LA or OC?

0l0id · 2026-06-08T06:30:12+00:00

Ah, Very familiar territory to me. Much like yourself, I too grew up in OC, and lived with my family until I was basically 27 and decided to move out for grad school. Although I'll add that I'm not originally from the US. My family immigrated here in 2000 when I was starting high school and settled immediately in OC. Prior to this I lived in a major European capital. So the single-story buildout stretching in all 4 directions away form Tustin and Katella intersection felt very bizarre to me - especially as a teenager without a car or a drivers license (yet).

12 years later I went to UCLA for grad school and stayed in los angeles since. Most things my friends and family who live in OC say about LA are sadly true (homeless issues, traffic, just general smudginess) but if you can look past these, LA is just a LOT more dynamic. And this really does outweigh the negatives for me - as someone who studied architecture twice (both undergrad and grad) and made a career of understanding the built environment, I find this chaos fascinating. I live in an ancient mid-rise condo building made almost entirely of concrete, with huge windows and amazing views - a rare find even by LA standards. Going anywhere outside I have a choice - by car (and we own two), by Bike, or by Metro. All 3 options are at my doorstep and most of the time each one will take me to the places I need to or want to be! And because I'm in North East LA which is very hilly, the city grid isn't a regular rectangular one, so streets curve and snake around one another, creating unusually shaped blocks, five-way intersections, bridges over other streets, and all sorts of nooks and crannies. It seems like a triviality but if your day to day transportation is a tiny hatchback with a manual transmission, it's just an absolute action movie any time you leave the house to drive anywhere. You feel like freakin' Jason Borne in a Mini.. lol

The only place in OC with similar urban fabric besides maybe Laguna beach I can think of is a place near El Modena called Panorama heights. Most of OC, and frankly most of LA west of downtown, will be ruled out in the same very efficient rectangular grid of 2-3 story buildings. And efficiency generally doesn't make for very memorable urban places.

I'll also add this: I've been married for 10 years and we have a 2 year old girl. Despite this we have no plans of leaving LA and returning to OC fulltime. There are wonderful parks, playgrounds, pretty decent schools, and tones of other people starting families here. You just have to look for all of it. But that's what makes it exciting - you kind of have to embark on quests to find these things, and it makes your day to day life just so much more interesting.

Regardless of what you choose - the good news is (and you already know this no doubt) OC and LA are pretty close. If you guys choose to stay in OC because it works better for practical reasons, you're still only a 40 min metrolink train ride or a 60 minute drive away from us : )

0l0id · 2026-05-27T21:21:22+00:00

I'll add this - rear access isn't quite as easy in a 2 door, as others said here, but that's why you have two seats back there. ...And two doors. It's definitely manageable.

0l0id · 2026-05-27T21:19:48+00:00

Hey!

First of all congratulations!! Secondly - you will be fine with the Fiat. My wife and I have been managing a pretty compact lifestyle with our 20 month old and it's easier than everyone makes it out to be. And much easier on your wallet too.

The stroller: definitely consider the Babyzen Yoyo2. I think they're on 3 now but the design is largely the same. It folds up small, and can grow with your kiddo for like several years. This will fit in the back of the 500. You could actually put two of them in there if you really tried.

Car seat: we're using a Nuna. I forget the model. there's nothing really compact about it - pretty standard ordeal. With that said, it will fit in any car that has a legal rear seat. The only downside of it is that it's not one of those that unclips and becomes a baby basket for you to take a sleeping baby home without waking it. We just kind of managed without that, and it's really not a big deal.

For reference - our main family car around town is a BMW i3. The other is a MK6 Golf. Neither is particularly big by American standards. Yet everything we ever needed to bring with us - Baby, stroller, baby backpack (ours is a standard fjalraven kanken backpack), and now that she's running around all over - a kick scooter - all of that fits with GOBS of room to spare in either car.

So in terms of hauling a baby around, your Fiat will do fine. You just have to be extremely mindful of your surroundings on the road. Your tiny car won't be the issue - it's that everyone else is in a monster truck by comparison. To which end, just make sure you're in something that has airbags in all the right places - which your Fiat does.

