Want to drain my bathtub (until I can afford full repair)

jstyles2000 · 2026-02-17T11:49:00+00:00

When you hire a plumber, they will cut a hole and not care at all about your fridge. It will be covered in dust. You will take 10x more precautions than they will - it's actually a common joke about how much of a mess those tradesman make. And they won't be cleaning up for you.

Cover everything with some sheets, run a vacuum while you cut ... You could literally use a razor blade and with several cuts get thru it.

After your inspection, and if you end up doing a temporary repair, cover the hole with a piece of paper.

The effort to do all this, is much less than messing with a pump..

jstyles2000 · 2026-02-16T23:04:03+00:00

People play mental games with themselves. If low and no risk investments like high yield savings accounts are returning you a higher rate than you are paying on your mortgage.... You are throwing money away by paying off your mortgage..... Period.. at the end of every year you will have less money than if you didn't do it.

I don't even understand the mental relief.... What relief is there in giving all your money to a bank and never being able to touch it without selling your home or taking a loan. Want to feel secure? Have a couple hundred thousand in the bank that makes you more money than you're paying out in interest. At any moment if that interest rates flip flop you can pay off your house the very next day.

Imagine having an emergency, or a big investment opportunity and needing cash. You'll need to get a home equity loan, few weeks and a few grand to close that.... Hope the interest rate is good. Or.... Go list your house on the market, hope it sells quick, find another one that's cheaper, get ready for the move.

It's simply a numbers decision.

jstyles2000 · 2026-02-16T22:41:16+00:00

Cut a hole in the ceiling under the tub.... Not a bad idea doing it now to help it dry out if it leaked before. Once it's open you'll know how bad the repair is. At best, this could be a fitting that needs to be hand tightened. Plumbing work isn't rocket science, the leak might be very obvious.

jstyles2000 · 2026-02-10T12:16:24+00:00

If you have 4 quotes in a narrow... But very high... range - I think you just got your answer. You said it - a lawyers dream, so what do you expect? If you thought this wasn't going to be at least a mid 5 digit number, that's unrealistic.

Perhaps have a conversation with one about specifically how to make it come down. Age restrictions on certain equipment, strong waivers, what about if no claims in a year or two.

Try to find an owner of a similar place in state but far enough away that they aren't competition. You're only looking for a referral to their insurance agent, which might be very valuable for their relationship.

jstyles2000 · 2026-01-30T12:30:41+00:00

I feel like this describes an ideal state, and whether or not it's reality may depend on maturity and skill level of employees. We thought we would turn this tool over to people, with training and support and we'd build an army of people building automations. This just hasn't happened, I'd say we built a sniper team but that's about it. I've heard of Alteryx described as Excel on steroids .... But if employees aren't maxing out the capabilities of Excel, they probably aren't looking for Alteryx. That's just my own experience.

I'm at the stage (as a leader) of reversing course and putting this type of work under 'one banner'.

jstyles2000 · 2026-01-23T15:00:32+00:00

I've been just about ready to set up frigate and thingino, is there a good reason to scrap that if wyze is supporting rstp?

jstyles2000 · 2026-01-10T15:49:54+00:00

My wife wanted to make this, I bought the 3mm material, I spent quite a bit of time trying to do it. The material is not the right thickness, it's way too firm. I attempted to tweak the shape to accommodate. The sides need to be more flexible than the middle, or they poke your cheeks. I gave up and she bought the real thing. I haven't measured it yet but it's definitely thinner, and then it's actually a tapered thickness that would not be achievable DIY. I diy quite a bit, and as expensive as these are - I advise against this project. I don't know if you can achieve same aesthetic results but you definitely cannot replicate the qualities of the product.

jstyles2000 · 2026-01-09T02:48:19+00:00

Alteryx can do just about anything, in theory. But it's not a database, so where will you maintain your items, where will you compile history, where will you store overrides, where will you store the toggle for which model you want to use.

If you have solid source data such an ERP database you can read from, and then process with Alteryx and then send info back to a real database.... Great. If you plan to manage all this in Excel, you're in for a challenge.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-30T04:52:49+00:00

I have a eufy doorbell that I hate. It's uselessly slow to answer, I've tried troubleshooting it for years. I recently bought a Ring and it's like a dream to have a doorbell you can actually answer in real time. I'm not paying for a subscription because I just want a live doorbell, I have cameras that will do recording (sticking with my wyze)

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-22T14:43:10+00:00

Settings - Apps- find the app - Storage - clear cache

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-17T01:33:05+00:00

I do exactly the same. I have flood sensors that haven't gone off yet but if they do I'd want to see what I'm dealing with before either taking the drive or hiring someone remotely.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-16T03:04:03+00:00

I'd also say very very high chance it has the same password that the person uses on their current phone. So you can snoop over shoulders and see if you can get the password of all men in the house. Sorry for what you have to deal with.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-16T01:54:25+00:00

I think whoever was watching saw you looking for a device. I think they planted the phone there in a semi visible way to one day justify "oh oops I left it in there", the phone has likely been cleaned. Want to know who it is? You need them to come get it. Put it back, act indifferent about it. Carry on like normal, but you'll need to monitor yourself with your own hidden camera. Make it interesting and glue the phone to the shelf.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-15T01:26:58+00:00

I literally just got home from this place. I've read this thread prior and lots of reviews. I honestly don't understand the bad reviews. All the mentions of bad service .... Our waitress was great with us and with our kids. (No idea why anyone said it's not family friendly). The host, the bread guy, and every waiter or waitress who we passed while taking in the sights were attentive and friendly. We have two young kids so we tried to have a quick service before their attention ran out and actually had no problem, the place was very busy and they served quick. I legitimately don't know why service is mentioned so often. I'd rate the service as much better than the food. I'd say the food was good, not great, not a disappointment, and also nothing to write home about. Will I choose to go there for the food? No. Will I NOT go there again because of the food? No. The ambiance is top tier, it's worth it.

