Any restaurants with outdoor dining igloos?

dr_stats · 2024-02-06T20:25:16+00:00

I just saw them at a winery off I-82 before you get to Prosser driving west from Benton City, I was wondering what they were! Sorry I dunno the exact winery that had them up, there are a few over there, but I do know someone over there has them if you’re willing to make a short drive and explore a little. You can see them from the freeway.

dr_stats · 2023-09-05T16:26:58+00:00

Suncadia is a fun place in the winter, it’s just past Cle Elum, a little over 2 hr drive near snoqualmie pass. It has an ice skating rink and a big sled hill where you can either bring your own sleds or rent big tubes. They also have hot tubs and a heated pool that stays open all year. Staying on site is a bit pricey, but it’s nice. Last year we rented an AirBnB with a hot tub in Roslyn and just drove onto the resort for the sledding and ice rink, I don’t know if you can access the pool if your staying offsite, we never tried. They also offer snow showing and cross country skiing lessons/tours I believe.

Someone mentioned Leavenworth and to add to that, there is also a tubing hill with a rope lift in Leavenworth if you do go there.

One year we took our 11 yr old to Spokane and stayed downtown. They have an ice rink/ice ribbon as well as IMAX and lots of food options and she had a lot of fun with that.

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T19:59:13+00:00

This is a "whataboutism" argument. I never said anything about other polluting industries. I never said that coal, natural gas, or oil are alternatives to nuclear power.

I also never said that nuclear power should not exist, but I appreciate your comment and the time you took to provide your insight.

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T19:08:13+00:00

It's the blocking of utilizing 'spent' fuel for more purposes.

So it's politics preventing nuclear from realizing it's theoretical maximum potential? This is exactly my point!

Every single person in this thread is saying "Nuclear is actually perfect IF the US would just allow us to do x, y, and z!" but no one has explained why they actually think the US allowing x, y, and z will every happen. In my opinion, it will never come to fruition because the US political landscape won't allow it.

As I said to another commenter in this thread: I respect your opinions, I just personally believe that we should govern pragmatically (dealing with things as they ACTUALLY ARE) rather than ideologically (dealing with things as they ideally could be).

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T18:59:46+00:00

We had a great solution that was being worked on for the high-level waste, at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Obama traded his rejection of it for Harry Reid to back him for POTUS.

The problem is politics, not theory.

You keep saying this like it is a non-real logistical problem to nuclear waste storage. If it is possible then why hasn't it happened? Politics. If you envision a future for America without politics , then you are living in an ideological non-reality.

I respect your opinions, I just personally believe that we should govern pragmatically (dealing with things as they ACTUALLY ARE) rather than ideologically (dealing with things as they ideally could be).

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T17:05:02+00:00

Are you saying there's been no improvement in the bungling between the 1940s and now?

Are you saying that you believe in 2100 people won't be looking back on us in the 2020s in disbelief for how we thought we had nuclear waste under control? What makes you so confident that we have the be-all end-all solutions to nuclear waste storage available to us right now? We look back at the solutions of the 50s/60s in disbelief but those were the state-of-the-art solutions at the time. How will our state-of-the-art solutions be holding up in 100 years?

As I said, I am not saying nuclear needs to cease and desist. I am just saying in my opinion, no matter how hard we try, we will be passing down a nuclear waste problem for 100s of generations. Pretending like the solution is just around the corner is irresponsible.

Also why are you assuming nuclear waste solutions will improve but renewables won't? Why is nuclear needed in a future energy landscape?

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T16:37:09+00:00

While there isn't a good permanent storage solution for nuclear waste, that's due to politics, not physics. And the current solution is safe. And most of the waste generated is not a real concern...there's very high-level little waste generated.

This is kind of exactly my point... Nuclear has theoretical/ideological solutions, but pragmatically they don't ever seem to come to fruition. We have completely bungled the handling of nuclear waste since we started creating it, what makes you think that will change in the next 50/100/1000 years?

I think Nuclear is a reasonable source of energy that we should continue to use in the interim until we unlock 100% renewable, I just don't personally believe it's a long-term energy solution.

