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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
B5BA6CBA-7B78-4D6C-AA61-62FC1F10A809.jpeg


swim school is literally a mile from home, with nice multiuse paths the whole way. so I’m being all European and not taking the car. (No assist on this ride so logging it as an acoustic ride, for the record—going kid pace anyway.)
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
968D2A0E-AB2A-4ADD-940D-34E2858361BC.jpeg
8557A224-8C27-4A6C-BF7B-28CD87121DF3.jpeg


lots of tires to ensure are topped up before family rides, so I got myself an inflator that uses my stash of Makita 18V batteries.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
The Commencal hardtail e-bike I ordered for my wife in September of 2021 still hasn’t arrived. Thus I’m canceling that order, and instead pre-ordered this one via bikesdirect.

65F6A572-2DCB-4A77-A704-E7DA9341A821.jpeg


$300 cheaper than the hardtail yet with full suspension and a dropper, similarly from China, similar E7000 mid drive, and a 418 Wh battery that should be just fine. SLX group with XT brakes on this one.

This one should ship in Feb or Mar direct to me, which is just as well since my wife won’t be riding over the winter anyway.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
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Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
23,926
14,438
where the trails are
@Nick a steal


here’s the listing in question. 6,791 foot lot and needs the demolition done yet.

My old man is a television repair man, he's got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.
 

Nick

My name is Nick
Sep 21, 2001
23,926
14,438
where the trails are

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
@SkaredShtles

ac.PNG


meanwhile our solar array continues to net overproduce electrons over the course of the year

i should leave more lights on at home eh
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Larry’s bootfitting is appointment only these days! Also surgical mask or better required, and proof of vaccination shown at the door. Good for them!

I booked a Nov 11 appt. I desire some Nordica HF Elite Heat boots for mah feet but will need them to do lots of work as those are a 102 mm last. My 104 mm Tecnicas needed hours of being punched out. Might need two sessions, methinks.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Mountain house renovation financing update:

- approved for increasing my previously $140k and undrawn HELOC on the Denver house to $200k, the max they’ll write for regardless of equity. In the process of this got an appraisal that came back at a cool $1.15mm. This market is still nutty. This one is with Third Federal, and is variable at prime rate - 0.76%, I believe.

- pending appraisal on a $200k HELOC on the mountain house itself. Other paperwork is in and passes muster. This one looks to be prime rate + something negligible on the order of 0.05-0.10%, but still clearly higher than the Third Federal one. I’m just happy that they (PNC) write HELOCs on second houses—most banks do not, I found out.

- meeting designer lady and her assistant at the house this upcoming Friday to go over her hopefully not too grand plans for it.
 

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,860
4,154
Copenhagen, Denmark
@SkaredShtles

View attachment 183540

meanwhile our solar array continues to net overproduce electrons over the course of the year

i should leave more lights on at home eh
What about getting something like this to store the energy?


Why did you end up getting an EQB?

I like the new Polestar 3 it has all the features I am looking for in a car but let's see what I can get for the money as I have to change the company car by November next year.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
We're net metered so the meter just runs backwards during the hours that we overproduce. The grid here is underground and reliable so I don't see the need for local energy storage at this time.

Why the EQB?

- 3rd row seating (for humans 5' 4" and under, which matches 4 of the 5 human inhabitants of my house)
- by a real company with local support/dealers/service
- reviews say it feels upright and airy, which I like
- range is entirely sufficient for day trips to skiing, which is my most challenging personal use case
- negotiated a deal for MSRP + 0 additional dealer markup back in June, which is unusual in these crazy times, in exchange for putting down $5k non-refundable (and this move of mine, by chance, is what's going to get me my last Federal EV tax credit under the Transition Rule of the IRA)
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
IMG_4623.jpeg


Cleared for any and all activities by the hand surgeon, including mountain biking. I just didn't tell her that I've been bike commuting for 2 weeks now :D

IMG_4624.JPEG


Just about to tick over 1,000 miles logged on the commuter bike.

start.PNG


before

end.PNG


today (the fracture line basically being invisible now indicates that it's healing as one would like, and unchanged alignment)
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Larry’s bootfitting is appointment only these days! Also surgical mask or better required, and proof of vaccination shown at the door. Good for them!

I booked a Nov 11 appt. I desire some Nordica HF Elite Heat boots for mah feet but will need them to do lots of work as those are a 102 mm last. My 104 mm Tecnicas needed hours of being punched out. Might need two sessions, methinks.
I ordered the HF Elite Heat from Evo to make sure that there was one available for my Larry's appointment (buying from his shop instead if in stock, clearly). And they are not wide. At all.

Narrow footbox as expected but also quite narrow heel. They will need a lot of work if they're going to fit me well. (They are delightfully easy to get into, though!)
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Mountain house renovation financing update:

- approved for increasing my previously $140k and undrawn HELOC on the Denver house to $200k, the max they’ll write for regardless of equity. In the process of this got an appraisal that came back at a cool $1.15mm. This market is still nutty. This one is with Third Federal, and is variable at prime rate - 0.76%, I believe.

