What Irked You Today?

[Snake45]

9 hours ago, Rodent said:

You don't get mailed registration notices in Styrenestan? Here at the other end of US 50, they mail out notices about 2-3 months in advance. And I kind of remember March, July, and January as our registration months anyway. CA DMV has also put kiosks in several retail locations so if you can't/won't/didn't renew online, you can renew at the grocery store.

They used to. Apparently they stopped a year or so ago. 

 

9 hours ago, STYRENE-SURFER said:

Can you muddle through your DMV situation via smart phone connection?

Here in Idaho I understand the police have relaxed some of these registration 

problems do to c-19. 

 

Tried every way possible online. Had to call, wait forever, speak to a real human to tell me what we needed to do. 

If the tags had expired during the C19 crisis we'd be okay. But they expired before. And she hadn't had the smog check because they didn't send her a notice on that either. 

[Deuces ll]

WoW, they still do smog checks in your State????..... 

[Ace-Garageguy]

10 hours ago, Joe Handley said:

Already decided that after that outage we had in November of ‘18...I'd have...a battery backup, AND a Natural Gas alternative to boot!

Good idea. I have backups for my backups. I have a propane conversion standing by for the gasoline-powered generator, in case there's no power to run the gas pumps at the station, and cans of propane strategically stockpiled. The backup for those backups is a lawnmower engine coupled to a car alternator, with an inverter to power a limited number of necessities.

I also have stand-alone propane heaters and adapters for all of the propane canisters. Natural gas heat is great, but it won't work in a power outage if the thermostat and blower systems are electric.

And solar electric systems don't have to be prohibitively expensive if you understand the technology, understand working with electricity safely, and don't buy into the sales hype screaming everything needs to be the latest-greatest-microprocessor-controlled-phone-app-accessible-insanely-overcomplicated (and usually Chinee) baloney.

There were perfectly adequate photovoltaic systems available 5 decades ago, simple and reliable, using lead-acid batteries. The efficiency of the cells has increased dramatically over time, but the rest of the older systems can be entirely functional today.

Edited August 12, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[stitchdup]

I guess I'm lucky, where i am is pretty much the test bed for renewable energy so we have too much power locally. They are currently setting up the worlds most powerful water generator on one of the smaller islands that generates power from the movement of the waves, and most farms have their own windmills as well as the boat i work on has a windmill for when shes tied up at night. Our competitor made a big fuss over switching to wind power at night, and when our company owner was asked what he thought he replied they should have done it years ago cos he's been doing it since he started the company. There's still some windmills enron put up working away without any problems. There's loads of solar power too but its mostly just for heating. When the company i work for got their new boat she was specced to be able to switch to hydrogen power to make even more use of the windmill, but i think they'll wait and see how it works for the boat their testing it out on to see if it commercially viable. Even loganair are looking into converting their fleet of britten norman islander aircraft over to electric since all their flights are less than 50 miles each way. Chances are if you get your power from almost any renewable energy, it was tested in orkney first

[Snake45]

2 hours ago, Deuces ll said:

WoW, they still do smog checks in your State????..... 

Yes, but only as a source of revenue. They have to pay for the salaries, insurance, and pensions for the smog-checkers, dontcha know. Kinda like the toll-takers on roads that were paid for 20 or 30 years ago. 

[Joe Handley]

1 hour ago, Snake45 said:

Yes, but only as a source of revenue. They have to pay for the salaries, insurance, and pensions for the smog-checkers, dontcha know. Kinda like the toll-takers on roads that were paid for 20 or 30 years ago. 

I find that interesting, we smog check closer to Chicago and it doesn’t cost us any extra if we are in that part of the state, then again, we just bumped our registration fee to about $150 per vehicle from $101, so that’s not horrible, at least either.

[High octane]

2 minutes ago, Joe Handley said:

I find that interesting, we smog check closer to Chicago and it doesn’t cost us any extra if we are in that part of the state, then again, we just bumped our registration fee to about $150 per vehicle from $101, so that’s not horrible, at least either.

$50 not horrible? That's a 50% hike and where do people get that kind of money, out of their hat?

[Deuces ll]

$50.00 is what I spend every time I take out my favorite gal out to dinner.... And that's about once a month.... ??

