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15 hours ago, Deleterious said:

A friend has all EGO equipment.  Mower, snow blower, weed trimmer, and hedge clippers.  He raves about them all.  I would go that route if I cut my own grass.  I have a bigger yard so I would need a zero turn but I see EGO even has one of those now.

My son does that with Ryobi stuff, at least the smaller tools. 

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On 5/17/2023 at 12:30 AM, Deleterious said:

A friend has all EGO equipment.  Mower, snow blower, weed trimmer, and hedge clippers.  He raves about them all.  I would go that route if I cut my own grass.  I have a bigger yard so I would need a zero turn but I see EGO even has one of those now.

I've considered switching all of grass mower, snow blower, and weed wacker to battery powered.  I think the only thing holding me back, besides procrastination, is the earlier season grass mowing where the lawn is a little more unkempt at the beginning and the usually wetter weather.  Its not ideal with a gas mower either, but it seems like you can get away with that on a damper lawn if it needs to be done.

Or maybe I just get some goats and tell the wife to take care of the snow?

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16 minutes ago, casimir said:

I've considered switching all of grass mower, snow blower, and weed wacker to battery powered.  I think the only thing holding me back, besides procrastination, is the earlier season grass mowing where the lawn is a little more unkempt at the beginning and the usually wetter weather.  Its not ideal with a gas mower either, but it seems like you can get away with that on a damper lawn if it needs to be done.

Or maybe I just get some goats and tell the wife to take care of the snow?

The big problem with goats is they tend to over fertilize. 

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On 5/18/2023 at 6:33 AM, casimir said:

snow blower

I'd have no problem switching to battery for most of my yard stuff, but it'll be a long time before I'm comfortable doing that with my snow blower.  We can get some decent drifting where I live plus I'm at the end of a short dead end road and because of that we tend to be low priority with plowing. There's usually a few times a year when I'll have to carve out a path down the road.

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Not something I expect to worry about here, but when we lived in Michigan I can remember a few first snows of the season where I had to fight with the snow blower to get the gas/oil mix right (before switching to the synthetic stuff). If I could just pop the battery in (or charge it overnight) it would have saved a lot of angst.

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46 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

Not something I expect to worry about here, but when we lived in Michigan I can remember a few first snows of the season where I had to fight with the snow blower to get the gas/oil mix right (before switching to the synthetic stuff). If I could just pop the battery in (or charge it overnight) it would have saved a lot of angst.

Cold is a downside of all battery powered equip. Every kind of battery performs worse in cold weather. Some chemistries are better than others, but all suffer as the temperature falls. In theory, IC engines get a boost from cold weather as the it increases the cylinder charge density, but that I don't know if in practice that compensates for poorer fuel system performance in the cold.

Edited by gehringer_2
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Snow blowers are a real pet peeve of mine (I know, different thread). A decent two-stage that doesn't clog is damn expensive, and you have no idea how often you will need it. I think I fired mine up twice this year (and since I'm a cheapskate, it's not a two-stage and clogs like crazy).

Edited by Shades of Deivi Cruz
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36 minutes ago, Shades of Deivi Cruz said:

Snow blowers are a real pet peeve of mine (I know, different thread). A decent two-stage that doesn't clog is damn expensive, and you have no idea how often you will need it. I think I fired mine up twice this year (and since I'm a cheapskate, it's not a two-stage and clogs like crazy).

A few years ago we were told of a big snow coming and there was a news story about heart attacks so my wife strongly hinted we get one. I'm approaching 50 so I figured this would be the last one I ever buy.  I got the last one at Lowe's, around $900.  This was Dec 2021.

I've used it three times and once was just to use it when I didn't really need to.

 

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The USS Gerald R. Ford is on its first deployment.  It arrived in Oslo and will take part in drills/exercises before heading to the Arctic.  

This is the first ship in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers and will be replacing the Nimitz class carriers.  

Someone posted some pics of it sailing into Oslofjord. 

mmcg8ctddr1b1.jpg5rodadxddr1b1.jpg

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2 hours ago, Deleterious said:

The USS Gerald R. Ford is on its first deployment.  It arrived in Oslo and will take part in drills/exercises before heading to the Arctic.  

This is the first ship in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers and will be replacing the Nimitz class carriers.  

Someone posted some pics of it sailing into Oslofjord. 

mmcg8ctddr1b1.jpg5rodadxddr1b1.jpg

14 yrs since her keel was laid. The US Navy really needs a win with this ship because other than the Virginia subs their procurements have been a disaster for over a generation. DDG1, Littoral Combat Ship, Seawolf sub, A12, F18A, all ****canned programs.. And major screw-ups on the F35-C.  And still waiting for the Arliegh-Burke replacement 30 yrs later.

Edited by gehringer_2
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Random Thoughts/observations from my 6 days in Aruba:

What's the deal with Cologne being such a thing in Duty Free shops?

In Aruba there are no traffic signals.  Just roundabouts.  It worked fine.  It's not a big island and traffic wasn't bad anyway.  No real big cities there.

Customs going down was interesting and easy.  You fill out a form online, get emailed a QR code.  A lady asks us to scan our passport into a machine, it does its thing, then the gate lets you through, one by one.  We picked up our luggage, make our way through some doors, walked past two guys in uniform sitting at and on a desk talking to each other, not really interested in us, we went through some doors expecting more lines.... and we're outside.  That was it.

Coming back was different.  You check your bags with your airline, go through Aruba clearance and customs again, then enter a US thing where they check your boarding pass again, you pick up your luggage that you already gave the airline, then go through US Customs Process (They have a thing there which is great), put your luggage back on the proper conveyor for your airline, go through another TSA check, then you are free to board.  I liked being able to clear US customs in Aruba because then landing in the US is like a domestic flight. We had a connection so otherwise we'd have had to get our luggage and clear customs, then check it again.  I wonder how many other countries are like that, where the US has a CBP presence at the airport you depart from.

Aruba's temps are consistently high 90 and low 75 but there's a constant 15-20 MPH wind which makes it awesome.  Didn't feel hot at all.

I would go back in a heart beat.  We met a couple that's on their 26th consecutive annual trip there, outside of 2020.  The resort we were at was their favorite so that was a comfort.  We loved our place.  Had 5 restaurants of different varieties and buffets for lunch and dinner options.

 

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1 minute ago, chasfh said:

My wife and I are going to Curacao in January and expect the experience to be similar to yours.

I was a little worried about Aruba that it would be... too nice, if that makes sense.  I wanted to feel "Somewhere else".  We looked at other locations but places like the Bahamas didn't appeal to me, it's basically Florida and I expected it to be overrun with families and that's not what we wanted.  I also didn't want to go to a place like the Dominican where I'd be afraid to go anywhere off the resort.  Already went to Jamaica.  Mexico is not interesting to me.  But Aruba was perfect.  It didn't feel like it was a dirt poor place but also didn't feel like I was in Beverly Hills or even Clearwater or Orange Beach.  It does have it's million dollar homes on the north end, which we drove through, but overall in our travels it looked like just normal people in small houses taking care of their property.   You definitely felt like you were in a foreign country.

We picked an adults only resort.  The only negative thing we encountered was they let some people smoke cigars in the pool area and that bothered my wife. Didn't bother me.  Everyone was very nice.  The restaurants at the resort service just enough food that filled you up but didn't make you full to your stomach.  We eat too much in the US.  The portions were perfect.

We made up for at the buffets though.

 

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