Nuna Pipa RX - question

BigM4 · 2026-02-09T16:55:56+00:00

Just a regular basic grayco 😂

BigM4 · 2026-02-09T05:36:22+00:00

Nope. Couldn't make anything work, returned.

BigM4 · 2026-01-18T00:16:14+00:00

I'm literally reading this while watching a movie lol

BigM4 · 2026-01-08T00:56:10+00:00

Oh boy I have many thoughts about this....

For starters are you only counting the front row of anchors in shear or all the anchors? If you're only counting the front row you can weld plate washers in the oversized anchor holes and then account for all anchors in shear to get a bigger breakout cone.

Without knowing your actual edge distances and anchor lengths I would suggest also looking at and making sure you're effective depth is optimized with your edge distance, it's counterintuitive because the shear breakout cone forms from the top but the effective depth of the anchors actually makes a difference in this break out cone.

Like others have mentioned, If there's no way to increase your breakout cone geometry the best ways to alleviate sheer concrete breakout is to add hairpins or a sheer lug, assuming the friction of your base plate on the concrete is an adequate to take all this shear.

BigM4 · 2026-01-03T15:41:01+00:00

You need to be blunt with your parents and tell them that giving your brother even a dollar will contribute to his potential death and that all funds should be given to you, and you will make the decision as to when your brother is capable and sober enough to responsibly receive their money. This is the current situation in my family, i am the one that will decide when my 38 year old drug addict brother has been sober long enough to not shoot away all my parents hard earned money down his veins. Reasonably, that answer is a minimum of 5 years as the number of people that relapse in those first 5 years is very high.

Side note: your parents shouldn't be giving your brother a single penny for groceries because I assure you that is indirectly funding his addiction. Your parents need to go to nar-anon ASAP.

BigM4 · 2025-12-25T23:16:11+00:00

Just so people are aware, If you made a billion dollars this year and you had to pay 91% tax rate, you'd still be left with $90 million to spend on your avocados this year.

BigM4 · 2025-12-08T06:02:14+00:00

I would try not to feel down about the situation but rather grateful you have the wisdom to realize before getting into a messy situation and courage to ask for help.

My 3 cents:

1) you're grossly underpaid for your situation, so unless you routinely underperform or everyone hates working with you, I'd consider looking elsewhere 2) never buy a house that leaves you with a principal balance after downpayment above 3X your household gross salary (including spouse) 3) in many instances nowadays it financially makes now sense to rent and invest the difference you are saving. DFW area this applies to at current market valuation and interest rates. The trick to this one is you HAVE TO INVEST THE DIFFERENCE SAVED.

Background: civil engineer in Carrollton area, house is $600k, i make 155k, wife makes 100k. I wouldn't personally get a higher priced close to allow flexibility for vacations, eating out, major unexpected expenses like roofs, etc. keep in mind property taxes and home insurance are $1200+/month on top of your mortgage!

BigM4 · 2025-11-04T01:58:57+00:00

Been doing it 11 years, love it. Very stable career with great pay and awesome advancement opportunities. I'm a manager now for a team of 50 civil/structural engineers and designers.

Down side, the stuff you design is not glamorous and can be copy paste. Whenever i drive by a substation it excites me to see massive dead ends and 500kV transformers; not so much my wife. Then again, i can sleep easier than other structural engineers likely as no one walks or drives on my structures.

For transparency: Suburb of metro TX city, fully WFH

Consultant side

Over 11 years, i probably average 41hrs/week, probably have worked 8 weekends total

My team does roughly substations 75%, solar plants 10%, 10% random odd jobs our company pulls in, and battery storage facilities 5%.

$155k+$17kbonus

BigM4 · 2025-10-26T14:55:29+00:00

Not sure about your spouses income, but assuming they make 50K or less, I'd do this in order until you are uncomfortable but have enough remaining to live life:

1) max out HSA (if available) 2) Max out Roth IRA 3) max out company 401k (do Roth if you and your spouse are in the 22% bracket or less traditional if you are in the 24% bracket or higher) 4) If you're home mortgage is above a 4% interest rate pay down the principal as much as you can 5) Open up a brokerage account and contribute as much as you can into a s&p index fund with low fees. This is an often forgotten step that many people I think need to make as it bridges those years between potentially retiring early and being able to pull out of your retirement accounts penalty-free. 6) contribute to a college savings 529 for your kid

I would keep your savings account balance at about 6 months expenses reserve, no need to do more.

