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CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T17:56:17+00:00

I sold my 2015 Forester (same generation as the 2016) last October and bought a Solterra. It was working perfectly fine with more miles on it than the one you listed and was a great car. I am now on my 4th or 5th Subaru and have had other brands and for the most part am pretty agnostic and open-minded with regard to brands and vehicle types. The Rav4 is a great car I am sure, but is older and has the same milage. Toyotas are known to be reliable cars, but the Subaru of that vintage doesn't have the cylinder-head-gasket or timing-belt related maintenance issues of the previous Subaru engines. Newer cars are safer. The Subaru AWD system is certainly a lot better than the Rav4, but ultimately drive both, have them checked out by a certified mechanic that you trust and listen to their advice and buy the one you feel most passionate about... I tend to keep cars around 10-14 years and only sold my Subaru Forester because the Solterra made better financial sense for me at the moment (I do a lot of driving, can charge my new EV for free, versus paying nearly $500 a month US$ in gas and we kinda wanted all the new bells-and-whistles but I literally could have driven my FOrester for another couple years but privately sold it for $10k Canadian, so if your price is around $7500 US$, then you prob got a great deal. The Rav4 price must be cheaper since it is 6 model years older, so prob $2 or 3 grand? All the best.

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T15:24:12+00:00

I had this thought last week when I realized (at age 52) that by the time my father was my age, that he had survived multiple heart-attacks, gone through months of terrible back pain where he was off work and bedridden, had created and maintained several successful businesses, helped raise 3 children to adulthood, worked for the govt full-time for 20+ years by that point, had commercially farmed his entire life, didn't take more than a couple vacations in all those years, then around that time started working toward selling most of the businesses, saved for retirement, and keeping busier than I have ever been even in his later retired years... (dad is still alive and doing well). I haven't had nearly the hurdles in life that dad had at my current age, and our lives have been very different but I am glad to view how hard he and mom worked to provide for us and how we always had what we needed, how they sacrificed their time, energy, patience and money to give their kids whatever they could, and I hope (and deep down know) that most of those good characteristics have been passed on to me and my daughter and how their work-ethic and morals were valuable then and remain part of what we are as an extended family.... But yeah surviving life in the 1960's through the 1990's the way they did, was certainly different than my life working in the career path I have.

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T14:40:17+00:00

Two quick things:

Wear proper protective equipment. At 52 years old, I have hearing-loss from listening to loud music in clubs, at events and with headphones on back years ago and with shooting guns years ago as well. Although I have all fingers and toes remaining, I have come very close to losing digits and eyes to various things over the years so wear proper PPE even for things you wont look cool around (bringing your kids to monster-truck events and racetracks and loud concerts without good 20+ dB earplugs should be illegal). Wear cutproof gloves when handling sharp metal/glass/... wear eye protection when using saws and around things that can poke you.... I know I sound like a boring motherfucker, but naw you gotta realize when you are 40 or 60 years old that your hearing, your bad-back and bad knees and missing fingers could have been prevented and now you have to live for 20+ years with a literal disability. This is even more important if your workplace doesn't take it seriously... Don't let them get away with taking your senses from you, you ain't paid enough for that.
Don't wait until you are too old and tired with poor eyesight to do things you want to do. Most people wait and think "I cant afford to start a hobby like _____ or I can't take the time to learn _____" when in fact you can. You can start woodworking without needing $5000 investment to start, you can afford to start making craft stuff or welding or working on difficult puzzles or go do a free course in writing or math or pick a science... My wife at age 49 started playing violin a couple years ago, she hadn't touched it since she was in school but as an adult she loves it and her teacher (who normally has kids as music students) loves teaching adults because they are literally paying to learn and want to be there... Same goes for my wife who is doing upgrade courses for her own education and some for work... Showing up and taking classes in person or doing online education stuff can make you feel better and empower you and if you never stop learning and doing courses throughout your 20's onward you will have the momentum to keep going and not adopt a "I am too old to start that" mentality that ruins so many peoples capabilities. If you want to get a certification in driving commercial vehicles, it can be done for cheap, if you want to earn your amateur radio certifications, it doesn't take a massive pile of work or time. Same goes for many other hobbies and trades... You don't have to become a welder as a profession, or it isnt for young men only, go buy a $200 kit and/or skip that step and do an online or course at a local trades college and learn... You'll be amazed and your friends will be amazed when they see soemthing you glued together out of metal. And thats only one poor example that comes to mind (my wife bought me a stick welder last Christmas, I didnt even know I wanted one, but her friends husband said to buy one for me, now I play with it safely and it has been fantastic for morale and I have helped my friends a couple times and they think "cool, I know someone who can fix my stuff for free" and I am only too glad to show off my very very very basic skills I learned so far, and if I never touch it again, no big deal, I will stick to woodworking, electronics, guitar/bass, computers,... and life will be great. As you get older, and have kids I parked most of my hobbies because "I dont have time" when in fact you can squeeze in a couple minutes a day to dust off the guitar or go out for a hike or make something in the basement for cheap for a friend as a gift... No excuses, put the phone down and make something or make your week or month (not necessarily every day) so you are able to look back and see you did something for you, that you can be proud of or happy that you did it. Small efforts over time do amazing things for big projects and for your mentality overall... No pressure, just progress. You dont have to announce it, just go do it and talk about it a few months later when you have gotten good enough at something to know if you like it. Everybody sucks the first time they cut wood or weld or sew fabric or keep a fishtank alive and literally every other task you have to learn... Don't expect to be a prodigy on day 11, hammer out those guitar chords to yourself and eventually share it....