[DonW]

3 hours ago, stitchdup said:

I guess I'm lucky, where i am is pretty much the test bed for renewable energy so we have too much power locally. They are currently setting up the worlds most powerful water generator on one of the smaller islands that generates power from the movement of the waves, and most farms have their own windmills as well as the boat i work on has a windmill for when shes tied up at night. Our competitor made a big fuss over switching to wind power at night, and when our company owner was asked what he thought he replied they should have done it years ago cos he's been doing it since he started the company. There's still some windmills enron put up working away without any problems. There's loads of solar power too but its mostly just for heating. When the company i work for got their new boat she was specced to be able to switch to hydrogen power to make even more use of the windmill, but i think they'll wait and see how it works for the boat their testing it out on to see if it commercially viable. Even loganair are looking into converting their fleet of britten norman islander aircraft over to electric since all their flights are less than 50 miles each way. Chances are if you get your power from almost any renewable energy, it was tested in orkney first

I had no idea the old Islander was still flying commercially. That's cheered me up, happy memories. The view through the gaps in the doors was nearly as good as through the side windows!

Thanks Leslie. 

[stitchdup]

54 minutes ago, DonW said:

I had no idea the old Islander was still flying commercially. That's cheered me up, happy memories. The view through the gaps in the doors was nearly as good as through the side windows!

Thanks Leslie. 

they use them like buses up here, 20 odd flights a day and it has the world record for shortest scheduled flight, less than 2 mins.

[Joe Handley]

3 hours ago, High octane said:

$50 not horrible? That's a 50% hike and where do people get that kind of money, out of their hat?

Iowa’s registration fees are assessed like property tax, if you have an old clunker, it don’t cost much, buy a new car or truck, it could cost 2-3 times what we pay. One of my cousins bought a Chevy Avalanche new and it cost about $400 a year for a couple years. At the time, the cars Mom and Dad, my Sister and I had were the same here in Illinois. There are even places that add tax based of displacement or factory rated power numbers.

[High octane]

5 minutes ago, Joe Handley said:

Iowa’s registration fees are assessed like property tax, if you have an old clunker, it don’t cost much, buy a new car or truck, it could cost 2-3 times what we pay. One of my cousins bought a Chevy Avalanche new and it cost about $400 a year for a couple years. At the time, the cars Mom and Dad, my Sister and I had were the same here in Illinois. There are even places that add tax based of displacement or factory rated power numbers.

They do that in Colorado also, however I don't live in either Iowa or Colorado.

[DonW]

54 minutes ago, stitchdup said:

they use them like buses up here, 20 odd flights a day and it has the world record for shortest scheduled flight, less than 2 mins.

Two miles or less? Further than Concorde, on one catastrophic occasion.

[stitchdup]

2 minutes ago, DonW said:

Two miles or less? Further than Concorde, on one catastrophic occasion.

1.7 miles so its just a take off and landing really. one of the local distilleries used to sponsor the planes so they were all black then but now they are back to blue and white. I couldn't count how many times I've flown on them, and i was the cleaner in the hanger for a few months, 6 hours of mopping sucked but i got to watch the engineers dismantle them which was kinda cool. always wanted to put one of the aircooled v8s in an old vw. they still use the trilanders in the western isles too

[espo]

Well our first vacation in a few years just wound up in the "pull chain facility"   We were all paid and signed up to go on a Jeep Jamboree at Land between the Lakes Kentucky next month. We have been there several times before and the area is great in everyway and many acres of Off Road Park  to explore. Yesterday we get an E Mail from Jeep Jamboree telling use that they were refunding us everything except a $97.00 fee for their inconvenience for having to cancel the Jamboree. They claim that we were notified at the end of July but we are unable to find any E Mails from them on the subject. Based on this we had reserved and paid for a cabin thru Rent by Owner. Because of the time frame of canceling the rental we are now out half of that cost. We called Jeep Jamboree in California and the guy just keeps giving us the run around and told us to send our questions in an E Mail and then gives us a bogus E Mail address. Phone calls today to try to make human contact have gone unanswered. While they have told us this event has been canceled effective July 28 as of noon today they still have it listed on their web site as open for sign up. I would suggest any one here that has any Jamborees that they're signed up for this year should be proactive with them. I think that there may even be bigger issues with the organization at this time based on the manor in which they are reacting at this time. We have attended many of these events going back over a decade and they have always been a pleasure to deal with at all times. The way they are acting at this time has me thinking they are having some very big operational issues and keeping a fee for their inconvenience when they cancelled the event and not returning 100 % plus not letting us know in a more timely manor so that we're not out the cost of lodging is unacceptable to me. 