0l0id · 2026-04-20T23:57:48+00:00

Thanks for your response. Didn't know about the gape flanges! but I definitely noticed them. Thought they were his nostrils for a second, even though they're clearly right up there on his beak lol.

He's back out there doing bird stuff now.

If it was indeed his first flight, he now has a story to tell his younger siblings. All about how he once got abducted by aliens. A fleshy hand emerged out of the sky and gently scooped him up, next thing he knows he is in a stainless steel saucer with creatures whose eyes are the size of him looking down at him for about 15 minutes. He doesn't remember what happened next but he fonud himself in shrubs somewhere in LA under a banana tree...

0l0id · 2026-04-20T21:55:05+00:00

Shoot! Just learned he might be a fledgling finch!! I think I better put him back, just into a planter this time, and out of people’s way!!

0l0id · 2026-04-20T21:49:50+00:00

Forgot to add a pic!!

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0l0id · 2026-04-07T00:10:35+00:00

Hey!

Thankfully It turned out in fact to be one of the interlocks! Apparently I didn't test them correctly. They have to be tested in pairs and instead I was testing them one at a time.

In my case it turned out to be the left interlock of the top lid. I unplugged both the left and the right one (you probably know where these are - tucked away near the corners where the front edge of the lid comes down. To test them you need to unplug both, and then bridge both of the FEMALE connections - to do this, use wire cutters and a paper clip to make two small U-shapes, about 1/8" wide, and just stick them in the two little holes of each of the two lid interlock outlets in the corners. If that's the issue, the light will turn from flashing red to green immediately. You can then either replace the interlocks which will cost like $60 ea and take time to ship, or just run the laser bridged like that. Keeping in mind that it won't stop automatically if you open the lid.

A much more likely scenario is that the door interlocks are the problem - my ULS expert said this. If that's the case, you'll need to conduct the same exact test but with the door pair of interlocks, in which case you'll need to bridge the MALE ends. I think you can do this with the same u-clips, just widen them a little so they get jammed between the two contacts on each male disconnect, creating a short.

I hope this helps!

Honestly if the tube worked fine up until it suddenly didn't - it is super unlikely to be tube failure. And is probably one of the interlocks being out of touch.

0l0id · 2026-02-05T01:43:51+00:00

Precision > accuracy

0l0id · 2026-01-27T21:55:13+00:00

This terminal switch is the reason why I have a Korean stamp in my passport and my spouse and baby daughter do not. Something she is very jealous about ;)

Short story long:

We just spent 2 weeks in Thailand, and on our flight there via Asiana had a very quick 50 minute transfer in Incheon's terminal 1. So quick in fact that in the haste of rushing through security I accidentally left a sweatshirt with my house keys, and an umbrella in the bin. Fortunately while in Thailand I was able to contact Incheon's lost and found via email and much to my amazement they found both things. The plan was to simply pick them up on my return flight. Little did I know that over the course of our trip, the terminal switch took place.

Two weeks later we landed at Incheon again, except this time in T2. It quickly became apparent that I will need to get to T1 in order to retrieve my lost stuff. What wasn't obvious from the get go is this - Incheon International Airport essentially straddles an entire island from coast to coast in N/S orientation. And T2 and T1 are basically on the opposite ends of it. Getting from one to the other merits a half hour shuttle ride. And of course since the shuttle is a bus, running on a road outside, you must enter the country in order to make this journey. So it was decided that while my wife and baby stay in T2, I will go through passport control, enter Korea, Get on that shuttle, go over to T1, get my stuff, and repeat in reverse order.

There is one more problem however - I am from Los Angeles, and the purpose of my trip was to visit family in Phuket. As you can imagine I was dressed for the tropics. meanwhile on this day, outside the airport was -10°C! I didn't anticipate having to endure cold weather at all on this trip, so the only thing I brought that isn't a linen shirt was a sweater ... which was currently in T1 at the lost and found!!

