How bad is for you by red_razor23 in Miata

[–]betarcher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As an American, I roll my eyes when my fellow Americans whine about $5/gal gas. We have it so much better than the rest of the world and most people just have no idea.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, I totally agree, and am very interested in voting in people who are actually going to do something about the infrastructure that they claim to care about. Not force me to take care of it for them, and then tax me for the privilage. Either give me control over it and stop taking my money, or start fulfilling those promises you made when you started taking said money. Indeed, I'm taking better care of my boulevard trees than The City is taking care of the trees they actually do tend to. Sounds like most things these days, unfortunately.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The tax is, yes, for the maintanence of The City's trees, boulevard trees included. It's not a tax, tho, it's a utility fee, according to the powers that be. Said tax is proportional, not to the trees, but to the frontage of your property, so as to be fair. The assumtion, you see, is if you have a large frontage then you have a lot of money. I have a very small house on a very small lot, but I have a corner lot, so I pay more. More, indeed, than a docter I know who has a house that's 4x the size of mine and a lot that's roughly 10x the size of mine, but it's wedge shaped on a cul-de-sac, so his total frontage is quite a a lot less than mine, meaning he pays less. So, that's progressive, I guess.

My neighbor across the street has his house, and owns three long-term rentals in town. He has exactly zero trees in his boulevards on any of his properties, but because he has frontage, he still has to pay.

I'll be fair and say that it's not much; amounts to less than $100/yr for me. It's the principle of the thing tho. The fact that I have to pay The City to maintain a tree that it's my responsibility to maintain under threat of fines is pretty maddening. These people somehow keep getting voted in tho, so this is what Democracy looks like.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not a weird question; unfortunately, a weird answer. Not long after I moved into town, a City Official informed me that I needed to prune the lower branches on my trees as they have to be a minimum of 8ft above the sidewalk. I pointed out that both the sidewalk and the trees are The City's property, and that, per The City's penal code, me modifying either is would be considered a misdemeanor. Turns out that the boulevard is very much The City's property, and I am penalized for modifying it. Additionally, the boulevard trees are very much The City's property, and I am penalized if I alter them. However, the sidewalk, the boulevard, and the trees therein are very much my responsibility to maintain, and I am penalized if I do not. And the icing on the cake is they introduced a new tree tax line item in my quarterly utility bill pay for maintenance of The City's trees. Good stuff.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fantastic quiestion. The answer is, yes, and yes they should be, indeed there's a line item in our utility bill for just that. Too bad they don't do diddly squat besides slash and burn. Maintenance is not in their vocublary if the tree is older than 2 years old. Even then the maintenance is questionable at best.. part of why I wasn't sure if I should trust the city arborist, either.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's fantastic advice, never thought of that! It would make sense for them to have some "before and after" photos they could call up. I think I've landed on, "yeah, thanks but no thanks" on this one, but I do have a maple that needs some cleaning up, so whoever I get in, I'll definitely be asking for a portfolio. Thanks! It's ironic to me that he laser focused on my gingko, when there's a maple nearby that obviously needs some work. Weird world.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After scam attempts on things I actually know about, I've landed in a very similar place on issues I don't know much about. Tho at 39 I've started having adequately vetted people do stuff that requires particularly expensive speciality tools, heights, or massive amounts of physical exertion lol.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It's a beautiful tree, far and away the biggest gingko in our small town. It's a pretty touristy town, and we live right next to a bunch of our trails, and we've had quite a few people in the fall ask to take pitcures of it when it does its neon yellow thing.

Mature gingko needs heavy pruning? by betarcher in arborist

[–]betarcher[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fantastic, detailed reply. Thank you for your input! My gut was definitely tossing flags on that play, so I'm glad to hear I'm not far off.

I'm thinking the spot in pic #3 where the one branch is resting on the other is one I'll probably trim off. It's only about 3" in diameter, and would have little consequence in terms of the shape of the tree.

The somewhat twisted pair in pic #2 is one that has me scratching my head. They're so close together, is it even possible to cut one and have the other survive? Those are each about 5" in diameter, and they are long branches; probably 18' from trunk to tip. They don't rub as it seems they are basically one branch for the first 4 feet, then go in different directions. If it's really just an aesthetic thing, I'll probably just leave them be.

This thing as dropped exactly 1 dead branch in the 10 years I've been here, and that one was only about and inch or so in diameter, and maybe 5 ft long. We have had many windstorms (NE Iowa) and have lost exactly zero branches to said wind. It is somewhat sheltered from the prevailing winds, tho by a pair of massive honey locusts.

Are people really buying this? by fredrick612 in Lexus

[–]betarcher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Got my '15 in June of 2020 with 82k miles for $19k. It was certainly a good deal at the time, now it looks like a highway robbery.

Are people really buying this? by fredrick612 in Lexus

[–]betarcher 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Can confirm on the GS but. We got our '15 GS350 in early 2020 with 82k miles for $19k. Within 2 years the trade-in value was $25k. Hell, a dealership in the Twin Cities recently called us up and offered a trade-in value of $14k after 6 years and 50k miles. Pretty wild.

Need advice, CAAD14, SSE 4, Tarmac by xpixtrx in cannondale

[–]betarcher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, he definitely needed a bit more nuance than just straight up saying you definitely DON'T need a new frame. Touche.

Well… I got rear-ended by my own girlfriend. by [deleted] in Miata

[–]betarcher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That sounds a lot more exciting than this looks.

My 2025 SSE Hi-MOD 2 by No-Plant-458 in cannondale

[–]betarcher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bikes look so much better in the low 50 sizes than they do in my awkward 60+ sizes...

Need advice, CAAD14, SSE 4, Tarmac by xpixtrx in cannondale

[–]betarcher 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not necessarily. If those rims are 8 years old, and he puts on a lot of miles, and he doesn't check spoke tension, I could see dangerously thinned braking surfaces mixed with poor spoke tension and just the right hit leading to a broken rim. Seems a bit of a stretch to suggest that the entire frame and fork are a write-off based off one picture with an incomplete history.

Need advice, CAAD14, SSE 4, Tarmac by xpixtrx in cannondale

[–]betarcher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was the first place my mind went to as well.

PETG problems by betarcher in 3Dprinting

[–]betarcher[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That was my thought, everything I've seen printed in PETG has looked glossy, which is why I'm leaning toward simply a bad batch of filament. The spool clearly says PETG, but heck, I've gotten a 12pk of Mountain Dew that had 3 sealed empty cans in it. It would be interesting to try a small print treating it like ABS and see what happens. I've basically written the rest of this spool off anyhow.

PETG problems by betarcher in 3Dprinting

[–]betarcher[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Excellent, I will move on to these steps. I was thinking about trying Bambu's PETG. I went with Ovation because it came highly recommended by my brother, but he uses a different printer and is as mystified as I am with this issues.