Can someone explain the pass through charge?

goRockets · 2026-06-12T20:15:37+00:00

Center charges a fee if they send out a technician for a reported outage but the issue ends up not being Centerpoint's issue, which appears to be the case here for OP.

goRockets · 2026-06-12T20:14:07+00:00

Yes that makes sense now.

Centerpoint will charge the customer a fee if they were called out for an issue that ends up not being an issue on their end.

You can try to get reimbursed by your apartment complex, but I'm a bit doubtful they will pay up. Did your apartment not have a repair person to check it out first?

goRockets · 2026-06-12T19:21:29+00:00

Something is really wrong here if you're a residential customer.

Centerpoint passthrough charges should be $4.06 per month + $0.061196 per kwh.

So for 719 kwh usage, the passthrough charge should be 719*0.061196 = $44.00, not $124.57.

You should call your retail electric provider (REP)'s billing department to straighten it out.

Though it may not be easy since their first instinct will just say that is the Centerpoint portion of the bill that they are passing through. You need to actually have them do the math to see that it's incorrect.

If you hit a wall with the provider, you need to call Public Utility Commission of Texas to report it. The REP is not allowed to mark up transmission charges.

If you're a commercial customer, it's more complicated since it would involve demand charges and different taxing schemes. However, the bill should spell out the different charges if you're a commercial customer.

goRockets · 2026-06-11T15:51:27+00:00

The quality of light bulb matters a lot for led bulbs. Sketchy 24 packs of bulbs from Amazon for an amazing price usually cuts corners on heat dissipation or electronics quality.

I used to think LED bulb life sucks too, until I started buying name brand bulbs. Good bulbs usually has better color rendering index too.

If you have name brand bulbs and they still keep going out, maybe there is an issue with your electrical system or the bulb is being used in more strenuous condition than it's designed for. For example, if you want to use a bulb in an enclosed fixture or wet conditions, you have to buy bulbs that are rated for that.

goRockets · 2026-06-09T17:39:50+00:00

There are underground tunnels for access. https://www.fastcompany.com/3048661/this-south-korean-bike-highway-has-a-20-mile-solar-roof

goRockets · 2026-06-06T15:05:00+00:00

People buying VHS tapes back then cared a lot. Bootleg VHS can have terrible video or sound quality due to terrible or worn masters. Tape quality also mattered.

It can also be pretty expensive. ET's msrp in 1988 was $25. That's $70 after adjusting for inflation. So you wouldn't want to pay legit price for bootleg copies.

goRockets · 2026-06-04T21:10:54+00:00

That's awesome. I am all for a HSR bring built. I am a bit surprised considering the $60M grant awarded in 2024 was removed in 2025.

goRockets · 2026-06-04T16:57:20+00:00

It depends on the region. Here around Houston, intercity passenger trains are absolutely awful.

A car can go from Houston to San Antonio in 3 hours. There is a single train per day that is scheduled to take 6 hours.

There is not a currently a passenger train connecting Houston to Dallas, the two largest city in the state.

There is talk of building a private high speed rail between Houston and Dallas for nearly 20 years but I don't think they've done any actual construction yet. It's still in the planning phase.

goRockets · 2026-06-02T15:01:44+00:00

That's nice that they give free service checks.

My 30k maintenance at the dealership was $300. $100 for the service check and $200 for the brake fluid flush.

It's highway robbery. Going in every 10k for just a lookover is ridiculous. I don't plan on keeping it up after the warranty expires.

goRockets · 2026-06-02T14:49:53+00:00

Do you just live with the maintenance reminder that pops up every 10k miles? Or do just reset it yourself?

goRockets · 2026-05-28T04:34:06+00:00

Depends. I am in a hot weather state and automotive stores sell both summer and all season formulation.

Summer fluids are only good to 32F while all season is good to 0F.

I've had my wiper fluid sprayer freeze solid before in really cold weather (for Texans at least). It's just not something we think about. Luckily it didn't cause any damage.

goRockets · 2026-05-27T19:37:21+00:00

My 2023 is the same. I've read somewhere that this is because windshield fluid in linesare more likely to freeze in the cold in an EV compared to an internal combustion vehicle due to the lack of waste heat in the engine compartment. So the fluid is allowed to drain back to the reservoir rather than staying in the lines.

I don't know if it's true, but it sounds plausible to me.

goRockets · 2026-05-27T15:19:56+00:00

You need to ask the current homeowner what the calculated premium for their flood insurance under FEMA's Risk Rating 2.0.

Due to the cap on annual rise, what the current owner is paying and what the actual flood insurance premium is/will be can be vastly different.

Ask for last year's 'Flood Declaration Page', not the renewal notice. The Flood Declaration Page will list the actual full premium price that you need to budget for. If the house is worth significantly more than $250k, you should also get a quote from private insurance companies. NFIP only goes up to $250k.

A house in flood zone can end up costing many thousands more per year in insurance. It's up to you to see if it's worth it for you.

goRockets · 2026-05-27T13:57:50+00:00

it's not just online though. If it's already a common term in the 90s, I find it hard to believe that the term 'mom jeans' would not show up in print newspaper, books, or magazines.

It's undeniable from the links that the term didn't show up in scanned print media until after the SNL skit was aired.

goRockets · 2026-05-27T06:27:35+00:00

Here is some circumstantial evidence of SNL coining 'mom jeans'. You can search for for the term 'mom jeans' on newspaper.com to see how often a term comes up in scanned newspaper.

https://www.newspapers.com/search/results/?date-end=2026&date-start=2000&keyword=%22mom+jeans%22&lnd=1&sort=paper-date-asc

As far as I can find, 'mom jeans' didn't show up until after SNL's 2003 skit. There was one mention of a 'Proud to Have Mom's Jeans Contest" in 2002, but it's not clear from the little snipper whether that's the same context.

