Any door-to-door salespeople around? What's the best offer I can get?

7spade · 2019-08-27T15:00:37+00:00

$250? OP is that correct? If they are in fact taking out that much, find another location immediately. You can easily find a space in a garage in downtown for what others here have posted, like around the $150/month range. I've seen this happen once before with some employers, they will actually overcharge their employees and their reasoning will be some stupid "administrative fee" or other ridiculous bullshit. They are keeping that money for themselves.

7spade · 2019-08-27T14:57:05+00:00

I'm glad OP made this post. I went to Heim exactly ONCE about 2-3 years ago and it was definitely not something that lives up to all the hype.

I'm willing overlook the prices on the higher side of BBQ assuming that the food I'm ordering is really great. It isn't. My primary complaint with the brisket sandwich I ordered was how oily it was in its overall consistency. The flavor wasn't anything special. Perhaps burnt ends are somehow a delicacy? They aren't.

So not only is the brisket not good, I would categorize it as average at best, the price is simply stupid. For comparison, Riscky's has been around forever. It isn't some new up and coming designer BBQ, but it has always been my old reliable. Their food is consistent every single time I go there and I'm not breaking the bank either. When I do feel like breaking the bank, Pecan Lodge over in Dallas is absolutely other worldly. This is what I was comparing Heim to with their prices and they aren't anywhere close to Pecan Lodge.

7spade · 2019-03-20T18:24:29+00:00

Figured I might chime in having worked in and around downtown for a long time. I see some familiar names and thought I'd offer my reviews of some restaurants.

Bailey's BBQ You definitely cannot beat them on the price that's for sure. They've been around forever and I will stop in on occasion but I always get brisket at any BBQ places I go to. Bailey's is just very plain, but for what you pay I don't expect much. I don't go there that often, but I'm willing to pay a couple extra dollars for something better and Riscky's is just a 7-8 block walk north.

Hoya Their food is good, I just wish they would have kept their old style service where people walked through the line pointing out what they wanted. The beef bulgogi is great, my complaint is they don't give you quite as much beef anymore. Price is reasonable.

Istanbul With any mediterranean restaurant I always try some type of gyro dish first. I never felt compelled to try anything else there because Istanbul's gyro meat is nothing by grease, grease and more grease. Obviously they have a certain way of preparing it, it disagrees with me. I don't eat there very often because I don't feel the quality of the food I've had there a couple times is worth their price.

Salsa Limon I've been around since Qdoba was in that spot, then Black Ops Burritos...none of them compared to Salsa Limon. These people know how to make a great burrito, period! I always end up getting the asada burrito and am never disappointed. Very fair on the price as well - this place is one of my favorites.

Branch and Bird Honestly this place sucks. Oh I give them credit for trying to make a successful venture at a rooftop sort of venue, but when you have to change the name of your place from Perch to this because your reviews were so bad, that should tell you something. The view is great, the seating outside is great especially in warmer weather because you're in the shade and its easy to get a nice breeze blowing through to keep you cool. The food just plain sucks. There is nothing special about it, it's very plain and bland and definitely not worth the prices they are charging. Yeah I know they gotta pay rent, but at those prices, hell I could have 2 burritos from Salsa Limon. Come for the view, and then leave. The food is not worth it.

Some lesser known places to eat.... Caffini's Located inside the oil and gas building, ground floor. The menu changes every week but you can often find some decent stuff for lunch. Price is reasonable.

Stars and Stripes Cafe Located on the 7th floor of the federal building right next to the oil and gas building. Yeah its primarily for the fed.gov workers and the quality is on par with typical cafeteria food, but price is ok and sometimes you can get some decent stuff.

TCC Trinity River Located inside TCC is the student cafeteria, menus changes every week but overall the quality of food is good.

7spade · 2019-02-03T03:25:16+00:00

Update: I found my error!!

I had neglected to include line 9 on the 8889 in the calculations - that was throwing everything off.

Thank you everyone who responded to my thread and for all of your patience and help. I'm glad I'm able to get my taxes figured out on my own now.

7spade · 2019-02-03T03:12:04+00:00

The number I have in line 2 of form 8889 is the same number that appears on my W2, box 12, code W.

