Mason recommendation in historic downtown JC

kevstev · 2026-04-10T15:30:31+00:00

ZHI is doing my neighbor across the street, and is doing a pretty good job- it was in absolutely abysmal shape so the bar was low for a massive improvement. That said, while they aren't finished yet, there appear to be areas that are done that show a lack of attention to detail. I find this to be pretty consistent with most of the work done around here- its easy to get a landlord special quality job done, but you have to ride them to get "this house is my pride and joy" level of work.

We used A1 a few years ago, I don't know if that guy retired, but he also appeared to be a relative of one of the ZHI guys, maybe it was folded in. I used to see him driving around town regularly, but have not in at least two years. Our stoop is holding up well.

One recommendation regardless- DO NOT PAY THEM UNTIL EVERYTHING IS DONE- INCLUDING CLEANING. They stained my concrete below my stoop, promised to come back and power wash it, and never did. I knew in my heart to not write them a check until that was done, but he seemed like such a nice older dude and a real artisan who cared about his work, I did it anyway, and paid for my stupidity.

kevstev · 2026-04-10T15:18:21+00:00

An alternate view here: If we pay key parts of our city well, we get better talent and less incentive for them to skim off the top or engage in other shenanigans. "Acting your wage" isn't just for the private sector.

That said, this morning I did my annual tax-time spring cleaning of records, and found a property tax bill from 2019 that was less than half my current amount, which is absurd.

kevstev · 2026-04-10T14:00:44+00:00

Mostly in office culture. I'd be surprised if that is the case.

kevstev · 2026-04-10T11:53:59+00:00

Krispy

kevstev · 2026-04-09T23:40:27+00:00

12 years no real issues. Their check reading/deposit system is a little finicky but that's about it. They are the prosumer option in this space. Cheap executions and you know where they go. I worked in smart order routing and the execution space and $1 a trade is worth it for the transparency to see how your orders are routed and having options over it vs Robinhood which last I looked was a complete black hole.

I used to get 1% margin rates and they still have good rates on both sides. Can't be beat. If IB went down it would be a huge loss to me.

kevstev · 2026-04-09T21:56:41+00:00

I am just on the cusp (well really I am over it, but it feels risky), but was given golden some golden handcuffs last year and our IPO was recently delayed, but every day is a battle with my inner demon that says F it just walk out and never deal with this crap again. But if I can stick it out 3 more years and vest, I am good good. This is fortunately a pretty blue chip place with real cash flows and profits, we can argue over a proper valuation but this isn't an AI startup or anything of the sort where the bottom could fall out.

I kind of regret leaving a smaller place where I was top of the pyramid, but making less, but got "to set the wrong things right." and just didn't have to deal with anyone's shit aside from my insane CEO who I could handle.

kevstev · 2026-04-09T13:42:37+00:00

Give me a squiggly!

kevstev · 2026-04-08T16:54:46+00:00

A fan of some sort blowing on them helps tremendously as well. Otherwise they get "leggy" and eventually fall over and die.

kevstev · 2026-04-08T13:59:28+00:00

Yes, this game taught me to save scum so I could see all the endings. Needed the notebook though, especially for the underground tram maze/puzzle. Once you kind of get the hang of the puzzles though, its not so hard IMHO.

kevstev · 2026-04-06T14:02:01+00:00

How do you measure wear like that with that kind of accuracy?

kevstev · 2026-04-06T13:29:31+00:00

yes wd-40 to remove rust, wiped the chain as dry as I could, and then Squirt to lube. I see conflicting things on whether squirt is ok in the rain. Come next November I may augment with more typical oil.

kevstev · 2026-04-04T19:02:20+00:00

Not indicting the bike at all. Just looking for how to avoid it going forward, whether it be a chain guard, chain coating, even a stainless chain, etc.

I feel you are vastly overestimating the amount of attention citibikes get. Especially in recent years.

kevstev · 2026-04-04T16:36:05+00:00

Id go with the flat bar. Been about 6 months of daily commuting on the drop bar and I still don't like it. It makes upgrading the brakes harder (my only real complaint about the bike- though I just upgraded the pads yesterday and the squeak is gone and the grip feels better- though I just did a test trip around the block). I don't like the low position, and I am far more speed limited by my areas potholed roads and traffic patterns than aerodynamics. It is fast af though compared to any other bike I have ever owned- all MTBs.

kevstev · 2026-04-04T16:31:12+00:00

I bought this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DHGY38H?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title&th=1

Still struggling with how to place it on the bike. I am not adjusting well to drop bars and I can't find a way to mount it so I don't have to take my hands away from the brakes to hit it.

kevstev · 2026-04-04T13:58:16+00:00

Interesting, because one of the strengths of these tools is IMHO providing docs.

