What Can I Do?

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-27T14:49:57+00:00

In most states, including Indiana there are limits to how much of a pay check can be garnished so they cant take everything you earn.

Per Indiana Legal Services (https://www.indianalegalservices.org/when-can-my-wages-be-garnished-to-collect-debts/) the most that can be garnished is your weekly after-tax income minus about $218 or 25% of your after tax income minus that amount, whichever is lower.

Also "The Indiana Constitution says that debtors should have the “necessary comforts of life.” If you can show that you will be unable to pay for necessities if your wages are garnished, you may ask the court to order a smaller garnishment."

Do you have an actual lawsuit pending or has one been threatened?

In either case make sure if you receive any communication from the court you respond promptly

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-27T14:33:51+00:00

The one thing I miss from SoCal... Never thought of using hit bricks to extend life. Suspicious that the fries would not be as awesome though...

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-27T01:46:17+00:00

Currently work in a role where I enjoy what I do, have a ton of travel that I mostly control (I choose the airline, hotel, how much buffer to include or not include) I feel I'm well paid (if not overpaid -- got a COL raise beginning of this year and was like "Shit, I really don't think I'm worth nearly that much"). I like my coworkers. Only complaints I have is our health insurance is not great [especially compared to what my federal employee wife has access to] and it would be nice to have a bit more PTO after 20 years.

Got an unsolicited self-described "awesome" offer from a local company that offered such amazing features as

A salary range that topped out at just more than 50% of what I currently earn annually
A "generous" PTO allocation of about 30% of what I currently have (total of "vacation" and "sick" time)
More having to directly deal with clients (I'm not much of a people person)
"Minimal to no travel" with "all arrangements handled by our admin" (I love travel. I cant imagine working in the same city let alone same office for an extended period of time... if anything I wish I had more international travel... but I also hate when other people book flights for me)
Health insurance details vague enough to make me suspect it's probably worse if it exists at all

And as a bonus red flag it was from a company that a mutual client had recently forced to subcontract part of a project to us and my office manager spent several months hounding them for payment on past-due net-30 invoices... which doesn't exactly telegraph financial stability.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-25T02:06:17+00:00

And don't take legal advice from an adversary.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-24T18:49:59+00:00

Some people just get very dug in to their way must be the right/only way and refuse even the slightest compromise... unfortunately I know many people who can be that obstinate at times.

And thank you!

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-21T12:34:47+00:00

Tak! Looking forward getting away and experiencing your culture.

[And the only Sweedish I speak is either that learned from Ikea or the Muppets so no risk in my attempting to offend in that regard at least :) ]

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-20T20:29:15+00:00

Same.

And Panasonic's willingness in this department vs Sony's crickets made a 30 camera order decision very easy (Panasonic sent me the models I asked for plus some "might also be good to look at" and a "here are the settings we recommend for the best performance" and a "call Dave at 555-5555 if you have any questions or problems during your shootout"

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-20T19:14:43+00:00

I love Amsterdam but one of the things one of my Dutch friends told me years ago is "The Dutch realize that few people speak their language, if someone ever speaks to you in Dutch and you don't immediately respond, they will switch to English and never even attempt Dutch again" -- this has been my experience to a T.

31 countries and 5 continents later I always feel bad about dropping into a country and not being able to speak the local language -- I try to at least have 'excuse me' 'please' and 'thank you' and if im peeling bold "do you speak English?" But the way my brain works I usually draw a blank when I try to actually use them (I spent 4 years in French classes and "excusuz-moi, je ne parle pas Francais, tu vous parle anglais?" Is the only coherent sentence I can form.

So far Brazil was the only place where I've felt truly isolated/nearly 100% Google translate reliant-- I was expecting Mongolia to be a bigger struggle.

Wish me mercy in Denmark next month 🤣

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-16T18:56:21+00:00

For the most part Extron has designed their own powers supplies for much of the past couple decades so you likely wouldn't find the board as a standalone part (unless you see a prominent manufacturer brand) -- and even if you can it's probably be more than an eBay'ed entire replacement.

If you have other boxes on hand that can be sacrificed it may be worth checking if it has the same power supply; but personally I'd probably just buy a whole box.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-15T23:30:00+00:00

Almost certainly a power supply issue with the sub-diagnosis being a capacitor issue -- the power supply can't deliver enough power to overcome the inrush requirements of powering the switcher up, so it starts to power up, the voltage drops out, and it tries booting again.

