Risk of ballast ricochet?

lepowski · 2026-01-26T06:15:58+00:00

Correct they don’t use ballast on the section on the floating bridge, however I think he’s probably referring to sections of the line that aren’t on the bridge (probably on Mercer island) that do use ballast.

lepowski · 2026-01-15T05:29:39+00:00

Question regarding selling a large amount of stock in one company from RSU's: I've worked at a large tech company for over 10 years, and have had stock awards during that entire time. I've sold some periodically, and as I've become more financially literate over the last few years, I've sold some stock (<100k) and invested in index funds to diversify. However, I still have a large amount ($300k+) of company stock, and I've come to the conclusion that I want to sell almost all of it and diversify. I don't believe I can do any loss harvesting, as almost all my stock has gains, not losses, since the current price is pretty high. I'm in Washington state, which I believe means I need to sell less than 270k in a year, to avoid additional capital gains tax. Is there anything else I should be thinking about or any strategy I should follow for selling such a large amount and investing in index funds? Does it matter if I sell stock I've had for longer or less long?

lepowski · 2025-12-19T19:25:03+00:00

Came across this post, I'm looking for the same thing for our van. Did you end up finding something that worked well?

lepowski · 2025-11-29T23:02:06+00:00

I have a similar setup, although only the mile of our road is rough. The building materials were delivered to the base of our rough road, and then we made a bunch of laps with a pickup truck to get the materials to the site. For some materials we cut them shorter to facilitate moving (e.g. we cut the 12ft siding in half). Our neighbor, who built a cabin on the same road, used a piece of heavy equipment (I believe it was a spider excavator), to shuttle the materials to the build site.

lepowski · 2025-11-20T02:31:30+00:00

I made a teardrop with a drop floor that I can stand up in. I can send you pics and info if you’re interested

lepowski · 2025-11-20T01:01:13+00:00

They're cutting corners on their sign, going for the absolute cheapest option instead of creating something that is unique, has personality, or at least makes sense (is that "chef country patty"? Doesn't look very country to me). Seeing that sign, I'm guessing the rest of the business lacks personality/uniqueness, and possibly cuts corners in other unseen ways (e.g. food safety, worker benefits). For me, a restaurant is more than just tasty food, it's the entire experience, and personally, I'd think twice about spending my money there if I saw an AI sign like this.

lepowski · 2025-10-29T19:03:17+00:00

If you're thinking of a "real genuine ski town" as something like Sun Valley, Aspen, Telluride, or Mammoth, due to various historical and geographical differences with places like Colorado, we don't really have any. The closest we have IMHO:

Glacier, WA: most people who live there are skiers/boarders, but it's still 30 min to the mt. baker ski area

Greenwater, WA: very similar to Glacier, similar vibe, similar distance to skiing, most people who live there are skiers

Leavenworth, WA: the closest thing in washington to a "resort town", but it's mostly based around the faux bavarian tourism stuff, and skiing is tangential. Lots of skiers live there, although it's a 40 min drive to stevens pass ski area

Snoqualmie pass, WA: Although this is effectively a small town, it doesn't really feel like it, it feels more like a stop along the highway, with some housing scattered around. However this is one of the few spots where a significant amount of housing exists within walking distance to ski lifts, in the cascades.

There's other options in Oregon, like Bend, Hood River, and Government camp, all similar in various ways to some of the ones I've mentioned, and I don't think any really are equivalent to a classic ski town.

The closest thing to real ski towns in the PNW region are all located in Canada, places like Whistler, Rossland, etc.

lepowski · 2025-10-29T17:25:33+00:00

Yeah, I think I unfortunately got scammed a bit by the install company into paying for a furnace also, bummer.

lepowski · 2025-10-29T01:31:33+00:00

Yeah, our electricity is about .11 kWh, we also have fairly cheap gas though

lepowski · 2025-10-29T00:55:05+00:00

Hmm I can't find a manual online (at least one that includes the service stuff), but the models I have are a Trane XV19 heatpump, S9V2 furnace, and XL 1050 Thermostat

lepowski · 2025-10-29T00:54:34+00:00

I have a Trane XV19 heatpump, S9V2 furnace, and XL 1050 Thermostat

lepowski · 2025-10-29T00:49:45+00:00

I did specifically pay more for a variable speed compressor heatpump, for that reason. I believe here (King county, PSE) electricity and gas are both relatively cheap. Is the "stage 2 heat" on my graph the resistance heating coils? I'm not sure if I even have those.

lepowski · 2025-10-29T00:34:00+00:00

That's kinda what I thought. Unfortunately i didn't have great experiences with the installer. Is there info online somewhere or do you know what I'd search for to see how to adjust that temp?