[Rodent]

3 hours ago, Joe Handley said:

Iowa’s registration fees are assessed like property tax, if you have an old clunker, it don’t cost much, buy a new car or truck, it could cost 2-3 times what we pay. One of my cousins bought a Chevy Avalanche new and it cost about $400 a year for a couple years. At the time, the cars Mom and Dad, my Sister and I had were the same here in Illinois. There are even places that add tax based of displacement or factory rated power numbers.

California does the same, it's a personal property tax and that part of the registration is deductible on your income tax return. Here is the breakdown for the 2018 Focus. The license fee goes down every year, and the smog abatement fee goes away when the car is old enough to require a smog check.

[NYLIBUD]

Driving far to a car show that sucks.Arrrrggg.All garbage,and new cars 

[HomerS]

We have a mouse issue (not like the Geico commercial!)  It happened once before when we left a cabinet on the front porch and Mickey and friends took shelter in the base so we unknowingly brought them in the house.  Went to Lowes and grabbed a couple of the traps and the issue was gone in just a few days.  This time, I presume they came in through boxes delivered to the house.  I thought I saw one downstairs but before I got to go get traps again, one made it's way to the first floor bathroom.  I went to Ace Hardware and got the Tomcat traps (they only had one style, which only opens about the thickness of my thumb)...needless to say, they were not resolving the problem.  I went Lowes and got the ones like I had before that open about 90 degrees and they've been going for the peanut butter fairly regularly.  

Now I apparently have a smarter one as the one trap which has been the most successful, it keeps eating the peanut butter but not tripping it!  This time I loaded it so it would activate with less pressure AND put some back farther on the hinge to make it stick its head in farther.  Just looked, it took the peanut butter at the end, left the one back in farther and yep, didn't trip it!  At this rate, it's going to die of heart disease or obesity!

[slusher]

3 hours ago, HomerS said:

We have a mouse issue (not like the Geico commercial!)  It happened once before when we left a cabinet on the front porch and Mickey and friends took shelter in the base so we unknowingly brought them in the house.  Went to Lowes and grabbed a couple of the traps and the issue was gone in just a few days.  This time, I presume they came in through boxes delivered to the house.  I thought I saw one downstairs but before I got to go get traps again, one made it's way to the first floor bathroom.  I went to Ace Hardware and got the Tomcat traps (they only had one style, which only opens about the thickness of my thumb)...needless to say, they were not resolving the problem.  I went Lowes and got the ones like I had before that open about 90 degrees and they've been going for the peanut butter fairly regularly.  

Now I apparently have a smarter one as the one trap which has been the most successful, it keeps eating the peanut butter but not tripping it!  This time I loaded it so it would activate with less pressure AND put some back farther on the hinge to make it stick its head in farther.  Just looked, it took the peanut butter at the end, left the one back in farther and yep, didn't trip it!  At this rate, it's going to die of heart disease or obesity!

Put bacon on it and tie it down with a wire bread tie. He won’t steal any more food...

[TonyK]

I've had the same thing happen with peanut butter on the mouse trap. One time I saw a slug eating the peanut butter and that didn't set it off. Wonder if that's your situation?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Lewis Hamilton...another wildly overpaid celebrity who's now set himself up as some kind of moral arbiter and lecturer.

Just shut up and drive.

Edited August 17, 2020 by Ace-Garageguy

[porschercr]

31 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Lewis Hamilton...another wildly overpaid celebrity who's now set himself up as some kind of moral arbiter and lecturer.

Just shut up and drive.

Spot on! Bill.

[slusher]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Lewis Hamilton...another wildly overpaid celebrity who's now set himself up as some kind of moral arbiter and lecturer.

Just shut up and drive.

What’s this mean Bill?  Who doe it apply too?

[slusher]

2 hours ago, TonyK said:

I've had the same thing happen with peanut butter on the mouse trap. One time I saw a slug eating the peanut butter and that didn't set it off. Wonder if that's your situation?

I never would’ve thought of that, if you had not seen that you would be really be wondering about that one..

[DonW]

1 hour ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Lewis Hamilton is an F1 driver. Between his supercar collection, his multiple luxury homes, flying everywhere on private jets, and how he makes his living, his personal carbon footprint is about the same as a small city. Yet he's recently elected to start whining about carbon-emission-caused "climate change", among other things that are equally hypocritical considering his position and income.

I don't begrudge any man for being successful in his chosen sport and making a lot of money...even it it involves spewing tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

But what I'm sick to death of is when one of these sets himself up as some kind of saint, and starts preaching to the rest of us about the sacrifices and lifestyle changes WE should make to conform to his warped (and hyper-privileged) world view.

Hamilton walks on water, and in my eyes can do no wrong - but then again, you're dam' right, Bill!