You gotta get rid of those baseboards asap.

Get some minisplits if natural gas isn’t an option.

i think of the railroad in monopoly

No coach on Acela, business and first, all assigned.

Regional is still open seating afaik.

Acela is assigned seating since the pandemic which makes it a little easier too.

You can rock up 5 minutes before.

There’s no check in, it’s just how they tell you not to bring more than four bags.

Departing Boston is super easy, if you're coming back from NYC its smart to get to Penn Station a little earlier because their boarding process is more of a pain in the ass.

Yeah not having a backup seemed like one of the sticking points for going all heat pump to get those rebates. My parents went with two condensers, so if one goes you still have the other. Something like that + cold weather heat pumps + a generator would keep you going through most any situation. Still have rising electric costs to deal with though.

If you have to keep propane in the mix, I'd go for the combo on-demand boiler, just based on my experience having a natural gas version. It cut our therms in half vs a standard older gas furnace, hopefully you'd see similar efficiency with propane. And if the minisplits are doing the heavy lifting on heat, your gas needs could be pretty minimal. There are still some valuable rebates available for a setup like that.

Don't have direct experience, but a few anecdotes that might be useful:

My parents swapped from oil to propane (forced air furnace), but propane prices went up at the same time in Maine and it ended up being a wash on fuel savings. They supplement with heat pump minisplits which helps with costs a lot and makes the house cozier.

If you haven't looked into it, Mass Save is offering big rebates to convert from oil to fully electric (heat pumps). There are also heat pump options for electric water. Might be worth a pricing out to compare against propane, but with rising electric costs I'm not entirely sure what the best option is anymore.

I swapped from an electric water heater to an on-demand natural gas boiler. I like it a lot better (unlimited water, more reliable, freed up space in the basement), but the energy savings were pretty negligible. Hot water energy costs are like a rounding compared to home heating.

Rhubarb is extremely New England but you’re about 5 months early.

No flu yet, but a 2 week lingering cold that won't leave.

Can’t be worse than literally any part of Qatar or Russia.

There’s no 100% solution. If voices are bothering you it’s entirely possible that you could spend a crapload of money and effort and still be hearing them.

I soundproofed my basement with 6” of rockwool and new walls. You can still hear deep voices through the ceiling / floor. It reduced volume of music and sound but it’s not 100% soundproof, and you probably wouldn’t be satisfied with the results.

whack

I was up for an in-person renewal otherwise I probably would've done the same.

Time and patience mostly, and making sure your chosen profession has (salary) growth possibilities.

Mainly to avoid using your passport for domestic flight as far as I can tell. Precheck doesn't make a difference. But with the new deadline it seems pointless.

I got it when I had to renew my license, just involves bringing a couple extra documents you already have.

This is how I've made the most friends in Boston too.

wherever you go there you are

Locally produced Canada Goose hood trim, nice.

Problem with this stuff is that the landlord "sending out a guy" to do something counts as proactive work by the landlord, even though it will do nothing to solve the problem. They can just repeat that every couple months and are off the hook for liability.

If the infestation is bad enough that BHA would actually see roaches and evidence of roaches at any given time when they swung in to check, then you might be able to get somewhere, but you'd probably have already moved out on your own accord if it was that bad.

not dying isn't the same as comfortable

dumbest comment ever but someone always has to make it

45F was painful on my bare fingers last week when the wind was crankin'.

With gloves though, whiny baby confirmed.

Drips into the ground around the tree so I don't think it really matters.

I'm sure you can find another gotcha on the Cantabrigian elite if you keep looking around though.

Nope. It's not one time use, but it does hide your card number, which is useful for security (I think all tap to pay transactions do this).

Square will still be able to associate it with your profile if you opt into email/sms receipt like any physical card.