Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Two things of awesome

No matter how many times I empty the water tank on my dehumidifier, it never ceases to amaze me just how much moisture it has pulled out of the air. A true wonder of technology that the same heat pump that functions as an air conditioner can also serve to dehumidify a space. What did people do before its invention? Oh right, Chinese people used mothballs - to prevent mold - so much that it became a discriminatory meme.

In humid San Francisco - the city’s famous fog is essentially 100% humidity, a dehumidifier is an absolute must. Especially if you’re like me and live on a semi-subterranean first level of a very old house. I’ve found out the hard way that if not controlled for, humidity will cause mold growth in closets and drawers. Any steel that isn’t stainless will rust.

Another gadget that’s an absolute must in San Francisco is a dashcam. Even for someone like me who does not have a driving commute, having a recorder in the car is cheap insurance against the vagaries of other San Francisco drivers. You just never know if some old lady might plow her car into a bus stop. When actual auto insurance is the complete opposite of cheap, it matters greatly there exists concrete proof of your innocence. (Conversely, if you drive like an idiot all the time, maybe don’t get a dashcam to record your crimes against fellow humanity.)

For what brand of dash cam to buy, this Project Farm video is a fantastic reference. For my particular car - a 2019 Volkswagen Golf GTI - I was able to draw power from the rain sensor right above the rearview mirror, using this device. No need sling and tuck a huge length of cable in order to power the camera. The dashcam turns on and begins recording automatically when the Golf’s ignition is pressed. It’s something to setup once and forget about.

Because you really don’t want to have to use it, right? Even if an accident is not your fault, it still requires time and effort to get the car repaired. In my many hours of watching online dashcam fail videos, the best device to prevent collision: brakes. It seems the larger the ego, the less willingness to used the brakes. Me? A bruised ego and temporary indignation is worth the tradeoff for an unblemished car. Drive wisely, my friends.

Don't waste our money

Doesn’t it grind your gears when you see auto insurance advertisements? These companies raised our rates like crazy post COVID, and then have the audacity to spend money on ads! Here’s an idea: stop spending money on marketing, and lower the premiums for your customers. I don’t care if I’m only seeing cents in return. It’s not right!

I didn’t forget about you, PG&E! How dare you raise utility rates on Californians, and then run adverts on TV. Why even do marketing when most of us have no choice but to buy electricity and gas from you.

I’ve been lucky so far in my two years of weightlifting to avoid any major injury (knock on wood). The worse has only been a right shoulder impingement due to heavy upright rows. Despite my fondness for the exercise, I had to eliminate it from my rotation. Soon as I did that, the impingement was over.

The other chronic issue was minor golfer’s elbow. The culprit is the classic barbell flat bench. Every new increase in weight means a new stimulus for my elbow tendons to acclimatize. Unlike the upright row, I did not want to get rid of the flat bench. Barbell benching is part of the big three compound lifts (squat, bench, deadlift), and it’s as classic as it gets. The movement also happens to be fantastic for my chest growth.

Fortunately, this $20 piece of rubber completely solved my problem. A few sets of Reverse Tyler Twist with the Theraband FlexBar (per day) seems so uncomplicated to be effective, but it really did cure my chronic golfer’s elbow. Obviously, everybody’s anatomy is different, but for such a low price it’s worth a shot if you too suffer from the same malady.

God willing that’s all the injuries I will ever suffer from weightlifting. It’s not the pain that I am fearful for. Rather, it’s the missed time in the gym that an injury would undoubtedly result in. The proverbial gains must go forever onwards and upwards.

Here's a good reason

I think it’s ridiculous if people are truly not buying a Tesla car just because of Elon Musk’s antics in the Trump administration. The Model 3 and the Model Y remain some of the best electric cars you can buy. If I were in the market, I would not hesitate to buy one, no matter how supposedly toxic the CEO is. Much like you can appreciate the god tier levels of musicality with Kanye’s earlier work, even though the current him has clearly gone off the deep end.

Obviously, car purchase is not a rational decision. Otherwise we’d all be driving Toyota Corollas for multiple decades. America has such a robust car market precisely because so much emotion is tied to the vehicles we drive. We buy a BMW because we detest the usage of turn signals. Guys buy overly large trucks so they can (potentially) run over spandex-wearing wimps on bicycles.

So I can understand (though still ridiculous) why people are souring on the Tesla brand. In this current political climate, the Tesla badge carries a negative connotation. People think that owning a Tesla car is an endorsement of whatever the heck Elon Musk is doing. Though I wouldn’t go too far with that line of thinking; those folks mustn’t look up how Volkswagen was founded…

What should deter people away from buying a Tesla is the enormous cost to insure one. For fun exercise, I hypothetically replaced my expensive to insure BMW M2 with a poverty-spec Tesla Model 3. And there was practically no change to the insurance. Comparatively, if I were to swap the BMW with a Toyota 4Runner, my insurance premium would be cut in half.

I should sell the M2 and get a 4Runner…

Not again!

I am incredibly peeved the insurance on my BMW M2 is going up once again. What is going on? I thought inflation has stabilized? A $180 increase for the next six month period, for a car I seldomly drive, and has had zero accidents on record. Worst of all, Progressive - the insurance company underwriting the policy - is the cheapest of all the major companies.

Contributing to the problem, a double-edge sword, is the M2 has kept its value really well. The lack of severe depreciation means in the event of an accident, the replacement cost remains high. Of course, it’s nice to have a low-depreciating car, in the event I do sell it in the future.