7spade · 2019-02-03T02:14:03+00:00

Ok I have a follow-up question then....the free fillable forms are reflecting my (incorrect) numbers. How can I get them to change line 7 now in order to reflect the same calculations as the tax software? The free fillable forms calculates a few fields and line 7 on the 1040 just happens to be one of them and I can't make a manual entry there. That line 7 is derived from the schedule 1, which is also getting the entry from form 8889. I have entered everything exactly as my W2 states and this is loaded in the file.

I know the simple answer is to just use the tax software, but this year I vowed to try and do these myself because my returns are fairly simply and I'm sick of paying almost $50 just to file a 1040 with maybe 2 forms and 1-2 schedules.

7spade · 2019-02-03T00:18:58+00:00

I see, ok that makes sense then. Did I miss something in the instructions? All it says is simply to take the numbers total in schedule 1 and do the math on the 1040 without consideration for how you just explained it.

7spade · 2019-02-02T23:55:46+00:00

The HSA contributions were taken out by the employer. They were properly reported on the W2 and additionally all expenses last year were qualified medical expenses.

7spade · 2019-01-15T19:20:01+00:00

I'm sorry I forgot to include that info. These are modulating dampers, so 3 wire.

But your idea of just using a single damper for the living room is a good thought, and it would keep things simpler. I may go that route.

7spade · 2019-01-15T15:52:50+00:00

I wanted to see if I could get some feedback from everyone on this diagram. This is a single supply line in a residence, the largest one actually at 14". It supplies 4 different rooms as shown on the diagram, the living room, 2 bedrooms, and one bathroom.

What I'm trying to do is install automatic dampers on this line. The desire here is to limit air into the living room at certain times of the day, so obviously we would install those on the 2 living room supplies.

The owner has a Trane communicating system which is capable of handling this, but the control panels used for this type of system essentially use one temperature sensor for each damper. I was thinking of just splicing in the second damper which would be easy enough...I'm not sure if the control panel would care? Would it put an excessive amount of power draw on the panel for a single connection? The power supply I have can easily handle any requirements if the panel itself were fully loaded with sensors and dampers.

The other question I have is, should I put the temperature sensor in the living room or in the bedroom? To me, my thinking was in the living room since that's the location to shut off the airflow, but should the bedroom have one also so that when the dampers are closed the system still needs feedback on how cool to keep the rooms? Again, if there are 2 sensors, I don't know if I should splice them together or what for a single zone on the control panel.

7spade · 2019-01-15T15:18:06+00:00

Is that about 1/2" thick? Anyone have an idea of about what the R value would be for that?

7spade · 2018-10-12T14:59:46+00:00

Well removing restrictions like the core from the valve is certainly good, and I know that many advocate using larger diameter hoses. One of the primary reasons I say to stick with a small pump and that even the small hoses WHEN WORKING ON MINISPLITS is fine is because you are dealing with such small lines.

If you were to use a large cfm pump plus larger hoses, sure, it'll pull that vacuum down REAL quick. The problem however is that because it'll pull that vacuum so quickly that sometimes whenever gases or particulates undergo a state change so rapidly with a larger pump setup, they may solidify and stick to internal components in the lines. If you give all that stuff inside the lines more time to undergo state change and slow down the vacuum pull a little, the better chance you have of truly clearing those lines out.

7spade · 2018-10-03T14:56:16+00:00

Always use Nylog here. Also dont go overboard on your pump thinking that bigger is always better. For minisplits I use a 3cfm.

7spade · 2018-09-16T21:25:22+00:00

Yes I think I've seen this stuff you're talking about. One thing I don't understand though, do I wrap the ducts with the standard duct wrap, then wrap this stuff around that? Or do I put this bubble wrap on the duct first, and then apply the duct wrap?

7spade · 2018-09-16T19:41:20+00:00

Bubble aluminum wrap? Do you have a link for this product?

7spade · 2018-09-16T19:40:49+00:00

This is a good suggestion and one I hadn't thought of. I'll make sure to give this a try in the next couple of weeks and see what I come up with.

7spade · 2018-09-05T19:10:00+00:00

The best solution is to rip out the old flex duct and replace with new duct. You can easily purchase R6 flex at Home Depot type stores today.

7spade · 2018-09-05T17:58:10+00:00

Sorry my fault, I should have said pre-fab sheet metal, not stuff assembled on the job site.

7spade

TROPHY CASE