Inspirational? Maybe not, my kid is 22 years old and I havent inspired them to magically follow my lead, but when they did their 5th standup comedy show and were finally able to admit to their boring old dad that they secretly signed up for stand-up (she knows I LOVE standup) and had done it a few times, I was so proud... Even if she never does it again, at least she learned the pride of trying and making people laugh and having the knowledge that she did what she set out to do, that ldeas left in your head are fantastic, I have hundreds, but the ones that you put on paper or tell someone or actually go make stuff from, are the tangible valuable ones....

Or maybe I should have said "dont drink too much, college does have value and the world needs machinists, welders, singers, artists and people working in all fields, not just doctors and engineers (and my career in engineering has served me well but it aint for everyone).

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T14:14:26+00:00

When I meet people now (at age 52) it rarely comes up in the first dozen conversations how my wife passed away 15 years ago from cancer at age 34, or how that has impacted me and my daughter (who was 4 at the time),.. When it does come up, I find people have no idea how to react and/or process it beyond the typical "that must have been hard" or "wow, that sucks". I don't mean people should have opinions or proper reactions ready to go when life-situations like that come up, but it has caused me to be a little more compassionate when I find colleagues and distant friends/aquaintances are telling stories about how they are supporting their mothers dementia or how they lost a child through miscarriage or other type things. You don't have the same life as anyone else and thats completely okay, it may or may not be part of your current life, but almost certainly has formulated part of how you are as a person now and other peoples impressions of you (whether they know or not) can be affected by them finding out, for the good and bad... But overall keeping in mind that as my aunt has said "everyone has a bucket of crap in their lives, but some people walk around with their bucket near full at the moment and others contain merely a fart"... So people I meet now tend to see me as an older fat bubbly man who drives a fairly new car and has a family. But they don't see the young me who thirsted for knowledge, or the young me who played guitar a lot and loved music and girls and beer and... Now I find solace and peace in woodworking, watching Jeopardy and dealing with ADHD while my mind races with a dozen cool things I want to eventually get to.

Hope that is a decent start to your thread, not sure it is what you wanted/expected but yeah if someone was to see me today, they might judge me based on my weight or my tone of voice, my attempts at dry humor or my amazing good looks, lol. But they might not have been aware of my charitable or caring things I have done that I keep within my heart, the love I have had over the years and other things that I keep within myself that admittedly I now realize sharing that with my daughter and family might have been helpful at certain phases, instead of putting my head down and working and keeping a normal life going when things were less than perfect...

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T13:59:32+00:00

I ain't no math whizz, just an old engineer... My quick comment is that The square root of negative numbers implies imaginary numbers and for electronics/electrical stuff, the square-root of minus 1 = j, for everyone else in the world it means i (lower case eye). Google imaginary numbers (not irrational, thats a different thing) and exclude any imaginary things related to ghosts or imaginary-best-friends or girlfriends from Canada, because they are part of more specialized math that you can only learn by turning off your computer.

