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Grimas

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Everything posted by Grimas

  1. I'm more than happy with my GE especially since my card covers the cost. I haven't gotten it for the wife and teens since they have done overseas once in 3 years because of COVID and with the Clear trial and with MP app, it hasn't added any time to my travel in the past 3 years. (MP line in IHA was almost as fast as GE,,) Wife will get her GE this year as she will be coming on business trips with me in the coming years as the kids are old enough to now leave at home... Bigger issue for me will be when the fam all goes back to Europe as kids and I also have EU passports while wife doesn't so we'll have to wait in the non EU citizen line with her or divorce proceeding will initiate...
  2. Thankfully we had plenty of time, but is it asking too much for them to have a rudimentary knowledge of a program that CBP offers? I know you're in Canada, but it is a US Customs area you are going into. I used to travel to Calgary quite a bit for work. Even with a GE card, they wouldn't let you jump to the front of security so I went ahead and got a NEXUS card. It's a pain to obtain and to renew as you basically have to do an interview in Canada as well to get one...
  3. Finally got my GE renewed after 4 months on the day I was actually returning to the US (but didn't need to do another "interview"). Family was in tow - they don't have GE -and we used the "Mobile Pass" app to digitally fill-out the entry form and submitted it when we landed. At IAH, if you used the app, you have a special line where you jump the line and we got through almost as fast as I would have with GE... Costs nothing...
  4. Many trips to Venice due to cheap flights from Oslo so we went there multiple times just because of the cost. Used Venice airport as a base to drive to other locations after the first trip as we got bored there after the first trip...
  5. Late to the discussion but we got bored of Venice after a few days (19 Euro Norwegian flights from our home at the time so multiple trips)... Rented a car and drove over to Spit in Croatia over the course of a week the last time we were there and loved various stops along the route. Still not as good though as an agriturismo in Tuscany...
  6. User name fits after that drive...
  7. I didn't realize Mai's reopened after the fire...
  8. We rented a condo on 40th between 5th ave and the beach in PDC. Lots of nice resturants/bars in the area 38th and 5th area and a great location if you are looking for a more laid back, non-party scene. The beach club right at the end of 40th was perfect for us - 500 pesos per person for chair and umbrella with the full amount credited to food and drinks. The north end was much more chill -residential/expat - than closer to centro which was more touristy. Beaches ok but we took a day trip to Cozumel on the ferry and most definitely it was better there for clear water and snorkeling. We did like the vibe in PDC more than Isla, Tulum, Akumel or Puerto Adventuras in terms of going out to eat and hitting the local bars and having a variety... Wife even discussed getting a place in the area for when we retire in a few years... Teens found a workout place on 28th and we had no fear when they took off on their own to work out. Of course, wife and I caught Covid while there so are dragging now that we are back...
  9. Miško Broliai need to remember their roots and start blowing up some Russian rail lines again...
  10. Looks like a fun trip home flying from Cancun to Houston tomorrow...
  11. https://m.facebook.com/RedSargazo/ Good site for the status of beach conditions and the seaweed...
  12. He actually did something before being an announcer as well...
  13. Lithuania remained something like 93% Lithuanian during the USSR days and the hate of anything Russian is still strong today. Kids in the American school in Vilnius are complaining of "discrimination" since the invasion and the attitude is "so what? What did you expect..."
  14. After a regional power outage across all of PDC and Cozumel that lasted almost 3 hours (cell also out), we hit the beach and there wasn't much junk on the beach. Yea, there was some but they had cleared it off by noon... Water was a little dirty from the rain they got on Monday.
  15. USA Transfers still top notch. But watch out for the bar where you wait- ordered 2 margs and a beer and they wanted 90 USD. Uh, no and I’m glad I asked before started making them…. Driver had cold beers in the van- 2 for 5 bucks…
  16. Southern and western side of the house getting all the sun on ground floor is the attached garage which stays pretty cool (foam insulation on the garage doors that used to take a beating with the setting sun. The attic above the garage has the radiant barrier sprayed onto the under roof and it does make a difference in that part of the attic. Not gonna get any relief from crape myrtles on that side of the house unless they are 30 feet tall and i only have limited space to plant anything due to the property width... ( Previous neighbor pulled out some 20' tall plants on his side of the fence to widen his driveway...)
  17. Thanks - Stayed at a condo on the beach in Akumal a few years ago and had to cross 30' of it to get to the water...
  18. Following... Headed there tomorrow with the family. Stayin in a condo on the north end of 5th avenue on nte. 40 a block from the beach. Close to beach but far enough from the party scene. In our case, it's basically eating, drinking and beach in Playa. Beach club recommendations where chair rental fees get applied to food/drinks? (Want more of a read a book and get drinks on the beach rather than the bachelor party scene...) We are near Mamasitas and Encanto Beach but looking for other options...
