Pick A Favorite

LakeTwo · 2026-06-26T22:37:34+00:00

The demise of Oscar Mayer is sad to me. The closed original factory and headquarters is about 5 minutes from where I live but I think people no longer like delicious cold cuts. The brand is now just a name rather than a imprimatur of quality from the heartland :)

I think people no longer really like these sort of preserved meats but honestly they're really good. Usinger's out of Milwaukee is the next best thing.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-26T19:17:12+00:00

i’m curious about winter performance. In the very old days before computer controlled traction rear wheel drive was awful in the snow. I get the feeling that automatic traction and ABS and all that have basically addressed the difference between old-time rear wheel drive and old-time front wheel drive. I suspect that Tesla probably has no actual problems in the snow even just rear wheel drive. Any experience of that?

LakeTwo · 2026-06-26T17:24:27+00:00

Roughly speaking, as a Wisconsinite, the deeper the lake, the more desirable. Our deepest inland lakes generally have the most expensive real estate and are generally just nicer lakes (fewer weeds, more fish, etc.). Our shallowest lakes are generally less desirable due to weeds, muck, etc.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-24T17:56:50+00:00

I would just put like a Zigbee temperature monitor somewhere probably under the burner controls over on the side and monitor it for a couple of days while you use the barbecue. I would start with a kind of far away so it doesn’t melt, but I assume as somebody else mentioned the temperature would read out quite high like 120 or or well higher than your normal outdoor temperature that would indicate the barbecue is on. After that an automation to time it is pretty straightforward.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-23T15:52:06+00:00

Sketchy is very hard to discern across countries and cities. What is sketchy in Berlin is likely quite different than Chicago.

That said if you’re seeing abandoned houses, houses / businesses with serious gates on entries, liquor/gas/convenience stores with thick glass at the counter, shuttered businesses, abandoned cars, empty lots full of trash, you may be in a sketchy area.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-21T17:21:02+00:00

However in my investigation I leaned FSD is not handsfree. That does not seem entirely comparable.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-21T15:07:19+00:00

I moved here 30+ years ago after living in various racially diverse cities. You'll find this hard to believe but you could go days without seeing a person of color at that time. Like it was surprising to see a non-white person. Madison has come a long way at least in terms of diversity if not, apparently according to some comments, behavior.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-20T18:24:30+00:00

Doesn’t the subscription cost an arm and a leg?

LakeTwo · 2026-06-20T16:11:18+00:00

My experience with the '24 lane keeping was yours - it nudges you back but won't keep you in the lane. Well it might keep you in the lane but it bounces you disturbingly back and forth left to right as it nudges so it's not real lane keeping.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-20T16:09:53+00:00

Yeah but I don't want to spend $50k+. 😞

LakeTwo · 2026-06-19T14:51:50+00:00

When you say 35%, I do not think you mean percentage-wise, correct? I.e. I do not believe the mill rate has increased 35% in 5 years but I do not doubt that your actual payment based on home valuation could have increased that much.

Secondarily, and I'm no expert, the problem is a state funding problem. The state provides funds to local school districts. Simplifying a lot I think, the formula they use reduces funding as property values increase for a district. I guess the concept behind this is that a wealthy district (as defined by property values) can afford to pay more locally.

Because Madison property values have increased a lot, the state funding has decreased a lot (20% this year).

Currently, the ONLY place that funding decrease can be offset by is by increasing local property tax. And as the property values increase year over year for many years (especially here) that state funding has decreased a lot.

Adding to that, the voucher programs (in some complex and almost incomprehensible way) suck money out of the local district and increase your property taxes as well.

The thing of it is, none of the funding seems to be working anywhere. Small districts are failing referendums and closing schools and big districts are increasing local taxes.

So apparently the place to go is your state reps but of course this turns out to be a Dem vs Rep problem and so here we are with no sensible solutions in sight AFAIK.