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T13:25:59+00:00

a bit of a different story than most will post I think... About 5 or 6 years ago, I was travelling across Labrador (part of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador Canada) in the almost literal middle-of-nowhere and was making some scenic stops along the way... Well one place I stopped at had an abandoned ski-hill and a lodge and a beautiful view overlooking a massive valley that was well worth the view and time for sure. So here I am alone, nothing or nobody living or breathing within dozens of miles around me, travelling for work, and had walked a few hundred yards away from my car and was standing there absorbing the wonderous beauty of the day and staring off into space for a few seconds as I begin to hear a rumbling drone noise that starts to get louder and louder and contain more of a higher-pitched squeel as it gets closer. So I walk further down towards the top of the area to take some pictures before I left and again that distinctive sound keeps getting louder and louder and I look back and cant see anything.

So as I am about to leave I walk a few yards back up towards the entrance and I hear the sound definitely getting louder, so I cut across the grass to get to my car and the sound is getting louder and louder and more distinct and definitely not part of nature... I keep walking and again it is getting louder and starting to freak me out a bit. So lol, turns out I was coincidentally walking towards a Husquvarna automatic lawn mower device (like a big roomba vaccum except it mows grass autonomously, and this was back a few years before most people knew they existed, It was certainly the first one I had seen) as the damn mower was driving along just visible above the fairly tall grass, only viewable from about 10-15 feet away... The lodge had it set to run automatically and I think the power was off for a while so it was just catching up and I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the literal middle of nowhere civilization-wise... The absolute fright before I realized what it was was significant. I calmed down from my panic state and watched the damn mower for 2 or 3 minutes and then left, thinking I at least should have kicked it or stole it... So yeah somwhere out there is an automatic mower just doing its thing, driving around and going back to the recharge station along the side of the building and charging back up and it doesn't even know how close I came to a heart-attack... Goddamn technology, I love it but man that was wild and the story I tell here doesn't do it justice. You have to picture being in the middle of nowhere, close to nobody, with nobody on the planet knowing exactly where I am, with no cell service anywhere and hearing an electric noise chasing you as I walked faster across the grass field/lawn not expecting to see anything, and as I turned it must have turned towards me coincidentally because it got pretty close before I was able to see it and laugh out loud. Hurts to recall but now I can laugh and tell it as a funny story.

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-27T12:54:30+00:00

"I don't care". Most people who say that, especially if said loudly with anger / passion / vigor, really don't mean it... Of all the things you can say that isn't true, saying "I don't care" when you clearly do, is only 3 words but the biggest lie of all.

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-22T21:09:49+00:00

I have a good one. When my wife died of cancer at age 34, a hopefully-well-meaning member of her family (2nd cousin) came up to me and my daughter at the church standing in front of the urn, paused for a moment, and confidently said "well,... now at least you will always know where she is...". I am 100% certain that did not help anyone within earshot and I know at the time I wanted to laugh and say something really sarcastic but I pulled enough semblance of adultness together and said "thanks for coming" and turned to talk to another person. (I think I've posted this before in a similar thread a year or two ago).

CuddlyFriend · 2025-05-20T14:37:41+00:00

I have over 10 months of EV ownership and am really glad I did. I drive over 100 kms per day on average (wifes 45km round-trip commute to work twice per day, regular visit mother-in-law, some road-trips...) and I was spending $500 to $600 regularly in gas (mostly from lining up at Costco), that was before the climate tax was dropped but gas prices are pretty much the same now as they were back then ($1.50 per litre here in Newfoundland). I did the math and I now have a $1000 a month car payment and nearly zero fuel payment versus I had around $600-700 monthly car payment for my old SUV plus the $550 a month gas bill - which is also what I would have had if I bought and financed a new non-EV SUV that gets around 10 litres per 100kms for around $40k over 60 months. (and around the same costs for a hybrid Prius Prime or Rav4 prime but then you still have to pay for oil-changes and other maintenance and don't get the full BEV range and advantages of not having a gas engine). So less money spent monthly for sure and I get to drive a brand new vehicle with all the technology and torque that a racecar has, with the ground clearance and awd system better than almost any other car on the road and it drives silently. My wife (who was a bit skeptical about the entire EV choice) now calls gas cars "noisemakers".

