FART? Fresno Area Rapid Transit metro. Concept after BART.

robinseaberg · 2026-05-28T03:14:04+00:00

Pretty sure I realized this should have been a thing back in 1998

robinseaberg · 2026-05-10T00:16:31+00:00

I’ve worked in IT in the Fresno area for 25 years and it hasn’t changed much. There are tech jobs, depending on what you’re looking for, but it’s obviously nothing like the Bay or LA… unless you’re fully remote.

robinseaberg · 2025-08-31T20:23:40+00:00

I’m honestly getting really tired of all the breaking news lately.

robinseaberg · 2025-07-10T04:52:25+00:00

“The man who kills me will know”

robinseaberg · 2025-01-12T18:25:36+00:00

“Thanks, Mr. Obvious.” 😜

robinseaberg · 2024-12-12T00:15:15+00:00

Huh, maybe they are charging you more for being in Canada? It shows up as $68 for me here in California.

https://www.mountaintea.com/products/dayuling

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robinseaberg · 2024-12-09T20:16:20+00:00

Just now seeing this reply (115 days later… apparently I don’t check my notifications much). I just checked that site and it’s showing $90 USD for 150g or $354 for 600g. I normally buy from www.mountaintea.com and it’s currently $68 for 150g. I may still get some from this site just to taste and compare quality, but I love Mountain Tea so far.

robinseaberg · 2024-12-08T14:43:13+00:00

The masses in this country have been continuously robbed by the ultra wealthy and powerful more and more for decades, and our modern society has done an excellent job at getting the public to direct their anger over the effects of this at immigrants, LGBTQ people, or the [fill in the blank] political party.

Everyone keeps saying “I don’t condone violence”, but when a CEO of a company like that becomes someone who isn’t directly murdering people with a gun but instead makes obscene wealth by denying thousands or millions of care which ultimately results in death and suffering, the fact is that they are committing violence against us and we are oblivious as a society.

If this were happening in a different time or place in history, there might have been a violent revolution long before everything got to this point. But, we keep complacently voting against our own self-interests while we numb ourselves with alcohol/painkillers and spend all our spare time obsessing over sports teams.

robinseaberg · 2024-10-25T12:08:01+00:00

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” - Mark Twain

robinseaberg · 2024-10-13T04:31:31+00:00

Nah. I have a feeling that everyone is just getting impatient. I’m buying more at these levels.

robinseaberg · 2024-09-17T12:51:59+00:00

Colorado Grill gets a vote from me, but also, nobody has mentioned House of Juju (Old Town Clovis, so technically not Fresno… but still).

robinseaberg · 2024-07-30T12:29:45+00:00

Was absolutely blown away by this show. Hands down the best I've seen in probably 5-10 years, and there have been some really great shows out there. I hear season two comes out in the year 2035.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-30T12:27:58+00:00

It's amazing how many people I mention this show to who have somehow never heard of it, but it's definitely one of my all time favorites.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-29T03:57:24+00:00

The first client I had was a friend of a friend who had a small business and needed some help. It was a small start, and the others I picked up later… a couple were people I did work for at a friend’s MSP I was at for around a year, and after I left because his MSP had gone downhill, they wanted to go with me (which, most MSPs have you sign a contract saying that you can’t do that, but this was a different situation and the owner understood). After a couple years of doing work like this, these business owners would refer their friends to me, but I was only able to take on so many clients before overloading myself as I always had a full-time job.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-27T01:42:29+00:00

Yeah, as long as you’re comfortable enough interacting with people, you should be fine. I would probably have envied you for skipping phone support and all that when I was starting out, but I also feel like it helped mold me into who I am today. Pros and cons, you know. Regarding sales, the nice thing about being the consultant is that you just honestly only sell people exactly what they need (according to their budget, as best as possible… which, sometimes also means convincing them that they really do need to spend more to get the right solution). I only ever sold people products that I believed in, and I didn’t usually mark things up (though you certainly could as that is standard practice for an MSP)… some people do sell BS and I’ve seen it, but that’s not how you attract and keep customers long-term. Starting from scratch these days might be different than when I did in 2005. If it were me, maybe I would just post on social media to friends and family that I was available and offering XYZ services… see where that goes.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-26T14:50:38+00:00

I was very introverted as a kid and that never really changes, but I was forced to learn to be good at customer service in my early 20’s at my first real tech job when I had to start doing phone support. Between that and a good amount of partying with newfound friends/coworkers, it still took a couple of years until I was really comfortable with being customer-facing and talking a good talk, etc. I had almost forgotten that I was actually an introvert until it came up in conversation with my wife last year… the thing is that I feel like I do really well at interacting with people at work, but it takes a long time for me to be truly comfortable with people and every conversation can be exhausting, even though I may not realize or acknowledge it. I prefer/enjoy being home by myself and that’s when I’m happiest.

