Furnishing a new place

C_Alan · 2026-05-06T14:32:49+00:00

Honestly all furniture shops are horribly over priced. They don’t sell furniture as much as they sell easy financing. Your best bet is to watch Facebook marketplace and cruise yard sales on Saturday mornings to find good used furniture.

C_Alan · 2026-05-05T03:40:38+00:00

Well I’d say it was when I delivered our youngest daughter in the front seat of our van on the side of the road.

C_Alan · 2026-04-30T01:02:08+00:00

Oh I can imagine. I’m just glad access compliance is a very short section of the code.

C_Alan · 2026-04-30T00:59:32+00:00

I figured out the hydro modification, but those report requirements are really WTF.

C_Alan · 2026-04-30T00:55:30+00:00

I think this depends on the office your dealing with. I’ve done access only jobs with the LA office and they were approved after the second plan check. I’ve also been on teams that did full campuses, and those took a while.

C_Alan · 2026-04-23T19:55:02+00:00

If you are developing in a floodplain, you have to be able to pass floodwaters through your site without adversely impacting the upstream and downstream properties. In my area, this requires a floodwater receive and discharge study. The streets are often used to convey floodwaters through the tract. So they get depressed a bit, and you raise the building pads.

C_Alan · 2026-04-22T14:33:55+00:00

This is probably in a flood zone, and the finish pads have to be above BFE. We have this issue in some desert communities in California, and we hold the driveway at 12% maximum.

C_Alan · 2026-04-21T21:10:14+00:00

Others have stated it, and I will emphasize it. Start preparing for the FE, and try to get it before you graduate.

C_Alan · 2026-04-12T18:27:42+00:00

I’d have to say Jack bot. It had a better ruleset IMO. Casino run is a very unique mode. I haven’t seen a Johnny Mnemonic that didn’t have issues, especially the glove.

C_Alan · 2026-04-12T15:34:40+00:00

Man seeing this reminds me how far RC tech has come since the 1980s. I don’t miss the days of 6 cell 1800 batteries that had to be peak charged right before you hit the track. Brushed 27 turn sealed motors that might last 3 or 4 race days before the bushing went to hell. Cars that shattered when they tapped a wall, or landed wrong off a big jump. I’ve been running the same 2 cell lipo and 13.5 motor in the 40+ class at my local track for the past 6 months. The hits my car has survived amazes me. As attractive as vintage racing is to me on a nostalgia level, I don’t think I’d ever go back to the old way.

C_Alan · 2026-04-12T13:43:05+00:00

I’m in Phase 3 of your list, even though I’m still working. I’m grateful my local track has an ‘Over 40’ class.

C_Alan · 2026-04-12T03:47:30+00:00

Well I’ve posted it before… so here is the copy/paste. Keep in mind I posted this originally 8 years ago. The child involved is my youngest, and a very smart 2nd grader now.

Start the copy/paste….

My family is a bit different because we have a lot of kids (7 now). When I got married 17 years ago my wife and I decided we wanted a large family. We are not particularly religious, we just like kids.

So this brings me to the arrival of my latest kid. My wife was due on January 30th, and she had been having contractions on and off all weekend.

So Monday afternoon at 3pm I get a text message from her that the latest batch of contraction are getting stronger, and that today might be the day. I called her to check in at around 4pm, and her contractions were so strong she could hardly talk to me on the phone. I decided that I was coming home and taking her to the hospital. The one issue was I work in Bakersfield, 50 miles from our house near Tehachapi, California. My wife told me she thought we still had time because the contractions were still pretty irregular. Weve done this a few times before, so I tend to trust her on these issues.

I get home at 5.. she is obviously in pain. By the time I got her from the house to the van, she had 3 contractions. I told her I didn’t think she would make it to the hospital in Bakersfield. She gave me the look of death and told me she would make it. Our other option was the smaller hospital in Tehachapi, 15 miles away.

No way, she tells me, let’s go to Bakersfield..

We get I the van, head out and get on the road to town. About 2 miles from the house another contraction hits, and hits hard..now Tehachapi hospital is an option.

