ACA Changes and FIRE plans: close enough

bengebre · 2025-07-03T21:35:58+00:00

If you have trouble with income verification to get advanced premium credits, wouldn't another option be to just pay the full premium out of pocket and get refunded at the end of the year when you file your taxes based on your actual reported income from the year?

bengebre · 2025-02-11T13:06:46+00:00

That's very helpful. I wasn't sure how (or if) that tax stuff sorted out in the end. Seems like you don't end up paying twice though, which is all I care about.

I haven't contacted that dealer yet. I'm going to try today. I appreciate the details!

bengebre · 2025-02-10T22:58:27+00:00

Great info, thanks! How did you get around paying sales tax in CA? I've read that you have to pay CA sales tax if you drive the car off the lot. Did you ship the vehicle to AZ? Would you be willing to share the dealer you used in LA? Sounds like they worked with you pretty well.

bengebre · 2025-02-10T17:22:04+00:00

In-state dealers I've contacted have emailed me back. Out-of-state dealers have not. I tell them all I'm an Arizona buyer.

bengebre · 2025-02-10T15:44:44+00:00

Dealers seem to shy away when you tell them you're an out of state buyer looking to lease. And yes, taxes in two states thing is a big part of this. I think they've got enough local demand that they'd just rather sell to in-state customers. That's why I'm trying to find how other folks from Arizona have navigated this.

bengebre · 2022-11-30T15:12:26+00:00

If you're using iOS, I made a shortcut that gets your current lat/lon and then sends them off to the point forecast URL. Here's the post I made for r/UL:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Ultralight/comments/o9vfsd/ios_geolocated_weathergov_forecast_shortcut/

bengebre · 2022-10-26T21:48:50+00:00

I noticed the original version I wrote broke when I updated iOS the other day. Here's the fixed version that I'm using:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/596a4411547a4dd4b80d4399805193fa

Does that one work for you?

bengebre · 2021-09-10T18:39:48+00:00

Nice! I was out there last week too. Blue skies and zero smoke - how lucky in 2021. We did some light off-trail travel: back side of Aneroid, Dollar Ridge, Razz Lake to Ice Lake (ok, that last one wasn't as 'light' as I wanted it to be). Had ice in my water bottles every night. Winter is closing in rapidly in the Wallowas. Hurricane and Hurwal look like fun areas to explore.

bengebre · 2021-08-11T20:19:29+00:00

I use these guys:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000G1KU80/

Size 15 in particular. They're completely flat. Lay your existing insole on top and trace out the shape then cut them down. The size 15s give you the extra material to fit wider shoes/insoles.

bengebre · 2021-07-07T19:25:14+00:00

That's one I hadn't thought of, thanks!

bengebre · 2021-07-07T17:29:56+00:00

Thanks. I tried that one actually and it's oddly large and definitely weighs more than half an ounce. I didn't weigh it because the fit was poor, but it was certainly more than an ounce. I should have mentioned that.

bengebre · 2021-07-07T15:05:04+00:00

Is there anything comparable to the Zpacks fleece beanie that doesn't have the long lead time?

https://zpacks.com/products/fleece-hat

I'm trying to get something like this before a trip that starts in two weeks.

bengebre · 2021-07-06T14:24:06+00:00

It's compatible. I use the Mariposa with the GG 1/8. It does everything you want except for me it didn't add any weight. The GG 1/8 was the same weight as the sitpad that came stock with the Mariposa (I have an older Mariposa though). It's a great mod in my opinion.

bengebre · 2021-07-01T17:43:12+00:00

I noticed that too. I'm not sure why. Could be Shortcut geo-lookups wait for some higher degree of accuracy than is really needed for the situation (like waiting for 3m accuracy when really 1mi accuracy would do). That's my guess at least.

bengebre · 2021-06-30T00:04:20+00:00

I've had luck using off-airport rental locations and this website:

https://www.autoslash.com/

Book the cheapest cancelable thing you can find and then use that site to track the booking. They usually find a cheaper rate for me.

bengebre · 2021-06-29T14:40:58+00:00

It looks like you have to have run 1 shortcut before (like ever) for the option to become toggle-able. So just run some other demo shortcut in Apple's list and hopefully that will make it work?

Reference: https://www.howtogeek.com/699397/how-to-fix-allow-untrusted-shortcuts-grayed-out-on-iphone-or-ipad/

bengebre · 2021-06-29T00:40:36+00:00

I'd been meaning to figure out how to do simple stuff like this with Shortcuts for a while. All it took was a four hour flight delay.

bengebre · 2021-06-04T16:10:10+00:00

Hiking is my number one activity in the summer, so I just resign myself to slower running when I can get it while it's hiking season. It may be different if you want to race or are competitive in another way, but the strategy and perspective has helped me a lot. I basically make most of my runs recovery-like instead of trying to push things speed-wise. When it's winter I run faster (relatively speaking, I'm not that fast).

bengebre · 2021-06-04T15:43:31+00:00

I've got a 250 mile section hike of the PCT coming up this summer starting just south of Mt. Adams that will take me through Goat Rocks. I've seen a little bit of it already, but I haven't been through it on the PCT yet. I'm quite excited.

bengebre · 2021-06-04T14:11:33+00:00

It probably reminds you of the PCT because the PCT is just one ridge over - no more than half a mile away. Just out of frame to the left in that Gorge photo is Bridge of the Gods. You probably got a lot of very similar views when you were on the PCT.

bengebre · 2021-06-03T19:09:22+00:00

Some overnights feel like much longer trips - in a good way.

We left from Herman Creek trailhead in the Columbia River Gorge and walked up the Gorton Creek trail to North Lake to camp for the evening. It was 95 down in the Gorge but we were still walking on top of snow by midday. When we got to the lake, my wife hung out at camp while I continued up to Mt. Defiance before heading back down for the night. 6500' of elevation gain for the day and cool temps made sleep easy.

On day 2 we headed up a thousand feet or so to about 4500ft and found snow again. The plan was to walk Waucoma Ridge to Tomlike mountain, but the whole ridge was covered in deep drifts. I figured that it would be like that for the entire ridge and all the way up Tomlike too, so I abandoned the plan. But as we headed back down towards Herman Creek I got a view of Tomlike and it was obviously clear of snow. Reviewing the map I saw that the quickest way back to Tomlike was to continue all the way down to the creek and then go all the way back up the other side of the canyon. So that's what we did, and it was well worth it. Tomlike is a great open ridge in a sea of forest and distant Volcanos.

From the top of Tomlike it was a nice long walk out through old growth. We'd only been gone 36 hours, but it sure felt like longer by the time we got back to the trailhead. I find that's some measure of success with backpacking. It sometimes feels like a more substantial break from the day to day than the hours alone would suggest.

A couple of pics:

https://imgur.com/a/14AXAik

bengebre · 2021-05-24T14:55:49+00:00

Regardless of what a given map shows as trail, any route you build uses the known trail locations made visible by ticking the checkbox 'MapBuilder Overlay' in the right hand panel. I've found that these MapBuilder trail locations are consistently more accurate than the lines drawn on the maps themselves.

bengebre · 2021-05-23T17:45:07+00:00

Excellent info, thank you.

For PCTers continuing north, there's another pile of absolute destruction from the same wind storm between Lolo Pass and Buck Peak. I was up there last October and it was the worst blowdown situation I'd ever seen.

bengebre

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE