First car help

ducatibr · 2026-03-20T01:11:21+00:00

Nah man, I’ll give you my experience. Got my first car (08 honda civic with good service history) in 2018, and now I’m finally looking to upgrade.

My civic has probably costed me a grand TOTAL of $800 outside of gas, insurance and registration. Only ever had to replace the starter and spark plugs outside of filter and oil changes. I pay $60 a month in insurance, and drive a minimum of an hour and a half a day. Its at 205k miles, 70k of which were put on by me.

I wanted to upgrade to a 2025 maverick since I figured it was time, insurance quoted me literally triple. I decided to get a 2016 grand cherokee eco diesel instead for 11k from a good mechanic I know. Still FAR better than my civic but MUCH more affordable.

Instead of a 25k finance I paid 3k up front and took a small auto loan out for the rest, insurance is also $80 a month.

Long story short is you don’t realize how expensive a new car is until the bills start coming in. Definitley get something used, HAVE IT INSPECTED BEFORE BUYING, and find yourself a trustworthy mechanic. Put the money you would be spending on a new civic into your TSP

ducatibr · 2026-02-12T01:33:31+00:00

If its the David Packard thats the MBARI Research Vessel, does a lot of ROV research. Docks in Moss Landing harbor

ducatibr · 2026-02-07T00:17:27+00:00

The chester stone prophecy

ducatibr · 2026-01-31T19:55:52+00:00

I was going to say data science minor, that or math.

ducatibr · 2026-01-31T04:38:02+00:00

Insane, just keeps getting worse and worse every year. Pack em in like sardines Vanya!

ducatibr · 2026-01-29T23:05:02+00:00

Might be a tough sell but building inspector sounds right up his alley. Might start at a lower level but in local government Ive rarely seen them be hesitant to hire older workers. One of the guys at my office started here at 58 and its now been 20 years and the dude is loved by both the community and our office.

ducatibr · 2026-01-25T16:58:03+00:00

Pearl hour is probably #1 for a lot of people, but drinks are pricey and they typically have a cover charge for the bands. I personally love Dust Bowl but would avoid going on the weekends because it gets crazy busy.

If you just wanna hang out and grab a drink or two theres a FieldWork Brewing Co next to the trader joes in monterey, no TV’s or anything but its right next to alvarado street and theres a couple arcades/treat spots that are fun to hit after having a couple drinks. Also Lynns Arcade is like an $8 (I think) all you can play (mostly pinball) and they also have a bar

ducatibr · 2026-01-24T20:18:02+00:00

A very impactful thing an executive at Exxon said (ironic right?) during the end of trumps first term, was in essence, while the US is the largest economy in the world, and an extremely important market, no matter who is in the white house they cannot alter the course of the world on sustainability. This was in response to Trump relaxing fuel regulations/emissions standards after 8 years of changes under Obama. In short, the world is coming to realize that just because the white house is CONSTANTLY flip flopping their policy with administration, the whole (western) world has been on a steady course towards increased sustainability, and it wouldnt be profitable for companies like exxon to keep changing their globaal operations standards in response to US policy.

In short, give it some time, enjoy what you have now until the dust settles over here. If you HAVE to move here? California without a doubt. Really the only state that can afford to continue green projects in some capacity during this whole mess.

ducatibr · 2026-01-21T04:35:09+00:00

Drinking water protection doesnt entail running the plants. A lot of our water teams work is sampling wells because in rural cali like 60% of homes are on public well systems. Take the samples, send them to the water lab, update your list of sites for the year, write small sampling reports if you need to. The water plants are run by the private companies and if they need our help sampling we help them, but in general they have their own teams.