  19. Yea, I got a NEXUS card for that specific reason but to renew it, the nearest location to do the renewal from Texas was Detroit...
  20. Argh- 4 months and still waiting...
  21. I guess I missed you post with the "data". I guess the banks and private equity people I deal with daily missed your posts as well... I apologize for all of us in advance... My last comment I'm gonna make on this thread as this isn't the CR but didnt you post 2-3 years ago that you spent 15k on a $30k solar system for your house with the subsidies and discounts covering the other half you didn't have to pay? Not that I have anything against taking advantage of anything available but would you have still bought/leased the system without the subsidies/discounts? Looks more attractive when someone else is footing half the total cost...
  22. To be honest, I don't remember the source of the graph was as I has it on a folder on my hard drive. Regardless - go ahead and drop nuke out of the discussion if you want for arguments sake - solar and wind still are at the mercy of the weather/location/season and are not the "cheapest way' to generate power. Go to the base level of cost vs. power generation (MINUS gov't subsidies and the utilization of existing infrastructure like pipelines/powerlines/refineries/inverters/batteries/etc.) and show me where the cost per KW generated is better with "renewables" than most existing sources of energy... Until energy storage capacity become more efficient (which it isn't in large scale applications) to capture generated as well as take into account that you can only generate power say, 50% of the time depending on location/season, they aren't efficient as other sources of energy like hydro, coal or gas. Coal and gas (and hydro but it's being more limited now by weather as well) are "stored energy" - meaning I can convert them to energy on demand which I can't do currently with solar or wind. IIRC, solar is about 15-20% efficient (in terms of energy created when the sun hits the panes for those "12 hours" (time/season/latitude) a day) vs (up to) 40% for coal and up to 60% for natural gas where the remaining energy is lost to some form of heat. In my earlier comment, DONG/Orstad would not have taken the path it did if the government subsidies didn't exist and would have lost money and gone under if those government subsidies didn't exist. Take the subsidies out of the equation (for oil/gas/hydro/solar/wind) and level the playing field to actual energy efficiency and there isn't a fair comparison to say renewables are a superior way to generate the cheapest power... Someone (via their taxes) is covering the costs for the subsidies but in terms of pure energy efficiency for generating on-demand power regarding the supply of energy, there are more efficient ways to generate power 24/7 than "renewables"... At least until energy stage technology (batteries) gets better, you can't run an economy 100% on "renewables"... (A factory that needs to run 24/7 - are you gonna depend 100% on "renewables"? Good luck with that... Mercedes in Germany will soon find out...) Drop subsidies out of all - oil/gas/hydro/nuclear/solar/wind/hydro- and then show me "renewables" (sorry, only hydro is truly "renewable") are the cheapest way to generate power compared to the others... (Similar when folks at Chesapeake/PetroHawk/others tried to say "unconventionals" were a different type of reservoir and convinced the SEC to change the financial "rules" - ignore the "sunk costs" of leasing the land and everything else in the pre-drill economics and let's just focus on costs and profit once we drill the well and forecast 30 years of production as these don't behave like "conventional reservoirs" - decline curves don't apply here!- when in reality, if you don't make back your investment in 18-24 months, you didn't make money...) Ignoring the actual physics/science and "trust us, it (appears) cheaper"...
  23. Not trying to turn this into a CR discussion but you are absolutely incorrect. If you look at the EROEI (Energy Return On Energy Investment) – how much energy we get back if we spend to generate 1 unit of energy. For solar this means – how much more energy does a solar panel generate in its lifetime than is used to create it? Solar and wind suck compared to other sources of power generation and storage based on the cost to generate it... This calculation is based on what it costs to construct the facility (the panel, the windmill, the well, the coal or nuke plant) with all costs included. Wind and solar energy can't be stored efficiently until better battery technology is developed... Need more energy right now, feed more coal/gas/neutron into the plant as it's energy stored. Wind not blowing or it's dark outside, solar or wind sit idle and generate nothing... Coal, hydro, nuke and coal can run 24/7 if needed. Sun and solar - well, that depends on the weather... New nuke technology is closer to 120 on the graph below... (Buffered is the equivalent of energy storage...) (And no, I'm not a nuke guy other than it makes the most sense in the long-term future. And no, I don't want a want a plant anywhere near where i live unless you send me a royalty or lease check as mailbox money...)
  24. Not sure if the free trial works more than once... I did it last year with the family - I'm GE but they don't travel enough to justify it - and it was easy and I canceled the trial after the trip. Signed up again for the free trial again last week with a different email but with family in tow but not sure it'll work a second time since they have our scans in the "system"...
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