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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 2nd, 2023

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  • At one point in my life I designed bathrooms and kitchens. I’ve sold thousands of faucets. Here’s a few points on regular retail faucets in the US.

    Expensive faucets, you are paying for the design (Grohe), or for quality parts (Kohler).

    Cheap faucets are made with cheap parts and are often old designs from major brands. These knock-offs are sold under store brand names usually (Aquasource/Lowes, Glacier Bay/Home Depot) and are made of cheap plastic. Avoid these unless you plan on replacing (rentals).

    If you buy Grohe, don’t buy a US made model. Another company paid to use the name and ‘style’ in the US but the interior parts are cheap plastic bits and some things are modified to reduce the cost of manufacturing. Not worth the extra money they charge.

    For most people I recommend sticking to the big names. Moen, Delta, Kohler, etc. They come with good warranties and parts are available everywhere.

    You can still find really neat old faucets and repair them. Chicago, Price Pfister, Eljer had some good stuff back in the day and you can get new parts from Danco.










  • At one point the VA assured me that a veteran’s medical debt is to the government and is not released simply because the veteran passed away.

    Even things like the cable bill took months to resolve because we didn’t want to pay for services that weren’t needed after death. (It’s hard to find and cancel every account for someone who died and didn’t keep track of things.)







  • Had a good doctor who told me you can’t “try to quit”. You can’t “cut back”. You can’t quit for other people or before you are ready. But once you are… he said every successful quitter he helped, quit cold turkey. You have to stop 100% or you won’t stop. He offered meds to help with the emotional and physical side effects. I declined.

    I was a smoker for 20+ years, many of those I was well over a pack a day and I worked in a smoking bar for over a decade. It’s probably too late for me is what I thought, BUT I DID IT.

    Quit 2 and a half years ago. It hasn’t gotten any easier yet. I still want to smoke daily. But I haven’t had a single puff. I still hang out with friends that smoke but I did change my normal environment. (Quit while I was moving to make breaking associated habits easier.)

    The things I found most helpful when the craving kicks in… Exercise was the best. HARD physical labor. Also sleeping and eating. Luckily I was in decent shape already so eating a bit more often wasn’t a huge deal. The tons of extra exercise just burned it off or helped build up some muscle mass I didn’t know was possible.





  • You have lots of good answers posted but here is the trick…You have to START.

    You don’t need to sign up at the gym today and build a schedule to work out. That’s way too much commitment. Instead just go outside.

    That’s it. Just put down the phone and go outside. Spend 5 or 10 mins out there. You didn’t run a marathon, but you’ve done something today. Maybe later today you can go outside again. Tomorrow so the same thing. Put the phone down and go outside for a short time.

    You gotta start somewhere, so make it easy and start small. Eventually you’ll spend more time outside and less time doing nothing. Maybe you see cool plants and start getting into gardening. Maybe you find that walking isn’t so bad and you find a park with a nice trail and work into jogging? Maybe the kid down the street wrecks his minibike in front of your house while you’re outside and you stop to help and think the tiny motorcycle is cool and get inspired to start riding.

    tldr- Don’t just pick someone else’s hobby. Put down the phone and go experience life outside your home. The hobby will likely find you when you start paying attention instead of distracting yourself.