- pending appraisal on a $200k HELOC on the mountain house itself. Other paperwork is in and passes muster. This one looks to be prime rate + something negligible on the order of 0.05-0.10%, but still clearly higher than the Third Federal one. I’m just happy that they (PNC) write HELOCs on second houses—most banks do not, I found out.

- meeting designer lady and her assistant at the house this upcoming Friday to go over her hopefully not too grand plans for it.
Updates:

Closing Nov 5 on the Third Federal HELOC on the Denver house. Appraisal physically done Wednesday for the mountain house but pending that report's completion.

Met with the interior designer lady (but no assistant) at the house yesterday. And her ideas are ambitious. Too ambitious, I am judging based on her expected price tag. (And if one's bathroom is large enough to have a sitting room it's too big, imo)







We shall pare down plans and price from here:

Hi Erica,

I showed the preliminary plans that you drew up to Jessica and upon discussion of them (and the estimated price!) we thought maybe a more pared-down version of the remodel that utilizes more existing walls, etc. might be better.

Thoughts in no particular order regarding this:

1) We didn’t get around to discussing why all the windows need to be replaced. The inspection report did note some water damage along the interior casings—is this the ultimate reason? Because if some/many windows could be reused that’d be a large chunk there already.

2) For the second floor we were thinking a less grandiose master suite. Could a suite be constructed within the confines of the loft + reclaimed stairwell area (with the washer/dryer relocated within this space, too)? It wouldn’t be swimming in extra room but that’d be ok, and not having the mountain view from it would similarly be a sacrifice that’d be fine with us. Then the other bedrooms’ layouts/framing could potentially be left untouched (having the slightly uneven size of the two right-end-of-hallway bedrooms would be fine), and the bathrooms could be left in their current footprints but just redone on the inside.

3) For the main floor I still like the idea of a larger door opening to the deck, but perhaps we could axe the fireplace idea for the far end. I get where you’re coming from regarding expected look and resale, but the house is still going to be a funny layout ultimately and that feature something that I’d definitely sacrifice in the near term if it helps us get this done sooner. So the scope on this floor would be redoing the bathroom with no washer/dryer but in the same footprint, then the kitchen as per your idea, the larger door to the deck, but no extra door by the planned hot tub area. Also, what do you think about keeping the same width of the sliding door to the deck but changing it to glass panel outwardly opening doors instead to make it more useful?

4) For the basement, we like the bathroom + 2 bedrooms idea on the near side and the opening up of the storage room area. To economize we could defer the (lovely sounding) under-deck work entirely for now, keep the existing awkward “front door” layout there (with a less ugly door), and as on the main floor axe the decorative stove idea at the far end.

Thanks for all your time so far!

-Toshi
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Taking a statin for a few months (lowest dose rosuvastatin + ezetimibe, which is a non-statin cholesterol gut uptake inhibitor) gave me uncharacteristic glucose intolerance and bumped my A1C from 5.0-5.1 to 5.4.

So I stopped the meds and got fasted labs today, day 22 from stopping them I believe. Short version is that my lipids have reverted to pre-medication levels, as expected, and my glucose-related metrics have also thankfully normalized as well.

Details here for the bored in this thread:

 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Designer walked through the house with the actual architect. They deem all of the pared down plans to be feasible, except for the back area under the garage (that was planned to be opened up into a workout area).

This isn’t surprising to me as this sits under the slab for the garage floor—makes sense you can’t take out walls underneath it willy nilly.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Appraisal physically done Wednesday for the mountain house but pending that report's completion.
Came back at $1.017mm, which is fine for its current state. They rightly note the weird layout is currently hampering its value/sq ft.

odd.PNG
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
Came back at $1.017mm, which is fine for its current state. They rightly note the weird layout is currently hampering its value/sq ft.

View attachment 184235
PNC will only write to 75% LTV and due to the current size of the (jumbo when originated and jumbo when refinanced to 2.375%!) primary note that means they'll only go to $85k.

So $200k from the Denver house to play with plus this $85k. Will have to keep these constraints in mind when considering the scope of the interior redo.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
PNC will only write to 75% LTV and due to the current size of the (jumbo when originated and jumbo when refinanced to 2.375%!) primary note that means they'll only go to $85k.

So $200k from the Denver house to play with plus this $85k. Will have to keep these constraints in mind when considering the scope of the interior redo.
Thus:

Hi Erica,

The appraisal came back for the HELOC on the Tabernash house, and they valued it at $1.017mm (due to the weird layout!). They'll only write to 75% LTV which works out to $85k against the current jumbo mortgage I'm carrying on it. Again I have $200k in credit line open on the Denver house. So plans will be much, much more financially constrained than planned, perhaps doing this in one phase now and another a few years down the road.

