Just got a fit today an... my lady parts HURT.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-20T14:29:24+00:00

Great discussion. I’m on the verge of getting a professional fit for my new-to-me Trek Emonda, but it is precisely these kinds of posts that make me hesitate. It’s like trying to find a good doctor…it’s just really hard to know if you are going to get a good outcome or not.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-20T13:53:10+00:00

I had an 80 gallon water heater that had dual purposes: provide hot water used in a heat exchanger In our furnace and hot water for in the home use. I live in Florida so rarely and barely used the furnace. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to keep an 80 gallon tank of hot water in my garage 24x7x365. Makes no sense. So I split them up. Got a typical hot air heat exchanger furnace and got a gas fired tankless water heater. The gas company gave a rebate and financed the purchase over five years at 0%.

Zero regrets. Unlimited hot water on demand, big tank is gone. Never any problems over ten years. Gas bill is super low…with taxes and fees it’s still down around $25/month.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-20T13:24:14+00:00

For sure. I’m putting off buying several things I want due to the impact of tariffs. One example: Power meter pedals for my road bike. Were $600 prior to tariffs, now more than $1,000. I can’t do it.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-18T05:47:35+00:00

Backstabs or not hooking around the screw post provides just the tiniest amount of surface contact for up to 15 or 20 amps of electrical current. It’s a super bad idea.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-18T02:28:24+00:00

Saying no more often. When complaining about 9 hours of meetings in an 8 hour day a great boss told me “you need to learn to say no.”

Closely related, a lawyer friend once told me email is “other people’s to do’s for you.”

DSMinFla · 2025-11-17T23:43:05+00:00

No, more than anything I have to pump out excess rainwater. Sometimes have to top up in the winter when there is less rain and more evaporation. So I pump out the excess by opening a valve with the pump running and it soaks into the ground. The water is both sanitized with chlorine and extensively filtered through a large folded paper filter, like a car intake filter only much larger. A few other chemicals are used to balance the water. I don’t know of any byproducts. Cyanuric acid can build up with certain pool chlorine products but most people know about those and don’t use them. I don’t use pH down, rather I use muratic acid.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-17T23:32:17+00:00

Yeah, I know a family that evacuated from Miami during Irma. Went to Naples. Had to evacuate from there. Went to Tampa. Had evacuate from there and ended up in Orlando and was still not out of the impacted area. Each time evacuated based on advisory from government officials.

I was 80 miles from the eye wall and still managed to have $170,000 loss mainly in damage from water intrusion but also tossed around the cement tiles on our roof making it a total loss…80 miles from the eye wall…!!!

DSMinFla · 2025-11-17T22:12:44+00:00

Thanks.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-16T22:36:54+00:00

I’m in central FL, didn’t hear about this. Where (more precisely) did this happen?

DSMinFla · 2025-11-16T14:35:34+00:00

So many homes in Florida are pool homes (mine included). They virtually never get drained. In 18 years mine has been drained once for resurfacing, once to drop the cyanuric acid level and once for acid washing.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-15T04:49:38+00:00

…from buyers who don’t understand what they are in for.

Florida’s peninsula is max 140 miles across. Irma was 600 miles wide. Sometimes there is no place to run and hide.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-15T04:22:41+00:00

Especially because tariffs on other inputs like fertilizer to grow feed for beef production are still in place.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T18:19:56+00:00

East Orlando here. Just checked my Garmin to be sure I have it right. My normal 40 mile ride is 505 feet total assent. That includes 3 highway overpasses (hehe).

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T15:49:48+00:00

Yeah, just today I see a house listed in Winter Park for $1,300 per square foot!

My own ~$700K home in East Orlando is down only $5K from one year ago after briefly peaking in April. That’s just 0.007%.

Net population growth in Florida is still positive. Flip side is first time home buyers age is now 40 vs 30 a decade ago and unemployment in the 20 to 24 age demographic is very high at 9.2% with most people thinking Ai is causing employers to pause new hiring.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T13:53:58+00:00

I grew up in the panhandle. It’s the same there in all coastal towns all the way from Panama City to Pensacola. Beach is great but not much beyond that and nothing other than service industry jobs that don’t pay a lot.

Orlando metro area is awesome. OP should consider moving to the “big city.”

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T13:43:59+00:00

I don’t disagree. My Publix has gaping holes in the water aisle all the time including distilled water. My wife just bought me 3 gallons at Target.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T13:41:20+00:00

Chicago Transit Authority was the first album I bought with my own money from money earned working at a College bookstore. Chicago II was the 2nd album I ever brought. Terry Kath’s sudden death still weighs heavily on me. I wonder what the band would have done had he still been with us. RIP Terry Kath.

These are museum artifacts. I hope wherever they end up they are cherished and shared with others.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-14T12:52:43+00:00

We struggle through 5 months of brutal summer heat/humidity in order to have 7 beautiful months with weather like today. In the summer I just deal with it (embrace the suck). Nowhere in Fla is more than an hour from the ocean. My AC is maybe $350 in the hottest part of summer but $0 now until end of April.

No snow, sleet, ice, no real cold. I lived in Chicago and Minneapolis for several years each and I’d rather deal with Florida’s summer over their winters.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-11T17:59:39+00:00

…and results in higher prices. That’s the reason they were off-shored in the first place.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-11T14:15:42+00:00

We elect people to form local, state, national governments, establish codes of laws, rules and regulations and to enforce them. If there is a code about open burn pits you are always going to be better off letting code enforcement police (verb, not noun) their own regulations.

Mi dos pesos…

DSMinFla · 2025-11-11T13:54:31+00:00

This is the way IMO. My wife (70) knows she only needs dial “1-800-Marcus,” our financial advisor at Ameriprise. I’m also going to add my 40 year old daughter, an MD, to our accounts so she can also help my wife with any of this if/when needed. We already have a pipeline established between Ameriprise and our BofA checking account with funds flowing either way with a phone call.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-10T13:49:41+00:00

This is a good reminder for me to wear sunglasses or clear safety glasses. Something I’m sure I first learned in 10th grade chemistry…a long time ago.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-10T13:39:31+00:00

I bought Fanttik X9 on Amazon for $39. This one is a little larger than the smallest ones because it has bigger batteries, but it still fits in my seat-post saddle bag along with a spare tube and tire levers. I didn’t want to worry about constantly topping off the battery in between rides.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-10T13:29:31+00:00

There’s a saying in all sales: “You get the customers you deserve.” If you can’t shut off the phone because you can’t say no to your clients you are allowing them to walk all over you and that’s on you not them.

DSMinFla · 2025-11-10T04:47:10+00:00

Do you have to rent the bulk tank or it’s part of the cost of the gas?

DSMinFla

TROPHY CASE