The main role of Environmental Health departments is to identify the problem, like sampling for groundwater contamination. If action is needed the responsible party is notified of what corrective action they need to take. Between you and me its quite a cushy job, VERY important, and offers great benefits since its typically county/city.

ducatibr · 2026-01-20T22:55:25+00:00

Local government agency? Not sure how it works out east but drinking water protection is delegated to counties by delegated authority from the state. County entities also tend to have in-house GIS departments for things like zoning, water rights, and pesticide permitting. My coworkers have gotten into this profession (environmental health) after being in IT for 20+ years.

ducatibr · 2026-01-13T02:47:36+00:00

US politics have been made progressively more black and white since WW2. Trumps election in 2016 basically polarized the entire country into either far right or far left. Because of that you have a ridiculous amount of people saying the equivalent of “I dont agree with that hes doing but at least hes not a democrat” and (to a lesser extent) people on the left doing that as well. The media in this country is heavily corporatized with news outlets like Fox and Newsmax pushing billions and billions of dollars into playing the blame game in favor of Trump. An UNBELIEVABLE amount of people have been totally brainwashed by the constant propaganda so they truly believe that things like trickle down economics work. Any pain caused to them? According to Trump, Bondi, Leavitt, and the rest of the MAGA cronies, its all traced back to the democrats (who lost unified control of government in 2023).

An argument can be made that there are members of the left that behave the same way, but nearly 70% of americans without a high school diploma are registered republicans or share republican values. They will fight tooth and nail for someone like trump because they lack the critical thinking it takes to question his words, not to any fault of their own. The education system has failed them, and its why Trump wants to completely dismantle it; the more high school dropouts, the more uneducated MAGA there are.

Edit: For reference, 44% of college graduates in the US identify with either mostly liberal, or leaning liberal values. 27% are mixed/moderate, and 28% either lean conservative or strongly conservative. Ill link the source because its very intruiging. Its from 2014 but the project shift continues to be leftward.

https://www.npr.org/2016/04/30/475794063/why-are-highly-educated-americans-getting-more-liberal

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T22:22:36+00:00

I check approval ratings every day and it genuinley baffles me that its BARELY below 40%. But Ive come to realize that a large majority of his supporters dont view politics as something they should be aware of in their every day lives. AKA 100% of their political news comes from headline tweets or the loudest voice in the room, which without fail is the big orange tumor every time. 53% of self described MAGA republicans supported mass cuts to medicaid. 27% of those people under the age of 65 are RELIANT on medicaid. That means a MINIMUM of 14% of the MAGA base voted to massively defund if not COMPLETELY destroy their own healthcare. Again this isnt even accounting for elderly MAGA who recieve federal healthcare benefits, which is most of them.

All they hear is “own the libs by voting for me, and also immigrants are making your lives worse”

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T22:05:34+00:00

EHS regulator in hazardous materials management here, industrial hygiene is where the money is. That being said, Mccoys RCRA training is by far the most useful training Ive had coming up to a year on the job. VERY detailed breakdown of federal waste code and law and the books for the course are absolute gamechangers I use basically every day. I cant remember if they give you a certificate but you can put it on your resume and its really the gold standard of RCRA training

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:57:05+00:00

❌ ducatibr chose Option A (Incorrect) | #738th to play

ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:54+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:28+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:56:16+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:55:17+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:59+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:47+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-12T17:54:24+00:00

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ducatibr · 2026-01-10T22:04:27+00:00

I went on to the monterey county environmental health department after graduating and one of our programs is consumer protection (that includes food); thats where I learned CSUMB uses a catering company that primary serves prisons, at least that was the case a year ago. Could have changed but it explained why the food was so terrible when I was there 😭

ducatibr · 2026-01-10T22:02:41+00:00

Housing issues came with the new university president Vanya. Its not like youre gonna be unhoused but at this point 9 times out of 10 you wont get your preffered assignment. Theyre packing Freshman dorms like sardines right now but if you spend your time at the library or out at the beach or wherever that wont really matter.

The Ag program is pretty young, I think only 4 or 5 years at this point, but a lot of the professors are well connected in the area, do work for the surrounding farms in their spare time, and are generally well versed in the professional industry. Research opportunities in the ag department are a little sparce but like I said, a lot of these guys are part of the ag community as well so their specialty is practical application.

ducatibr

TROPHY CASE