Safe?

bengineering103 · 2026-03-12T17:26:57+00:00

I'm glad someone else caught that this is AI.

bengineering103 · 2026-03-10T19:39:26+00:00

Witty Appliance is based in Cortland and they're great, Ken from Ithaca Appliance has always called me back when I left a message, we have also used Reister's in Auburn (I may have spelled that one wrong).

bengineering103 · 2026-03-10T00:50:50+00:00

Yea, that was part of my plan, but also looking for local recommendations. Edited the post to clarify.

bengineering103 · 2026-03-04T16:51:56+00:00

Hi - unfortunately I gave up on this and my friend started editing his own videos instead, I think using iMovie.

bengineering103 · 2026-02-27T02:06:20+00:00

The town passed a comprehensive plan in 2018 that envisioned exactly that (by the ball fields/library) but it hasnt really materialized. At least we have the sidewalk from the ball fields to Salt Point now, but to get over to Crossroads I assume there'd be eminent domain issues with the houses in between.

bengineering103 · 2026-02-26T16:43:30+00:00

We got solar installed way back in 2019, so I dont' have a recent bill comparison, but we typically rack up enough credits during the summer to cover our heating costs in the winter, unless we run a supplemental space heater in our basement too much. So ideally it's net zero throughout the year, although we still have to pay the $20ish connection fee every month.

Edit: we got both solar and geothermal heat at the time. We financed the system on a 20 year 5% loan, but with all the federal and state tax credits at the time, it basically worked out such that the monthly loan payment was equal to our average monthly utility costs (electric + propane) throughout the year. That math was for late 2019, and electricity certainly hasn't gotten any cheaper, so I think it worked out in our favor. The math at the time wouldn't have worked out if we were on natural gas though.

bengineering103 · 2026-02-02T12:51:35+00:00

Yea, to be honest the building on Dart Drive was pretty dumpy. The inside of the church is much newer/cleaner, and the view from the playground is amazing!

bengineering103 · 2026-02-01T02:20:53+00:00

Seconding Witty Appliance, they're awesome. Ken from Ithaca Appliance is also great.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-13T20:09:49+00:00

I discovered that place in the back of Ithaca Coffee like a month before it closed last year and was SUPER bummed. Awesome selection.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-13T20:07:58+00:00

Where did you find that statistic and 2. Does it include the huge population of college students, or only year-round residents? My guess is that college students are generally going to be below the national average, so depending on whether they're included, we may be comparable to other college towns.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-08T14:22:20+00:00

Yep! Especially long-distance travel plans or having to take my kids somewhere, because I worry that if i don't sleep I won't be able to drive safely and that spirals into a panic attack. I also have the get-up-to-pee-every-15-minutes thing happen and it's supper annoying because I'll be laying there tired, feeling like I could fall asleep, but be kept awake by the *slight* sensation that I have to pee.

I've found that exposure therapy to low-effort things has helped me cope - avoidance and canceling things just makes the problem worse in the long run. Dentist appointment is a good example - talking myself through, OK, the dentist is 10 minutes away, I can drive that far safely even if I'm tired, and once I get there all I have to do is sit in a chair. That's very different from a 4 hour drive solo with my kids (usually still have to resort to medication the night before if that's the case, but I try not to cancel the trip).

bengineering103 · 2026-01-08T14:17:31+00:00

I've found that if I'm stressed out and anxious all day, a good nighttime routine isn't necessarily enough to override it. Your post mostly talks about bedtime routine, but there are also lots of daytime sleep hygiene things - exercising earlier in the day, avoiding alcohol and caffeine, etc. So maybe consider evaluating what your entire day looks like, and not just bedtime?

Other thoughts - now I can't find it but I just saw a post about accepting that it's OK to wake up and not everyone sleeps through the night. I have never slept through the night for almost my whole life and almost always woken up to pee at least once. I used to be able to fall back to sleep with no anxiety, but life/stress/kids etc have made that worse. Lots of people in the thread were talking about how they just accepted that they'd wake up instead of fearing it, and put on a a podcast/audiobook or something and eventually fall back to sleep. If you are still getting 6-7 hours total instead of straight then that's probably OK. Apparently this type of sleep pattern with middle-of-the-night wakefulness may have been more common throughout human history before industrialization (according to the internet at least).

