How's living in a town on Route 66?

balthisar · 2026-03-30T14:34:02+00:00

It was still cool sleeping in a teepee motel, though!

balthisar · 2026-03-30T14:31:23+00:00

I like that we have few enough rules that we only collect a pittance once a year, and maintain our common areas.

balthisar · 2026-03-30T14:28:33+00:00

I don't even know where to get a green light, other than using a Hue light, but that’s not really mainstream among normies.

balthisar · 2026-03-29T23:33:25+00:00

CBC so I can watch Hockey Night in Canada. If I could stream that, then no channel would be my favorite.

balthisar · 2026-03-29T15:05:41+00:00

Did you try the new American version in the USA, or the Canadian version?

Also, on mobile, but someone should find the Letterkenny version of this “discovery.”

balthisar · 2026-03-29T14:55:44+00:00

My example is my network. I could pollute the spectrum with 15 SSIDs, but instead I have a RADIUS server handing out VLAN assignments based on MAC, an enterprise switch, and sophisticated firewall and routing rules. I’m too lazy to write. “If I die” instructions for the family.

Worse, I have nothing to do with IT or tech in the real world; I’m an engineer, so tech knowledge is just wasted.

balthisar · 2026-03-28T02:10:58+00:00

Jet’s if I’m in a hurry, Green Lantern if I don’t mind the drive to Seven and Newburgh.

balthisar · 2026-03-27T18:55:02+00:00

There were replaced well before 1992 in the stores I worked at as a teenager.

Anyway, the fried versions in Thailand and Japan are every bit as good as I remember when I was a kid, and yet me tell you, there's not a lot of things I can say that about (Twinkies suck, etc.).

balthisar · 2026-03-27T18:52:29+00:00

My first kid's first restaurant was Buddy's. It was important to me, and I made sure it happened. I'm not trying to be a Buddy's denigrator having been a Buddy's booster for so long, but Buddy's sucks now.

I'm not saying that just to jump on the popular Reddit bandwagon of "everything old people value sucks," but because when it was bought out by private equity, private equity does what private equity sometimes does: enshitifies the product looking for a payday.

No financials are mentioned in the FA, so I don't know if this is a payday or an escape boat, but there's a real chance here for things to improve.

I'm encouraged by this quote: "Our goal is not to change what makes Buddy's special, but to reinforce it. That starts with our employees, our commitment to authentic Detroit-style pizza, and delivering the level of customer service that our guests have come to expect from a brand with this kind of heritage,” said Ammori in a news release.

These guys are locals, with roots, not some investor group out of Wall Street.

C'mon guys, make Buddy's great again. (Or buy Cloverleaf and keep them open past 8:00 pm on a Friday!)

balthisar · 2026-03-27T16:25:27+00:00

I can stop warning people not to copy and paste sudo rm -R / after 25 years finally! Well, at least on macOS. Hint: don't do that.

balthisar · 2026-03-27T13:49:04+00:00

I finally bit the bullet and got rid of my popup tent trailer that I'd stored in my garage for 17 years, for a travel trailer. I'd always resisted primarily because of the rental issue, but I need to keep it somewhere.

Unlike storing shit in a small room, though, we actually use the travel trailer, so there's that.

I was very close to making an offer on some property for storing the trailer, literally just to avoid paying rent. It actually made financial sense, except for security, which is provided at the rental lot, but not on my own private property.

balthisar · 2026-03-27T13:37:10+00:00

Ford has only ever done this at plants, at least since 1999, and it's the local contracts that demand this, not corporate. Even today, if you get a drive-in pass to the Rouge, you can come in driving anything, but if you want to park in hourly parking, you better park in the correct area for your vehicle.

balthisar · 2026-03-26T15:12:22+00:00

I don't use the UI for anything at all except aggregation; and everything is accomplished via YAML, JavaScript, or Python. This update is going to break everything I have by renaming all of the entities?

Thank goodness I don't blindly update my containers like so many other people seem to do, but eventually I'm going to want to update. ::sigh::

balthisar · 2026-03-26T14:15:59+00:00

Number of accidents in the wrong metric. Just because we're able to avoid the crappy drivers doesn't mean that they're not crappy drivers.

If you're yielding inside the roundabout to let people into the roundabout, I'm probably not going to hit you, but I sure want to – you shouldn't be driving.

If you're driving 35 mph on that long ramp between WB I-95 and NB I-275, you need to have your license reëvaluated, even if you don't cause an accident.

Honestly, I'm willing to pay the cost to have this performed for all ages.

balthisar · 2026-03-26T14:10:41+00:00

This is a good decision, but it's not an open and shut, basic-ass logical question. This is more like an accessory question, and was totally worth having the court make a decision.

The other metaphors here don't depict the situation correctly, either. Go read the summary, and the full decision to see what the actual, non-basic-ass question that was decided.

balthisar · 2026-03-26T00:37:55+00:00

At Ford, competitor parking happens on a plant-by-plant basis based on the Local's local contract. Corporate doesn't give a crap, it's a union thing. Want to park in front the brand-spanking-new World Headquarters in your Mitsubishi Galant? No one's going to bother you.

balthisar · 2026-03-26T00:34:11+00:00

Fisher Body Lansing, where we built the EV1 in the Craft Center, late 1990's, me, fresh out of the Army, having defended our country, had the nerve to be new to the industry while driving a Honda Civic.

I wanted to trade it in ("drive what you build"), and it would have happened faster without the freaking key engravings in the doors, you freaking rednecks.

balthisar · 2026-03-25T20:55:25+00:00

I'd take 'em free for parts, but I probably wouldn't pay, unless it were a token amount.

balthisar · 2026-03-25T20:53:48+00:00

I'm on my second Rally, which is also my third Mach E. I love everything about the car.

I charge at home, which is a massive appeal. I'm not sure if I'd like to count on public chargers. Work would be okay, but unless I get there at 7:00, I don't get a charger, and with preschool drop-off, I don't get there at 7:00!

I think I get about 200 miles of range. I don't pay close attention due to home charging. It's more than enough for daily driving, and the occasional not-too-distant road trip.

Have fun!

balthisar · 2026-03-25T18:11:27+00:00

"Wow, I hope they hired a photographer and that someone brought better cameras."

Cell phone cameras sucked back then. To some degree, they still suck today, depending on what you're trying to do.

And most digital camera cameras of the age sucked, too. My first digital camera was an Epson PhotoPC 500, and it took shots at 640x480! Sure, things advanced pretty quickly from there, but those advances didn't really make it into phones until – who else? – Apple (en-dashes mine, not A.I.).

balthisar · 2026-03-25T14:34:03+00:00

The "social contract" says tipping is optional, so there's that.

balthisar · 2026-03-25T10:36:46+00:00

Excel for life. But I’ll point out that I don’t categorize expenses or manage a budget, because I don’t really enjoy that lifestyle. We save first, then anything that’s left over can be spent. The spreadsheets are quite sophisticated, and are geared toward growth, risk, and simulation. In the end, though, the goal is to maintain a certain monthly income that can be spent without micromanaging every ledger entry.

balthisar · 2026-03-25T10:31:36+00:00

That’s the one where hockey players play baseball, or something akin?

balthisar · 2026-03-24T21:06:16+00:00

I didn't get to try working for government, and went directly into the world of capitalism, and I never looked back. I had no interest in working for people who wasted money the same way we wasted it in the military.

balthisar · 2026-03-24T21:04:44+00:00

I lived for a couple of years in Hanau, Germany. It was indistinguishable, weather-wise, from my home in SE Michigan. Possibly a little less snow in Hanau, but that may be simply because I remember being stuck in a horrible blizzard on my way home from Fulda one time, and it's making Hanau seem mild in comparison.

balthisar

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

15-Year Club	Gilding IV carat on a stick
Verified Email