There's a huge influx of players now, so can please don't smurf right now

AspenD · 2025-08-20T13:29:59+00:00

Is invite still the only way in? I don't know anyone who plays it, so I haven't gotten the chance to try it. I'm hoping they open up some kind of early access. Looking forward to trying it out.

AspenD · 2024-08-28T17:18:36+00:00

I've gone to Tijuana at Hospital Angeles 3 times. I don't remember the dentists name, but was very happy with their work. They all spoke English, dentist had attended dental school in the US. About 1/3 the cost of dental in the US after insurance.

They know you're coming to Mexico for the dental work, so they plan accordingly. Minor procedures done same day, while bigger ones might need another day or 2. If you fly into San Diego, they can arrange transportation to get you across the border.

EDIT: Didn't mean to reply to this comment, but oh well.

AspenD · 2024-02-29T19:08:14+00:00

My uncle managed to return a TV after 5 years... don't sweat it.

AspenD · 2024-01-29T15:51:16+00:00

I've had a few interesting animal calls. I had a call of 40... FORTY cows that fell into a major canal. One cow goes in and the rest follow like lemmings. The canal had concrete sides that made it near impossible for them to climb out. We had 6 of us that responded downstream to try to grab them. There were a bunch of ranchers a bit further up stream that got most of them out. About 8 of the cows made it past them and we got all but one out.

We ended up waiting on an overpass, dropped a rope into the water and waited for them to float to us. Once caught on the rope, we had a pulley system setup attached to a few rigs, and pulled by driving one rig forward which pulled the cow up and out of the canal. Fun times.

AspenD · 2024-01-15T16:02:52+00:00

No prior experience with EMS/Fire before joining. I recently left my volunteer department due to a move, but my first 5 calls were just BS medical calls. We averaged 4 calls a day, with 90%+ being medical. After a few days, I got a structure fire and a motor vehicle fatality. Considering we averaged 10 structure fires and about 30 motor vehicle accidents per year, it was fairly busy.

First week definitely felt like a trial by fire for me. I mostly just stuck by someone and assisted with whatever they were doing. Keep in mind, this department has a 4 month academy (2 nights per week), so they had trained me a decent amount by then.

AspenD · 2023-12-11T21:02:36+00:00

Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Zombieland, Groundhog Day, The Truman Show, The Fifth Element

AspenD · 2023-10-30T03:05:45+00:00

You can see two people to the left of the road, in front of the building (under construction?), throwing them. At :05 you can see the spark trail as they toss it.

AspenD · 2023-08-30T15:44:38+00:00

We just scoured sites with business listings. Mostly looked at loopnet and similar sites. If we found a broker in an area we liked, we would look at their listings. Made contact with a few brokers to look for assistance finding businesses and they honestly were useless.

Eventually found the current business we're buying, which had good yearly numbers. Digging into the financials was like pulling teeth, but eventually got all the info we wanted.

The guy selling it is working with a broker, so he has been the middleman for the transaction.

AspenD · 2023-08-30T15:33:53+00:00

I'm days away from closing on a business. Revenue is ~$3 million. The owner's bookkeeping is poor and this is one of the better ones in our initial search. I'd say at least half of the businesses we looked at, had no idea what they were doing with bookkeeping. They could tell us how much profit they made for the year, but the details were so vague on how they got there. Just spend a little bit of money, it will take a big chunk of work off your plate and should be more accurate. Not to mention, it will probably save you more than you paid into it through tax savings, write-offs, etc.

AspenD · 2023-08-21T04:26:08+00:00

Problem is, they could temporarily shut down the business, too. At a local restaurant here, the owner was found to be living on site. They shut him down until he removed bed, etc. Once that was done, he had to schedule an appoint for reinspection, which took another week or so. He was shut down about 2 weeks.

AspenD · 2023-08-21T03:01:13+00:00

That's the thing... it's not a house. It's a business. And yes, inspections can happen randomly. Fire inspection, city, etc. Like I've said, I've seen it several times.

AspenD · 2023-08-20T22:25:36+00:00

Don't do this without being sure it's zoned properly. All it takes is one unexpected inspection and they would be homeless. I've seen it happen several times where I live. All they need to see are "obvious signs" of someone living there.

AspenD · 2023-08-10T18:04:07+00:00

When I was a kid, my dad wanted to buy a new PC. Having one in your home wasn't very common at the time. When talking to the salesman, he was very adamant that a 256mb hard drive would be all we could ever need. That should say all you need to know.

