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eddot98

Zillow and their Zestimate has totally screwed us in marketing our house. Their Zestimate is way too low and our agent has told us that it has been a factor cited by potential buyers when they say why they don’t want to view it. The house next door sold a year ago for $10,000 less than our Zestimate...

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Way back when I went to university, my scholarship amounts decreased every year I attended. I ended up taking out small loans the last few years. Granted, this was a looooog time ago and costs were ridiculously inexpensive. Is the granddaughter’s scholarship amount fixed for future years? Does it de...

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How about this? It’s not metal, but it’s an update to the vintage oak library 4 drawer file cabinet that we have. It looks like it’s well built. https://craftersandweavers.com/products/solid-oak-4-drawer-file-cabinet?variant=6446174849&gclid=CjwKCAiAt4rfBRBKEiwAC678KUt0TaLSsZ4sjNUcPTqKLYAaj44piTfoSq...

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Try this, it’s a Google Assistant alarm clock, Bluetooth enabled, with a usb charging outlet. https://www.insigniaproducts.com/pdp/NS-CSPGASP-B/5865801 It doesn’t display the temperature, but you can just ask the google assistant what the temperature is outside, plus a million other things. It does ...

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Our answer is “It depends.” Our first trip to Europe was in 1992 when we were in our early 40’s. In two weeks we are going on our 20th trip, this time to Barcelona and the Basque region. Our first trip was only a week in Paris. We left our hotel by 9:00 am or so every morning and didn’t return until...

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[/quote] Been driving a toyota camry for 18 years. Time for something "fancy" :D [/quote] We are in the market for the exact same car as you are for the exact same reason. The car that the Lexus will replace is a 2011 Camry XLE with almost every option available at the time. It was, and is, a nice c...

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I did a quick search and found something that may address your situation at: https://www.esslawfirm.com/Articles/Factors-To-Consider-When-Transfering-A-Residence-For-Elder-Law-And-Estate-Planning-Purposes-A-Primer.shtml From what I read, the house was transferred with as part of the life estate, so...

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Unbeknownst to me at the time, in 1992 my parents transferred their house (probably worth about $100,000 now) to me and my 3 siblings. My parents retained a life estate, my father died in 1998 and my mother died in 2009. Since I never had any knowledge of my parents’ finances until after my mother d...

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OP, if you live in a place where it gets cold in the winter, consider heated seats. Until we bought a used car that had them, we hadn’t realized how nice they are. Now, it’s a must have for any car we buy.

eddot98

We have 2 TP Link smart plugs and 5 Insignia smart plugs. I can access these smart plugs when we are away from home on a cell phone using The Kasa app and the Insignia app over the internet. I suppose that we should have bought only one brand of smart plugs, but that’s not what we did. Both the TP L...

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Our company has a server that has Microsoft Office on it and shared files and individuals’ files on various hard drives on that server. While our iPads and iPhones can connect to the server for email, we cannot access Office or any of those files (unless they are emailed to you) on iPads or iPhones....

eddot98

1. I had the same situation, needing the C wire, but we only have one zone and one thermostat. I hired an electrician to install the thermostat and instead of running a C wire all the way to the boiler as I thought was necessary, he just tapped into a doorbell circuit that was just below the thermos...

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They're the most valuable company on the planet for a reason! $1100 for a smart phone is just ludicrous for a lot of people. That's MacBook territory. I'm interested to see if the "cheapo" version (iPhone Xr: $750) sells better. Lots of consumer psychology in how to choose. I think for quite a few,...

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We have been traveling to EU countries at least once a year for the past 20 years or so. Here’s what works the best for us: our bank doesn’t charge any service charges to use ATM’s overseas, so we use ATM’s at local banks to get cash, making sure that we use large, well known banks such as Santander...

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No one has mentioned insurance costs of new cars vs 3 year old off lease cars or the dreaded excise tax here in Massachusetts and a few other states. With a 6.25% sales tax plus a 2.5% excise tax, I have switched from new cars to off lease. I get 3 year old Camry’s mostly with 20,000 miles or less f...

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I probably have about 500 vinyl LP’s, 50 ish 45’s, and 200 or so cd’s. That’s 700 plus things already. I have listened to all of them numerous times, some more than others. The hours of pleasure that they have provided for me is immeasurable. I know that I could digitize them (I actually have digita...