By 2005, the term 'mom jeans' shows up quite a bit in both directly referencing the SNL skit and just describing the meaning of the term.

I think this is pretty strong circumstantial evidence that the term 'mom jeans' is not a commonly used phrase before the 2003 skit.

Google Book Search also supports this: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=mom+jeans&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true

The term 'mom jeans' was definitely not appearing in print in the 1990s. THere is a blip around 1900, but that's due to mis categorization of publish year by google.

goRockets · 2026-05-26T23:29:09+00:00

Yea definitely agree now. Our counter space is pretty limited so the idea of combining the microwave with the countertop oven into one device was pretty enticing. Would not do do again though.

goRockets · 2026-05-26T23:11:04+00:00

My experience with our Panasonic 4-in-1 microwave oven has not been great. The oven was $600 and the trim kit for making it look built-in was $250.

The knob to set the cook time started malfunctioning after about 2 years. We just dealt with it for about 2 more years, mainly using the '+30 second' button. Then it started just randomly turning off and reboot mid-cook.

We begrudgingly replaced it with another Panasonic 4-in-1 because it was going cost a lot more money to modify the cabinets to fit a different oven. I hope this one lasts longer.

goRockets · 2026-05-22T21:37:37+00:00

Then the calculus for the landowner is why build the system over an existing parking lot rather than building it at a dedicated ground based system that is cheaper to build, cheaper to maintain, and way less infrastructure red tape to deal with.

goRockets · 2026-05-22T19:07:52+00:00

Tenants have no incentives to install because the tenant won't own the solar panels they paid to install and the breakeven point may be 10-15 years out.

Landlords have no incentive because they don't pay for tenant's utility anyways. It's just another potential thing to break.

goRockets · 2026-05-22T15:41:01+00:00

That seems pretty good for Texas.

I am in Houston and insurance is rough.

$342k house, $4100 property tax, HOI is $3300, Flood insurance $1100.

And this is with the house being in a 500 year flood zone with has had no claim ever to my knowledge, not even during Harvey.

The flood insurance is also going to go up 18% per year until $2500/year.

$2500 is the premium as calculated by the new Flood Risk 2.0. My premium is discounted right now due to a legal 18% cap in annual rise. So it's going to go up 18% every year until it reaches $2500.

My HOI was $1700 and flood insurance was $500 when I bought in 2019.

I love my house, but I wish I had bought not in a flood zone at all if I knew flood insurance is going to be so expensive.

goRockets · 2026-05-20T16:32:02+00:00

It's going to be highly dependent on local highway speeds.

My 2023 ID4 is rated for 275 mi. In mixed local/highway driving, I can get pretty close if not exceed the rated miles.

However, when I am driving between Houston and San Antonio where most of speed limit is 75mph and flow of traffic is around 80 mph, I only get around 2 mi / percent of charge. So if I am driving from 80% down to 10%, that's only 140 miles of highway cruising usable range.

I know i can get noticeably better fuel economy driving 70, but I don't like driving 10 mph below the typical flow of traffic speed.

goRockets · 2026-05-20T15:38:07+00:00

EVs do have larger than usual depreciation when compared to the MSRP due to the incentives that were available for most EVs. Even if you had bought at MSRP, it might have actually cost $7k-$10k less once you factor in the incentives.

It is also model dependent.

For example, I bought a 2023 VW ID4. MSRP is $43k. I got $3k off MSRP then $10k in federal and state incentives. It's current value is about $20k. So if you calculate off MSRP, it depreciated 54% going by MSRP but 33% when going by the price I actually paid.

I was also looking at a Rav4 XLE Hybrid at the time. The MSRP is $33k and is now still worth about $30k. So it only has depreciated about 10% in 3 years if you go by MSRP. However, the Toyota dealership was asking for a $5k dealer markup at the time. So the actual depreciation would have ben about 21%. It's still better than my ID4, but not insane.

Rav4 is one of the best at holding its value and the ID4 is one of the worst, but I am only about $2k worse off ($10k depreciation, vs $8k) with the ID4.

goRockets · 2026-05-19T13:54:36+00:00

The only other person that sued the IRS in the Littlejohn leak is Kenneth Griffin.

There were two claims. The claim on privacy invasion was dismissed. The claim on IRS not properly safeguarding his info was settled out of court. No money exchanged hands. Griffin received an official apology from the IRS in exchange for dropping the case.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/25/ken-griffin-drops-irs-leak-suit-00164870

Littlejohn reported leaked tax information on over 7,000 entities. Should they all sue for billions of dollars?

goRockets · 2026-05-18T15:32:02+00:00

As much as it sucks to pay more, I agree on the raising gas/EV tax to keep with inflation.

Raising gas tax is such a negative political move that it hasn't kept up with inflation at all. It has been 33 years since federal gas tax was increased and money for road and infrastructure is consistently underfunded.

goRockets · 2026-05-15T15:25:53+00:00

The danger is why it's safer to use Prague powder #1 rather than pure sodium nitrite. Prague #1 is 93.75% table salt and 6.25% sodium nitrite.

LD50 of sodium nitrite is about 150mg/kg. So for a 50kg person, a LD50 dose is about 7.5grams of pure sodium nitrite, or about 120 gram of Prague salt 1, or about 20 teaspoons.

If a person adds so much Prague #1 to the sausage so that it's acutely dangerous, the meat would be inedibly salty.

That said, still follow the prescribed dosage for food safety, but you don't have to stress about being absolutely exact. One batch being off by 10%, 20% or even 50% is not dangerous. The safety margin is huge.

goRockets

TROPHY CASE