Something Random
- Thread starter ddrueding
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Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
I don't exactly jump at the chance to go to baseball games, but the place where White Sox play is uniquely awful. Wrigley field has a Red Line stop directly next to it and it's a very old place full of character. The Sox place is like bench seating at a McDonald's. I wind up at a baseball game every couple years. Usually the best time is just watching somebody who spent $200 on beer try to navigate a lot of stairs.
I have seen the Chicago Sky WNBA team play a few times. The tickets are cheap, their court is easy to get to (it's right next to the downtown convention center) and the players and audiences are decidedly queer, which is a very different vibe from other pro sports events. It's also a lot easier to interact with the players. The whole WNBA thing came to my attention because there's a team called the Valkyries, which is the name my partner used to work under. I bought a team shirt with "her" name on it and eventually we decided we had to actually go to a game. My partner is ironically more interested in football, but I've taken several out of town guests to see either Cubs or Sky mostly because both of their stadiums are extremely close to train stops. The football stadium is also accessible but 1. Apparently they're not playing there much longer and 2. I'm not OK paying $300/person to sit through a game I don't care about in the open air, right off the lake shore and in the fall.
I have seen the Chicago Sky WNBA team play a few times. The tickets are cheap, their court is easy to get to (it's right next to the downtown convention center) and the players and audiences are decidedly queer, which is a very different vibe from other pro sports events. It's also a lot easier to interact with the players. The whole WNBA thing came to my attention because there's a team called the Valkyries, which is the name my partner used to work under. I bought a team shirt with "her" name on it and eventually we decided we had to actually go to a game. My partner is ironically more interested in football, but I've taken several out of town guests to see either Cubs or Sky mostly because both of their stadiums are extremely close to train stops. The football stadium is also accessible but 1. Apparently they're not playing there much longer and 2. I'm not OK paying $300/person to sit through a game I don't care about in the open air, right off the lake shore and in the fall.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
I used to go to either Mets or Yankees games at least a few times a summer with my late father. He was a die-hard Yankees fan. He also may have come close to having a professional baseball career himself. He used to play in some kind of baseball club when he was in his 20s. Occasionally scouts would come to look for new prospects. He was approached by someone from the Red Sox. As a hard-core Yankees fan needless to say he wasn't interested in playing for the Yankee's arch enemy. I often wonder how his life might have been different had he been approached by a Yankees scout.
I was semi-seriously considering a professional cycling career in my early 20s but never was in any circles where a scout might have approached me. Once I learned of all the doping going on in cycling during that era I'm glad I didn't choose this path.
I was semi-seriously considering a professional cycling career in my early 20s but never was in any circles where a scout might have approached me. Once I learned of all the doping going on in cycling during that era I'm glad I didn't choose this path.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My part of the world has just had terrible storms. Sustained 90mph winds. There are a million people in Northwest Indiana and Chicago's with suburbs without power. I don't expect to get power back for a couple weeks. They aren't running TRAINS here because of all the crap on the tracks. This is the second time in two months that it's been like this. It's bad enough that cars can't get within 15m of my apartment from all the downed trees, and we're so close to the lake that we're last on the priority list.
I spent my day today looking in on single moms, putting gas in cannisters (I waited two hours to get gas; there are only 2 stations open in my entire county), handing out power banks and making runs for powdered milk and bottled water. I secured a place to spend the weekend Northwest of Chicago.
Sure enough, about halfway there, my engine misfired.
There's no mechanic with power where I live, so now my car is at some random mechanic in Cicero, Illinois who thinks they might be able to look at Friday after next AND I just took a $150 Uber home. At least the Airbnb people fully refunded my stay.
Since I'm spending money now anyway, I went ahead and bought a $700 solar powered power station. Maybe I'll be able to run a fan at some point this weekend.
On top of all that, cellular service in my area is spotty for everyone. My phone is telling me it can't even find roaming towers about 40% of the time.
Something something climate change extreme weather but it's looking like I'll be spending 3 weeks in three months sitting in the dark Maybe I'll have thoughts about the Anker whatever the hell things I just bought by Monday.
I spent my day today looking in on single moms, putting gas in cannisters (I waited two hours to get gas; there are only 2 stations open in my entire county), handing out power banks and making runs for powdered milk and bottled water. I secured a place to spend the weekend Northwest of Chicago.
Sure enough, about halfway there, my engine misfired.
There's no mechanic with power where I live, so now my car is at some random mechanic in Cicero, Illinois who thinks they might be able to look at Friday after next AND I just took a $150 Uber home. At least the Airbnb people fully refunded my stay.
Since I'm spending money now anyway, I went ahead and bought a $700 solar powered power station. Maybe I'll be able to run a fan at some point this weekend.
On top of all that, cellular service in my area is spotty for everyone. My phone is telling me it can't even find roaming towers about 40% of the time.
Something something climate change extreme weather but it's looking like I'll be spending 3 weeks in three months sitting in the dark Maybe I'll have thoughts about the Anker whatever the hell things I just bought by Monday.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
This sounds awful. Weeks without electricity in the summer is the closest thing to hell on Earth I can think of. I hope power gets restored there as quickly as possible.
