn't that bad, really. Lots of room to work under there and the hitch is 40 lbs or so and easy to position: vertical bolt holes on the frame, unobscured.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
So one of the draws of this Lexus was that Curt makes a 1.25" hitch for it. @narlus had reported that on his old Civic he'd had a local shop weld up a 2" receiver in place of the 1.25" receiver similarly available stock for his ride.

Well, I've struck out on that unless I pick up welding myself. None of the local shops will do this, even those that build custom hitches for RVs and the like. I think it's a liability issue.

I guess I'm stuck with an adapter then, like this:



Tongue weight limit on that rack and the adapter alike are 350 lbs so it still should work with the 4 bike attachment... right? :D I guess I'll find out. The good news is that going with a riser adapter will help departure angle--I think I mentioned this earlier when musing about the 1.25" hitch options for the Prius idea similarly neglected in the interim.
Yeah, my 2" tube receiver was welded under the stock 1.25" receiver and frame, so it was pretty low and bottomed out when going down steep ramps. it held up though!
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Uhhhh... what's "negative equity"?

When someone trades in a car with a loan balance greater than its trade-in value they have negative equity. Their new loan is therefore that much larger to start: new car negotiated price + negative equity from old car on top of that.

Seems about as smart as payday loans, which are popular because math is hard, I guess?
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,634
12,699
In a van.... down by the river
When someone trades in a car with a loan balance greater than its trade-in value they have negative equity. Their new loan is therefore that much larger to start: new car negotiated price + negative equity from old car on top of that.

Seems about as smart as payday loans, which are popular because math is hard, I guess?
I know what it is... I was playing the moron. :D
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Last year I installed a Rachio smart sprinkler controller. Smartphone interface and all, but the big thing was that was supposed to limit usage by only watering when the grass needed it, based on the weather and soil characteristics.

Well, it's killing my lawn even at 150% of recommended levels. There are large brown patches front and back, with the only two truly green areas those that receive excess water from the downspouts or runoff from the neighbors lawn.

Back to using it as a dumb controller on a fixed schedule, I guess. I dethatched the dead areas vigorously after mowing today, sprayed some fertilizer, and set up daily watering for 14 days followed by every other day from there on out. Perhaps some over-watering will help revive the grass.
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,634
12,699
In a van.... down by the river
Last year I installed a Rachio smart sprinkler controller. Smartphone interface and all, but the big thing was that was supposed to limit usage by only watering when the grass needed it, based on the weather and soil characteristics.

Well, it's killing my lawn even at 150% of recommended levels. There are large brown patches front and back, with the only two truly green areas those that receive excess water from the downspouts or runoff from the neighbors lawn.

Back to using it as a dumb controller on a fixed schedule, I guess. I dethatched the dead areas vigorously after mowing today, sprayed some fertilizer, and set up daily watering for 14 days followed by every other day from there on out. Perhaps some over-watering will help revive the grass.
It's probably not securely established yet - wasn't it just put in a year or so ago?
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
I took the RAV4 EV out to Mountain Lion today. Overall it worked well. The hitch itself is without any hitches, but the rack must be put in its extra low/loading setting to open the RAV4's side-hinged rear door fully.

1) Having a State Parks Pass on the Land Cruiser's windshield doesn't do me much good when I am not in the Land Cruiser. Time to get an extra-car sticker from them (for another, smaller fee), and when I renew I'll also keep two. (I also didn't have cash so had to jet over to the southwest corner visitor's center to pay with a credit card. Since no one else showed up for the group ride supposedly with co-workers it was fine.)

2) Crawford Gulch is getting quite bumpy, with "braking bumps" from the tracks on the grading equipment (not from actual braking since very regular and in the uphill lanes as well). The FWD RAV4 EV made it up just fine but traction control was activated multiple times and the bumps themselves are not nearly as well absorbed as in the body on frame, long travel, big-tired Land Cruiser.

3) I used 7 charge bars (of 16 from a full but non-extended, 81% SOC charge) on the way out, including the detour to get a day pass. I used 4 on the way back. Per this chart this means I used 14 kWh to go about 41 miles on the way out and 8 kWh to go 33 on the way back.