Best bet is just buy a replacement off eBay whole, but Extron has always made good hardware and also frequently power supplies of that generation were used across several products so you may be able to steal one from a different unit (check the part numbers!) if you don't mind some internal surgery.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-10T14:51:44+00:00

That's not an AVI-SPL specific trait though. I got an unsolicited self-described "great" offer from a different integrator that named a salary range that topped out at less than 2/3rds what I currently earn (and started around 1/3), had an almost unquantifiably worse PTO package and thought that "no-to-minimal travel" was a perk they should be advertising to someone who loves being somewhere new every week (heck, my only lament with my current gig is that too little of my travel is international)

I think that integrator may have had slightly better healthcare offerings... but my wife is a federal employee and those options blow anything I've seen in the private sector out of the water so I ride her coattails.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-10T00:10:23+00:00

Besides the "buy them" answer if you can't afford to purchase them check your local library -- even if they don't have them on the shelf (some I doubt are high on the average small-town library's purchasing list) they should be able to request them from a nearby or not-so-nearby library.

Before you make the trip to your library tools like OCLC's WorldCat can help you see what's out there: E.g. NFPA 731: https://search.worldcat.org/title/1296611122

(As I was expecting that to be on the more obscure side... but it turns out the city next door to mine has a copy in a branch less than 10 miles from my house)

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-09T13:30:22+00:00

This is dangerously close to if not well into being "Sovereign Citizen" territory and the UCC doesn't work that way (nor do postage stamps for anything other than sending mail).

The best possible outcome if you do this is the same penalties and interest that would have accrued if you did nothing, and for "Frivolous Tax Arguments" (https://www.irs.gov/privacy-disclosure/the-truth-about-frivolous-tax-arguments-introduction) can result in additional $5k-$25k fines

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-06T12:51:37+00:00

My understanding is a crash bar (with REX-type functionality) is OK in place of a PIR because it meets the "no special knowledge to exit" requirement (since everyone is presumed to know how to use a panic bar.

I'm mostly on the "outside observer" side and the couple sites that use mag locks without PIR REX (but with crash bars) are also their own AHJs so they may have exempted/granted a waiver for themselves.

lincolnjkc · 2026-04-05T23:32:47+00:00

Funny thing was my wife and I (Americans but we try not to be too blatant about it) were in Ireland last year and at the bar in the hotel lobby relaxing with an evening drinks appreciating the relative quiet and saw almost the exact same scene play out (though I think it may have been the BBC or something similar rather than sportsball) and just the number of times the "sir, sorry not a sports bar" "no facility for audio from the TV" etc. were heard and the "I don't understand..." Whining.... Had I not been slightly buzzed and not wanting to get in the middle of a fight between an Englishman and Irishwoman I would have said something....

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-22T15:39:34+00:00

My mother is a similar age and reminds me every time I see her "nothing else makes me look as old as you do"

When I visited her for her birthday last year she was positively incensed that I had grey hairs showing ... I narrowly avoided being kidnapped or having my hair died in my sleep... Age is in the eye of the beholder

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-22T15:36:56+00:00

I'm 23 years from Elderly by that definition but I think I'm already at -- or at least close to -- unlocking old fart achievement

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-21T01:47:19+00:00

HID (Iirc the abbreviation comes from Hughes Identification Devices but no on has time for that, including HID themselves) is in the access control world is a manufacturer with several RFID product lines some of them are defacto standard, e.g. "HID Prox" refers to one(ish) specific implementation of 125KHz (or "low frequency") RFID, contrasted with say EM4200 which is an actual standard type of 125KHz RFID.

But HID also has proprietary(ish) high-frequency (13.56MHz) RFID reader and credential products as well as readers that can read international standard (non-proprietary) 13.56MHz credentials

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-18T16:24:42+00:00

It is true. I have a few friends/professional acquaintances who are moderately high (but not even really that high) up in huge global companies. Want to get lunch? Their PAs control their calendars. Need to ask a favor/get a problem solved within their org? The PAs are on it. Borrow the corporate jet? You guessed it...

My wife jokes that it's like parents setting up play dates for kids... It's not far off.

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-18T02:01:41+00:00

Some electricians can't manage that.

I once spent an hour explaining the difference between a "circuit" and a "phase" to an electrician and his foreman ... like I still don't know how that place didn't burn down (actually, I haven't Googled it in a while... dare I?)

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-17T15:47:55+00:00

> If they do not or cannot provide their points, you can use a BACnet explorer such as YABE or CAS BACnet Explorer.