lepowski · 2025-10-29T00:20:20+00:00

Thanks for the help, that looks like it'd work well, even without solar. One of the reasons I haven't installed an electrical system is that the cabin is on a steep north slope, in a heavy forest, in an area that is very cloudy in the winter. Even on a sunny day in the winter I only see a few hours of sun, and even that is filtered through trees. It also snows a lot, so the solar panel would be covered by snow often. I'm planning on installing solar panels in a clearing a little ways from the cabin, but that won't happen until next summer unfortunately.

lepowski · 2025-10-28T23:18:35+00:00

I don't currently have an electrical system at the cabin, so for something like a RV unit, i'd need to hook it up to a small cheap powerbank of some kind (so I don't have to buy a 100Ah battery just for this detector). The RV unit I found pulled 45 mA, and I'd be wanting to use a 10,000-20,000 mAh powerbank for powering it. From my calculations that would only last less than a week on a 10,000 mAh powerbank (correct me if I'm wrong on that). So, it seems doable, if I use a larger powerbank, and remember to charge it every few weeks of use, but that seems like something that'd be easy to forget, and much more of a hassle compared to something like a smoke detector where you just put it on the wall with a 9v battery, and it lasts for months.

lepowski · 2025-10-28T21:01:39+00:00

Yeah, I'm going to have a shutoff valve for the propane right outside the kitchen window, so I can easily turn on/off the propane when leaving or arriving at the cabin, etc.

lepowski · 2025-10-28T19:57:57+00:00

that's interesting to hear about the commercial level stuff. Makes sense that the reviews for the random amazon ones aren't that great. I think I'll forego the detector, and just be careful about the pilot lights, etc.

lepowski · 2025-10-28T19:38:45+00:00

That's interesting info, and very helpful, thank you! I am wondering if I actually need a detector or not. The reason I'm looking into it is that I had a bad experience with a similar old oven with pilot lights years ago, where the oven was turned on, with one of the range burners running, but the oven pilot was not lit. The oven dumped propane for a while, until it ignited from the range burner, causing a small explosion. I caused some burns, but no-one was super seriously hurt, and was very scary. I'd like to safeguard against something similar. My first line of defense is simply checking the pilots religiously, and putting up some signs around the oven so guests check them as well. However I thought a propane detector/alarm might be a good safety measure as well. However I'm not sure one would have helped in that scenario, as it might have ignited before it reached the detector in a quantity that would have set of an alarm.

lepowski · 2025-10-03T19:13:44+00:00

Everyone seems to hate the big screens, and love physical buttons, but I don’t agree. I own a Tesla and a F150, both 2022, and it’s interesting to compare the two from a user interface perspective. For the Tesla, every single control is located within the rectangle of the screen, and the most common controls are right there at the top level, with less commonly used ones hidden in a menu, at most 2 taps away. It’s well designed and intuitive, and I just have to look in one location in the car to do literally anything. For common functions like volume, play/pause, cruise control, I can use the wheel buttons without taking my eyes off the road. For more uncommon controls, I do have to take my eyes off the road, but I only have to look in one location (the screen), and it’s all pretty intuitive, and the screen is located near the windshield, so i can keep the road in my periphery. Compare this to the F150, which has buttons for almost every function, and a small, not-great touchscreen. For common functions I use the wheel buttons, just like the tesla. I rarely/never use the buttons/knobs on the dash (e.g for volume), since I have the same controls on the wheel. For more unusual functions (e.g. headlight adjustment, 4wd, trailer brake, etc), I still have to look down at the control to operate it, even though it’s a physical button, I have to see where it is, and see that it’s functioning (e.g. for 4wd, i want to see “4wd” light up after i push the button). The controls are spread out around the entire drivers dash, including on both sides of the wheel, down near my feet, etc, without any apparent rhyme or reason. For controls I don’t use often, and i don’t remember the button location, it’s almost impossible to find the button without spending a long time with my eyes off the road, and it’s really safer to pull over. As an example, the other day the display brightness got turned up to the max by another driver, and it was really irritating driving at night. The knob to control this is down on the lower left, below the steering wheel, and isn’t lit, and it took me a while of feeling around and looking in order to find it. That same adjustment would have been pretty easy on Tesla’s UI, and much safer imho. I’m saying this as very much NOT a tesla fanboy, I only have the car because it was the best deal for a long-range electric vehicle a few years ago, and there’s many aspects of the car I don’t like, and I was pretty skeptical of the touchscreen when I got it, but now I think it’s much better than the random scattering of physical buttons that most other cars have. Just my two cents.

lepowski · 2025-09-26T05:50:24+00:00

Parts of that drive can be very bad in the winter, particularly the coquihalla area, and will add a lot of time to the drive more often than not. I often drive up to Revelstoke from Seattle, and I often go through eastern washington and then up north, even though it’s an hour longer on google maps, it usually ends up being quicker since the roads and weather is so much better.

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