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Re: Painting Over A Red Wall - 2 months ago

Kilz primer and then a few coats of white.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: CrowdStrike Foo-Bar, Day 2 - 2 months ago

Quotebfd As long as these companies are not held to financial losses, these @#$%& incidents will continue. That goes for "enterprise security software" as well as any company that allows YOUR private information to be spread around the internets like fertilizer… there is always a cost, and these places seem to be immune from responsibility. You take your chances. If these companies

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Looking for opinions on this furnace filter alternative - 2 months ago

I've been using these for years: At some point in time they had some blowout sale on them and I have enough filters for probably 5 years.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: New auto insurance cost...wow - 2 months ago

Quotemattkime Call a couple of places and try an independent agent. I guess my auto insurance is rather cheap. I had to look it up to verify - we pay just under $900/month for two adults and one car. I sure hope full self driving is available by the time my boys can drive $900 a year right? We pay $225 a month for 2 drivers, 3 vehicles, and a camper.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Just saw my first Chevy Silverado EV in the wild - 2 months ago

I'm holding out for the RamCharger: With trailering and what not, I just don't trust the range of a pure EV to be able to do what I want. I think this is one of the cases where Hybrid makes more sense.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: around 350,000 homes and businesses still without power in the Houston area - 2 months ago

QuoteSpeedy Usually utilities call for reinforcements from all over the country. But usually utilities know things are going to be so bad that they will need help and that may not have happened with a Cat 1 storm. Utilities need to better remove trees even though the city may not want it. After a bad ice storm we hauled poles into a town in Kansas that had nice trees everywhere and no powe

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Does my portable generator need 'small engine' oil or can it use car oil? I got Mobile 1 - 3 months ago

I put Mobile 1 in mine. Full synthetic. Just came back from a rental where it probably ran non stop for the last 2 days at a festival.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Laptop battery fire prompts plane evacuation at San Francisco Airport; 3 injured, officials say - 3 months ago

People are nuts. It should say three people trampled by unhinged passengers.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: The Problem with Wind Energy - 3 months ago

Sounds more like a technical discussion of the pitfalls that need to be overcome than an issue with solar. He kept going on about hard to maintain, install, etc. That isn't really a problem, it is a cost of doing business in that sector. Same thing with all the concerns he had about tying in and grid capacity. That is just a planning and implementation issue. So in short, the only problem is

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Just bought an inverter generator - is there any reason to 'break it in'? - 3 months ago

QuoteAcer How much oil does a typical generator produce during a change? 12oz in mine. Smaller inverter generator.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Bolt Update: First Maintenance Item - 3 months ago

QuoteSpeedy “The passenger side brake seized up due to rust and warped the rotor.” As in, the brake wouldn’t release so the tire was skidding because the caliper failed to move? I’m used to having rust fly out from the wheels when I have to brake hard in our Volt. But they have never seized up. Correct, either the pad wouldn't release and was stuck pressing against the rotor or t

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Just bought an inverter generator - is there any reason to 'break it in'? - 3 months ago

Quotemattkime QuoteJohn B.There are some really dedicated obsessive people who have written whole break-in routines/cookbooks that they swear will allow your new generator to live a long healthy well-lived life. I have a "healthy" skepticism of that sort of thing from the world of cars. I'm happy to go the extra mile but I'd like to proof that I'm not performing greasemonkey voodoo. M

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Bolt Update: First Maintenance Item - 3 months ago

Quick update on the Bolt. Up to 22k miles thus far on it myself, and 43k miles and 6 years old on the vehicle itself. Average is 3.2 Mi/KWh over the 22k miles. I drive the majority of my miles at 70-75mpg on the interstate so I'm not going to ever see a good rating there. Anyway... The passenger side brake seized up due to rust and warped the rotor. Both the front and the back of the rot

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Just bought an inverter generator - is there any reason to 'break it in'? - 3 months ago

Quotemattkime I'm honestly having a hard time coming up with something to use as a load. Maybe I need to borrow an electric heater from a neighbor. Plug in whatever you were planning on powering with it.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Just bought an inverter generator - is there any reason to 'break it in'? - 3 months ago

