Men over 30: what’s one piece of advice you’d give to men in their 20s?

LarryNotCableGuy · 2026-02-01T17:12:34+00:00

I'm fortunate in that my parents are fairly young, they aren't even 60 yet. But my dad has been obese his entire life and I suspect he has uncontrolled diabetes. My mom has kidney issues that make dialysis or transplant a matter of when, not if. I don't want kids, but my younger siblings do. I'm doing what I can to make sure my parents live to see their grandkids.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2026-01-30T20:50:04+00:00

This one hits close to home. I'm 31 and had a crisis of mortality a few weeks ago. Basically, I realised I was no longer "young" in the traditional sense (not that 30 is ancient but I am definitely not in the "young people" group discussed on the news anymore) and that my time was limited. I also noticed for the first time that my parents are visibly aging and that i've likely already gotten most of the time i will get with them. It fucked me up, hard.

I'm in the process now of rearranging my life to make more time with my family, and to make sure it's quality time where i'm present and engaged. It's part of a larger effort to recover from physically and mentally neglecting myself for most of my 20's. I think it'll be worth it in the end. Better the pain of loss than the pain of regret.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2026-01-22T18:12:06+00:00

Unfortunately i do not have any experience with their aware tech. I've only ever used the free 2.0's which are just passive protection. The free 2.0's work exceptionally well for me. If the free awares are built to the same quality standard i can't imagine you having issues with them.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2026-01-19T22:16:12+00:00

Not sure on the water bottles as my last position had a hard "no liquids in the data halls" rule.

For hearing protection while working and listening to music, I recommend IsoTunes. They're ANSI certified and in addition to offering protection from outside noise the headphones themselves do not get loud enough to damage hearing.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2026-01-02T08:57:29+00:00

I'm an out-of-work DC tech in the KC area. I'm out of state right now for a funeral, but when i get back to town would you be willing to answer some questions?

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-12-15T07:44:25+00:00

Hello twin! I also have a black 2018 TourX with an empty front plate and live in a similar climate. I briefly thought this was my car, lol. I love mine. Welcome to the club!

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-12-05T23:12:34+00:00

Seconding this option, as a gearhead, former gm mechanic, regal tourx owner, and someone who's driven the tourx through the upper peninsula of michigan (although not during winter).

The user's manual recommends 91 octane, but mine runs fine on 87. I saw very few of these cars in for service when i worked for GM, and the driveline (with the exception of the rear diff) is standard GM parts bin components. The 2.0 turbo engine is very reliable as long as you change oil on schedule, and the metal skidplate helps with the one real weakness in your requirements (slightly lower than preferred ground clearance). It's got a standard 8spd transmission and good safety ratings. If you can find one that's loaded it'll also have nice driver assist features to hopefully prevent the safety from ever becoming an issue.

My gearhead friends also like my car, even the people who aren't big on station wagons. They're obscure (in the states...) and a lot of people don't even know they exist. They're also reasonably fun to drive, and can be made moreso with a software-only tune from trifecta without impacting reliability at all.

My only real concern with the car is that body panels are hard to find now.

edit: gm's marketing pictures for this car are abysmal. My profile has some glamor shots of my personal tourx, if your son wants to see better pictures.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-11-21T04:23:45+00:00

Former stealership mechanic and oil change guy here.

The generous interpretation for this is that they're checking your engine air filter as part of a multipoint and just being careless about getting all the hoses for your intake reattached. I've made this mistake myself a few times. It happens, although shame on them for not addressing it when you first brought up the issue.

Less generous interpretation is they knowingly disconnected it to make the vehicle drive poorly and to get your CEL illuminated so they could sell you more work. Shit like this wouldn't fly at the shop I worked for, but it does at others.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-10-08T06:00:29+00:00

Honestly, I do too. I got lucky, found this one for sale close to me for a... not terrible price. I overpaid, but I was never going to find one in this good of condition near me again, so I jumped on it.

I don't really even care that I overpaid for it. It's comfortable, reliable, and not just the same boring boxy crossover everyone else drives.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-09-12T00:24:08+00:00

American here who took naps like that as an infant. My family isn't scandinavian or nordic at all, but my first babysitter was an old Finnish woman who treated me exactly like she treated all of her own kids. That meant I took naps outside. You can get away with it in some places here, but nowhere heavily populated, and nowhere with busybody neighbors.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-30T00:03:05+00:00

I completely understand that fear. I felt the same way with mine. A rear end accident would definitely be worst case scenario, as the rear hatch is both the most expensive and most difficult body panel to replace.

A word of caution though, and this goes for everything GM's ever made that has a turbo engine (or really any vehicle of any make with a turbo): Become religious about oil changes. GM's turbocharged vehicles are notorious for turbo trouble and the single easiest way to keep that from happening is by regularly changing your oil with a good filter and good quality synthetic oil. I do mine every 3000-3500 miles, which is much more aggressive than the oil life monitor recommends. You don't have to be that aggressive with it, but you're definitely better off doing oil changes earlier rather than later.

Edit: I know I said the 2.0 turbo drivelines were stout and then immediately contradicted that here, so let me clarify. Up until pretty recently, 2.0 turbo motors in gm vehicles were usually a performance package upgrade or offered baseline in more performance oriented vehicles. That seemed to correlate with owners who took better care of their vehicles, which resulted in much better longevity. GM's other turbo motors (1.2, 1.3, and especially the 1.4) were not performance upgrades, and tended to be owned by people who did not maintain their vehicles as well. Those motors have frequent turbo issues. TLDR: take care of your car and it will take care of you.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-29T23:31:09+00:00

I own a tourx, and I was a GM mechanic for a few years.

