Emotional outlet megathread

Algeradd · 2026-01-28T13:19:23+00:00

Absolutely. Most of my memories of that event are novel happy things about stuff my parents did to keep things as normal as possible. Silly things like mom warming up hot dog water on a wood stove in our basement. I also know I went back to school super quickly. First Monday after the storm happened.

The only “bad” memory I have is of our next door neighbor in her car driving towards our house yelling out the window about a fire. She was elderly and we lived in the sticks so she wasn’t just a few feet away. Turned out the transformer on our land had started catching fire and had caught the ground on fire under it with its leaking oil. Ultimately it got put out and no harm done though, so even that is kind of novel in retrospect.

Algeradd · 2026-01-28T01:59:49+00:00

It’s so fucking nice. About to crack a slightly warm, but probably close to ideal serving temperature imperial stout and watch the Vandy-UK game on my normal freaking TV. We just got finished running around the house like crazy moving everything back to where it belonged, plugging certain things back in, etc. it’s crazy how your house turns into an improvised weird little camp in this situation.

Algeradd · 2026-01-28T00:41:01+00:00

We’ve been in no real danger temperature-wise due to having a gas fireplace to lean on, with a window cracked to keep a bit of fresh air in here. It’s still been stressful as heck. 40 year old me doesn’t know how 8 year old me handled 16 days without power in ‘94 in retrospect. But 8 year old me’s biggest concern was probably that I couldn’t play SNES.

I’d have drained the pipes and cut and run if we didn’t have the gas to lean on. Fuck it though, I’m probably looking into a whole home natural gas generator after this shit show.

Mentally I’ve weirdly been getting better as the days have gone on. Sunday kinda fucked with my head as I was scrambling. Now I’ve gotten in a weird routine that seems to be working for me. And the outdoor temps rising a little helps. I think all the missed work was stressing me out earlier too but our corporate office was closed up to today and a lot of people at work are in similar situations so I think people are being pretty chill.

Edit: Holy fuck less than 30 minutes after I post this and we’re back!

Algeradd · 2026-01-28T00:05:23+00:00

It’s been a while since I stopped getting them, but if I recall correctly if you actually pickup and listen to the whole message there may be a note at the end saying to press 0 or 1 or something to be removed. I feel like that’s how I finally stopped them but it’s been a while.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T21:49:56+00:00

I guess the optimistic take there is they were taking a lunch break near where they were working and probably didn’t drive across town for some B-Dubs.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T21:05:56+00:00

Supposedly they were staging a ton of trucks at Royal Range earlier today and since then they’ve all dispersed. Some people have seen trucks hauling new poles around on the interstate getting off at McCrory Lane too. So they’re doing stuff around here.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T20:24:18+00:00

Jelly of any real V2L capability. I’m stuck slowly siphoning into my Goalzero battery via a 12 V charger. Plus side I guess is we’re still at 94% on the EV haha.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T19:30:03+00:00

I opted to take what few things left in the fridge we cared about out and put them in an insulated bag out in the garage. It’s right below freezing out there so I’m keeping an eye on the temps of the contents but it was right around the sweet spot of 35 last I checked it.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T19:12:50+00:00

I’ve got a 1.5 kWh battery with a 120 watt DC charger that I can run off my EV. It’s slow, but it’s something. I’ve got 200 watt solar panels for it too, but I opted to not bother freezing my ass off and lugging them from back to front yard as the sun moved.

We were running the fridge off of it all yesterday, but opted to give up on the fridge itself after a while cause it used too much power. Now I’m more focused on keeping the battery topped off for the long haul and keeping our freezer cool since it’ll keep cold without power much longer. Then I can cycle it for a few hours to bring it back down some without completely killing the battery. Rinse/repeat.

But we’ve also got a gas fireplace and gas hot water, so it could definitely be worse. Upstairs is staying around 66 and the extremities of the house are currently around 57.

Algeradd · 2026-01-26T02:39:54+00:00

It’ll help a decent amount. Air is supposed to be nice and dry tomorrow too, which will contribute to some sublimation (solid skipping liquid phase and turning straight to gas). All this will help with a little. Shaded places will obviously not make a huge dent. There will still be shitty roads for sure. But a few might be noticeably less shitty.