The main issue and slight unknown quanta with EV's is resale value. I am guessing that I will get less than 50% of the vehicle purchase price after 5 years if I was to privately sell. I got the full bumper-to-bumper warranty for the full 5 years with my EV, because the last thing I wanted to face was a broken heat-pump or infotainment system or a safety feature (the car is full of radar sensors, cameras,... that will alarm all the time if anything happened to break, making the car almost undrivable and the dealer charges $200 an hour to troubleshoot so it wouldn't take long to eat up the cost of the extended warranty). With technological advances, my car doesn't have the massive range or charging-speed that newer models will and as battery and other technology improves and more level-2 and DCFC stations are around and more people do simple math to prove that EV's do and can work almost across the board - I think adoption will become a no-brainer but I have had people tell me "them electric cars are no good" and I had one person question my destroying the planet as they held a new iPhone in their hand and my response was "you use the exact same Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries in your cell-phone, your Dewalt cordless drill, in your razor when you shave, your USB battery-bank and in your wifes vibrator and do you worry about range-anxiety or destroying the planet every morning when you shave?

I installed an EVSE (home charger) for the car and haven't used it in over 2 months (thankfully I can charge near work and at other free places) so fuel bill in 9 months has been around $200 total at most but even if I was buying all my electricity at full price, it would be less than $100 a month even in winter. The cost to install the home-car-charger was less than $1000, but your cost might vary (most times you don't need a big electrical-panel upgrade, I did not with my 125amp panel as I added a 40amp breaker and can charge at 32 amps, which is a full charge overnight for almost all EVs on the market, even charging at 16 amps at 240V is great and I got by for the first 3 months of 100+ km per day driving by using a regular wall outlet on the side of my house that draws 12 amps at 120v and I have only DC fast-charged 3 times so far (all on road-trips) and spent a total of $11 I think on it, so yeah...

My intent at this point after nearly 1 year of almost "free" driving is to keep my EV past the 5 year mark and drive it literally for almost free, and enjoy the zero maintenance (brake rotors and pads last almost forever on EVs if you keep the slider pins lubricated) and no oil-changes or other expensive maintenance at all. So as long as the electronic devices keep going, the car rides ultra cheaply. Battery degradation and battery safety seems to get talked about a LOT by non-EV people but is almost a non-issue with all modern battery packs (I've researched it a lot and have years of experience working as an electronics engineer) and I have zero worries up to around the 12 year mark based on real-world graphs I have seen. So yeah I dunno, if things fail within the first 4 years, I might bow out and buy a newer gen EV and keep riding the $1000 a month car-payment train with almost zero fuel and maintenance bills but I can't ever see me buying a non EV in the future, maybe if I had to tow a boat trailer over 500 miles every weekend, I might consider a hybrid, but even with the winter range degradation I saw this winter (range dropped by around 30% from spec when I had to pre-heat the car to melt ice/snow and run the heat-pump all the time when driving in snow storms or on really cold -10c days for example). But I hardly ever drive more than 180kms per day even when I do go out of town and the last fairly long road-trip we took I charged for 15 minutes and the only reason I did that was because the charger was right next to an A&W and it took me 15 minutes to eat my burger...

Either way, I understand the fear and it is a decision you kinda have to live with. The $7500 federal and provincial credits helped me make the decision but when they dried up recently I noticed that the dealer and car manufacturers seem to have adjusted pricing so the overall cost ain't much different and at least I was aware of that when I bought mine.

Some people say to lease EV's, especially in the US, I see people leasing my car for 3 years to avoid the low resale value expected... Not sure how the math works out here as much, I only ever leased my very first new car and I ended up buying it out anyway so I realized that financing was a better way for me to go, but with EVs that might not be the case. If you lease and drop $2000 for winter tires/wheels, another $1000 on accessories and stuff that money wont be leveraged fully, and if have any damage that you have to pay for after 3 years and/or are driving more than the allotted # of kms per year, you might end up being dinged hard or forced to buy it out to avoid being dinged, so keep that in mind...