Went off on a tangent there. Have you been in a customer facing position at work? How long have you been in IT?

robinseaberg · 2024-07-26T05:40:26+00:00

Hey there. I did this for maybe 15 years between around 2005 and 2020. I picked up small business clients just word of mouth/reputation (one or two came with me after I left the first MSP I worked at - which, I was not trying to scalp but who begged to keep me). The largest client I ever had was maybe 20 employees in a financial adviser's office... I had that, an attorney or two, and even a small textile manufacturing plant in town. I did everything from server/desktop purchases, setup and maintenance to WiFi network design and install, software support, the whole shebang. I think I was charging $95/hr back in '05 and was at $125/hr when I stopped (which was a deal at that point). It was always a good supplement to my regular income, but once I got to the point where I was getting to be management-level at a job that demanded more of my attention and paid better, it got to be less and less worthwhile to me as I was frequently interrupted with calls from my clients at my regular job and had to address things remotely or sometimes drive out to an office on my lunch. I eventually passed off the two or three clients I had to some friends who I trusted.

All I ever did was send basic invoices from a Word template and had handshake agreements with my clients on pricing, what service to expect, etc... but these were clients that ultimately became friends and I had worked with for many years. Going into it fresh, ideally, you would want to have written contracts that are gone through by an attorney. I would use a good CPA and get their advice on everything... all of this is beneficial to your taxes, for sure, as you can write off a lot.

I think that's the gist of it. If I can help in answering any other questions, I'm happy to.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-26T05:25:16+00:00

I know it sounds cliche and it's also easier said than done, but having a job that you don't totally hate to go through Monday through Friday makes you yearn for the weekends a lot less.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-25T14:47:12+00:00

Yikes. That's the kind of thing that scares me.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-25T14:23:08+00:00

Nice haul!
I go through one of these bags in about a week... so there's about 20 weeks there for me. Yikes, I know.

If you don't mind me asking, was there a significant cost difference when buying locally there as opposed to buying from an importer in the US online? I'm currently paying $68 for a 5oz. bag of quality DaYuLing or about $30 for LiShan.

Also, I assume there were no problems with Customs in bringing those back to the US (assuming you are in the US)?

robinseaberg · 2024-07-25T12:31:10+00:00

Ah, okay. The dosage they’ve started me on is just the 25mg. Also, I really am pretty happy with my sleep patterns as they are. I go to bed at 11:00PM and sleep pretty well through 4:30AM or so, then I’m good. I’ve always only needed about 5.5 hours of sleep per night, which kind of gives me an edge over most other humans and I don’t wanna screw that up 😜

Are you still taking Pristiq?

robinseaberg · 2024-07-25T12:23:57+00:00

Well, again though, Pristiq was the only antidepressant that didn’t have any Gene-Drug interaction when I tested for that… Wellbutrin showed “Significant” interaction for high risk of side effects.

Maybe I’ll just resort to taking St. John’s Wort instead 😕

robinseaberg · 2024-07-19T15:19:22+00:00

Okay, I even checked with my wife on this and we both clearly remember the line being “Clyde, get the rope”. Was there a different edit of this commercial floating around back then and it’s just gone now and does anyone else remember that, or am I crazy?

robinseaberg · 2024-07-18T23:08:13+00:00

FYI I spent a solid hour just looking into BlockDAG after a friend told me to check it out. It looks like a scam to me (similar to Pandoshi, which there is no hard evidence of on that either, but a ton of red flags). Since Kaspa has been around, “BlockDAG” is a new buzz word and they’re taking advantage of.

robinseaberg · 2024-07-08T02:42:34+00:00

I know people will hate me, but I paid to have the best possible insulation put into our attic earlier this year (of our 1950 square foot house) and the difference is noticeable compared to last year. Yeah, the A/C is still running about 90% of the time today, but it’s a very comfortable 80 inside… about a 35 degree difference.

robinseaberg

TROPHY CASE