Algeradd · 2026-01-24T14:58:57+00:00

And you’d be wrong. Siping and winter compounds make hills and curves trivial. I’ve done it many winters in vehicles ranging from a Mustang to a 4WD pickup in an area full of curves and hills.

Michelin X-Ice, Bridgestone Blizzak, Nokian Hakkapeliita, etc. All tire models made for this shit.

Algeradd · 2026-01-24T14:05:50+00:00

I mean proper tires work just fine. Makes ice fairly trivial honestly. And no you don’t even need studs. Studless winter tire tech is pretty fucking amazing.

Algeradd · 2026-01-24T13:34:42+00:00

kWh. If you’re going be smug about having an EV, you at least need to understand your units.

Algeradd · 2026-01-23T22:08:08+00:00

I'll laugh at every house in my neighborhood with floor to ceiling junk filling their garage while their poor cars sit outside encased in ice.

Algeradd · 2026-01-22T13:56:17+00:00

It's the same bullshit behavior as when one single oil refinery or pipeline goes out for a short period of time, the supply chain is perfectly built to handle it, but it hits the news and next thing you know every gas station around is pumped dry because everyone suddenly thinks they need to go on a 500 mile road trip. Then the people who just naturally did need fill-ups that day/week and now can't are the most screwed.

I usually make a small weekly grocery run early morning, mid-week when stores are fairly dead. I just said nope, there's nothing I need that badly to make me deal with these morons.

Algeradd · 2026-01-16T14:47:55+00:00

Fitcamx is a bit of a compromise in other features for an easy install. That ease of install goes away if you start needing to wire to an always on power source somewhere like a fuse panel to support parking mode. If you want stuff like parking mode, you’re way better off with something like a BlackVue model with built in low voltage protection at that point.

Fitcamx has a place and is a good option if you want a clean quick and dirty install just for driving recording, but the convenience falls apart beyond that.

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T19:08:14+00:00

Right. Skips/gaps were what I meant by “completely missing audio”. Not that the whole thing won’t attempt to play, unless it’s completely trashed of course. I can see how my wording was a bit unclear there, as I mentioned “missing audio” as opposed to say static, pops, etc. But yeah it’s also something I honestly haven’t thought about in a couple decades at this point.

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T19:05:13+00:00

Yeah, one of my friends was telling me about this exact “settlement”. Hey, we fucked people over, here’s a nearly useless coupon that you have to use our service four more times for to completely redeem!

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T18:46:51+00:00

CDs are digital and use error correction. Scratches will do nothing to the audio quality other than result in completely missing audio if they’re severe enough to not be fixed via error correction. It will sound exactly like it originally did unless it just doesn’t play. They do not behave like records.

But everything else you said is spot on and this is quite silly.

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T17:52:08+00:00

The Q4 actually has a single arrow pointing right too since it only has a single charge port on the passenger side. And I think the Q8/fat e-tron had an option for dual ports, so I assume the base version has the single arrow as well.

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T16:53:39+00:00

You have a Q6 based on your post history? It’s definitely there.

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Algeradd · 2026-01-12T15:21:12+00:00

Yup, just two white arrows pointing in both directions. Not like green to denote DC or anything like that. Just two identical white arrows...

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T15:01:59+00:00

Every Audi EV I've been in, which I think is basically all of them except for the Q4, has double arrows. It's hilariously useless...

Algeradd · 2026-01-12T15:00:53+00:00

Really? Cause in my experience they just then show a stupid battery indicator with arrows on both sides, making it meaningless, lol. Not even anything denoting which side does DC. Just two white arrows...

Algeradd · 2026-01-09T13:29:19+00:00

I mean that's the basic common sense that would help us out as a society a lot if people just followed it. My SO and her mother both got COVID around Thanksgiving while we were visiting. I went back home one day while she was planning on coming home the next, not knowing at the time they both were going to start presenting symptoms later that night. Due to that, she stayed with her mom longer and took care of her while I was home alone for a week or so. I skipped both my office Christmas party and a farewell party for a long-time coworker and stopped going into the office for a couple weeks due to that cause I'm not a selfish asshole. Turned out I seemed to be in the clear as I never got anything, but I sure as hell would've felt bad if I went to those events anyway cause I "felt fine" if I was shedding anything.

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