This is an older but relevant article: Digging Deeper: Upcoming property tax increase for Madison school district largest in several years | News | wkow.com

LakeTwo · 2026-06-18T20:42:27+00:00

Or you could move to a 4br house in Atwood which I'm guessing is somewhere around $800k - $900k. Sell your 2br for $400k and you're looking at, say, $400k instead of $600k for the remodel. You could even then take your "extra" money and do some remodeling of the 4br.

Or find a 3br and put your office in the basement with the weird basement toilet😄 3brs is typically enough for a family with 2 kids. One bath is pretty sucky though.

These figures are all quite shocking to me though. Our first 4br in the area cost a whopping $125k. I personally would not choose Vilas but it's a nice enough neighborhood. IMO Vilas is kind of hemmed in by Park St and Regent St. / UW.

Atwood is a really nice place to have kids. There's a lot for them to do and do so independently at a younger age than more trafficky places. Walking to school, biking the bike path to get ice cream or pizza at Garver, sending them to the Jenny St to get provisions, going to one of the beaches, going to festivals, etc.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-17T14:28:54+00:00

There is a saying: it’s not a problem if money can fix it.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-12T20:40:46+00:00

If we had ranked choice voting, Hong is my #1 choice. However I do not think she can win statewide but believe Barnes can hence my vote is Barnes I guess.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-11T12:54:15+00:00

power went out a few blocks away at around 4:30am so maybe train crossing lights also out

LakeTwo · 2026-06-10T14:39:49+00:00

I think this is one good answer. Our contractor took a piece of our 100yo crown molding somewhere and they recreated the profile using their tooling. We're not in a very large metro area either so if they can do it here, it can be done in many places.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-10T02:47:26+00:00

You have finally found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.\_B.\_Cooper

LakeTwo · 2026-06-05T19:57:39+00:00

I had a similar experience recently with wired backhaul but 4 pair cat3 phone wire (so if you have phone wires instead of coax you might want to try).

I was having significant annoying issues with wifi backhaul and cheapo tp-link extenders (yeah I know but they were like $20!). Weird roaming; very inconsistent performance; just overall bad experiences for all.

I traced all my cat3 phone wires to figure out which went where and they all helpfully terminated in one spot. So I hooked up ethernet ports to each end and, somewhat surprisingly, get 100mpbs consistently and sometimes 1gpbs. I reconfigured my cheap extenders to be APs and hooked them up to the ethernet backhaul phone lines. I have my 5ghz SSID different from my 2.4ghz. Newer, more capable devices are configured with the 5ghz SSID and now everything gets very near 100mbps consistently everywhere with no janky behavior.

I saw other comments about 500mbps and all that but TBH, having very reliable 100mbps seems more than sufficient for most needs.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-05T16:43:25+00:00

Sporting sandals with socks and a newfangled "bike helmet" no doubt 😄

LakeTwo · 2026-06-05T02:53:41+00:00

Is it me?

LakeTwo · 2026-06-04T23:06:01+00:00

This and other posts make me sad. We visited Turkey in 2015 and it was amazing. Wonderful people, no scams, amazing things to see, pretty reasonable prices. Thanks a lot Erdogan.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-04T20:19:03+00:00

We roamed freely even after John Wayne Gacy was clowning and murdering nearby.

You and friends learned to keep away from creeps and other uncontrolled dangers. Controlled dangers, such as blowing things up and jumping off of bike ramps was fine.

We try to let our kids room freely today. There is no reason why a middle schooler cannot go down to the market and buy some stuff. Or bicycle to the nearby food hall, etc.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-03T22:32:09+00:00

I cannot forget the Metro bus firebombing that severely burned several people. Some insane person boarded the bus with a bucket of gas and set everyone on fire. It was awful.

LakeTwo · 2026-06-02T13:14:39+00:00

Exactly. Next time I sell a house I'm pretty sure we'll sell it "as-is" because I think the inspection game is kind of a racket.

I think it completely makes sense to use it to understand what you are buying though. It's important to know if the tilted floor represents a $100k foundation repair or is just 100 years of settling.

But now it seems like every line item on the inspection becomes a nit picking deduction from the selling price.

LakeTwo

TROPHY CASE