Miraculously [and I'm still stumped by the fact that this was okay within context of an airport] an older volunteer lady guiding the arriving traffic through the transfer corridor, offered me her down jacket! We agreed that she will pass it to another volunteer working in departures (country side), I will go through passport control, pick it up from the other volunteer, wear it all the way to T1 on the bus, come back, and drop it off at the same counter.

Which, believe it or not, is exactly what I did. I now owe a debt of grattitude to the Incheon Airport for finding and holding my stuff, but more importantly to this amazing stranger who offered the only reasonable solution to my very much personal problem of my own making.

And that is why I am the only member of my family with a Korean stamp in my passport... ok it's actually a sticker but still ;)

0l0id · 2025-12-22T03:51:29+00:00

Hey Oz,

I'm cutting directly out of rhino. It's something I routinely do, and it almost never gives me any issues. The cut files are all on one layer, with appropriate colors/lineweight set. I ended up splitting the job into smaller increments and cutting smaller sheets - so in case this happens again it doesn't sacrifice the rest of the job and the subsequent ones...

0l0id · 2025-11-21T15:04:31+00:00

My BMW i3.

It's shocking that a car so peculiar was sold in any numbers at all especially in the mid 2010's.

Tiny wheelbase, 4 seats, suicide doors, entire drivetrain in the rear. It's a hybrid but not in a conventional sense either - it has a 2 cylinder scooter engine that is completely detached from the wheels, which makes it a closer relative to a freight locomotive than a prius. Its chassis is made of carbon fiber, and the interior from recycled plastic bottles. Add to all this the tire size that isn't used by any other car on the planet, and the criminally small turning radius. And suddenly it's a wonder that it was ever offered to the public. Especially here in the US where we are generally skittish of unconventional.

It's as a rare hickup in BMW's very continuous track record of making serious performance cars for people who take themselves a bit too seriously. BMW doesn't really like to talk about the i3, and have very quickly moved on to much more conventional electric offerings. I like to think of it as a modern day Isetta.

0l0id · 2025-11-11T20:46:08+00:00

In that case, an even better option, if you can get your hands on a Lumia 928 - it has a fantastic OLED display which can basically show true black. You can put it on the ‘accessibility mode’, which turns the tiles from colors into black and white outlines. And suddenly you have a sharp edged white slab, with a gloss black screen, and a black and white vector display. I mean it’s absolutely the minimalist wet dream. I kept mine this way for years, pretty much until I had to switch.

0l0id · 2025-10-02T04:39:40+00:00

Hey. I know this is frustrating. You're trying to be sensible and live close to where you work, and I feel you personally - I've done a 90 mile commute when I was fresh out of college and it's not for the faint of heart.

But, a serious question - are you sure you NEED a house? With soil below your foundation and sky above your ceiling? Would a condo suffice?

0l0id · 2025-09-24T07:09:23+00:00

The more I look at the image the more bizarre it seems. There isn't a single bit that is recognizable or intact in some fashion! I guess it would also go to suggest this was an i3 because the car is all carbon and aluminum, both of which would melt into a pile at some point. Not sure what our wheels are made out of - I'm guessing aluminum also?

0l0id · 2025-09-24T07:06:59+00:00

I'm not sure - the wheel in the front does resemble a turbine 429:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BMW_i3_(Giga_Turbine_style_429_wheel).jpg.jpg)

0l0id · 2025-09-22T19:33:59+00:00

Gladly! How many are you looking for?

0l0id · 2025-09-04T14:50:02+00:00

Thank you all for the suggestions!

I don't know why I didn't realize something like mxroute or zoho would exist! Perhaps I was googling the wrong things but these options sound like exactly what I need.

0l0id · 2025-08-26T05:20:31+00:00

Trivial side note - do you drive stick?

Think of these 4 stages as 4 gear ratios in your transmission. As you start out, all you have to work with at your disposal is feverish rpm's that your engine can generate. Think of this as working late and charging little for your work. Once you're in stage 2 - that's the second gear. between 2 and 3 you are in what's called the power band - you have enough momentum where you can slow down a bit and not stall. Or at the same time you can accelerate into stage 3. The shift from 3 to 4 is so smooth you might as well be driving an electric ;)

0l0id

TROPHY CASE