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Random Thoughts....

93Flareside said:
Another, smaller train.
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Quiky said:
Yup, we use a mixture of light and heavy rail systems. Light rail is the traditional passenger systems (California BART, New York Subway, Washington DC WMATA).

Heavy Rail handles freight, long range passenger traffic, some commuter systems (Metra, VRE, etc) ( lines owned by regional companies);
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In addition to simply "light rail" vs "heavy rail", many of the systems utilize different tracks. California's BART actually uses (basically) a bespoke wider rail spec (thought to be more stable in a seismic event), meaning that it took, like, 40 years to get new cars because they couldn't use "off the shelf" train cars...everything either has to be built from the ground up, or heavily modified. It also means that neither of the other two main light rail systems can use each others tracks. Cal-Train even shares two stations with BART, but runs on separate tracks. The US has something like 20 different track geometries in active use, if I understand correctly. I'll admit, though, that this could be totally commonplace in other parts of the country/world...
 
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Went to a museum. AMA

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Is it in the way of things you'd actually want to see in the Museum?
 
gaasc said:
Is it in the way of things you'd actually want to see in the Museum?
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I thought it was odd because across from it was the old Detroit electric car from the mid 1900s. I figured a Tesla would be there. Rather the full VW experience, a nice Audi and Electrify America charger - courtesy of Dieselgate and the settlement that was made with the massive fines.
 
Haudi, Audi.

I guess the parsh museum already covered putting Lohner-Porsche across from a Taycan. Detroit Electric to e-Tron also works.
 
Swear to parsh, after this frickin' year, I'm gonna start storing my cash in a bucket and paying for everything with that. Someone in Atlanta apparently tried to use my bank card at a Kroger...shortly after I bought something at a gas station in Texas, so the bank shut it off. Luckily, they auto-flagged it as a fraudulent charge before whoever it was got my cash, but that also means I can't use that card anymore in the meantime. I was about to pay the month's bills tonight, and welp. Anything that I usually pay via bank card (vs. an auto-draft out of my account) is gonna have to wait, I guess. It takes 5-7 business days to ship out a new card, so since a ton of offices have the 27th off as well...ugh.

Of course I don't have cash on me...well, besides the mishmash of spare change from here and Yurop that I keep forgetting to take out. This is America! We're apparently too lazy to use our own frickin' bank accounts, much less count out cash.
 
ninjacoco said:
Swear to parsh, after this frickin' year, I'm gonna start storing my cash in a bucket and paying for everything with that. Someone in Atlanta apparently tried to use my bank card at a Kroger...shortly after I bought something at a gas station in Texas, so the bank shut it off. Luckily, they auto-flagged it as a fraudulent charge before whoever it was got my cash, but that also means I can't use that card anymore in the meantime. I was about to pay the month's bills tonight, and welp. Anything that I usually pay via bank card (vs. an auto-draft out of my account) is gonna have to wait, I guess. It takes 5-7 business days to ship out a new card, so since a ton of offices have the 27th off as well...ugh.

Of course I don't have cash on me...well, besides the mishmash of spare change from here and Yurop that I keep forgetting to take out. This is America! We're apparently too lazy to use our own frickin' bank accounts, much less count out cash.
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Oh.

Switch to a credit card for everything that you can. It’s the creditors money that’s stolen in that case.
 
My dad and my stepmom are like "ya know, you should look into buying a house!"

I've been apathetic to the idea but ya know, maybe i should?
 
rickhamilton620 said:
My dad and my stepmom are like "ya know, you should look into buying a house!"

I've been apathetic to the idea but ya know, maybe i should?
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Houses are great. They need multi-thousand dollar fixes from time to time. ?
 
rickhamilton620 said:
My dad and my stepmom are like "ya know, you should look into buying a house!"

I've been apathetic to the idea but ya know, maybe i should?
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Just wait for the market to chill the fuck out.

Otherwise yeah, houses are a great thing to have because you don't share walls with your neighbors. Otherwise, prepare for at least $5,000 in repairs each time something happens. :D

While my house is bigger than I need, purely because the realtor said "nobody will buy your 2 bedroom or less house" it needed a roof re-done because asphalt shingles, I know, some parts of the world use multi-lifespan stone roof or watever those red tiles are... My house is special and cost around $8k for a roof, this past summer I had gutters done because the old ones were a mix of seamless and seamed, and the seams leaked while the corner miters leaked and downspouts were dented up, about $5500, they also replaced some rotted fascia board behind. Water heater shit the bed last winter and was about $1200. Could've been a little cheaper if I installed it, but I wanted it fixed and not another project. I've done very little interior work, but I've replaced ceiling fans on my own, so that's just $100 or so depending on the style you want. Painted a little, some heating system work, thats smaller sub $120 if that because I have hot water (which being PA I suspect is way more common than here). Expect leaks, and then either knowing how to do copper sweating or Sharke Bite fittings. You can hire a plumber, but doing that for everything, just like an electrician will cost. I can do electrical and plumbing fairly well so I do a lot of that stuff myself. I know how to put up gutters, but I have none of the equipment and longer runs needs two people. This summer/fall I did fix my fence which is really slow and difficult alone so I roped in my dad which took a couple of weekends and about $2500 or so for materials. I've since replaced the fridge and installed a new dishwasher.

So if you're a little handy and can keep the pros away for little things like wiring a plug, and replacing toilet hardware when (not if) it fails, it's not too difficult. But don't stretch yourself because somebody said you should do something. If you're happy where you are, whose life is it?

Also, youtube is your friend, there are tons of DIY videos. I used one recently to take apart my garage door motor because a gear cracked.
 
These all sound like the reasons why I'm okay with renting. I can do handyman fixes around the house, but the big, costly stuff is all on property management. I think there's a couple things I'd change, but eh, it's all livable. I found out that the owner is a friend of a couple friends, so maybe I should ask if I can replant a big-ass tree to replace the one the developers took down on the property line, ha.

re: My bank card getting hacked—thankfully my credit cards aren't having issues at the moment, so I do have that backup. That problem was on Ringmeet/Roadtrip! I think The Great Angry Sweary Rental Car Problem finally resolved itself for good (pending no further bizarre surprise charge attempts?) in November. What a nightmare.

I got some cash for Christmas, so at least I can get some coffee on the way home. LOL.
 
Yeah like i'm just not feeling all the potential expenses.....plus I don't wanna fucking stay here another year while i save up for the sizable down payment I should put on to avoid PMI.

I'd rather just rent, not sweat if the water heater dies or if the roof needs to be re-shingled.
 
Honestly, renting a house is probably the win if and only if a mortgage costs more. When I was looking, renting a house was about double what a mortgage cost compared with a 2 bedroom apartment costing what my mortgage is, even today. You can for sure get places that are less, but the rent culture here doesn’t always mean nice places or clean apartment buildings sadly. So for a nice place you want to live in for a long time, it’s much more difficult.

Mostly though it focuses around this: so you want a garage without paying extra and can live with managing home repairs yourself, or not and plan to not stay in one place for very long.

The way I see it, renting here is because you’re not well off or between careers, your life is less stable and you’re looked down on because of that. It’s the same feeling I get from others when I discuss hatchbacks and how much I like them.

With all of that said, renting i feel like is the better one unless you really like projects and fixing shit all the time. I don’t which is why I don’t like it. I only did this because I felt forced and didn’t want to live in what made me feel like a hotel room all the time.
 
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