[Coronita]

The rebate for replacing grass with fake grass is now $3.50/sqft in san diego

A key element of Wednesday’s policy changes is reviving an incentive program for such landscaping changes and adding artificial grass as an option. Residents will get $1.50 per square foot they replace, which they could combine with a $2-per-square-foot state program to receive a total of $3.50 per square foot.

[Coronita]

FWIW:

Allstate does NOT underwrite new homeowner policies in CA anymore (at least not in san diego). As a result, my allstate agent uses other carriers.

Two insurance companies that he uses:
1. Universal Insurance North America
http://www.uihna.com/en-US/
2. Tower/Integon National Insurance Company

I ended up going with UINA. I’m not in a fire hazard zone, so they also might not insure you, but you can try. I switched because I previously had a homeowner’s policy from Allstate along with umbrella. Unfortunately, the cost of umbrella shot up significantly and my liability coverage was drastically reduced so I switched over to a much better umbrella coverage for much less. I found out that left a gap in personal liability that my allstate primary policy didn’t want to provide (at least not at a reasonable price). So my agent quoted me for homeowner insurance using two underwriters he normally uses for everyone that wants new homeowners insurance. It turns on the price was almost the same, with better coverage than my previous allstate policy.

PM me if you want to contact my agent and talk to him.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN]What would this restriction do to the hoa areas that have perfectly green lawn? Would people in 4S/feel sur/Carmel valley/etc start to tear it their lawn?[/quote]

Funny you should mention that. I just got an hoa letter that said

“Dear Homeowner, due to the water restrictions, using synthetic lawn is now permitted in the front yard. Please submit your changes to architecture change board.”

One of my neighbors got fed up with her lawn being brown, despite watering it all the time, so she ended up taking out the lawn and went for a desert landscape, succulent look. I just use a can of green spray paint.

Actually, I do try to recycle my water. When we wash vegetables, we wash in a pail, and then I empty it out onto the plants and lawn. I went with a rinseless car wash every 2 months now, and when I do wash, it’s over my lawn with a 3 gallon bucket. I take really quick showers, and don’t let the water run waiting for it to warm up, and folks in my family end up doing the same.

A showerhead flows at worst 2.5 gallons per minute. 10 minute showers end up being 25 gallons of water. More efficient showerheads are 1.5-1.75 gallons/minute. So a 10 minute shower is like 15-17.5 gallons of water.

I was thinking more about reclaiming water for other things. For example: laundry, dishwaster, and even shower. Water from those sources aren’t *that* dirty, and are perfect for watering plants, grass as long as it’s not for stuff meant to be eaten. I looked into how one could build a simple system, but to retrofit it into your existing plumbing would be difficult i think.

My water usage charges are around $40-50… But my entire bill ends up being close to $200 every two month. There’s a lot of fixed item charges and sewage charges.
I’m wondering more how this will affect people with pools and golf courses.

[Coronita]

In CA expect to see 1 gallon of drinking water to eventually be the same if not more than 1 gallon of gas.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=The-Shoveler]I saw an article on Geo engineering where they proposed taking medium sized boats (maybe 40 foot)
And putting high pressure pumps and spray ocean water a few thousand feet in the air a few hundred miles off the coast of California.

I say give that a try.
(although we may get permanent June gloom)

A billion dollars should be enough for say a few hundred of these boats for a several year (trial).[/quote]
At this point, I think any option is better than rationing. We should think outside the box. Instead of trying to ration our water, why not spend money to try various different options to see which would work best and cheapest.[/quote]

It would be good if there were better reclaimed water systems… That or people can start peeing on their own lawn. Rich in nitrogen, I’m told…

Run acres of solar to generate electricity to desalinate ocean water.

[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]
I still play the lottery (I know it’s a waste of money), but for me it’s kind of like when I go to Vegas, [/quote]

Isn’t that what the stock market is for these days? 🙂

[Coronita]

I don’t know. Me thinks the future is kinda promising. At least from a society point of view. Social media seems to be making a pretty big impact on influencing social policy.

Take for instance this new indiana religious freedom law. There’s so much outcry of it, politicians now are backpeddling to undo it.

An ex-CFO who went into a chick-fil-a that verbally abused some poor minimum wage worker about what a terrible thing chick-fil-a was in not supporting gay rights and attacking her verbally for working there met a social media uproar to the point that he can’t find a job, with his name all over the internet.