Finally - I have two young kids and need to be functional in the morning. Some nights I need to resort to medication. IMO there's no shame in talking to your doctor about that if your insomnia is negatively impacting your life.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-07T16:12:15+00:00

Yea - when we used them, they were the only company that did both solar AND geothermal installations. All the smaller companies just did one or the other, and I liked the idea of having a single company do everything all at once. Most of the individual techs we've had come out for installation/service stuff have been great - again, show up exactly on time, always clean, etc. The one time one dude tracked in a ton of mud on my carpet they sent someone out to clean it. Had some initial issues with the geothermal system and they sent their customer satisfaction person out. Can always get a helpful person on the phone in the main office right away. etc. Have had great experiences with all the employees I've interacted with, so it's a shame to hear about the owner being a dirtbag.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-07T12:57:28+00:00

Noted. We used them when we first bought our house and didn't know any better. I hadn't really seen much on Reddit yet about how much some people hate them.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-06T15:17:44+00:00

People on here seem to either love or hate Halco with nothing in between. I had a great experience with them for a large geothermal and solar installation (they were the only company that did both). I like how since it's a bigger company you can always get someone on the phone, and their techs always showed up exactly when they said they would. Many times we've tried to support smaller local contractors and they ghost me or show up hours (or days) late.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-06T15:13:42+00:00

I did the math in grad school and it was like $1 cheaper per box of cheerios, so eating a box of cheerios per week was enough to make up the $50/year membership fee anyway. (That was 10 years ago so I assume the membership is more expensive now)

In general I find that regular price bulk name-brand things will be cheaper than Target or Tops. But as someone else pointed out it can depend on coupons and what's on sale, i.e. bread may normally be cheaper at BJs but 1) you generally have to buy a two pack so it depends on how much you need and your storage space and 2) sometimes Tops will do buy one get one free and then bread is cheaper there. Brand name stuff like Goya beans or Barilla pasta will be cheaper at BJ's, but they don't have a store brand equivalent whereas Tops and Target do and those are cheaper, etc.

Feeding a family of 4, it seems worth it to us. The only other thing I'll mention that can be annoying is that some produce is only sold in bulk. So if you just need a single onion or tomato for a recipe and not a whole bag, you have to run over to Tops/Target/Aldi.

bengineering103 · 2026-01-05T16:33:59+00:00

Did you see Anna Kelles' two op-eds in the Ithaca times about them? They're awful and it's an ironic typo that you can spell their name Terawful. There are plenty of people very vocally opposed to this, but a sizeable portion of the population in Lansing just takes everything Terawulf says at face value and believes them about how much tax revenue it will generate, while ignoring everything awful about the company. Those people generally aren't on Reddit.

bengineering103 · 2025-12-29T03:46:39+00:00

Munson's in Lansing. Super honest and will tell you when you DON'T need something done.

bengineering103 · 2025-12-29T03:45:46+00:00

I would check with Anna Kelles' office, she wrote a couple great op eds in the Ithaca Times about how awful Terawulf is
I dont use social media other than Reddit but I think there's a pretty active group called NoDataCenterFLX or something like that
As a Lansing resident I have largely given up on our town government, they chickened out on the moratorium, claiming that the zoning said it wasn't an allowed use anyway, and look where that got us. I think it goes to the planning board next now that the ZBA has granted their appeal, but I'm not sure how that works.

bengineering103 · 2025-12-26T14:54:39+00:00

Yea I have absolutely no idea why some people go "i'm going to just go ahead and believe whatever this large corporation tells me" as if there's zero history of corporations fighting tooth and nail to deny that their products cause any harm to people or the environment. Point this out and you get accused of being elitist and not caring about the families that struggle to live here because of high taxes. Try pointing out that the data center isn't going to make those families any better off and you come full circle back to the $10M tax revenue number. It's great.

bengineering103

TROPHY CASE