Gödel
Storage is especially nice if it doesn't rotate
I'm not religious, but I pray that things have improved for you and your area, Merc, and that further and significant improvement comes soon.
And bless you for thinking of others in dire times. 
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Being used to no climate control is normal for me at least.
My office did get power back, so I've at least been able to get somewhere with decent internet and lights that are on.
I bought a couple of these guys as well as my power station and honestly, no notes. $30 for a huge battery that can be slowly charged in sunlight? What's not to love? Sadly, I emptied one already, since they arrived half charged and I let my neighbors charge off it as well.
Current estimate to get power back to my place is August 19th, contingent on clearing downed trees. In what I guess is good news, that's also messing up the richy-rich people whose beachfront homes are also impacted. That beats the hell out of two weeks, which is what I was initially told.
My office did get power back, so I've at least been able to get somewhere with decent internet and lights that are on.
I bought a couple of these guys as well as my power station and honestly, no notes. $30 for a huge battery that can be slowly charged in sunlight? What's not to love? Sadly, I emptied one already, since they arrived half charged and I let my neighbors charge off it as well.
Current estimate to get power back to my place is August 19th, contingent on clearing downed trees. In what I guess is good news, that's also messing up the richy-rich people whose beachfront homes are also impacted. That beats the hell out of two weeks, which is what I was initially told.
DrunkenBastard2
What is this storage?
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Which Anker did you end up getting? Been super happy with c1000 gen2. Very low idle consumption with ac outlets turned on and no load. At $700 range maybe an s1500 or c2000 gen 2?
At a smaller capacity the Segway 1kWh is hard to beat bang for buck wise at $330. Even multiples one for each room is doable at that price.
DrunkenBastard2
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I guess worst case you can sneakernet 1 or 2kWh from office to home each commute to give you a bit of power until bedtime. How's your solar exposure? House with backyard?
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
The good thing is solar panels are lower priced than they've ever been. Balcony solar is becoming a thing.
DrunkenBastard2
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Just waiting on Hochuls signature in NY:
Is Balcony Solar Legal in New York? Bill Status & What You Can Do (2026)
New York's balcony solar bill (SUNNY Act (A.9111-C/S.8512C)) has not been signed yet. See the current bill status, what it would allow, and what you can do in New York today.
solcountry.com
mubs
Hairy Aussie
Sorry to hear, Merc. Hope you get power real quick.
Gödel
Storage is especially nice if it doesn't rotate
Wry chuckle at your unintentional pun. May the current be with you soon.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
It's a Solix S2000 that was in a package deal with 200W of random solar panels. I live on the beach. If I have to go babysit everything just to get it all charged, I will. The deal for on offer looked great to me.
I've already brought it up to full charge once off the wall at my office. The sneakernet power method works. Solar is just going to be here as a backup.
And if nothing else, it's a giant UPS with a handle.
I do see I could've gotten something cheaper, even some that offer direct battery expansion, but Anker has become a go-to for power-related needs.
My little guys charged around 25% each from a day in the partly cloudy sun. If I was just trying to keep a phone and some Bluetooth headphones charged, they would be up to that with no problem.
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DrunkenBastard2
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Honestly you could have done a lot worse than the s2000. It has an incredibly low idle draw when the ac outlets are on and great efficiency with lower loads as well. Perfect for fridge and network gear backup, tv etc.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
One of the funny things about my current situation is that I'm using a laptop with the hot spot on my phone until the battery on the laptop gives out, then switching to another laptop. I brought six laptops with me to charge at my office. My favorite old guy is a Thinkpad T470s which apparently had both its batteries replaced very shortly before I wound up with it. There isn't much to complain about for running RDP and SSH sessions. It can't run Windows 11 but Fedora is fine.
Chromebooks unfortunately take work to set up with VPNs and I don't want to deal with that right now, so they're not getting the use they probably could.
Chromebooks unfortunately take work to set up with VPNs and I don't want to deal with that right now, so they're not getting the use they probably could.
DrunkenBastard2
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Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Gary is in national news now because of our situation.
The current goal is for near-complete restoration of service by the 25th, a full two weeks after the storm. The reason this is so controversial is that our local Power Company, NIPSCO, initially left Gary off its announced schedule of planned service restoration. When they did add it, they added it at the end. There's like 50,000 people here and apparently we are the most forgettable community. Portage, one town over, has had three open Starbucks locations all week. We can't buy a loaf of fresh bread in the city limits and many people have to use their cars to charge their phones while gas is $3.6 a gallon. Lots of people haven't had a cold drink or a warm meal in the last 11 days.
We're also in the news because somebody shot at some power company service trucks.