Maybe this social media thing will allow for things to move towards a populist viewpoint, for better or worse…

Modern day social shaming for bullies and bullying policies. Might not be such a bad thing.

The only problem I see is that financially responsible people in the U.S. are in the minority. I don’t know what that says for those of us that are financially responsible in the future. Maybe it’s a good thing to pretend to act poor and financially irresponsible..You know, to blend in.

And the great news is at least for me, there’s always richer people I can point the finger at and say “it’s their fault..I’m just a middle class salary slave that drives a POS 20 year old miata”….(pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and never mind what was spent on upgrades…Besides, I charged all that, am making $20 minimum finance payments on a 20+%APR credit line…

Damn those evil 1% rich people that control 90% of this country’s wealth and their banks…..:) )

[Coronita]

[quote=bearishgurl]

The problem with at least half of Gen X and all of Gen Y is that their expectations for everything material are much higher than that of the boomers and beyond so they are more of an “instant gratification, throwaway society.” [/quote]

Generalize much? Every older fart generation always thinks the younger generation is always worse. I’m sure my parents have something to say about some of the baby boomers who are financially irresponsible.

[Coronita]

At one point in time, this sort of thing use to tick me off.

And then I’m reminded that there are vast majority of others for which it didn’t pan out this way for them. So for every corner case we see for which irresponsible people slipped through and “got away with it”, we’ve seen a majority of others for which did not get away with it. And it is from the vast majority of others that did lose their homes or did force to sell short, they created a great opportunity for me to buy at really low prices more than once.

So at least for me, I think it evens out.

There will always be irresponsible people in this country. And no matter how responsible you think others should be or want others to be, you have no control over that. That said, wait for the next financial mishap (when/if that happens) and then it evens out.

Quoting a wise realtor friend.

“At this point, it’s not whether you won or lost this game…It’s really about how much more you wanted to win by…”

An interesting perspective…And a good reason why I sleep well at night.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]
If it is so important for you that your kid gets accepted to Ivy league, than surely you wouldn’t risk your kid being contaminated by the SD public schools.[/quote]

Well, you need some kids to make up the bottom of the curve :)..Sorry, just kidding, couldn’t resist.

[Coronita]

Speak of the devil. Autoblog just did an article just now…

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/03/26/spike-air-cooled-porsche-911-prices/

What’s driving the spike in air-cooled Porsche 911 prices

The E30 M3 supposedly is worth $70k now. Almost the same price of a new M3.

[Coronita]

There comes a time when you get sufficiently old enough, you just don’t give a shit what other people think anymore.

I think that usually sets in when you’re 40 (at least it did for me). Because statistically, your life is already 1/2 over.

[Coronita]

We use to joke about the different science degrees at the Q decades ago…

B.S. = Bullshit….

M.S. = More shit….

PhD = Piled Higher and Deeper…

Irony is that the Q was one of the few places that having they the correct PhD might actually make a difference in some areas. (Software, not so much, but other areas related to the standards)…. Simply put, if certain jobs requiring R&D.. But only if you want to do those jobs and you can qualify to do those jobs. Those jobs don’t necessarily pay any better than other jobs, and specialization to that degree has both pros and cons.

I’m not sure if a masters in C.S. is really that beneficial. Most of the time, it’s required for H1-B’s for employment. But for non-H1-B folks, you probably don’t need it, provided you have very good fundamentals and experience. Some kids these days can code pretty decently going into college.

You know, if you want to get a masters in C.S. these days, it will cost about $8k online from a reputable school: Georgia Tech

http://www.gizmag.com/georgia-tech–graduate-computer-science-degree-mooc/28763/

For other areas like finance and legal, it probably is a little different. More like a fraternity (at least that would the appearance of what I’ve seen, but it’s limited and probably not inclusive) Sibling that is in i-banking and peers seem to all have similar backgrounds. Top rank undergrad + top rank mba. But then again, my sibling and her peers tends to be elitist, lol.

For the record, I don’t have a masters. 4 years was enough for me. At some point, I was considering going back 1-2 years for a masters when I was younger. But then the thought of missing $$$$ during those years and the lure of silly valley stock options preempted that. Oh well.

[Coronita]

[quote=all]Deleting is futile

https://web.archive.org/web/20150315011901/http://piggington.com/ot_location_weigh_your_car%5B/quote%5D

yes, but it doesn’t give spammers a context to spam

[Coronita]

I sent you a PM for details.

[Author]

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