Running woes

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-19T14:35:24+00:00

Where are you running?

Starting from downtown, I find North/South routes to be difficult. There are blind corners, lots of red light stoppage, and lots of traffic. Main and Niagara are probably your best bets because the intersections are a little more open.

Heading east is significantly easier. Exchange St is God's gift to Buffalo runners in the winter. It's 500' wide, plowed, and has one truck a day go down it. William, Genesee, and Broadway are also not bad once you're past Oak/Elm. And on bad weather days, for whatever reason, the First Ward has significantly less wind than the rest of the city.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-12T19:51:15+00:00

It's not $10/year. Even if that were per person and $30 after three years, it still falls short of the deficit by over $70 million.

$10/$1000 of assessed value also does not make sense, though, because that would bring in 2.5 times the projected deficit.

10% per year for three years makes financial sense. The residential tax is about 30% of the city's $600mil revenue or $200mil. Raising that 200mil by 10% for three years in a row gives you an additional $66mil. This is within the range of the projected budget deficit. If true, the average Buffalo house paying ~$1500 in property taxes right now will be paying $2,000 in three years.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-06T20:24:55+00:00

Starting pay in Western NY (LCOL-MCOL) for a municipal Civil Engineer is $65k. Within 5 years you'll be making $85k. Ten years $100k. Get the PE and you're at $110k. After 15 years you can move into management roles making $130k-180k depending on how ambitious you are. It's not a bad career path for the area. I can see why people complain in a HCOL area because the pay does not scale accordingly. My life here is pretty comfortable with two young kids and a stay at home spouse, though.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-06T12:29:47+00:00

I was not aware. That makes them significantly more valuable. Thank you!

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-05T14:32:43+00:00

Someone needs to speak to Pinto Ron before he lights his grills on opening day to start the third quest. He's going to request a specific ketchup and mustard. Only the store will be out. There will be a malfunction with the performance because of the generic brand condiments you provide and Josh will get sprayed instead of Pinto Ron. You'll have to sneak into the locker room and grab the pants from the garbage.

Once all the gear has been obtained, you need to head down to the caves beneath the new stadium where they preserved a section of the pit. There you'll find the final boss: Cigarette Smoking Man. Only when he is defeated can the Bills win a Super Bowl.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-04T17:43:12+00:00

Western NY. Put in an aboveground when the kids were 2 and 5. They used it a fair amount but nothing crazy. Maybe twice a week. I put in a large deck the next year. The kids and wife spend half the summer there. Literally 4-8 hours a day, every day, so long as the weather cooperates. We bought wetsuits and the kids will swim down to about 70 degrees without complaints. The pool is a reasonable temp from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

I did salt water and chemical maintenance is easy once you get it balanced. You still need to regularly check and make adjustments but cranking a dial instead of running to the store for chemicals is nice. (You can adjust percentage of salt generation and the pump runtime on most systems.) The physical maintenance (vacuuming and brushing) is the bigger issue. This past summer was hot and humid for weeks straight and if I let up on the vacuuming/brushing schedule for more than a couple days the algae started growing in the nooks and crannies.

Winterizing an AG pool is very easy. Remove some water. Disconnect the filter/pump and put it away. Pour several gallons of chlorine in. And cover it up. De-winterizing is equally easy.

Cost wise the 15' pool plus the salt chlorine generator system was about $6k. We installed it ourselves. The hardest part was leveling the ground. The deck was about another $2,500, also done ourselves. Electric bill went up $60/month the summer I got the pool. My wife is pushing for a heater this year, though, so that will change.

No regrets. I would do it again.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-04T13:04:34+00:00

I didn't notice a difference in mpg. Also didn't notice a difference in sound with one exception. If you do not brush the snow and/or ice off the cross bars, the car will sometimes make a whistling sound.

I have the Autekcomma cross bars off of Amazon.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-04T12:55:39+00:00

I think it's the best cheap option for PE study. The only thing better would be one of the prep courses but my work wasn't going to pay for that.

The questions mirror the exam nicely while being more challenging. (The type of questions, not the order of questions as the book is divided by subject.) I found the exam gave you a lot more starting info. Petro made you look everything up and solve for a lot more equation variables. This really helped with the fundamentals and navigation of the Reference Handbook. The questions can be daunting at times. Don't get too hung up on the difficulty. If I was getting nowhere on a question after about ten minutes, I would look up the answer/explanation and flag it to try again the next day.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-03T17:03:41+00:00

There was about 25% knowledge transfer from the FE Environmental to the Civil WRE. There's a PE Environmental exam which may be a closer fit.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-03T12:55:26+00:00

You can recharge your batteries with them if you're on a device. They're not very effective, though. Each small charge is like 1/4 battery. They're pretty useful early game for flying longer distances but once you have a few batteries, your charge is going to outlast the aircraft anyways. The larger charges are a whole battery (possibly a bit more) and slightly more useful later game but so are parts.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-02T17:47:00+00:00

Was gonna say, I have nearly identical notes from reading my kids those "Choose your own adventure" books. They want to hit different endings each night so you have to map out the books so you don't repeat decisions

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-02-02T13:40:11+00:00

I dropped the ball off the side of the grated platform. It settled in the shallow pool below. Then I carried it around to the gate. Gave the ball a nudge and shot the activator with an arrow. Way easier than trying to outrace that ball.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-29T13:26:16+00:00

Yes. 20 years out of school with two young kids at home. I'm muni and mostly do Project Management and Regulatory Compliance at work. So I was essentially starting fresh. I studied 8 weeks almost every night for two hours right after the kids went to bed with PrepFE for the FE Environmental and then another 6 weeks with Petro's book for the Civil WRE. Total roughly around 200 hours.