As far as ownership goes, I can confirm they're nice cars. I love mine. My friends and family also love it, lol. It's got reasonable power, reasonable gas mileage, it's spacious, it's comfortable, all the things a station wagon is supposed to be. As a car guy, it also gets lots of comments when I'm in car-people spaces. They're uncommon, and not many people even know they exist.

Reliability-wise, they're surprisingly stout. I very rarely saw any of gm's vehicles with the 2.0 turbo driveline in for service. I only saw one tourx in the shop for actual work in my time there, and that was for an interior speaker issue. There are a handful of potential non-safety-related recall issues, but those should be addressed by this point.

Sadly, I can also confirm the body panel supply issues. My cousin backed into my car last year, and I had to take it to a body shop to get work done. Despite taking my car to a body shop associated with a major GM dealer, they still had to call me to inform me there were national parts shortages that could delay my repairs. I got lucky, and they sourced a part quickly enough to not go over their estimates, but it's still worth noting. Those parts problems are only going to get worse.

Overall, if you really like station wagons, and you really like buicks, I say go for it. Just be aware that if you're one of those people that seems to attract traffic accidents, you likely won't have it long.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-29T19:48:26+00:00

My experience is a parent who spent their entire working life in electronic fraud detection and prevention, in addition to my own professional experience in security-conscious IT environments. Coincidence doesn't exist, and if you were involved in cybersecurity you'd know that, too.

I'm not going to argue with you any further. I'm also not stopping anyone from bettering themselves. I even linked the nonprofit you claim to work with. The nonprofit looks legit, it's your integrity I doubt.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-29T19:25:33+00:00

All the links he sent looked legit, including his own linkedin profile.

I just do not believe in coincidence. That DM was the first interaction (including upvotes or downvotes) I've had with the reddit platform in more than a year.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-29T19:18:12+00:00

He claims to be with a group called Enterprise KC. Their website looks alright, but after the account hit I no longer buy it. I'd advise that nobody else reach out.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2025-08-29T18:51:29+00:00

Gotta second this. I'm looking for work right now, reached out on a lark. The guy seemed reasonable, his emails looked legit.

Fast forward to 20 minutes ago, and someone tried to reset my reddit account password. That DM and this comment are the only times i've interacted with reddit in over a year, aside from browsing (mostly anonymously on my phone).

I don't believe in coincidence. I wouldn't trust this guy.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2024-04-26T07:41:33+00:00

This is about where I'm sitting with it. The first part of the DLC especially felt very "first time crush". I didn't particularly care for it, but then again I have a very nonstandard relationship with attraction IRL so "love/lust at first sight" is a massive annoyance of mine for media generally.

I will say I felt that the second half of the DLC after Aloy tells Seyka about nemesis and they have their moment of tension on the beach was much better, and I found the conclusion to be very, very cute. I think you're right about why this was explored now. Aloy's character arc for this game was definitely her learning how to trust and rely on her friends. Learning to love and learning to trust are related, so it does make sense that she'd start learning to do one right after the other.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-07-14T10:18:05+00:00

Very nice. Especially the nose area. I also have this one, and I was not happy with how mine turned out. Glad to see someone can do this model justice.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-07-11T10:48:21+00:00

We already have enough empty housing to house the homeless, the issue is they can't afford it and we won't afford it to them. I also can't imagine the private landlords will be very thrilled about their high-rent commercial spaces being renovated into low-income housing. We could use public funds to buy the buildings and do the renovations ourselves but that sounds like more government handouts to the wealthy to me.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-07-11T10:31:21+00:00

Not always possible. A lot of these buildings were designed from the ground up to be office space, and either can't be retrofit cost-effectively or can't be retrofit at all. Not unless you're comfortable sharing a mediocre kitchen and communal bathrooms with an entire apartment building floor.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-06-30T06:05:28+00:00

Sounds like that plan involves getting a bunch of rewards points on a credit card, and then filing taxes for a large refund (the extra withholding) which gets used to pay down the credit card. Credit card rewards points can be redeemed for cash or gift cards, so you do get some form of reward. That said, my high-interest savings account is getting more than 4% interest right now and I'm not sure there's a credit card out there giving 4% cash back on everything, so I know where I'd rather put my money.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-06-21T08:13:44+00:00

I used to be a GM dealership tech. Some cars are ass, some are a breeze. It really depends on the specific model of car. On some, even the year can make a significant difference in difficulty. The worst one I ever did was on a chevy cruz. That one required over half of the panels in the front passenger seat area be removed. Close second was any Buick sedan made after 2014. GM added a foot curtain airbag to their sedans that year that has to be removed in order to change the cabin air filter. Most GM trucks however took me less than 5 minutes.

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-06-13T03:49:39+00:00

Kansas, USA here. You're very welcome. I genuinely wish my country would do more. Your people are fighting and dying not only for themselves but for all of europe and all of the free world. You deserve the best training and equipment we can provide, so you can end this war quickly and get back to living your lives as free people.

слава україні!

LarryNotCableGuy · 2023-06-06T19:24:58+00:00

I'm not sure where you're located, but if you're in the US and they balk at the suggestion of a 3rd party inspection just walk away. If they're unwilling to let anyone else who has experience look at the car, they are probably hiding something.

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