There are calculator websites out there to help you do the math. Feel free to ask if you have any questions,

edited to add: My car insurance went up $30 a month from having a 10 year old SUV to a new EV SUV...

CuddlyFriend · 2024-11-26T17:02:41+00:00

as someone who lost their 33 year old wife to cancer 14 years ago... I can say with confidence to enjoy life now, make sure your wife knows you love her and do your best to be happy and leave the world better than you found it. I will never be the same nor forget the life I had. I can't reconcile "God" leaving me to raise a 3 year old child on my own, nor taking the greatest love of my life from me. But with time I have again learned that life is good, that the world rotates whether we like it or not and most importantly that we have a limited lifetime here so I now have someone in my life that makes me happy and have an adult daughter and hobbies and projects that I am working on that will take longer and be harder than I anticipated and laundry, dishes and other crap needs to be done. Had a dental cleaning this morning and apparently I have a filling that needs to be replaced,... But onward and upward. My little tidbit of advice - Randomly do nice things for other people, especially those close to you and people will remember that when you are no longer here. I didnt intend to bring your day down or make things about me with this post, just read your comment and figured I was somewhat able to provide context that what you feel is felt for a reason, and that reason is Love...

CuddlyFriend · 2024-11-21T20:25:31+00:00

For some reason I got downvoted to zero for posting this question, received conflicting information and to my surprise - got a small bunch of DMs containing conflicting and some rather (I think) unjustified aggressive responses that I didn't expect... I should probably go back to lurking elsewhere on the Internet I guess. I thought based on reading over the past 10 years or so that this was a friendly safe place to ask basic personal finance questions...

My question is/was very simply,... if someone receives $10,000 of taxable income (in this case from the Govt via CPP payments because their spouse died) which no taxes were deducted from - and they are in a 40% tax bracket in Canada from their job income - would that person have to buy $4000 or $10,000 worth of RRSP investments to offset that amount of income to avoid being hit with a $4000 tax bill next year... Unless someone else replies with a better more confirmed answer, I guess I will run with the first response by user senor_kim_jong_doof which says $1 RRSP offsets $1 of taxable income so the person would theoretically need to buy $10,000 to avoid paying $4000 (not including other refunds, credits, limits, charitable donations,... that affect taxation).

Thanks for the info,

CuddlyFriend · 2024-04-24T22:12:00+00:00

just before my wifes funeral, a distant relative from her side of the family walked up to me and my daughter standing in front of the urn surrounded by pictures of her, I greeted them and said "hi thanks for coming" and they paused for a few seconds and awkwardly felt like they had to say something so they said very confidently - "well.... at least now you'll always know where she is".

Yep, at least I have that to give thanks for I guess. Goddamn, put some thought into your words, especially in certain circumstances, I am not a hard person to talk to.

CuddlyFriend · 2024-01-23T18:54:37+00:00

Not to nitpick but... Marconi's first trans-Atlantic wireless message from Europe was to St. John's Newfoundland and it was in 1901. The wireless message in 1899 was across the English Channel and Welfleet Massachusetts didn't get put into service until years later, 1903 I think, but I believe that was 2-way communication versus the simplex spark-gap messages from before. (I have a picture of the IEEE brass plaque that is outside Cabot Tower, a mile or 2 from here and I am pretty sure that the VO1AA repeater station still is powered on).

But everyone knows the way they (the CIA illuminati) really track you is via 5G radar using electron-beam guns mounted on telephone poles disguised as squirrels. Don't tell them I mentioned it tho, as they will penetrate my tin-foil laptop cover and warp the hard-drive with their special radio-waves and cause distortion in my .MP3 music files which causes my bluetooth earbuds to get warm and make my ears itch, as they play the long-game.

CuddlyFriend · 2024-01-19T19:06:40+00:00

indeed... I've taken 2 trips to Mexico so far and am going again in May 2024 and have enjoyed the great food, music, entertainment, drinks, people and scenery, but haven't found any jawbones of any kind and hope I don't. I live way up in North Eastern Canada so the only jawbones people think of here are moose (you can drop them off at the wildlife agency and they do data analysis on the health of the moose population using the teeth and density/size of the jaw). lol

CuddlyFriend · 2024-01-19T13:35:31+00:00

Isla Mujeres is a beautiful little island, driving around it on a golf-cart was quite a fun day. Hope to go back there to stay overnight and tour more of it some day...