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Marriott has worked well for us - Courtyard, Residence Inn have what you want. Hilton is also on our list when Marriotts are not available, Hampton Inn mostly. Join their loyalty programs. Make a preference and stick with that chain as much as possible to gain status. It really pays off. Their web s...

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https://www.condor.com/us/help-contact/contact/complaint.jsp http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/holidays/article-2271213/How-claim-EU-flight-delay-compensation-EC-261-2004.html The first link is to the Condor complaint form. There is an option for flights late over three hours. The second link is t...

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I am missing something here. Who owns this sidewalk? Where we are (northeast), the municipality owns sidewalks that run parallel to the street. I guess that it’s different in southern Florida. A code violation for cracks? As concrete is expected to crack, that’s why sidewalks are scored at intervals...

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rebellovw - Can you please supply the make and model of the car? Otherwise, there's not much to go on and we can't help you further. Sure - why not. 2010 VW New Beetle Convertible. I’m not surprised that it’s a VW. We were a VW household for a long time until one 1990 Passat made us swear off them ...

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Let’s think about this. A lot depends on your interests. In south Berkshire county you could spend time wandering around the 3 towns of Great Barrington, Lenox, and Stockbridge. There’s touristy independent shops and good restaurants. There’s the Norman Rockwell museum, Naumkeg, the Red Lion Inn, an...

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Thank you very much for the great suggestions.I am limited a bit because we stay in Marriotts because of points.Kingston had a couple Marriotts so I picked that simply as a place to sleep.Same with Albany. Regarding Lake Placid,The problem is it almost 150 miles in the wrong direction and it looks ...

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<r><QUOTE author="hoops777" post_id="4056067" time="1533595808" user_id="25899"><s> </s> Since we changed our trip and are coming in from Boston I have a couple questions.I think we are going to stay probably 3 nights in Albany as a base.Since we are going to Cooperstown in seems a waste to drive ba...

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Diet Coke Caffeine Free only. We have been trying to drink less, so we are occasionally getting sparkling water, mostly Poland Spring. Perrier and San Pellegrino are good, but much costlier. By the way, in the European countries that we have visited, they only have Coke Light. It doesn’t taste like ...

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If your meeting is west of the middle of the island, don’t try going anywhere at either morning or evening rush hour, unless you like traffic jams. The L.I.E. Is notorious, the parkways are just as bad, and even the local roads are jam packed. I learned that from experience when we left a meeting at...

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What do you use for a grinder? I too have been put off by the extra work, but if it’s as easy as you say, I might change to beans from ground coffee. I use a Bunn LPG-1: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41yFQpGorDL.jpg It holds 6lbs of beans (but is rarely that full for freshness re...

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My wife got Lyme disease. The bite was on the back of one of her shoulders, but her doctor saw no evidence of the tick. She got the ring around the bullseye. How she was bitten is a real mystery as she never goes into the woods, doesn’t mow the lawn, doesn’t garden, and is rarely even in our yard. H...

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I'm always impressed by other peoples' ambition. I don't even like to buy whole beans because grinding it myself seems like a huge waste of my time. And if you don't appreciate fresh coffee, that's fine--pre-ground coffee is stale by definition. I press one button on my grinder and 7 seconds later ...

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We have cable tv, internet, and phone. A while back we had noise and problems using our phone, dropped connections on our Internet, and intermittent issues with tv reception. We had a technician out a few times with no luck finding the problem. The last tech decided to replace the all the splitters ...

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Two options come to mind. Hard wire your tv’s using Ethernet cables or use MOCA, which uses your coax cables to transmit internet to your tv’s. We have both, one kind to each of our streaming devices (Apple TV, Roku Ultra), which are connected to our dumb tv’s. Our two desktops are hardwired using E...

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Civil Engineer here, graduated high school in 1968 and college in 1973. Civil Engineering was seen as the least difficult discipline at that time, but it was by no means easy. I worked relatively hard in high school and approached college as a job. I took 5 years to get my degree, as I had a work/st...

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You didn’t say so, but I expect that your flight is an evening departure. Even so, why not explore the idea of driving your car to an airport hotel the day before your flight at a time that you know traffic volume is low, staying at the hotel that night, parking your car at the hotel for the duratio...