I have a similar sized generator, a Pulsar Dual Fuel gd400bn. We run it solely on propane, runs great off a grill tank and that way you don't need to do any prep for storage. We have around 10 hours on it, I changed the oil recently and it was disgusting. I would personally run it for about an hour with no load and then another hour with a load to break it in. After the break-in I woul

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: getting an office chair from Chicago to Texas - 3 months ago

You should be able to take the chair apart and get it down to a box size a UPS store has.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Sorry, no reviews match your current selections. - 4 months ago

Nothing to add about Amazon, but if you are looking for a good set of binoculars nothing beats Vortex. They are a local family/employee owned small town Wisconsin company. Unconditional lifetime warranty on their gear. Cannot recommend them enough.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Tesla's unsold inventory is creating stockpiles - 4 months ago

QuoteSpeedy Given how hot that fire must have been, it’s surprising there are surviving plants nearby. QuoteTiangou Why would Tesla care? Care fires happen all the time on both ICE and EVs. EVs have a lower incident rate of fires than ICE cars. You don't hear anyone screaming when their F150 catches on fire to have Ford knocking on their door to investigate it personally. Has the guy

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: MacBook Air 15-inch Laptop with M3 256GB, 8GB RAM $1129 - 4 months ago

I picked up the 512GB/16GB version and it arrived a few days ago. Haven't spent much time with it, but disappointed that the keyboard isn't the same as the Pro. Going to have to learn how to type again.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Tire Pressure Monitoring System, help - 4 months ago

The one in the tire that doesn't beep is bad, the other three being wrong lean towards the rotation place not programming them. I would replace all 4 with new ones as they have batteries and do go bad.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Rental cars - 4 months ago

I usually stick with Enterprise. Many times it is cheaper to take an Uber from their airport to a nearby location, but for just a few days it probably isn't worth it.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Happy Birthday 6/1 MR Forum Member C(-)ris - 4 months ago

Thanks All! Celebrated the PWHL MN Walter Cup win on Friday night followed by a relaxing day on Saturday.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: EV news - Kia factory in Georgia (US) is online - 4 months ago

I'm not sure I trust Kia, know too many people who got burned by their engines seizing up and Kia refused to fix them despite the recalls and lawsuits. There is 10 years worth of Kia vehicles that are all ticking time bombs and they won't stand behind them.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Question for the Prius folks here... - 4 months ago

Short stop and go trips are worse than highway mileage for brake bads. They could easily be bad at 11k miles if you are all stop and go and hard on the brakes. Also easy enough to look at them and see as others have said.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Apple 15" MacBook Air (M3, Space Gray) 16/512 B&H - $1499 - 4 months ago

I just ordered one in Midnight. Can't wait for it show up to see how it does.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Auto floor mats - 4 months ago

I picked up these for my Bolt: They are just as good as the Weathertech liners I've had for other vehicles.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Carvana bombs out - 5 months ago

Quotechopper QuoteM A V I C They offered me less than $1k for a car that later went for over $9k at auction. Welcome to the used car business and used car guys. On and off I've fixed repairable wrecks and mechanical issue cars since I was 19 to re-sell. I trust zero used car places. Same here, I've done about 30ish cars over the years.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: Do you Magsafe? - 5 months ago

Depends. When I am at home or mobile I magsafe. If I am at my desk with docking station I USB-C. If they made a good Magsafe Thunderbolt cable that supported 2 4k displays I'd use it in a heartbeat.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: How much does your household spend on groceries? - 5 months ago

Quotedavester My gut feeling was about $500/mo but I just ran a report in Moneydance and it turns out to be just over $1,000. That's for three adults. I'm guessing that other folks who aren't looking at the data are also underestimating. Ours is expensive because we live in urban California so the prices are sky high compared to everywhere else, and we are very focused on cooking with high quali

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals

Re: An Apple/iPhone question to which I'm pretty sure I know the answer. - 5 months ago

You can do this with most MDMs: I'm not sure if there are any free MDMs available with this functionality, but I believe MDM is the only way to get it done.

by C(-)ris - Tips and Deals