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[quote=Coronita]

I remember I cracked one of my wisdom tooth, and my old dentist wanted to do a crown,etc. And it was estimated to be $800. I was like, why don’t you just extract the wisdom tooth, since that’s what people do anyway. And he’s like, oh you can’t do that, because your bite will be off, yada yada yada. So I went to another dentist who told me that I should just extract the tooth. It was $150, and insurance paid for most of it.

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I think you did the right thing. Once there is a crack in a tooth it is just going to keep getting damaged, infected, etc. Not worth trying to save. And that crown probably would have ended up more than $800.

If you ever need an immediate second opinion, try Dental Express in Point Loma. They can usually get you an exam appointment with x-rays and consult in 24 hours and don’t mind serving as second opinion consultants.

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Your teeth are constantly “remineralizing” or repairing themselves.

Processed food is bad, but when I went to an all-raw diet my jaw bone hurt from all the chewing. We evolved smaller weaker jaws than apes as we learned to cook and “process” food, leaving more space for brains.

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[quote=Coronita]I think the Mercedes AMG station wagon is way overdone.

X7, not a big fan of it.[/quote]

The X7 is pretty in person. Someone near my office has a purple one. It must have sold poorly the first couple years, wikipedia says it hit dealerships in 3/2019 but I didn’t start noticing them until last year.

The fastest I have ever driven a car was my old boss’s E-Class wagon in Europe, about 140MPH.

It was an awkward boat driving in urban areas of Europe, but fun on the highways.

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Join me!

This RSD house is awesome and a great location:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4054-Baghdad-Ct-El-Cajon-CA-92019/17041092_zpid/

I am not a fan of the “Baghdad Ct” street name. Probably a prior Chaldean owner named it, and you can give it a less Saddam-y name since it is a private street with only this one house on it.

I’d probably buy this house right now if I didn’t just buy a similar one!

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Hyundai Tucson?
Toyota Highlander?

Those sound very big for a solo commute.
They seem to be a waste of gas, and harder/less fun to drive.

The Highlander is the #1 mom-mobile in Rancho San Diego. I have seen three of them all parked next to each other in the grocery parking lot.

Some sharp large and semi-lux sedans that caught my eye on my commute:

Camry V6 TRD (301 HP!)

Hyundai Sonata Hybrid (starts at only 28k)

Mazda6 (discontinued last year, but looked really nice when I was at the dealer)

The Toyota Avalon is nicer inside than entry-level BMW/Lexus/Mercedes. I have been driven in them in Uber and the back seat is huge too.

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[quote=Coronita]

And there’s plenty of sienna minivans. Might not be able to get below MSRP, but definitely shouldn’t be paying above it.

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Here’s a post from a month ago on reddit:

I live in Virginia and it’s very hard to even find the available Sienna 2023 due to its popularity. I contacted 10 + dealers and the average wait is 6 – 12 months or you gotta pay an extra $8k – $10k markup price for immediately available Sienna 2023s.

All 8 of the Toyota of Orange are listed as “in transit” and “call for price.”

If San Diego dealers are charging 11k over MSRP I really doubt they are MSRP in LA.

The obvious solution is to wait for the coming recession! Or maybe buy this 2011 Toyota Sienna Limo:

View post on imgur.com

I dealt with this a year ago and ruled out Toyota for this reason. Seems to be slightly better but the recession hasn’t really hit Toyota dealers yet.

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[quote=Coronita]Gzz, you know this is calling for you….

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I am not against a minivan, I learned to drive in one. But the Japanese ones are expensive now, and as you mention, there are minimal savings going used. Selection of used ones is very limited too.

The Odyssey starts at 39k after “fees” and before tax.

Sienna has zero in-stock inventory at my closest two dealers, and they appear to be marking them up 11k over MSRP, so they practically start at $54 before tax.

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I purchased at Westcott Mazda in National City for msrp. The cx30s were mostly selling the day they arrived.

Mine was 32k+tax because I got the leather and all the interior upgrades. Both my loaded version and the base version for ~25k I think are great values.

My son is 99th percentile size (10 months old and wearing 3T clothing) and #2 is probably coming soon, and my parents now live with me. So we are starting to look now at big SUVs.

The big Mazda, the CX-9, is on our list. The CX-30 with car seat + stroller really just has room for 3 adults and minimal cargo.