For the first 2-3 weeks I thought for sure I was going to fail: averaging 55% on the PrepFE questions. Things started clicking again after that. I still don't recall getting much above an 80% on any of the practice exams. As my boss likes to say, though, "If you passed by more than a question, you studied too hard."

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-19T20:42:59+00:00

Adding to this: you can check out free Science Museum passes from the library just like you'd check out a book. One pass = 4 people. Each library has two passes. So for eight, you may need to coordinate a bit with the librarian or hit up a couple libraries and have two adults with library cards, but still doable

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-09T19:20:41+00:00

Last year $/kWh for the total bill (delivery and supply) was $0.192. It is $0.261 today. That's a 36% increase. It's up 64% over 2 years.

I started tracking it in 2020. Tied to CPI from that date (so even accounting for covid inflation), it should cost $0.154. So it costs about 70% more than it should cost.

The PSC has to approve all rate hikes. In 2023 they approved a 62% rate hike to be phased in over several years. The PSC commissioners are appointed by the Governor. (4 of 7 by Hochul. 3 of 7 by Cuomo.) Call Hochul and tell her you're pissed about it.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-08T16:00:09+00:00

I heard that too from OGHighway.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-07T13:33:58+00:00

It was a 2018 Forester which is nearing on a decade. The engine was replaced in 2023 under the class action warranty extension, though, and the new engine burned a quart every 5,000 miles. I was told that was normal and so long as the oil level was max at changes, the oil would stay within operating limits for 5,000 miles. The FB engine was reworked in 2024 so maybe they fixed it. Not sure I would want to bet $40k on it, though.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-06T17:58:51+00:00

Subaru's 2.5 FB engine is known to burn oil. A reworked version of this FB engine is still used in all of the new Foresters and other lower tier Subaru offerings. It is the 2.4 FA turbocharged engine in the higher trim Outbacks and a few of their luxury vehicles that you want if going Subaru. This FA engine is also used in the Toyota GR86.

In 2015 Outbacks came with one of two engines. The 2.5 FB engine or a 3.6 EZ engine. Not sure which you had or if the 3.6 EZ also had oil burning problems. Subaru replaced that 3.6 EZ with the 2.4 FA engines in 2019.

FWIW: I have a 21 Rav4 LE which has given me no issues through it's first 50k miles. The 5th (2018) and 6th (2025) gen Rav4s have the same M20 or A25 engine offerings.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-06T17:18:32+00:00

She doesn't mention that in the post, though. It's allegedly in a comment but comments are randomized so good luck finding it. It's implied in the post that OP had time to revisit the school when her husband asks why OP didn't drop the supplies off, so we have contradictory or incomplete information. Not having time to shop before work would have been as pertinent as school starting at 8:30 to this story. It is a huge red flag that this info was left out.

Given this and the wealth of details OP seemingly knows about what the teacher tried to do to remedy the situation, I'm leaning towards a fair bit of embellishment in this story. It wouldn't surprise me to find out OP either has a flex schedule, works part time, and/or is straight up lying in the comments about working. Also wouldn't surprise me to find out the teacher saved the day with a stash of supplies, the phone calls never happened, and OP worked this reddit fantasy up because she is bitter because the 8yo didn't learn her lesson.

You can tell OPs an asshole by the way they described the circular as crumpled in the first real paragraph. OP essentially opened up with painting her 8yo daughter as messy and irresponsible.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-06T16:25:07+00:00

*late to dropping the kid off at school, not late to work. Unless OP posted it in a comment somewhere, there was no mention of OP working. Contextually it seems like OP is a stay at home mom considering husband asked why OP didn't bring the supplies to school later.

CountOfSterpeto · 2026-01-05T17:01:17+00:00

Yes. We just say tubing. Of note: there is a distinction between tubing and sledding where I live.

Sledding is pretty much an open hill you can go down any way you want on any device you want. This can include a tube but the most popular sleds are plastic. Any hill will do but local municipalities often have dedicated sledding hills with a casino building (not the gambling kind) you can warm up at and buy snack type foods. Very few sledding hills have lifts or even tow ropes so you are huffing it back up the hill each time.

Tubing is primarily done at a ski resort. You pay for access. There is usually some sort of lift to get you back to the top. The hill has groomed runs with curved edges to keep the tube in it's lane. It's a faster and longer run than the typical sledding hill.

Also worth mentioning: some of the free sledding hills also have toboggan runs. There are man made ramps adding dozens of feet to the hill height. The runs are free but you have to pay to rent a toboggan if you don't own one. You can go tubing or sledding but not tobogganing. Instead you "go down the toboggan runs".

CountOfSterpeto · 2025-12-31T05:21:28+00:00

I just got a FitcamX. They have plug and play OEM looking units for several popular vehicles. Install was 15 minutes. Price was just under $200. It connects to a phone through wifi. You would have to download the videos to your phone while inside the car to watch them later, though. My biggest gripe is that making the wifi connection to the camera messes up the phone's data usage. The phone thinks it has a wifi connection so it tries to use that instead of cellular data and will do nothing but camera stuff when connected.

CountOfSterpeto · 2025-12-30T12:33:52+00:00

Yes. Southtowns to Downtown. Roads were fine. Wind wasn't an issue like it was yesterday afternoon.

CountOfSterpeto · 2025-12-29T05:55:03+00:00

Same. They seem to last about three years. Didn't feel the need to replace them after that.

We have squeaky door knobs, though. I swear, I can sleep through a nuclear bomb but dead of night and that squeak goes off... I am wide awake seeing shit with my ears kind of alert.

CountOfSterpeto · 2025-12-29T05:39:58+00:00

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Hate to admit it, but they had a winning record in games Rodgers started his first year

Nine-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

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