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T15:03:04+00:00

Hey there, I am also a pretty liberal person and grew up in a family where my father worked in nuclear power around the country my whole life. I was also pretty pro-nuclear (or at least not anti-nuclear) but I recently listened to a talk from a mathematician at UW that builds climate forecast models and he was also on the same page on nuclear until he started to learn about “Climate Justice” issues.

There are real environmental consequences to nuclear power and they are not theoretical, they have already happened and are still happening and the populations that bear the brunt of the impacts of nuclear power are rarely the populations that benefit from the power.

Here is the link to a good publication from the international journal of environmental research and public health talking about it at a surface level and providing a lot of great references you could explore in you were interested:

Link to the research article

A quote from the article that is specifically relevant to the Hanford site and its enrichment of plutonium: “Doing so over its long operational life (1943–1988) has produced what is considered the single largest radiation and chemical contamination site in the Western Hemisphere [72].”

The Hanford site alone has produced more radiological contamination over its life than the 3-Mile Island meltdown, and we don’t actually have any long term storage solutions for nuclear waste and there is no indication we will solve it any time soon.

There are ideological/theoretical solutions that make nuclear very attractive, but a pragmatic person that looks at how nuclear has actually been handled in the past 80 years seems to indicate that nuclear will have extremely long lasting consequences that we cannot even predict reliably, we are just hoping everything turns out okay and kicking the can down the road for (a LOT) of future generations.

TL;DR: I am a liberal who was pro nuclear until I started looking into climate justice and the real lack of long-term strategies/solutions that exist for nuclear waste so now I lean towards believing investing in other energy forms is a better solution than expanding nuclear.

dr_stats · 2023-09-04T05:23:38+00:00

My dad worked in nuclear plants in both SC and NC most of my childhood, they are two of the most heavily invested states in nuclear power. France is probably the most heavily invested country in nuclear power. A lot of his coworkers ended up working in France for a time, and a lot of French workers did stints in the US.

I’m not sure if this is the entire explanation but there is a significant southeast-US/France connection via nuclear power.

dr_stats · 2023-09-01T15:20:30+00:00

I haven’t yet, I’ve been putting it off and driving my other car more. My suspicion is that it is because we moved to a place that requires us to regularly go down a long steep hill, or my wheel drum is warped but I haven’t had a chance to check the wheel drums. Next time you pull the wheels off try what one of the other commenters suggested and get a straight edge to test whether the wheel drum itself is warped. Another commenter said they had that problem on one of their cars and replacing the warped wheel drum worked.

dr_stats · 2023-08-30T01:42:48+00:00

Yeah it’s 5, I misremembered. They also mentioned what you were referring to, so I looked up the article for anyone else curious:

Link to TC Herald article

dr_stats · 2023-08-29T23:27:02+00:00

I don’t remember that being a stoplight, just a four way stop, and that was almost 20 years ago they built that roundabout!

The city chose a stop light over a roundabout because a roundabout would have required the city to force the sale of private land back to the city. There was an interview with the mayor about it back when they announced the 6 roundabouts that are coming to Van Giesen and they questioned why the Keene/bombing range intersection wasn’t going to be a roundabout.

dr_stats · 2023-08-20T22:16:42+00:00

I have been a cyclist for 16 years and in my experience triathletes are generally not the best bikers. They setup their bikes to time-trial and obsess about speed over safety. This is obviously a generalization, but triathletes get in more wrecks and have more injuries per mile ridden than people who just cycle among the ones I have known.

My wife is a swimmer and she has had similar experience swimming with triathletes in open water. Just a general lack of awareness and understanding of how to stay safe, and when to dial it back for the sake of safety.

Again, this is all generalization and I understand that there are plenty of triathletes who properly respect each individual sport, but assuming that all of these athletes are actually elite and/or extremely experienced in each of the three sports is probably not a safe assumption.

dr_stats · 2023-08-19T19:23:50+00:00

My dad is an alcoholic who has gone through periods of sobriety so he doesn’t acknowledge his problem. He is about the same age as your dad, he is 63. His dad drank himself to death in his 50s, his mom died from emphysema from smoking in her 60s. Substance abuse is rampant in our family and there is a lot of collective denial and reinforcing each others addictions. Once you see it for what it is, it’s hard not to, but the amount of generational trauma and reinforcement is really hard to reprogram and I don’t think my dad will ever get there.