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<t>[/quote] That said, you have described yourself as a "go-getter" and folks like that typically don't fit in well with government jobs over the long term. [/quote] For what reason would you take this gratuitous slap at government workers? Do you have first hand knowledge or are you just spouting c...

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All I can say is WOW. Try living on $22,000 a year.

eddot98

Some businesses have a no-tip-reimbursement policy, and the only way to get reimbursed would be fraudulent. So I think your old boss would be walking a fine line there. Maybe that's why he's no longer your boss. I’m not sure I’d want to work for a company with such a policy. Tipping is a perfectly ...

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We leave $5 each morning for the cleaning staff in hotels. We never have, or ever will, take a cruise. The older we get, the more that we realize how underpaid the people that do these menial jobs are. While they cannot do much extra for you, they leave extra waters, put your toiletries on towels, e...

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:oops: $60,000 to $75,000 for a sink, toilet, and a stand up shower? That seems off by almost a factor of 10 even with new tile flooring and walls. My in laws converted the same size pantry to a half bath many years ago. I’m sure that they only spent a few thousand dollars on it. The lady on the oth...

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There were a few years at my employer when due to construction on a major bridge they encouraged us to work alternate hours. I chose to put in my 37.5 hours in a week in 4 days, taking every Monday off. Having an old, large house with the requisite chores, I mostly spent my extra day off doing them....

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I disagree with the group. This damage may look trivial, but unless you are experienced in home repairs, it’s not. The holes need to be filled, sanded, primed, and then the whole room probably needs to be repainted as a touch up even with the original paint (if it’s available) will show. There’s dam...

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Regarding your question on booking a flight, there is an app called Hopper that advises users on prices and when to book. We have used it a couple of times and it did a good job. You can do an ongoing search, use their results, and book on your favorite site.

eddot98

Well, no one has directly brought this up, so I will. It might not be the best idea to make your first trip to Europe one to Croatia. If one has only gone to the Caribbean, a trip across 6 time zones, usually involving an overnight flight, and entailing at least one airport connection may be more di...

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There are 3 restaurants with the same owner that we frequent when in the Groton area. All 3 are less than a half hour from Norwich, unless there is some fluke traffic jam. Olio in Groton, Red 36 overlooking the water in Mystic, and Bravo Bravo just over the bridge in the center of Mystic. They are a...

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After flying into Philadelphia, visiting the historic sites there and going to the Amish country around Lancaster, consider driving through the DelMarVa peninsula to Chincoteague, VA. Chincoteague is quite unique. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chincoteague,_Virginia Then you can head back to Annap...

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And let me hit again on breakfast, what’s up with that in Italy? Haha. Can’t find anything but pastries so far (yuk) and coffee in anything bigger than a 4 oz cup seems to be a unicorn! Ok I’m sorta just kidding about this being a “problem” but it has taken a little getting used to. At the end of t...

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Guido’s, a two store market in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. They contract out the meat to a local butcher, the seafood to a local purveyor, the deli and bakery to another local company. All this stuff is head and shoulders above supermarket quality. It’s more expensive, but there’s just ...

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Yes, whatever that’s worth.

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My fuel company only charges me $29.95 per year to add Tank Guard. I thought that was too much for a quart or so of some secret additive. I feel that it is a rip off, but haven’t had the initiative to challenge them on it. Their claim is that the tank will rust from the inside out due to water in th...

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When we were there it was a Boscolo hotel. Now it appears to be the Grand Hotel Dei Dogi, The Dedica Anthology, Autograph Collection® It still is part of the Marriott group. If, by chance, you ever go there, stay in the Main building, not in any of the out buildings. The staff there was very helpful...

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We were in Venice for 6 nights over Thanksgiving last year. The weather was very nice, temperatures in the 60’s and no rain. Most importantly, there weren’t very many other tourists there during that time period. Our hotel was in the old Jewish ghetto area and it provided a free shuttle on a water t...

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When we were there a few years ago, we passed on trying their weed. While in a foreign country, I always want to be clear headed and alert. Getting arrested for doing something dumb or letting down my guard and getting robbed is not on my want to do list.

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