WTF-Beta

The $5000 one time payment per child cracks me up. Ummmm....that doesn't even cover the deductible I would be on the hook for just for childbirth, let alone any of the expenses involved in actually raising a child. $500,000 is more like it LOL.

oh my god. Several phrases in that article made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. a "National Medal of Motherhood" for women with more than 6 children????

Or this one: "Last month, Mr. Trump pledged to be “the fertilization president.”"

Yikes on a bike! We really are headed straight for The Handmaid's Tale......

Article is paywalled for me but.....

Government subsidized (or free) healthcare and childcare would be a good start. Investment in early childhood education and free college would help too. oh, and maybe student loan forgiveness, because all the young people I know come out of college far too broke and burdened by debt to consider starting a family.

I assume they'll opt for banning birth control and abortion instead though......why use a carrot when you can use a big stick instead.

Yeah I was thinking about that but they have my bank account from past years (for direct depositing refunds) so they're going to get in there if they really want to no matter what. I even asked my bank about opening a new bank account for my main account and just using this one for IRS stuff and they said that the IRS gets everyone's bank info automatically as part of the patriot act so there was no point - they'd have the new account anyway. Don't know if that's really true but two separate bank employees told me that on 2 different occasions so I dunno. Doug - good to know the timing. I've never actually waited til April 15 to file - always filed earlier but scheduled payment for the 15th so maybe that's why the transfer was delayed.

So this year it turns out we owed a lot to the IRS. Mr. Lisa's company switched payroll providers and somewhere along the line they messed up his withholding and we stupidly never noticed because he got a raise around the same time so we assumed the extra pay was his salary bump. And then I started doing contracting work but it was so late in the year that I didn't bother filing any estimated taxes. My bad....oof.

Anyway, here's the weird thing. Our accountant filed our taxes on Tuesday, late in the day, with our bank acct info to take the payment from. He also prepared LL#1's taxes and she also owed - her return was filed using her bank account for the payment. And then the IRS just....didn't bother taking the money. The money sat in my account all day Wednesday. On Thursday I started panic texting the accountant (who I'm pretty sure heads out for vacation on April 16th at midnight!) to make sure the returns actually got filed. Thursday late night the money still hadn't gone anywhere. And neither had LL#1's.

This morning it was finally gone from both accounts. But I'm baffled about the three day delay. Wouldn't that, multipled by bazillions of people who owe money, be costing the IRS a whole lot just in interest? Why didn't the money transfer instantly? I'm pretty sure in past years our payments were gone out of our account on April 16 at midnight. And of course, now I'm worried that they are going to smack me with (even more) penalties because they didn't have the money until the 18th.

Anyway, at least that BS is over with for another year!

@ShiroKuro said in A piano question re: repinning cost:

@Lisa said in A piano question re: repinning cost:

Plus the piano overall still sounds jawdroppingly amazing - it just tends to not quite hold the exact tuning for long (and some notes are definitely worse than others in that regard).

ah, ok, so this is interesting... in other words, it sounds great but doesn't hold the tuning as long as it should, or as long as it used to, correct?

In that case, I might advocate for putting off the repairs for maybe a year or two, understanding it will need slightly more frequent tunings during that time.

That's kind of what we've been doing. But it has gotten to the point where one or two notes will be out of tune pretty much within a day of tuning it -- even with staying covered and with the damp chaser -- I think the pins are just slipping. It is unfortunately at the point where something needs to be done.

The "cheap" guy is supposed to be coming March 31 to look at the piano and give a firm quote, but we are going to need to reschedule that because we have another offsite thing that day that we can't move. I have said that I would like to be there when the piano tech comes, so I will keep you posted as to what he says. We definitely don't have $40-60K for the full rebuild nor could we afford to have no piano for as long as a full rebuild would take.

Our current tech has looked over the soundboard and says it's fine. He also says the strings are fine - no rust, etc. (It's possible they aren't the original strings - I wouldn't be suprised if they were replaced somewhere along the line). The piano has a dampp-chaser system and an undercover, and it's kept under a custom fitted thick quilted cover all the time unless it's being played, so there should be pretty good humidity control. We try to keep the humidity controlled in the room its in but that has been harder - I know it does fluctuate a bit in the room.

I know that my own personal piano, a 1920s Chickering grand which I purchased semi-rebuilt in 2004, had the larger tuning pins installed as part of the work that was done to it before I got it (it had the larger tuning pins, some action work including new hammers (although not a full replacement because the whippens are apparently a Chickering-one-off special and no modern parts will fit) and a refinish. It sill has the original soundboard which still sounds great although it has lost some crown over the years. The piano has been rock solid for the last 20 years so I do have faith that the larger tuning pins in the existing block can work. Whether it's the best approach -- I dunno. I do believe there is a lot to be said for the quality of wood that was available in the past (even 50 years ago) vs. what's available now, although I'd imagine they try to source new pinblocks from old-growth wood. Still, I know our guiding philosophy with all of our restorations (we do a lot of electronic instruments as well) has been to try to keep things original as much as possible unless original is just plain non-functional.