But more likely than the CX-9 will be a large two-row SUV, one with an optional third row we won’t get. CX-9 a small third row is standard.

The Mazda heads-up display includes: directions, speed, and current speed limit, and if a stop sign is coming. It is really handy, no need to keep glancing down to check your speed. The nav heads up display even shows you what lane you should be in.

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2.5 months in, still loving it! 5500sf fills up fast, already thinking about a 2nd building. I am glad I went big.

It is nice that unlike in OB, I don’t have to worry about maxxing out the land, I can throw up a 1000sf 1-floor place pretty easily without damaging the value of the property.

In addition to really liking RSD, I am growing fond of El Cajon city. So much to do, such great variety of housing and shopping, so family friendly. We probably go into “downtown” El Cajon once a week and do a triple-grocery run of Sprouts, Grocery Outlet, and a rotating back and forth between a mexican or arab grocery store, of which there are many. I also like the quick drive to Jamul and to Granite Hills (unincorporated area just NE of El Cajon)

Favorite restaurants:
Hooleys Irish Pub & Grill: Creative Irish menu and great environment

Crafted Greens: Very high quality and healthy take out. Like Tender Greens but a bit better in every way.

Royal Sweets: Very high quality desserts at 1/2 the price of coastal bakeries. Middle eastern run, and the selection is about half middle eastern / half European.

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Over thanksgiving in the midwest we rented a Ford Expedition XL, tied for the largest non-van passenger vehicle you can buy.

Even the third row was comfy.

The interior fit and finishing were very nice too.

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I have had a Mazda CX-30 now for 15 months and really like it.

It was the largest SUV that still drove like a car.

The CX-5 is bigger inside but handles worse and hasn’t been updated as recently. On the other hand, it is easier to buy they are in stock.

The nice thing about both of them is they have a standard 189hp engine. Other cheaper small SUVs are really slow.

Of they very cheap SUVs, my favorite was the Hyundai Venue.

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I think the UTC area is a better value now than north PB, and has better access to high wage job centers for future appreciation. The buildings are newer too so lower costs.

I lived in north PB and really liked it there, very high level of amenities. But the RE there is just as expensive as La Jolla, though parts are in LJ school district. Driving from coastal north PB to the 5 or 52 was a long unpleasant slog that I would not do daily, but working from home there was idyllic.

I don’t have a great deal of confidence in this prediction, but I think the most likely scenario the next 2 years is inflation and rates drop hard starting this quarter and for all of 2023, but the economic weakness causing the rate drop keeps the housing market flat. Then starting in late 2023 prices resume rising.

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A friend sent me the same article. I agree with Krugman for the most part, but he doesn’t even get into all the reasons that inflation and interest rates are on a downward trend.

He misses inequality: more and more wealth is going to wealthy people who largely save it, increasing the supply and decreasing demand for loanable funds.

He’s a smart guy, he probably knows this and may have written about it elsewhere.

He may also be too partisan and liberal to admit that nearly all of the GOP and a big slice of the Democrats are firmly anti-inflation, and even more so the elites of the parties. We only got inflation now because of Covid/Ukraine, both unexpected and unprecedented events.

While I am personally pro-inflation, this is a very unpopular view and I know it will never prevail among the powerful in the US, EU, Japan, etc.

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I love my electric pole saw from harbor freight.

I cut about 40 dead branches from neglected orange trees this morning, and the battery only went down to 75%.

I am going to need some kind of tilling machine soon. The soil is extremely hard, I kept breaking solar lights because their plastic spikes couldn’t break the ground.

The level of rooster noise is ideal. When I did my Mexico study abroad, the roosters started at 5am and woke up all the dogs that then started barking, and this cacophony went on until 6:30. Not nice.

Here one of them is next door and others are close, but they are chill and the noise is like a faint and charming farm background noise.

I also like the extended golden hour period that starts abound 5 when the sun goes behind the mountains, but it is still very bright out and everything looks golden until sunset.

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I love it here in RSD. Saw a coyote and a roadrunner on the same day, both for the first time in my life in the wild. Just like loony toons.

Roadrunner was just hopping down my driveway and got within 20 feet of me and my brother in the middle of the morning. It hopped away when he saw us looking at him, but didn’t seem afraid.

The coyote I saw stalking my orange trees at about 9pm. I didn’t get a great look at him, so in theory it could be a large grey unleashed dog.

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