And sell it I just might if the insurance cost either keeps increasing, or doesn’t go down. I can afford to insure a high-performance sports car, but I kind of don’t want to anymore. Gone is the era of car enthusiasm where I would expend as much money as my (meager) income can afford to keep a car around. I’m in my having a lot of money saved in the bank as a cushion era. As the kids say these days.

The thing about hobbies is the opportunity to continually dump money into them is kind of endless. The photographer who can’t stop buying new cameras and lenses, or the car guy who can’t stop swapping cars every few years (that was me). Now that I am a year deep into weightlifting, I’ve been eyeing upgrades to the gear I am currently using. A better barbell would sure be nice to have.

Goods news about lifting gear is that most can literally last a lifetime. I mean, weights are weights. Plates and dumbbells don’t lose kilograms the more years you own them. A solid barbell can be passed onto your progeny. So can a power rack.

It’s simple, really: buy quality, keep forever.

Nice new fence you got there. It would be a shame if something happened to it.

There's no fairness here

I am still slightly peeved that my car insurance has gone up 20% in this recent renewal period. This, for a car I only drive for weekend leisure, and have zero accidents and claims on record. Inflation sure is a bitch, isn’t it?

What is keeping me peeved is responsible drivers like me are practically subsidizing those who are not so responsible. It’s not me that insurance is worry about - it’s the other drivers on the road. California insurance minimums are too low to afford anything. Cars are so laden with technology that a simple bumper repair on a 2021 Toyota Corolla is over $10,000 (personal knowledge). Any basic fender-bender caused by me - god forbid - my insurance is out at least five-figures just to fix the other party’s car!

No wonder my premium has increased. And I thought it was suppose to decrease consistently as I get older! Lies!

The worst of the worst driving out in our roads are those uninsured and unlicensed. If one of those drivers were to hit me - I am absolutely on my own. There’s no opposing insurance to get money from. And because those who are uninsured aren’t likely to have any assets, there’s nothing for me to sue after, either. The proverbial rock cannot be made to bleed.

Again: the responsible drivers with proper insurance are paying for the subset of drivers who are not insured, or under-insured. It’s not fair, but that’s life. We got to protect our assets and cover potential risks.

It’s sad to see on the r/insurance subreddit folks complaining after accidents. It would typically involve an offending driver with no insurance, but the victim also doesn’t have collision coverage on their policy! So they had a perfectly working car, then boom, now they don’t. Their own insurance won’t pay to fix the car, and the other driver doesn’t have anything. Bad luck, absolutely. Bad planning? Heck yeah. The victims should have had collision on their policies.

Got to cover any downside risks that you cannot afford!

Ask any car enthusiast

A very sad thread on the r/cars subreddit today. A guy’s dream car - a 2024 Nissan Skyline GT-R - got stolen right out of his garage while he was away on business. The original poster says the R35-generation GT-R has been a dream of his since high school, and he’s worked his butt off to finally make the purchase. Then boom, gone in a flash like that. As a fellow car enthusiast, I empathize greatly. Having your pride and joy stolen is just about the worst nightmare.

Even if yo get it back, it’ll never be and feel the same.

Some of the responders mocked OP for being overly dramatic. A dream car is still a car - this isn’t like the lost of a family member. Besides, being so new, insurance will surely cover the full replacement cost no issues. It’s a loss, yes, but OP will soon be made whole.

For sure from a monetary standpoint the GT-R owner will be made whole. But from a mental perspective, the entire game has changed. To have something so valuable stolen right off your property is an act of violation that’s difficult to erase. A house has turned to not a home. Even if OP were to buy another GT-R, he would always have PTSD-like second thoughts when parking in that garage. Every strange noise emanating from there will jolt him to stressful alert.

It’s not simply about dollars and cents, my friends. Peace of mind is worth infinite.

Insurance on cars such as the GT-R (and other often-stolen vehicles such as the Dodge Charger/Challenger) must be ruinously expensive. It probably costs a whole car payment’s worth per month to cover the risks. Also: it’s seemingly that easy for thieves to clone an electronic car key and drive your car away? I guess anything electronic - like the push-button ignition start that most new cars are equipped with these days - can be hacked, if the incentives are high enough.

If it’s not save even in your own garage… what else can you do, honestly? Press F to pay respects.

So so sad

It is supremely tragic what happened at West Portal this past Saturday. A Mercedes-Benz SUV plowed into a family of four waiting at a bus shelter. The mom, dad, and one-year old son is dead. The youngest three-month-old baby is still in critical condition as of this writing. The driver of the Benz - a 78-year old woman - remains in custody.

A sad situation all round. An infant - god bless that he survives - is without his family. The 78-year old woman will have to live with the steep consequences for the rest of her life. She will be utterly shunned by the community if it turns out she was speeding/road-raging deliberately. Destroying lives over ego; that warrants a one-way trip to the gulags, in my opinion.

This episode is a reminder for my friends who are with new babies: get your life insurance and will in order. I know it is icky and unsettling to discuss death, especially when biologically it is still so far away (god willing). But for the sake of the children, how they get taken care of in the event of an unfortunate accident is to be prepared for now. All it takes is a rogue driver in a speeding SUV (allegedly) to upend your entire reality.

Because your death may not garner any sympathy points from the public to have a GoFundMe for your orphaned baby.

If you’re in the old lady driving a Mercedes-Benz demographic, your insurance rates are going up! That 78-year old woman did so much damage to limb and property that I don’t think even a five million umbrella policy will cover it all. I sure hope the two adult victims have a life insurance policy for the orphaned infant. Because I bet there’s not nearly enough juice to be squeezed out of the Benz driver’s insurance.