Extrapolating: 41 miles/14 kWh = 2.9 miles/kWh when heading from relatively low Denver up into the mountains. Since this was the foothills let's say that I could more realistically expect 2.5 miles/kWh in the winter, with more elevation change and resistive heater usage instead of the efficient AC. The full charge renders 41.8 kWh. So in theory I could get 100 miles up into the mountains on an extended charge, but with basically no margin for error. A Basin is 72 miles from my house, and there are no 240V EVSE between Idaho Springs and Silverthorne.

Verdict: :nononocat: . Skiing shall be a gas-vehicle-only affair since I don't fancy becoming stranded from a non-functional charger or an unforeseen delay (with that resistive heater sucking up the electrons regardless of whether we're moving or not). A Tesla would work but nothing short of that would: 8 Superchargers at Silverthorne, on the way to Breckenridge, Copper, or Vail.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
I figured out the brown lawn/Rachio issue. Rain sensor (Rain Bird contractor grade one included with house) must have gone bad. I checked the logs and every day for as long as I checked the schedule had been canceled by the rain sensor being activated. Therefore the only water the lawn was getting was from rain, runoff, and when I'd run it manually after mowing and being disgusted with the brown patches.

Rain sensor now disabled in the Rachio app… followed by two weeks of daily watering to catch back up. I may give their smart watering another chance after the two weeks as it seems the problem wasn't the algorithm but the external sensor overriding it.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
I had purchased a few DVD-Audio discs a few weeks back to test out the Lexus LS's Mark Levinson stereo and to play through my home theater PC + AV receiver setup in the basement. Well, the Lexus purchase never happened, clearly. I did get a few CDs for the Land Cruiser to tide me over until minivan transition time, though, and finally popped them in yesterday.

Lo and behold, when I switched to the first CD the Land Cruiser's stereo informs me that I've selected disc 1 on the DVD changer. Yes, it plays DVDs (video apparently blanked when not in Park--I tried this in the garage so can't confirm), and DVD-Audio to boot. This capability was sitting under my nose the whole time, as I was whiling away time listening to shitty FM stations.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Colorado has a stupid law that stipulates that monthly state employees (e.g. me) will be paid for the month of June on the first business day of July. Normally the pay date is the last business day of the actual month worked.

This was enacted years back so that the legislature could claim that they saved money in the first year--only 11 pay periods were paid that July-June year! Of course, 13 were paid in the next year and then 12 in subsequent years. Stupid, like I said.

The problem with this is that my mortgage is due on the first of the month. July 1 is a Saturday so it probably wouldn't be withdrawn until July 3... but I can't be sure of this. (My credit union also grants me access to direct deposit funds a day early, so probably June 30, but again this is not for certain given the weird month.)

Therefore my hand is forced and I have to withdraw a month's mortgage payment's worth of money from my taxable investment account now so that I definitely have enough money on hand.

:disgust1:
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Ordered as a random gift for my wife:



(Next up will be a new ironing board! :D)

((Actually, she has an ironing board, and an iron, and a sewing machine, all barely if ever used.))
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
You might want to think about keeping a bit more liquidity around... you know, for things like this.

///stoney

:D
Nonono. Cash drag is the devil. I keep $500.00 + monthly expenses in checking, and not a penny more than the interest-bearing amount ($500-750 generally) in various credit union savings accounts. Everything else comes from or goes to the taxable investment account.

When it's down it tax loss harvests for me. When it's up I make money.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,396
20,187
Sleazattle
Colorado has a stupid law that stipulates that monthly state employees (e.g. me) will be paid for the month of June on the first business day of July. Normally the pay date is the last business day of the actual month worked.

This was enacted years back so that the legislature could claim that they saved money in the first year--only 11 pay periods were paid that July-June year! Of course, 13 were paid in the next year and then 12 in subsequent years. Stupid, like I said.