The linemen and even tree clearing crews are generally heroes in all this. They've been working more or less tirelessly since this crap happened. But there's definitely a narrative that the ungrateful, criminal poors in Gary can't stop their criming long enough to let the linemen do their job. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is that these guys are driving through neighborhoods and not visibly doing anything to help. Maybe the 10th time the same truck circles your block with nobody getting out to even look at the shattered transmission poles or lines that have been in the street for a full week, you'd be a little frustrated as well. There are also places where power has been restored on one side of a street, a town border, and not on the other side. If the Portage side of County Line Road has had power for four days and you're still having to take a flashlight every time you need to go take a leak, you can see why that would make things a lil' tense, right?
There's always going to be some thought that this issue is some combination of racial or political. Gary is majority African American and it is overwhelmingly under control by Democrats, who aren't what you'd call represented anywhere else in State Government. Politics do play a role. We're far more economically aligned with Chicago and the manufacturing and transit interests in rail and lake-bound shipping. We're not even in the same time zone as most of Indiana. So the Gary Region does regularly get fucked over by the state, which is very visible in the state of our highways, how much snow removal is available and how things like statewide grants for education are delivered. But I don't think this is a political thing.
I think the power company here just didn't have any level of preparedness for a disaster of this size and scale. Absent a plan, individual management groups and team leads in charge of repair crews kind of did what they want, resulting in piecemeal responses, most likely to places where they or their families lived, and where the repairs would be easiest. Contractors who have come in from out of the area to our communities to help have been telling people how fucked up this response has been. NIPSCO has been terrible with logistics for things like supplies of new power poles and spools of cables, or just making sure there are enough lift trucks to handle the work in a given area, and it has also been terrible about central communication with people doing the work. Any wonder we didn't get an orderly response? This is particularly frustrating because We had a very similar storm exactly two months before that also knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people for as much as a week.
Anyway, all of this sucks. I'm fine, but it sucks. I'm tired of canned kidney beans, cold soup, protein bars and tuna. I hate shaving in the dark.
One bright spot: my car trouble was just a plain old faulty sensor, one of those deals where the diagnostic cost more than the fix. I've been driving around in a car I borrowed, a top trim, a 2024 CRV EX-L Hybrid, and I'm going to be so, so happy to give it back. It's conspicuously the nicest car in the parking lot where I live and, well, I do live in Gary.
The current goal is for near-complete restoration of service by the 25th, a full two weeks after the storm. The reason this is so controversial is that our local Power Company, NIPSCO, initially left Gary off its announced schedule of planned service restoration. When they did add it, they added it at the end. There's like 50,000 people here and apparently we are the most forgettable community. Portage, one town over, has had three open Starbucks locations all week. We can't buy a loaf of fresh bread in the city limits and many people have to use their cars to charge their phones while gas is $3.6 a gallon. Lots of people haven't had a cold drink or a warm meal in the last 11 days.
We're also in the news because somebody shot at some power company service trucks.
The linemen and even tree clearing crews are generally heroes in all this. They've been working more or less tirelessly since this crap happened. But there's definitely a narrative that the ungrateful, criminal poors in Gary can't stop their criming long enough to let the linemen do their job. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is that these guys are driving through neighborhoods and not visibly doing anything to help. Maybe the 10th time the same truck circles your block with nobody getting out to even look at the shattered transmission poles or lines that have been in the street for a full week, you'd be a little frustrated as well. There are also places where power has been restored on one side of a street, a town border, and not on the other side. If the Portage side of County Line Road has had power for four days and you're still having to take a flashlight every time you need to go take a leak, you can see why that would make things a lil' tense, right?
There's always going to be some thought that this issue is some combination of racial or political. Gary is majority African American and it is overwhelmingly under control by Democrats, who aren't what you'd call represented anywhere else in State Government. Politics do play a role. We're far more economically aligned with Chicago and the manufacturing and transit interests in rail and lake-bound shipping. We're not even in the same time zone as most of Indiana. So the Gary Region does regularly get fucked over by the state, which is very visible in the state of our highways, how much snow removal is available and how things like statewide grants for education are delivered. But I don't think this is a political thing.
I think the power company here just didn't have any level of preparedness for a disaster of this size and scale. Absent a plan, individual management groups and team leads in charge of repair crews kind of did what they want, resulting in piecemeal responses, most likely to places where they or their families lived, and where the repairs would be easiest. Contractors who have come in from out of the area to our communities to help have been telling people how fucked up this response has been. NIPSCO has been terrible with logistics for things like supplies of new power poles and spools of cables, or just making sure there are enough lift trucks to handle the work in a given area, and it has also been terrible about central communication with people doing the work. Any wonder we didn't get an orderly response? This is particularly frustrating because We had a very similar storm exactly two months before that also knocked out power for hundreds of thousands of people for as much as a week.
Anyway, all of this sucks. I'm fine, but it sucks. I'm tired of canned kidney beans, cold soup, protein bars and tuna. I hate shaving in the dark.
One bright spot: my car trouble was just a plain old faulty sensor, one of those deals where the diagnostic cost more than the fix. I've been driving around in a car I borrowed, a top trim, a 2024 CRV EX-L Hybrid, and I'm going to be so, so happy to give it back. It's conspicuously the nicest car in the parking lot where I live and, well, I do live in Gary.