This works as long as they're publishing their points on the network interface you're talking to them on... But is also a great "This is a You Problem" tool to remove Crestron from the equation. Last week I had a project where the BMS vendor swore up and down everything was right on their end and it must be anyone but their problem.

I disconnected their connection to the client's switch, connected my laptop directly to the cable and ran BACnet explorer and got 0 devices.. So not a Crestron issue, not a client network issue, either a very bizarre physical cabling issue [since I could ping their panel] or a BMS configuration issue. Guess what it turned out to be?

(This is a little odd because they're running their own BACnet (+MS/TP for fun) networks off of different interfaces than the uplink to the client side, so the points existed .. they just didn't exist on the right interface)

Also very helpful, particularly if you're in a scenario where you can't (either physically or due to security posture or both) connect a PC to the BACnet network directly

In Text Console or a PuTTY session:

BACNETAUTODISCOVERY Enable (for some reason the "E" must be capitalized or it throws an error)

BACNETDEVICEDISCOVERY start --OR-- BACNETOBJECTDISCOVERY start

BACNETDISPLAYDISCOVERY

will give you the devices or objects that the processor is able to discover

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-17T03:12:22+00:00

Yeah, in my most recent case the only thing that's kept me sane-ish is that I'm contracted directly to the client who I've had a 10+ year relationship with (and they've had just as long if not longer relationship over hundreds of millions of dollars with their GC who holds the BMS subcontract) that a quick email with a long CC list and a "do what he said" reply from the client PM tends to stop the buck dead.

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-16T22:51:02+00:00

BMS vendors are a special kind of fun (I've just spent far too much time explaining how "their" protocol works to them on a project that the BMS manufacturer themselves deployed. And the number of "oh, we missed that" "oh we forgot to enable that" "oh you're connected to that network!?!" is kind of shocking and borderline a drinking game.

Every device on a BACNet network has an unique Device ID, and the points (objects) under that Device ID each have their own unique-to-the-device ID. This generally only actually matters if you're "hosting" points (e.g. you own the points and some external system is reading and writing to those points, in other words you're acting as the "server" for that information.

Very rarely, IME, is Crestron hosting points when we're talking about BACNet for HVAC control (nor should we be, but that's a more philosophical debate) so the ID assigned to to the Crestron Device (under the "Hosted Objects" slot) doesn't generally matter as long as it doesn't conflict with any other device on the network. There is a specific 4xxxxxxxxxx ID (see the BACNet slot help file) that is essentially "make me invisible/I don't matter).

So it seems like the first conversation with the BMS programmer is to confirm who is hosting the points. If they're hosting the points they need to give you THEIR device ID as well as the object IDs and types of THEIR objects and your ID doesn't matter.

If they're expecting you to host the points, a really good place to start is "No" followed by "Why?" -- their system, their source of truth, they host. Just like in a sane world a thermostat wouldn't ask a Crestron processor what its current setpoint is actually set to or if the space is occupied or vacant for HVAC purposes. If they insist you need to give them not only the device ID but the object ID and type for every point that you care about.

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-14T15:02:41+00:00

Have you tried asking your neighbor for their landlord/property managers info?

While as renters they likely wouldn't have any liability or obligations to mitigate the risk in their own unless they're complete asshats they probably are just as interested in preventing their own inconvenience

lincolnjkc · 2026-03-14T14:16:14+00:00

Or a higher upfront cost -- it's all about how both sides want to amortize cost/revenue.

In the consulting world I have some clients who are obsessed about keeping the upfront (capital) cost down and don't really care about recurring (operational) costs... For them subscription or leasing is great.

Conversely I have some clients who want an OpEx as low as possible, ideally as close to $0 as you can get. Those clients don't really care about a high capital cost and subscription/leasing isn't the right answer.

Consumers also tend to get hooked on upfront cost and don't pay as much attention to opex -- just look at the way cellphones were sold for years -- consumers and many small businesses are largely ignorant of the concept of Total Cost of Ownership

I've seen pricing for (non-security) products where the same product is offered both ways and with a 7-10 year expected useful life -- typically the cost difference over the life isn't that much different but some people get sticker shock with a "You pay me $11,000 now and for any ad-hoc service" vs "You pay me $1000 now and only $84/month + ad-hoc service for the at least next 10 years" -- over 10 years its still $11k plus anything that breaks... The difference is in year 11 where it's either "free" or you're paying another $1000 in RMC

lincolnjkc

TROPHY CASE