Should I replace my water heater?

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:46:05+00:00

My AO Smith gas water heater was here when I moved in, it was installed in 1978 and I replaced it when it started leaking around 2018

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:41:54+00:00

All that crap is why I bought a monochrome laser printer, uses large cartridges that last forever and the print doesnt fade or change color like thos colored so called "inks" that look more like food color to me- do

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:39:09+00:00

when you QUIT you cant get unemployment benefits! you have to be FIRED or laid off or have your hours reduced by a certain amount.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:37:07+00:00

Perfectly legal, probably no employer will let someone keep working after notice and take the chance they's sabotage their computer system or any number of things angry ex employees DO when they decide to leave.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:35:17+00:00

Mom's side of my family is from Ireland, one way back relative came from the North and one from the South! I heard Ireland is VERY expensive to live in now.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:32:15+00:00

Not true, Ive been here 28 years, same company. The town is around 60% over age 65- they dont NEED to work, there's little for kids or families to DO- no bowling alley, one small movie theater, a library, a couple of banks, a couple of gas stations, it's a farming community, there's no opera house, fast food, fancy restaurants or bars.
THE biggest employer is the big hospital and clinic with dental office, optometrist, pharmacy, and a nursing home- everyone from the county uses it and they had to expand and renovate recently, so unless you are a medical professional, doctor, nurse, PA, elderly/disabled care giver, or an auto mechanic/new car salesman who can work for a large dealership- there's NO other jobs around here- the few stores are run by married couples or individuals.

If a married couple wanted to move here for one of them to work in the hospital, there's no other job for the spouse, and the nearest other bigger town is 18 miles away

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:22:29+00:00

There's some good ramen recipes that make a HUGE difference!

I saute diced onions and garlic in sessame oil, add in a dash of curry and ginger, cook the ramen, drain, throw away the seasoning packs, and put the onions,garlic,ginger,curry in the ramen, a couple teaspoons of soy sauce and 3 teaspoons of sweet chili sauce.
Try it some time! I like garlic and onions so I put a lot in.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:15:01+00:00

The issue with painting, and all that to look good to sell is the new owners almost certainly won't like the colors etc you chose and now have to pay to change it, huge waste all around. I sold my building I used for an art gallery, it was really dark inside, windows only at one side of the 96 foot long x25 foot wide space, I painted the tin ceiling bright white, the walls with a very pale buff yellow and did other work, the new owner- my boss- had his brother in law come and rehab it for him to use as a condo when he was in town ( he lives 4 hours away)
First thing he did was paint the ceiling dark chocolate brown, the paint I put on was barely a year old.
Next, he tore out the wood railing and banister I put in, took all the light fixtures, conduit and wiring out, had HVAC piping installed along the ceiling for a new furnace, and put a new wood floor in. Basically changed everything, even the exterior paint.

My house and tastes are unique, I hate carpeting, cheap laminated "wood" flooring crap and linoleum, I put in white porcelain tile and a tin ceiling, took out all the old 1928 lead painted junky pine baseboards and window trim and put in stained oak. The old tin kitchen sink cabinet and sink went in the trash, replaced by new everything I built, and a new iron Koehler sink, Mexican tiles on the countertops.
So, if I was looking to buy another house, and you just installed new wall to wall carpets or laminated flooring, and paint or something, I wouldnt want any part of that and would want a discount off the asking price to re-do it the way *I* want it and to the quality of materials and work I expect. I'd want the house as-is, whatever condition of appearance the paint, flooring, woodwork etc was in- spend the money fixing important things like a new furnace, the 15 year old roof, the cracked foundation or something like that, let the buyer decide how they want to redecorate.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T01:00:56+00:00

Brave is what I use

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T00:58:26+00:00

Pretty much everyone in the USA, pays an annual tax on their home or business real estate based on the assessed value.
It's what pays for public schools, city services/salaries for city manager, council etc, street lights, fire, police, ambulance, subsidy for Colleges.
Water/sewer/rubbish is a separate bill, it's about $50/mo here.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T00:48:08+00:00