With this in mind, we still would like to proceed and meet at the house on the 23rd (some time before noon would be great), but also will need to pick and choose. Thus we've come up with a list of what we'd like to get done, in descending order of priority, and will leave it up to you to tell us how far down this list we can get with a budgeted $200k:

- Kitchen remodel and expansion
- Loft basic conversion (stairs removed, new carpet for loft + whole upper floor, leaving other bedrooms as-is) to a small master suite
- Upstairs bathrooms at least refreshed (new tubs at least)
- Window replacement, or perhaps a subset of them that must get done
- Demolition of defunct basement sauna part-bathroom (leaking shower plumbing currently)
- Creation of at least one bedroom in basement, leaving the kitchenette as it stands until the time for bedroom 2 comes
- Replacing sliding door to deck in current footprint with swing-out double doors
- Flooring replacement/overlay for main floor
- Expansion of door to deck on main floor
- Moving washer/dryer from main floor bathroom and redo of that bathroom
- Creation of second bedroom in basement
- Flooring replacement/overlay in basement
- Relocation of upstairs attic access
- Redo of stairs to basement
- Front door replacement
- Replacing closet doors and trim
- Outdoor lighting refresh
- Replacement of basement entry door
- Creation of second basement bathroom in the cave-area and drywalling in/flooring of that whole area to make it less echo-y

Maybe we can only get the first 5 items done now?

-Toshi
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
And the reply. "I'm so sorry" is amusing. :D

Oh my, I am so sorry Toshi and Jessica.

I will review your condensed list this week and yes, looks like we will have to put off some additional items for the time being.

Let’s still meet on the 23rd and go over the ideas and suggestions and see how much we can stretch the budget.

Thank you for letting me know!!
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
The Volvo EX90 is going to do very well in my demographic, imo. Perhaps one can find its way to my garage besides the EQB.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23447288/volvo-ex90-suv-ev-price-specs-lidar-mile-range





7 seats. 300 miles, all electric. Bidirectional charging (!).

Clean design yet not 3/Y too-spartan.

LiDAR! as well as two driver monitoring cameras—presumably a very advanced driver assist system (sounds like they’re shooting for level 3—we shall see if that flies in the US’s regulatory environment).
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I ordered the HF Elite Heat from Evo to make sure that there was one available for my Larry's appointment (buying from his shop instead if in stock, clearly). And they are not wide. At all.

Narrow footbox as expected but also quite narrow heel. They will need a lot of work if they're going to fit me well. (They are delightfully easy to get into, though!)
had my appointment at Larry's today. here are my mallet-like feet, exaggerated as there are two layers of toe caps (neoprene things to make the forefoot thicker so as to pack out more during the heat molding) under my socks



during the quite exquisitely painful heat molding



and then after all that they were still not wide enough. rather than engage in extensive shell-punching-out work I threw in the towel at that point.

might head back there when they get the Fischer One in--bootfitting dude (who remembered my feet from when I got fitted with my Ten.2s in 2015 or so!) said they're the widest boot he's ever seen, and would get in 25.5 and 26.5 ones for me to try to make work at some point.
 
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Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549








Green Mountain with my eldest, Mariko-kun, finally getting to put her new bike on real(-enough-for-many-adults-riding-Rooney-Valley) dirt.
 

CBJ

year old fart
Mar 19, 2002
12,860
4,154
Copenhagen, Denmark
The Volvo EX90 is going to do very well in my demographic, imo. Perhaps one can find its way to my garage besides the EQB.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23447288/volvo-ex90-suv-ev-price-specs-lidar-mile-range





7 seats. 300 miles, all electric. Bidirectional charging (!).

Clean design yet not 3/Y too-spartan.

LiDAR! as well as two driver monitoring cameras—presumably a very advanced driver assist system (sounds like they’re shooting for level 3—we shall see if that flies in the US’s regulatory environment).
The Polestar version look really good too. I think they could have integrated the screen better than the Ipad slapped onto dash design but not a deal breaker for me. I still only have room for XC60 length car so I can still park in front of my garage.
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
I’ve posted about the elder kids’ STAR scores before. Of note is that my 2nd grader is now testing only 1.5 grade levels behind in reading to my always-reading 4th grader.

They’re at 50th percentile for the 10th and ~11.5(th?) grades, respectively. :D
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
View attachment 183373

going to try this big boi 2-stage battery electric snow blower

100% will yeet it back to Amazon before Jan 31 if it sucks
Turns out that it indeed sucked: ran for about 5 seconds then crapped out, repeatedly, let alone actually blowing any snow. Return was a bit of a hassle since it was a 3rd party seller on Amazon but I got them to issue a prepaid FedEx label, packed it up in its original box (that I'd thankfully saved in case this happened!), and didn't throw my back out @stoney -fashion in getting said 150+ lb box to FedEx.
The Volvo EX90 is going to do very well in my demographic, imo. Perhaps one can find its way to my garage besides the EQB.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/9/23447288/volvo-ex90-suv-ev-price-specs-lidar-mile-range

Not going to have FOMO for this one. Plopped $500 refundable to get in line for it. This would replace the PHEV PacHy in the garage, whereas the forthcoming EQB shall replace my beloved Land Cruiser.





 
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