The problem with this is that my mortgage is due on the first of the month. July 1 is a Saturday so it probably wouldn't be withdrawn until July 3... but I can't be sure of this. (My credit union also grants me access to direct deposit funds a day early, so probably June 30, but again this is not for certain given the weird month.)

Therefore my hand is forced and I have to withdraw a month's mortgage payment's worth of money from my taxable investment account now so that I definitely have enough money on hand.

:disgust1:
Wha?

I keep 6 months liquid cash at all times.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Wha?

I keep 6 months liquid cash at all times.
Why?

If I were to lose my job I'd have at least 6 month's notice. If I somehow couldn't find a permanent job then I could do locums work (and make more money but have to travel all the time). Latency for withdrawals from my investment account is on the order of 4-5 business days, certainly shorter than the time between charging a purchase and having the bill due...
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
My mortgage servicer gives me 2 weeks grace period, what kind of inhuman financial organization are you dealing with?
BoA. Auto-withdrawal. Don't want to risk overdraft fees over something stupid.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,396
20,187
Sleazattle
In previous jobs I would get 0 days notice if I were laid off. Here I do get 30 days. As I have little tenure here I wouldn't get a cent of $$ short of my unused vacation. I have 0 days grace period with my mortgage at least for a fine.

If I lost my job I have confidence I would find another quickly, but having cash reserves allows me to ensure it is the right job and not just the first one that comes my way.

This strategy has also allowed me a certain amount of FU money. I have only worked 6 out of the last 8 years, all my own choice.
 
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Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
24,027
14,639
where the trails are
I never got notice before except for last company that went bankrupt. I knew it was coming and had been looking, and received my new job offer letter 90 minutes after i received my old job severance letter.
 

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,505
In hell. Welcome!
You don't really get to enjoy the complete US life experience until you get laid off without a severance package and your health insurance terminated on that day's midnight.
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,634
12,699
In a van.... down by the river
You don't really get to enjoy the complete US life experience until you get laid off without a severance package and your health insurance terminated on that day's midnight.
Last job I quit, I made sure my last day was the 1st of Feb (insurance ran through the end of the month you quit) - job I was taking insurance started up the 1st day of the month *after* I started, so I made my start date Feb 28th.

#screwtheman
 

Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
24,027
14,639
where the trails are
You don't really get to enjoy the complete US life experience until you get laid off without a severance package and your health insurance terminated on that day's midnight.
Czech this one out ...

My boss at that last company was let go too, but he was a Colombian citizen working on a H1-B visa (I think?) and part of a smaller company we acquired. When he was let go he got no notice and two weeks severance, and HR fucked everything up for him from the work status. Short story, he and his family (wife Mexican citizen, daughter Italian citizen, son US citizen) ended up having to leave the country 30 days later and all went back to Bogota.
 

StiHacka

Compensating for something
Jan 4, 2013
21,560
12,505
In hell. Welcome!
Czech this one out ...

My boss at that last company was let go too, but he was a Colombian citizen working on a H1-B visa (I think?) and part of a smaller company we acquired. When he was let go he got no notice and two weeks severance, and HR fucked everything up for him from the work status. Short story, he and his family (wife Mexican citizen, daughter Italian citizen, son US citizen) ended up having to leave the country 30 days later and all went back to Bogota.
Almost the same thing happened to my former QA manager who got laid off without a warning - only she is Indian. She also needed the H1-B visa to stay (with husband, kids, etc.). She was lucky though and found a new job quickly enough but these stories just show how totally fucked the immigration processes are in this country.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,248
7,695
Latest thing to figure out: which meetings to attend this upcoming year? I get up to 20 workdays off toward these (just have to get an abstract accepted to justify 15 of those days) and would like to use all the days this upcoming academic year.

Prospects:

October 27 in Chicago
March 4 in Scottsdale
April 9 in Nashville
April 22 in DC
April 26 in Montreal
May 20 in DC
May 31 immediately south of DC (National Harbor, MD)
June 12 in Dublin
June 16 in Paris

Having a kid may screw with the plans in terms of traveling as a family, etc. Hmm.