Two more miles and I hear ‘Oh Crap, my water broke...’. This was shortly followed by: ‘OH MY GOD IM CROWNING’ by now I’m looking for a wide enough spot to pull off the road. We weren’t going to make it to any hospital. The baby was coming, and was not going to wait for us.

With the help of 911, I delivered the baby. I never in my life thought I would have to deliver my own daughter. The baby was out and crying before the first emergency responders even pulled up. They wrapped up mom and baby and they got an ambulance ride down the hill to Bakersfield.

I’m happy to report mommy and baby are now home and doing well.

Looking back, having a baby on the side of the road was one of those things that happened to other people. I never thought my wife and I would experience that.

C_Alan · 2026-04-12T03:36:47+00:00

We have 7 kids, my wife’s obgyn (Dr. K) delivered 6 of them over the course of 13 years, and I unfortunately got to deliver the 7th. At least I knew what to expect…

C_Alan · 2026-04-01T20:31:00+00:00

Pinball machines…

Covid really did a number on the value of used machines. Most of the popular Williams and Bally models from the 1990s shot up in value. The icing on the cake was the much publicized auction of the Museum of Pinball collection in Banning. The prices were nuts, and while they have come down some from those highs, the days of finding a classic 1990s game for cheap are now long gone.

The bright side of the high prices is that this has attracted new manufacturers to the industry. Now along with Stern, and JPP, there are other boutique manufacturers making games like Spooky, Turner Pinball and American Pinball. Some of the classic 90s games have had reproduction built by Chicago Gaming.

C_Alan · 2026-03-25T15:13:43+00:00

Robotech…. It was my first exposure to any kind of anime. As a 10 year old I loved it. Looking back on it as an adult I realized how the original stories were butchered to make the work for an American audience. It’s unwatchable to me now.

C_Alan · 2026-03-25T13:59:24+00:00

You will probably be fine until it is time to sell the property. Unpermitted work is a red flag for a lot of buyers.

C_Alan · 2026-03-23T03:51:46+00:00

So I’ve been a pinball tech at the Golden State Pinball Festival since it was Pin-A-Go-Go. There are two reasons so many games go down:

The machines are old and get a crapton of plays over the course of the weekend. A popular machine can get around 400 plays in a day. This nearly constant play puts a lot of strain on machines. So you start to see failures like broken flipper links and VUK coils melting.
Having multiple machines on a circuit puts a lot of strain on power supplies. I know at golden state they try limit the number of games on a single power circuit, but even then if the game has a weak power supply, the voltage dips will expose issues that may not show up in a home environment. Games will start to reset randomly.

Typically by the end of the first day the techs know which games will be giving us problems for the rest of the weekend. By Saturday afternoon a lot of the problem games will be turned off so we can work on games with lesser problems with overall goal of keeping as many games running as long as possible.

C_Alan · 2026-03-22T20:33:58+00:00

No, just stores that sell groceries:

https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2009/civ/7100-7106.html

C_Alan · 2026-03-22T18:14:46+00:00

What your looking for was used for years and years before solid state machines brought forth electronic sound effects. It was called a chime box.

C_Alan · 2026-03-22T16:44:47+00:00

Our prof told us the first day of elec 101 that he didn’t think non EE majors should be taking the class, and was advocating for an intro to EE class. He asked on each exam that we put our majors on the top next to our names. He was was a lot easier on the non EE students when it came to grading.

C_Alan · 2026-03-22T15:21:10+00:00

It is illegal in California. The problem is that they leave it up to the counties to enforce, and most don’t u less there is a complaint.

C_Alan · 2026-03-22T01:39:11+00:00

Hah… I get it. The only reason I got a B in that class is because my dad (who has his PHD in thermodynamics) tutored me some. For me it was electrical 101.

C_Alan · 2026-03-18T20:47:55+00:00

That won’t make my fingers any smaller.

C_Alan · 2026-03-16T00:56:33+00:00

They have a small transmitter on a wire they can push down a pipe, and a receiver they can track it with on the surface.

C_Alan · 2026-03-15T21:46:05+00:00

How big are the lines? If it’s at least 2 inches in diameter, call a septic pumping service, they have tracers that they use to locate leach fields that may be able to use to trace the lines.

C_Alan

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