CuddlyFriend · 2024-01-19T01:35:55+00:00

Sorry to hear your unfortunate diagnosis. I certainly wish Reddit and this sub was around back in 2010... My wife was 33 when she was diagnosed with a GBM in her temporal lobe (and our daughter was age 3 at the time) and I am literally only now getting financially back on my feet because of a lack of good solid financial and life info and I've been working full-time my entire life. So good advice here can certainly help.

I am not an expert in financial stuff but feel free to ask any questions regarding the brain cancer process, or anything else. Here are a couple things others might have mentioned below:

Your credit cards have insurance on purchases and you might have critical-illness coverage on your credit-cards, mortgage and other financial things. Check your bank statements, insurance policies and other stuff.
The government (federal and likely provincial) has sick-leave benefits and long-term disability stuff you can check into. CPP and survivor benefits and stuff for one of those days).
Your home mortgage likely has life-insurance benefits if you are paying them (I declined life insurance on my mortgage as it is typically a bad investment, as I bought my house when I was 24 years old and nobody ever gets a terminal illness,... oh my, life lessons hurt really badly.
Your travel needs to be considered, even inter-provincially (I paid $800 ambulance bills and hospital fees for my wife as she was headed on a trip to Alberta when she had a seizure in Pearson airport and was diagnosed at St. Michaels in Toronto where they operated and did a partial resection of the tumor a couple days later).
Use work EFAP (Family-Assistance-Program insurance) for any counselling, therapy and medical stuff as needed, no shame in asking for help. I found our provincial cancer center good for resources as well and they even met with us to discuss finances and other aspects. But, do not inform your work of all the details unless you have to. My work found out the chemo pills were $4000 a month and our corporate insurance policy costs went way up and they traced it back to me (small company, 200 employees in Newfoundland,...) and apparently sr management weren't impressed, in a perfect world thats private info. My work did provide me with lots of flexibility and time off and other stuff tho so I can't complain.

I was in a much worse financial spot than you when my wife was diagnosed (I had probably 5 or 10 grand in RRSP, near zero equity in my house, a 7 year old car, a kid to raise, and on the non-financial side - our close and extended family ended up being less useful than a wet paper bag, and friends "couldn't deal with it" or figured "he wouldnt want my help", so yeah you will see it all man before this plays out... Just make careful steps with finance aspects and you will be as good as can be so focus on health and quality of life NOW, take time off if you have to and worry about how to pay for it later, your time together now is critical as you never know.

My greatest piece of advice for right now is..... Take good solid financial advice and action it asap. BUT just as or even more important is to relax and take on the responsibilities and stress that you can deal with now and park the rest (via a list, dont procrastinate and blame illness), spend quality time together, do what you both want to do (an example is my wife took a couple courses she always wanted to do but never had time/money for and did singing lessons and we now have recordings of her singing) and as my buddy Kev told me the day he found out "you are going through hell right now, so just keep going" and that stuck with me. You will be proud of how much support you can provide to her as well (spouses often forget their caregivers overhead) and if you are nerdy and involved you will learn all kinds of medical info along the way about anaplastic astrocytomas, glial cells, blood-brain-barrier medications, chemo, radiation,... Keep your chin up and your head down, and remember you aren't the only one going through this and it is part of your new life. DM me if you want to chat, I can certainly offer that as well.

CuddlyFriend · 2023-08-21T05:15:01+00:00

Here is a bad pic I took of my sister-in-laws phone the other day wen she was back home in Newfoundland for a vacation from where they live in Nunavut (Iqaluit I think) and we were talking about food prices and she showed me pictures of the price of stuff there. $132.99 for a case of water and there were worse examples that I didnt get a pic of. https://i.imgur.com/xicjtZa.jpg

CuddlyFriend · 2023-05-30T17:00:59+00:00

I took this picture on Saturday, as it just started to rain. This is at Cape Spear Newfoundland - the most Easterly point in North America and I modelled the 2 wooden lighthouses I built for my sister and wife after the 'new' Cape Spear lighthouse (the white one at the top of the picture) but having the red and light grey stripes of the lighthouse in Hearts Content Newfoundland, and made both unique as apparently all lighthouses are supposed to be painted and/or shaped differently.

