psd

General contractor (CA-B) - work is steady, but I mostly do maintenance and interior remodels for existing property management clients. I keep my small crew busy but we have a week or two of downtime every now and again, which wasn't common a couple of years ago. 

Real estate broker - I'm primarily working with investors, either buying up new stock (that I get to remodel) or selling off deferred maintenence properties and upgrading for those investors. I spent a good chunk of life working with first-time buyers, and they're mostly on the sidelines due to interest rates. 

Mortgage broker - dead as a doornail. I put all of my long-time clients into rares below 3 when that was a thing, they're never touching those. My investors are paying cash or putting like 70% down so that they can cash flow on new investments. Glad I got my contractor license and out of the loan trade, the only way I'd be making it there these days is by lying to customers about whether borrowing was a good idea. 

Overall - interest rates are coming down, inflation is slowing, eventually the old people with houses bigger than they can maintain will have to move on. It'll be fine, I'll buy a new camper and some new toys in a couple of years and be back annoying you folks unless the housing market crashes and I have to buy more houses instead... 

Sorry in advance for the hit-and-run responses, but chit's changed and now I'm selling a bunch of houses in Blythe (wanna buy one? hit me up!) and will be passing through the motherland time and again for the next few months. Home base will be up closer to Walters Camp while handling business, but whatever. Anyone got recommendations for on-site UTV rentals in the dunes? Rates/reputations seem to be all over the board and I've honestly never rented anything before except for a weekend a few months ago in Pismo where Mrs.PSD spent an entire 4 hours cackling her head off as I tooled an underpowered Can-Am through some of the weakest and most heavily-tracked dunes I've ever seen. If she had that much fun there, I'm betting on getting a go card to waste the $70K or so it'll take to get me back in business once she sees real sand...wait, maybe I shouldn't say that because those of you who know me know what an arsehole I generally am. Oh well, eff it, hit send.

I still have Spaceballs on VHS (Blazing Saddles is better, but only slightly), don't want to hear about the game, don't need coffee. Stop dumping beer in my pool, I didn't push you, you tripped.

Try toolguyd.com for notifications on blanket 10-15% off sales at some of the specialty sites like ToolNut or Acme or CPO - Home Depot has some great flash deals on common tools if you're willing to price out and wait, but for the specialty stuff that never seems to go on sale I find I can at least do a little better than retail.

Got patience? I used to use Liion Wholesale (https://liionwholesale.com/pages/search-results-page?collection=batteries&page=1&rb_vendor=Samsung), but they don't seem to stock a lot of high-end stuff these days and I haven't used them in a few years. I've also imported direct from China via fasttech.com, but again it's been a while. One of the biggest loose use cases for these batteries is in e-cigs, so there are a lot of sites like that which sell them - I just checked the site I used to write about battery safety for and it doesn't look like my friends/family discount works there anymore or I'd send you...Battery Bro is another decent source (direct from China, but owned/operated by an American expat) but it looks like they're only selling in wholesale quantities these days.

You wouldn't think it, but I've heard of some strong flashlights (like 300+ lumen) burning up cheapo batteries with long use on high mode - honestly for a good blend of affordable and reliable I'd be looking Samsung 25R, which is what Milwaukee (and maybe some others, I only pay much attention to my tool platform) used before they went to a 21700 format for their new batteries.

EDIT (apparently I edit too much): I use Samsung 25Rs in my single-cell flashlights, which may or may not be overkill, but they've never done me wrong.

Thanks again Poule for the offer! Unfortunately Friday was spent in the ER with a tonsil infection for my daughter (nothing serious, but it kinda ruined our weekend). I still appreciate everyone's advice, going to pre-purchase a pass for a couple weeks out and try again...

What's the use case for these? I've done quite a bit of homework here, bottom line is that there are only really a few manufacturers - Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Sanyo - everything else is a rewrapped "second," or something that didn't pass QC at a major factory. For my uses (high discharge flattops) Panasonic and Sanyo don't offer enough continuous discharge without risking thermal runaway, so I stick with the first three.

Sony - VTC4/5/6 are the good ones - the bigger the number the longer the life

Samsung - 25R are good, I believe the older ones are baby blue but everything produced in the last few years is light green

LG - I use the HG2/HG4 more than any other battery - 30A discharge and as much as 4000mAH charge life

I just checked my old source for buying, but it seems like they've fallen off into the cheap rewrap crap, so nowhere to recommend to buy, but those are the brands/models I would trust most.

EDIT: If you're really interested in the ins and outs, this guy know probably more than the next three smartest dudes combined when it comes to 18650 performance/safety - https://www.facebook.com/batterymooch/ (I hate linking to FB anything, but that's the quickest link I could find)...

2 hours ago, Poule43 said:

I left you a pass as you turn into gecko on the construction sign!

Man, too cool! Thanks a million!

I still got my smiley? Bonus!

Thanks guys! Fireball - yeah, I know, was more looking for a daily for my daughter when her  ZJ gave out than anything else. I was there for the demise of Comp and the transition to Olds being the day/night gathering aside from the Gecko drags. Obviously the need to flat tires is a thing too. Much appreciated for the responses, my apologies if it means I rejoin your ranks!

I'm wearing skinny jeans because it hurts Mike's feelings.

Hey-yo - long time, first timer here with some stupid questions the old site might have answered, but I'm too lame to search, boo me. I'm trying to take my wife and daughter out to tool around and try to explain the fanaticism I used to have in the late 90s and early 00s that they never got to take part in. Go ahead and yell "use the search noob" if that's a thing people still do, but...

Can I just roll out and cruise easy routes in a street vehicle (04 GX470)? Do I need more than a whip and a day pass, and can I still get the day pass from a kiosk off Gecko? Can someone point me toward a thread (or threads) to let me know how the dunes have changed in the last 20 years?