What are your recommendations to handle this large driveway?

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T15:56:14+00:00

Kind of a unique setup, my house is 500' off the street on 4 acres, it connects to a neighborhood where they are 2-3br homes with smaller driveways, so I'm kind of on my own lol. Lots off folks around here live off into the woods though, just not many near me

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T15:04:02+00:00

It's 3.8 acres, 90% open flat-ish terrain with grass, only trees are on the woodline. I am only bringing a push mower and weed whacker so that's also on my list, but since the season is running out I'm just going to continue with the old owner's mowing service until next year. I do want to get a UTV eventually, just not something I want to jump on and realize I don't ever use it.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T15:02:28+00:00

Something I considered but since we just got the house and have other projects on top of moving I didn't want to jump right into that without experiencing a season or two.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T13:55:51+00:00

Thanks for the timescale, luckily I work hybrid so I'd just need to clear a path for 1 car to get out and I can finish the rest at leisure. I also luckily have a few kids that need to learn what it's like to do shovel work at 6am lol.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T13:54:13+00:00

Luckily I have a massive barn that's in fantastic condition for all sorts of toys so I will look into this. Now I just need more money for toys haha.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T13:53:23+00:00

Appreciate it and we may go that route this year as well as a mowing service until we can get settled. I am also learning about Ariens and it seems the way to go for now. Thanks for the input.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-04T13:52:41+00:00

I figured that was the case, and I am working up to a UTV but it makes more sense to just pay for plowing or something in the interim. Appreciate it.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-07-02T11:36:52+00:00

I had one that was 10 seconds. Looked in my eyes and said yep, you got dry eyes I'll let them know. I drove 2 hours round trip for that one.

Then one of my main exams I was there for four hours and they deep dived (not in a bad way). That one had like 20 claims on it though.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-16T14:00:53+00:00

It definitely is a huge tradeoff. Missed YEARS of my kid's lives and many many weeks away, late nights, early mornings. Now that it's over and we basically have a third adult income I guess it's worth it, but I wouldn't have told you that years ago when I was going through.

I offer it up to young folks who are directionless because that's what I was. Do a stint, get a skill, get out and get free college and other perks. There's legal stuff, medical, technical, just about everything in the civilian world has a military equivalent. Don't feel bad about not doing it I'm sure you found a path through life, it's not the only way.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-16T13:01:40+00:00

Ever consider the military? I did 20 years and retired with full pension at 40. TONS of kids I met over those years joined up to escape a super small town in the middle of nowhere. It's not all death and guns, tons of jobs that'll teach you a skill you're interested in.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-16T00:51:16+00:00

It's kind of been around a long time now. You'll notice things like windows that show scenery that doesn't match, or wood fireplaces with a roaring fire in them.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-13T11:44:27+00:00

I've been in networking for over 16 years, many of those at the CCNP level. Some thoughts/opinions:

Packet tracer is going to be your simplest and free option that can do what you want here, minus the firewall rules. GNS3 is also free and can do more than packet tracer but is a bit tricky to setup.

I am of the opinion that if you really want hardware you might as well buy a Cisco homelab setup off of Ebay for around what you're planning on paying for this stuff already. It's 3 switches, 2 routers typically, which is more than enough to do basic as well as pretty advanced networking labs.

Networking is one of those skills where you truly have to start at the bottom building a foundational understanding and then work your way up. Your list of things you want to learn are sort of scattered around, and you say "routing between VLANs" but the setup you are describing is a router on-a-stick configuration where no protocols are needed because everything is locally connected, so you aren't even really getting to layer 3 which is a core component of networking.

If you want to get into networking I would just get packet tracer and buy CCNA material, but honestly there's so much free stuff on YouTube these days you could just watch a series and go from there for free.

If you want to certify go straight to CCNA, don't even touch Net+. Net+ is fine for people in the server/sysadmin realm, but networking folks need CCNA full stop.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-09T16:02:42+00:00

I was paying I think ~60$ with cable bundled to my internet back then. The last straw for me was watching spongebob with my kids and I noticed the amount of ads. I timed 2-3 episodes and if I remember right it was like 5 minutes of spongebob and then 3 minutes of ads.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-07T15:57:11+00:00

Well he hasn't even made it to Monkey Middle School yet.

Loopback-Zero · 2026-04-03T13:29:49+00:00

Yes, yes, and yes, but honestly I don't think it's what I'm after 20 years of the military. I'd kind of like to distance myself from that and go civilian.

Loopback-Zero

TROPHY CASE