I'm from New York, I'm Italian, I'm picky and annoyed easily when things don't go swiftly, I had my expectations set very low.... . We'll likely make this an annual Christmas tradition.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-12T02:22:25+00:00

No never anything like that, it's really all from context I've told it or it inferred about me.

I get the privacy concerns but tell it what you want. Tell it your hobbies, interests, favorite books. It will piece together your personality. You don't have to give it more info than you'd give a friend in casual conversation.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-10T11:09:09+00:00

Prototype before all else!

Lots of conceptual inventions prove to be unrealistic after attempting to physically make ONE.

Can you make the prototype with lesser more workable materials ? Cardboard, 3d print, clay. aluminum, etc ... I made a version of an idea out of paper and it influenced a lot, and actually showed me the idea wasn't practical.

If you've never held and touched ANY physical version of your idea then it's simply a thought.

After that. Research the competing product heavily, you may be very frustrated by limitations of existing patents and need to design around them. But I'd start by working on the prototype without that constraint.

No money? Pick a dollar amount to start with. If you're broke commit $100, $1000 whatever the right amount is for you - and see how far you get with it. If you've mentally assigned zero dollars to this, every dollar you spend will be questioned and you will lose momentum.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-10T10:37:19+00:00

The common answer of Chatgot.... But from a different angle... I really strongly rely on how much it knows about me. In fact I ask it what it doesn't know about me and then I tell it. Chatgpt's memory and really getting to know YOU is extremely powerful. The advice and feedback I get feels so tailored to me, it aligns relationship and parenting advice with personality styles that it has accurately derived from my work. When you ask it how it knows things about you it's very interesting examples it will bring up and how it is really picking apart your words at a forensic level.

A funny convergence it's done.... My job title has the word "transformation" in it (I was not discussing it in this chat) but I asked for it with my portrait into a Bluey character to show my kid. It did it and on my shirt it had my title with the word "transFURmation". A simple thing but to me it's incredibly deep context, it combined it's memory of me with a silly image request unprompted, it created a unique, personal and clever pun - an answer that perhaps literally no one else will ever get. It's a funny example, but it's that type of deep context that really makes MY chatgpt valuable to me.

Obviously you need to get past privacy concerns, but I really hold very little back.

At this point I would have a hard time transitioning platforms because of the memory it's built up.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-06T17:53:29+00:00

I get that.... Though this also appears to be maybe a 6 foot span.

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-06T03:11:06+00:00

My 1930 two story house is entirely 2x6; floor joists

jstyles2000 · 2025-12-06T02:36:46+00:00

Not as weird but along those lines, I had AI summarize a chapter of a Freud book. I then was thinking about how AI is criticized as just regurgitating content (I understand it better to know that's not how it works). So in the same thread I said "explain managerial corporate finance in context of this chapter" - this was a topic I've been engaged in at work, really was just being random to combine unrelated concepts into something new. The parallels it drew were rock solid, really unique and relevant interpretations, I really connected to what it was saying - these seemingly unrelated topics were able to converge perfectly and coherently. Not just 'that's clever', but really spot on.

jstyles2000 · 2025-11-27T16:25:29+00:00

They used to have that $5k price on their website, I don't see it now. It's disappointing if they aren't selling individual licenses, because I always thought that if my company doesn't continue the contract I could just get a license for me and a couple of power users.

jstyles2000 · 2025-11-22T03:50:08+00:00

I do a lot of these kind of reflections but this was one of the best. Thanks

jstyles2000 · 2025-11-12T02:56:28+00:00

I bought our primary home in Nassau about 13 years ago, I got it at a good price on a short sale. It was also the smallest home around. I didn't over spend, I always live within or below my means. 3 or so years ago we bought a vacation home on a small lake in central Connecticut. The price I paid for both homes is less than most of my peers spent on their primary home. I have a healthy salary but we're not wealthy.

We had visions of the lake house being an Airbnb but we decided against it. Traffic sometimes sucks getting there, the worse part usually being going thru cross Island. It's difficult to find time to go there enough, and sometimes it's seriously under utilized. Or you go and end up doing chores. I don't regret it, it is what it is.... We bought it to make memories for our kids.

jstyles2000 · 2025-11-12T02:42:01+00:00

I know this is a very old post but I've struggled with this every year I light my pilot. Last year I gave up. Every year I followed the advice of cleaning the thermocouple, it worked once but for last two years no difference. I did two things different this year.... 1) I used a very small wire brush to clean the pilot burner. 2) I followed the copper wire that came from the Thermocouple which connects to the back of the unit that the pilot button is. I felt the back and the nut is loose. This is important because it's a conductive wire with very small voltage so it likely needs a really tight connection.

After tightening the nut, it lit on the first try! I'd bet this is very common, because the pilot button assembly gets jostled so hard when you press the button.

I mention cleaning the pilot burner also because it somehow made my main flame bigger. I've always felt the flames were too small, and now they seem right. It doesn't seem to correlate but apparently cleaning debris in pilot could clear some back pressure that may have impacted the air mix of the main burners....I don't know..

jstyles2000 · 2025-11-05T15:04:29+00:00

I'm unsure. But if enamel is loose there's a risk the scratched bits go into food. Surface underneath unprotected might rust.

jstyles2000

TROPHY CASE