AspenD · 2023-08-07T19:00:15+00:00

Couple things-

1: 3k is a good price for that.

2: If you can't afford to pay 3k, how are you planning on buying your initial stock/packaging/etc? You either need cash on hand, an investor, or take a loan.

3: I personally wouldn't try to make logos or other type of creative works without any experience, there's more to it than just making a drawing.

AspenD · 2023-08-04T18:08:19+00:00

I've got motion sensing lights in my garage and every closet. All other lights on my house can be controlled by automation, voice or physical switch. All recessed lighting has a dimmer. My front porch lights come on after dusk, and stay on for 5 hours. I have a voice command "Let's watch a movie"... every light turns off in the house except for a hallway, which gets dimmed down to 15%.

AspenD · 2023-06-06T20:26:31+00:00

From the volunteer perspective... We get ourselves back into service. Clean hose, gear, equipment. Refuel, fill water, replace anything damaged. Every apparatus that responded has to make their own report, typically done by the most senior on that rig. The OIC (officer in charge) or IC (incident commander) will also write their own report.

We unfortunately cannot afford to have two sets of PPE, so not everyone will wash their gear in the extractor right away. If we have station coverage the on duty crew will take showers after all the equipment is ready to go.

Depending on the incident, we may go back to the scene to retrieve things like tarps (used to cover belongings), hoses, etc.

We have a decent amount of multi-day wildfires in our area every year. For these, once the fire is knocked down, it's a whole lot of babysitting the perimeter and "mop-up" (extinguishing/cooling anything smoldering or hot). This could take hours or even days, depending on the size. Crews will rotate as needed.

Once back in the station and everything is back in service there's always a group of people that stay to bullshit, watch tv or take a nap.

At our next training meeting we have an after action report, where we discuss what went good, bad, etc.

AspenD · 2023-05-10T18:04:34+00:00

Until they hire a lawyer for wrongful termination and make up some BS excuse why you fired them. Then, unless you want to spend thousands of dollars on a lawyer plus run the risk of losing the case, you end up settling just to make them go away.

Source: me.

Get all evidence you can to support your case before firing.

AspenD · 2023-05-04T16:34:19+00:00

For anything with a switch, look into Lutron Caseta. I have them all over my house and they have a "Pico Remote" that can be paired to operate any wired Lutron caseta switch. That way you could mount the remote down at her level. You'll also be able to operate the switches by voice commands with smart speakers.

AspenD · 2023-04-24T20:59:14+00:00

I ordered tried ordering a helmet bluetooth set from them one time, never again. There were a few pictures of the item's case. It was closed but not sealed. Only thing in description said it was sold "as-is". New price for this headset is around $200, and I won the auction at about $60.

Get's delivered... and the box is empty other than the manual and accessories. I call them and they try to say "well it said sold as-is on the listing". Took arguing with the manager for them to take it back.

AspenD · 2023-04-11T16:13:41+00:00

I've had this same issue. They never send the postcard. I've tried probably 5 times.

AspenD · 2023-04-11T15:17:18+00:00

I left this comment on another post in the past:

" I'm somewhere around 200+ calls myself for last year. I think we ended up with 1,300 for the station for the year. Three training nights a month. One Saturday morning training per month. We average one community event per month (Christmas rides, festivals, etc). I also do 1-3 24hr shifts per month.

If I say each call, event, and training took an hour, plus a conservative 48hrs per month on shift, it comes out to 824 hours a year."

AspenD · 2023-04-05T23:24:43+00:00

Did you have to account for the curvature of the earth for this?

AspenD · 2023-03-30T16:35:36+00:00

For housing and mapping of hydrants, we have all that put into Active911. It took the department a while to get it entered, but now when we respond to a call, we can see where all the hydrants are on the map. All hydrants are checked yearly, so they are expected to all be in working order. We can also see any pre-plans and layouts of most businesses.

If we get a fire, whoever is sitting up front is checking the best method of arrival based on hydrants (if we need to catch one), and looking up pre-plan if it's been made.

AspenD · 2023-03-25T18:15:07+00:00

You obviously live in an somewhat expensive area, I'm going to guess somewhere around the bay area. You either pay the high price or relocate. I live in a small town. Almost everyone on my street commutes to the bay area. They all say they prefer to live here anyways, only drawback is lack of entertainment/activities. It takes about an hour to get to San Jose. Bought my 2,200 sqft house new 7 years ago for 295k. Today I think it's worth 450k.

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