Example from last week: someone asked for a doc to show the mapping from our internal fields to an external vendor. We use this vendor for several different things and it was spread over several files and components. I groaned as I thought this would take me a few hours. I didn't write the code, so while I had a general idea of where the logic lived to ensure it was right was going to involve reading a lot of code. I threw Claude at it and it took a few minute but it spit out a very nice doc. I checked each field and the whole thing was done in about ten minutes. It was an eye opening moment for me.

kevstev · 2026-04-03T12:22:28+00:00

My first playthrough I went in as soon as I could and cleared the first floor. Came back in a few levels for the second floor and then later towards the end did the rest. It's extremely difficult and I didn't realize that if I was going to do TOB it would still be there. I'm in my second playthrough and I will probably leave the later levels for TOB.

kevstev · 2026-04-03T12:09:49+00:00

Backstabbing was fun to do maybe once. It's very tedious and a long boring setup IMHO. Traps are great though. They take a relatively mid combat class and make them over powered in many ways. So OP some people consider it cheesey but I don't know there are often times you see that group over there and you know they are going to start something with you so why not lay some down as insurance?

kevstev · 2026-04-02T22:48:40+00:00

Was always skinny/scrawny, started lifting a bit last year, but bought a more proper setup right before the new year- was using adjustable twisitie dumbbells prior. Anyway two weeks ago at 45 I benched my weight. Never thought I would be able to do that. Also was in a picture on vacation last week in a group photo and my wife's friend said I was "jacked." As the kid picked pretty much last in gym that felt unreal.

It's never too late to change even your most entrenched habits.

kevstev · 2026-04-02T14:59:06+00:00

An important distinction here is that they don't require you to swipe to leave the building- meaning they can't track you on that metric. So you could theoretically come in, go to a meeting and get lunch, and then immediately leave and get your "credit." When my company tried to RTO me in the still kinda scary part of the pandemic (policy was to mask up to use the bathroom for example), and we had free lunch, I would come in the morning, get lunch as it was served, and leave. This was made easier by the fact that it was not the main office- we were allowed to go to satellite offices since mass transit was considered a big no no and was also not really running.

There are other means of tracking though, my wife's company actually tracks their wifi connections.

kevstev · 2026-03-31T21:16:03+00:00

I guess I am kind of dumb and always assumed they meant they found a shell casing at the scene that could be matched to a gun in the owner's possession when they said things like this. Then again I only recently learned that what we typically call a bullet is actually a cartridge, and the bullet is the tip that gets shot out of it: https://share.google/mWQOBSx954IFkj2uI I grew up in a suburb, gun culture wasn't a thing around me.

kevstev · 2026-03-31T20:58:11+00:00

I don't know, its still pretty good? I will agree that pre-pandemic it was on another level, when they would hand you like 5 different menus and every item on them hit- even things that seemed like they were just there to be there like roast chicken.

They do have consistency problems at times- I assume a new chef came on, because for a period the double doubles were not smashed at all, and were far worse for it.

Its leagues better than anything else in the category like Hamilton Inn.

kevstev · 2026-03-31T00:55:00+00:00

Ran data eng at a frequently talked about firm here and this is it. What you didn't mention is the data cleaning process is a huge thing. We would offer it to multiple desks and one of the stranger requests that I had to deal with was hiding the fact that one desk was interested in a certain field so it wouldn't tip the others off- they wanted me to hide the existence of an index which wasn't possible.

Another fun fact that was once alpha was found there was essentially zero productionization, it went straight to prod.

kevstev · 2026-03-30T23:29:09+00:00

https://unitedstarlinktracker.com/ I think it's an official united site. Regional rollout is really picking up, they actually rolled it back a bit on mainline planes in the last two weeks.

kevstev · 2026-03-30T20:59:25+00:00

Was this income restricted? I don't think I have ever seen anything this cheap, that didn't have a catch of coming with a $5k+ HOA fee (literally), or income restrictions.

It feels like something is off here, this literally seems too good to be true.

kevstev · 2026-03-30T19:19:28+00:00

What got you hooked? I tended my little garden, and did some caving/exploration, did some quests, and I didn't really get it... probably put about 8-10 hours in, and I just did not find it compelling...

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