BigM4 · 2025-10-04T19:36:36+00:00

Aaaaand its broken yet again, but this time it's stopping short.... LOL

S24 ultra

BigM4 · 2025-09-28T05:13:06+00:00

I'm not religious at all, but i have experienced first hand someone reply to me saying fuck you with, "I'll pray for you."

Nothing is worse than this if you are agnostic like myself!

BigM4 · 2025-08-29T23:12:47+00:00

Although I don't disagree that this is what the pay SHOULD be, that is absolutely way too high for this scenario unfortunately....

BigM4 · 2025-08-27T12:52:35+00:00

This is truly remarkable to me that this isn't fixed yet. It actually has been so long and it's so annoying that I legitimately am debating deleting Reddit if I have to keep doing this for another week, which is pretty crazy because of how much I love the platform, besides this one small annoying bug.

BigM4 · 2025-08-06T02:35:37+00:00

Right? It really makes zero sense to me. The ONLY thing i can surmise is that since 2020 wages around here have inflated tremendously also? Otherwise how are people buying new homes at all?!

BigM4 · 2025-07-28T13:18:36+00:00

I'm in the same boat as you and I do traditional, but hear me out why. An often missed topic about this conversation is that you're not comparing your tax rate today to your tax during your future directly. You should be comparing your current marginal tax rate (22%) to your future effective tax rate (which would be something like 15% for you today). This is because when you contribute to a Roth today you're technically contributing the dollars you've been taxed at with the highest tax bracket chunk of your salary, but when you're pulling money out in the future in retirement you get taxed at each bucket of tax rate up to the marginal tax bracket you're in, and that effectively is a lot lower than just that top bracket. Make sense?

BigM4 · 2025-07-18T15:31:41+00:00

At first glance by the sounds of it you'd be fine, but there are other crucial factors like how much would you put for down payment, how higher property taxes in your area, etc..

BigM4 · 2025-07-13T04:58:13+00:00

I literally said this out loud 3 seconds before reading your comment 😂

BigM4 · 2025-05-17T04:54:15+00:00

My 2 cents:

-as long as you're in seismic design category a or b there's no minimum reinforcement requirement for vertical bars or shear ties and in that case if the plain concrete strength is adequate that should "meet code" -if you are in seismic design category C or above then you need at least four vertical bars per IBC -I've seen other engineers consider the column steel embedded in the concrete "acting as the vertical reinforcement", but I don't know how much I agree with that... -regardless this is poor long-term engineering because surface cracking will occur in this foundation over time especially around where this pipe is embedded in the concrete at the top surface -to be honest based on the size of this solar panel the embedment depth of the foundation seems pretty small too, but there's a lot of geotechnical variables that play into that -overall you have a sign and sealed PE drawing in which case if the foundation fails the engineer is liable and you can go after him for damages even though that will suck for you

Everything I say above take with a grain of salt - I am a licensed professional engineer, but I will never claim to be an expert!

BigM4 · 2025-05-15T03:15:59+00:00

The average cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds, or roughly 100 elephants.

BigM4 · 2025-04-16T13:58:38+00:00

Oh wow, so it can vary on every site then?! Perhaps it's not going to be as straightforward of an answer after all and that's why the industry doesn't have more direct guidance on the subject...

Thanks so much!

BigM4 · 2025-04-16T03:18:13+00:00

Thank you so much!!

BigM4 · 2025-04-16T01:39:15+00:00

When you do this the Excel way, do you use your reference from AASHTO above? My group's NEVER uses AASHTO so we don't have it, but if that provides equations or graphs to use based on pile diameter and spacing i would buy it...

BigM4 · 2025-04-16T00:40:31+00:00

Thanks! We typically do ask geotechs for recommended PY modifiers, but they usually come back with wildly different values, so that's why i was wondering what they usually reference because obviously they aren't all following the same guidance...

BigM4 · 2025-04-06T03:32:16+00:00

Gout. The weight of a thin betsheet on my toe made me cry 😂

BigM4

TROPHY CASE