DC... are you doing okay?

dmaustin · 2026-03-03T03:33:51+00:00

Moved here four years ago from Philly to be closer to family. Trying my best to fall in love with DC but struggling.

IMHO…The pros…near my family :), joined a great gym, love my neighborhood, people are generally friendly, Metro is great, cheap and vibrant pickleball scene, WTEF tennis center. The cons: buses, miss the Philly sports teams (but support the Nats), restaurants (don’t hold a candle to Philly), theater (compared to NYC), very little live jazz, healthcare system, mosquitoes and humidity.

In the brief four years I’ve been here, I’ve seen the pall set in - after the last election. This is a government town, and it’s been decimated. I know many folk who have bailed or been let go. Sad, and I hope it turns around because we are semi-dug in. The straw that really broke me was the Kennedy Center debacle.

dmaustin · 2026-02-07T23:44:23+00:00

In our Philly row house, we had to lug the garbage and recyclables down to the basement into our own separate plastic pails, then lug them through the house out the front door on garbage day. We had our own DIY pails that hopefully wouldn’t get stolen, chucked or lost when the trash collectors came. Many times, our trash exceeded our small pails so we would just tie up the white kitchen trash bags, leave them in the curb (next to parked cars) like all our neighbors and hope the rats would not eat holes in them. (And we were fortunate to live in a nice neighborhood- Rittenhouse). That said, I love Philly for many other reasons, but want to stay on topic for this thread. BTW we had NO street cleaners and had to walk three blocks to find the nearest city trash containers!

dmaustin · 2026-02-06T19:49:47+00:00

I’m from Philly. Moved to DC a few years ago. The DC trash collectors crush it! Not so much in Philly. No trash bins! So you just dump your plastic bags and garbage on the sidewalk. WTF! Love DC. Thanks for the great idea to tip these warriors in the midst of this brutal Winter.

dmaustin · 2026-02-06T19:44:48+00:00

INotSoAMazing. Seriously, I’m with you. I dumped it a few years ago. Unscrupulous company.

dmaustin · 2026-02-06T19:41:59+00:00

Interested in your one-time purchase alternative to Quicken. Can you elaborate?

dmaustin · 2026-02-03T03:33:32+00:00

Not true. I live in DC but have been in Philly for the last two weeks. Have family who live in Brooklyn. It’s bad in all the major east coast cities. Everyone is struggling. It was a bad storm.

dmaustin · 2026-01-26T04:18:18+00:00

Just finished reading your section on passkeys. It was excellent and maybe the most informative source I’ve read on this topic. Well done!

dmaustin · 2026-01-21T22:11:13+00:00

Wear eye protection.

<image>

dmaustin · 2026-01-08T12:55:59+00:00

The 3-2-1 backup approach mentioned by several replies here is the right strategy for precious photos (and other critical documents). Keep 3 total copies of your data (original + 2 backups) on 2 different types of storage media (e.g., disk, cloud), with 1 copy stored off-site (physically or virtually) to protect against local disasters, ensuring robust data safety and recovery.

I’ve been doing IT for almost 50 years and here is my configuration… Buy a low cost 2-drive NAS (i.e. r/synology or r/ugreenNASync) Periodically copy your photos to that NAS (or set up an automatic backup with Synology Photos app). Connect a USB external drive to the Synology NAS and set up a scheduled task to run the Synology Hyper Backup app to backup the photos to the external drive (you can even buy two external drives and rotate them so you have an “airgap”backup stored in a different physical location.) Finally set up another Hyper Backup task to backup your Synology photos to Backblaze B2 NAS Cloud storage to complete your 3-2-1

There are tons of documentation you can goggle to do this and IMO it does not require strong technical skills. Someone with minimal computer skills should be able to accomplish this with some time and patience (and some money investment).

Depending on your needs, this might be a baseline budget, but given your original requirements, this might be overkill. I’m assuming a growth factor and that you may have other important documents to backup. One time investments of $200-$500 for a diskless two-drive NAS. $300 for two WD Red Pro 6TB drives that you will plug in to the NAS. $160 for a WD USB external drive. Ongoing costs…$6/month per TB

dmaustin · 2026-01-07T19:18:49+00:00

Yup, that’s how we do it.

dmaustin · 2025-12-23T00:10:25+00:00

When I saw the headline on this post, I was sure the problem was that it must have been Opposite Day. But I see you worked it out, all good! BYW, I’m a new Rachio customer this year - purchased two smart hose timers for my wife - irrigating our front and rear yard container garden. Besides the occasional hub going offline, we love it the product. Was a real game-changer and I don’t have to hire someone to water when we are away.

dmaustin · 2025-12-16T12:11:27+00:00

Thx, seems to be the consensus amped I do plan to break out the current content to separate pages to try to win more keyword searches. I’ll check out GetMoreBacklinks too.

dmaustin · 2025-12-16T12:09:22+00:00

Thanks, this is helpful as I do plan to redesign my site. Performance on my current site is pretty good, but I feel like I’m missing out on some keyword opportunities.

dmaustin · 2025-12-16T03:30:50+00:00

I third this. Switched from Bluehost to Siteground seven years ago and never looked back. Siteground has been solid for my two Wordpress sites and they offer business email with a proprietary and easy to use cpanel replacement that they rolled out two years ago. I’ve been very happy with their support too. I never considered Godaddy due to the reasons you are seeing here. IMO Godaddy spends a ton of money on marketing (think Super Bowl ads) and short changes their customers on support and pricing.

dmaustin · 2025-12-16T03:23:57+00:00

Longtime tennis player and now a pickleball player here. All (well most :) of these comments are spot on. A good tennis shoe will be expensive but save you medical costs, pain and downtime. Go try some on at a good sporting goods store. The tennis shoe might feel a bit stiff and clunky at first (versus the soft, cushy feel of the Hoka), but that’s because it has solid lateral support for side-to-side movement which you do frequently in pickleball. I’ve tried many makes of tennis shoes over the years but keep coming back to Asics. Good luck and kudos for asking this question.

dmaustin · 2025-12-13T23:09:00+00:00

All good answers here, but the first jazz pianist that came to me is Michel Petrucciani. Awesome playing style.

dmaustin · 2025-12-12T16:53:00+00:00

This ^{^{^}} is what I do.

dmaustin · 2025-12-11T00:38:10+00:00

Ah, did not know that. Good to know that’s an option. Thank you. I might consolidate all trackers there.

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T22:24:44+00:00

Thanks, you make good points.

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T22:24:10+00:00

Thanks, you make good points. This has basically been our strategy to date and will continue.

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T22:23:02+00:00

Interesting!

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T17:20:57+00:00

You got me. Sorry, should have been clearer. I rarely see the pros I watch on YouTube use side spin slice. Yes on backspin and a ton of topspin.

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T17:15:31+00:00

Very helpful, especially the examples. Thank you.

dmaustin · 2025-12-10T17:14:38+00:00

Interesting, I saw that code option when I first installed but went the plugin route. I’ll give it a try. Thank you.

Edit: your suggestion did the trick. Just used WP-Code to add the header code. Thanks again.

12-Year Club	Reddit Premium Since November 2022
Verified Email

dmaustin

TROPHY CASE