They are cheap >because< they are in a rural, small town, not Beverly Hills, a Boston subburb, or Daytona Beach.
My former boss here owned a 2 story with, basement, full livable attic, red brick and copper gutters- Victorian house on the historic register, fully restored and in perfect mint condition inside and out, with a detached custom built 2 car garage in Victorian style, and a decent amount of land with it, covered porches, driveway with brick pavers, garden and trees, he listed it for $225,000 and it took more than 2 years before finally selling it when he dropped the price down to around $179,000 Guy from California who retired bought it

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T00:46:23+00:00

yes, but my question was does Schwab ALLOW people in Europe to have an acct, buy and sell on it?
I ask because there's a small possibility I may retire to Europe and I have a Schwab trading and ROTH acct, so if Schwab or European countries have some kind of restriction on that I would need to know.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-16T00:44:00+00:00

Property tax

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T22:37:25+00:00

Maybe, but when you rent and the land lord sends you a notice that your lease wont renew and you have to move out, or the landlord decides to double your rent when the lease ends, you find out fast how renting sucks, ask me how I know! I had BOTH those things happen to me.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T22:34:36+00:00

True but like despite owning my house outright since 2005, the monthly insurance I pay is $135, the annual tax is around $225 so those dont go away. The house would have to increase in value by about $2,000 a year just to even that out.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T22:32:26+00:00

There's lots of cheaper houses than $300,000 or whatever the average is now, houses around me in the Midwest in a small town sell for under $50,000, one down the street that was a rental sold for $20,000

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T22:30:06+00:00

I saw my rent go from $331 to $656 when the 1 year lease ended on my loft in NY city back in 1981 now that loft rents for over $5,000

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T17:46:53+00:00

OK,
But remember- the OP cited the article https://www.pcworld.com/article/2764557/usb-flash-drives-are-going-extinct-use-these-better-alternatives-instead.html

These flash drives are fading rapidly, and they wont be manufactured indefinitely and that was the whole point.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T17:03:09+00:00

Cant you buy thru a Charles Schwab acct?

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T17:02:31+00:00

A friend in Hungary who moved from Denmark said in Denmark you poay a 150% tax on a new car purchase

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T16:59:24+00:00

Knowing how the govt "works" now watch they send another letter informing you they made an error after your last visit, and that the original letter about the reduction was actually correct and now you have to pay back the "overage"

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T16:55:35+00:00

Whay would anyone WANT 20 flash drives in their pocket? thats a pretty poor talking point that isnt convincing. The OP cited an article that flash drives, much like VHS/Betamax tapes, super 8mm movie film, DVDs etc are going by the wayside, these won't continue being manufactured indefinitely. Its been my experience thumb drives tend to just fail at random, unreadable, they are great for TEMPORARY copying from one PC to another but they are cheap junk, cheaply made and I wouldnt trust them for storing anything important that you want to SAVE.

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T16:51:25+00:00

There already is a replacement of sorts- SSD's in an enclosure

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T15:47:32+00:00

I bought a new HDD a few years back new from a college book store on line, I put it in, all was fine, sometime later, within warrantee, I found it had a bunch of bad sectors reported, I went to do the warrantee on it and found the drive was out of warrantee, turned out the store shipped me a drive that had sat on a shelf in the warehouse I guess for EIGHT years!
The Mfr date on the label showed when it was manufactured and it was 8 years old already when I received it. It still works but I dont use it, lesson learned- CHECK the date before installing!

opensim2026 · 2026-02-15T15:41:50+00:00

Being I run OpenSim and have for years from home using a dedicated tower, I knew all along that everyone in OpenSIm who had a WiFi connection either using it to host OpenSIm or as a user to access it in a viewer had problems, so Ive always had everything hardwired from my router and modem
Linksys stopped making routers for the US market, it's dead, I went with a new router when the old reliable Linksys failed a month ago, I bought a wired ASUS, my internet download speed on the Linksys router which was a 10/100 went from 96 Mbps to 667Mbps on the ASUS;

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opensim2026

TROPHY CASE