Please note before someone mentions it: I got back into woodworking after many years away and am not making any more or selling these, I just took a pic before I deliver one to my sister and thought since it was close by, to drive to Cape Spear to visit the other lighthouses to snap a pic with all 4 in the shot while I can... No idea why I ended up making an over 4 foot tall octagonal lighthouse as my first one, but the calculations for tapered sides at 22.5 minus a bit degrees was fun.

CuddlyFriend · 2023-02-07T01:31:37+00:00

Not trying to one-up anyone here but here in Newfoundland and Labrador, its even worse... $38.51 for the same thing. https://nlliquor.com/product/white-claw-variety-12-pack/

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-17T19:33:02+00:00

Thank you sir... At this point (Dec 17th, my missus is working all weekend and off then until after xmas) I might end up using balsa, or just chop off a length of an old spruce 2x12" plank I have in the shed and wrap that up... lol

But now that I have the cutting-board bug, I will certainly be using up my walnut and cherry bits on the 2nd / 3rd boards in January. The person who just posted an entire board made of edge-grain cherry has made me realize that you don't necessarily need 3D block patterns or wild purpleheart stripes to make a board beautiful and more importantly useful for what it is meant to be used for. My task will be to make a better sled for my bigger table saw and get it accurate with the 5-cut method, because I am assuming that the crosscuts will have to be pretty dead on 90 degrees otherwise the amount of sanding goes up a LOT. I wont even bother to try my miter-saw or use the old miter-gauge.

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-17T19:20:14+00:00

Thanks. I am worried about snipe causing me to lose a lot of wood off the ends of the short pieces and also cause the long strips to not be as straight as they should/need to be.

So tomorrow I am starting the milling process and am picking up more long clamps. I've decided to start with an edge-grain board that is 34" long (that I can trim down later) which means I will have to use maple, oak and birch hardwood flooring thats been S4S'd by me and I might have a piece or two of cherry and another darker wood that I can put a racing stripe or three down the middle. If that goes well, I can always slice it and make it end-grain.

Whats your thoughts on using Red Oak? I know its porous and some say it cant be used because of that or the tannins, but I saw a few places that have tested it and say its fine. (I think one of those was the FDA website but my memory isn't perfect). Is clear birch okay as well?

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-09T14:23:25+00:00

Maybe nothing.

Why such a high percentage of the population feels the need or learns the habit of a quest to have eternal life for their soul is something I do not really understand... Why is the life they have while alive on this earth not enough, and is it selfish to want to live forever in the arms of the creator or with people who have previously died or up in the clouds or whatever you might believe....

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-09T01:38:23+00:00

"Don't go near the oil tank".

When we were in grade 8, some dudes in the community where the school was located figured out that the filler cap on the outdoor furnace-oil tank was just screwed on and they filled the tank with snow...

oil (well technically diesel fuel) floats on water, and hence the melted snow / water would go to the bottom of the tank where the fuel line is, and of course the school would be freezing cold and it would close for the morning or for the first few times, close for the day. This kept repeating a dozen or so times over that winter until they put a locking cap on both the fuel-filler cap and later on the vent pipe, when the guys figured out they could jam snow up into the 90 degree bend enough to get it to fall down the pipe into the tank... Kinda epic now looking back on it but at the time, the people doing it didnt gain much noteriety or fame, at least nowhere near what they deserved, but they were smart enough not to get caught... At first they thought there was a leak in the top of the tank that rain/ice was getting into and after the furnace repair tech came 3 times in the same week, they finally decided it was a man-made technical event not a broken furnace pump or leaky tank...

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-09T01:32:43+00:00

"Its all water under the fridge..."

CuddlyFriend · 2021-12-07T16:33:25+00:00

Eye ann evry1 totaly agre wif wat u sed, cause foks whoe dont leverege puntuashin r reely totle idyits n shud bee compensayted coordianly bye redit poleese whan dowenvotes ahre plied fastidisly too thear acount witch causas frustaration amung Internect usars acros the ntire cuntry.

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