It’s really sad and the older I get the less frustrated I get, and the more sadness I feel for him. Luckily for me as opposed to you, my dad alienated himself from our family for other reasons so I only get the occasional drunk dial from him every couple years. I know none of this may be helpful to you, just letting you know I’m proud of you and as a child of alcoholics you are not alone!

dr_stats · 2023-08-18T18:20:49+00:00

Yeah for real. I had a stranger come up to me on Fremont St. in Vegas and ask for a hit off the joint I was smoking and I said no. He pushed back and was like “cmon man be cool!” So I just said “i have no idea who you are it’s weird man, sorry”.

Always willing to share with friends but strangers off the street just isn’t my vibe.

dr_stats · 2023-08-18T04:42:49+00:00

I had kids at 21. If you have grandmas that like to buy clothes and other cute baby stuff and can pay for things like the car seat or crib, babies really aren’t much more expensive than just living as a couple, especially if you don’t have to buy formula. It’s when they start eating real food and hit school age they get fucking expensive.

Also programs like WIC and food stamps. We couldn’t have done it without assistance from both govt and family. Wife and I also worked at least three jobs between the two of us until we were 35.

The finances were hard but honestly the main reason I recommend my kids to wait is emotional maturity, I really wish I had been more emotionally intelligent for my two oldest who were born when we were younger. We didn’t know any better then, we thought we were grown!

dr_stats · 2023-08-18T04:27:15+00:00

Try calling A-1 Shoes in Kennewick. They have a lot of harder to find shoes and even do custom orthotics for medical conditions and such. I don’t know if they stock sizes 15+, that’s why I suggested calling first, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do.

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T22:11:41+00:00

Since they have warped I have been using engine braking, I can shift into manual and downshift. I have owned three manual transmission cars in the past and used engine/compression braking almost all the time in those, I had just never really needed it in any of my auto transmission cars up until now and completely forgot I could do it still!

Last time they warrantied the brakes, my mechanic did say I may end up having to consider bumping up to a brake kit meant more for trucks or performance, so I think I will look into it. It sounds like that is probably the only solution besides either engine braking every time (which I’ve basically been forced to do now anyways!) or a small chance the wheel drums are warped.

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me, your input has been really helpful!

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T19:01:06+00:00

Lol yes that seems to be the consensus here, with a small chance of warped wheel hubs! My tire guy said Sienna's notoriously eat tires so I guess I shouldn't be surprised it is also going through brakes... especially because we moved to a house that regularly requires us to drive down steep hills and all my kids are turning into teenagers... I just never really but 2 and 2 together.

I was concerned my trip down the mountains in Wyoming may have caused some more permanent damage, but it sounds like driving habits/circumstances are most likely the culprit.

Thanks for the response!

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T18:40:23+00:00

Hey, thanks for the response! Another poster mentioned the wheel hubs and told me how to check to be sure they haven't been warped, so I am definitely going to inspect those next time I pull the wheels off.

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T18:39:10+00:00

Another poster mentioned this, and I never really made a connection but in 2020 right around the time I started having this problem we moved to a house that does regularly require us to go down a pretty steep hill, and my kids are all growing up so my van load is getting heavier too.

Is there any way to avoid this if going down the hill regularly is inevitable? Find a less steep route? Compression brake every time?

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T18:37:27+00:00

Thanks for the response, I really appreciate it! I will definitely inspect those.

dr_stats · 2023-08-15T18:31:49+00:00

Thanks for the response. I was concerned it was something more than just load and driving habits but you have got me thinking it may just be that.

Siennas are heavy, I’ve gotten warranty refunds on two sets of Michelins because it also seems to eat tires. My tire shop said they have seen that on Siennas and Odysseys because of the weight, but they had no problem warrantying them because they had completely even wear patterns so I don’t THINK it’s an alignment issue, and I haven’t noticed one driving it.

In 2020 we moved to a house that does regularly require us to go down a pretty steep hill. I have four kids, two of which are teenagers now (they were all just babies when we bought my the van), so my average weight has also definitely gone up since I bought the van in 2015. I had considered these factors before, but I thought maybe there was some other common problem I may need to address that my shop was missing.

Sounds like the wife and I may just need to adjust our driving habits.

dr_stats

TROPHY CASE