Part of the issue is that we are a non profit (so kinda broke, although our founder is pretty wealthy and would probably float it if we can convince him its necessary). And also, the piano belonged to, appeared on album covers, and was toured with by Keith Emerson of ELP. So we're walking the fine line between keeping things as original as possible so it remains like it was when Keith played it and doing the necesary maintenance to make it usable for our performances now. The hammers and shanks were already done - that was way before my time but they apparently had to be done, no way around it - and the action was tweaked to be as light as our tech could get it (which IMO is still pretty heavy, but according to my coworkers, it's MUCH better than it used to be.) The fact that the piano has rock-star provenance means we are committed to keeping it -- there's no option to replace the piano which I saw some folks on SK's FB page were cavalierly recommending LOL.

The piano tech said he has tried the CA treatment on a few pins but says it's "ok for some pin locks, not so much on hex - a grip pinblocks that Steinway uses" and that it's really meant for one or 2 pins, not the whole area.

I also figured out that both of those prices include reusing the current strings, which our tech recommended doing. (Again, though, he's not an expert) I also don't think there's anything wrong with the soundboard or he would have said something. Plus the piano overall still sounds jawdroppingly amazing - it just tends to not quite hold the exact tuning for long (and some notes are definitely worse than others in that regard).

@ShiroKuro Great idea! yes if you wouldn't mind posting and getting some price ranges without any details (in case any of the techs in question are lurking about there!) I would really appreciate it!

Thanks Ron - I'm pretty sure (though not positive, as I'm not always there when the piano is worked on) that our current tech has tried the glue treatment for a few of the problematic pins -- I know he has tried banging them down harder and a few other temporary fixes (which I think include the glue injection but might not) but nothing has worked long-term. There was some discussion of perhaps reusing the strings and maybe that's where the 1800 figure came from. I don't know what it means when you say the cast iron capo section should be reshaped before stringing - can you explain in less techy terms LOL! It had a full action overhaul with all new hammers a few years ago by our current tech (he's an action guy) so at least that's in good shape (though the action is very heavy....not sure there's anything that can be done about that -- I was under the impression that that's kind of innate to 9 ft Steinways from that era but maybe that's another thing I just made up in my head.)

Without going into the whole backstory, the piano (a 1970s vintage 9ft Steinway) at my place of employment needs some work. Namely the tuning pins are loose and the piano tech (who happens to also be my personal piano tech) has suggested we replace them with larger pins and have the piano restrung. He does not do this kind of work but has suggested someone reputable that we should call. He also tossed out a dollar figure that I thought was shockingly low (~$1800) as what he estimated this work would cost. He did say he wasn't really sure though, since again, he doesn't do that work.

Fast forward a bit and we have contacted the guy he recommended and the actual quote is closer to $5K. Since the budget was already designed around this $1800 figure and that is the number that everyone got into their heads, my bosses are kind of choking a bit about the cost. They got another recommendation from one of their long time personal tuners and that guy (without seeing the piano) tossed out a quote of $2200-$2400. Of course my bosses want to go with the cheaper guy, but my piano tech (who was out today tuning my piano) is warning me of all the things that can go wrong when you go with the lowest price. And of course, no one here knows either of the guys who would be doing the actual work -- both guys are referrals from our personal piano tuners.

So my question is how much is a realistic price for replacing the tuning pins with larger ones and restringing in a 9 ft concert grand? Is $2200 suspiciously cheap? Or is $5K an overpriced "I don't really want to do this job so I'll quote high" rate? I know that when I heard the initial ballpark of $1800 I thought it seemed really low, but since i have no idea what this sort of work actually costs, I had no actual reason to think that - just a gut feeling. So I'm trying to figure out what the typical cost for this project is so that we can decide if we want to go with expensive guy, cheap guy, or keep shopping around.

Thanks for any info you can provide!

me too, please!

Also, though, just because Microsoft won't support Windows 10 anymore doesn't mean you have to get rid of the laptop. It will probably work for many more years. I'm running windows 10 now on my Lenovo and have no plans to upgrade unless I absolutely have to - everyone I know who is using Windows 11 low key hates it, so I'm keeping Windows 10 as long as I can.

My current laptop is a Lenovo Yoga 9i. My last one was a Lenovo Yoga 7i -- it lasted 4+ years and was still going strong - I only replaced it because I wore actual holes through the spacebar and the S key from so much typing.....that should tell you how much of a workhorse it was. My current one is going on maybe 3 years of trouble free use and so far the keys are all intact LOL. We've also bought the Lenovo Yoga line for my husband and my son who uses his at college. He actually has two because he broke one by dropping it (and the actual computer parts were fine - the power button was crushed so it wouldn't turn on/off but once we fixed the button, the rest of it worked fine). And we just bought my daughter a Lenovo Legion gaming laptop for christmas - that one came from Costco.

Before my Lenovos, I had both HP and Dell and they were mostly fine (though each had their quirks -- the HP, especially, ran super hot all the time), but the Lenovos run circles around them. Unless something radically changes and I end up with a lemon at some point, all my computer purchases going forward will be Lenovo.

I believe there's a Lenovo Ideapad for $650 in the latest Costco flyer that looks pretty similar to my Yogas....that setup is nice because the screen is touchscreen and can bend all the way around so the computer sits flat like a tablet. It even comes with a little pen you can slide out of the laptop and use to write on the screen. https://www.costco.com/lenovo-ideapad-5i-16-touchscreen-2-in-1-laptop---intel-core-7-150u---1920-x-1200---windows-11-home---16gb-ram---1tb-ssd---cosmic-blue.product.4000262909.html

ETA - looking at that, I don't think the pen slides into the laptop itself. The one that came with my yoga 9i does which is nice because I always have it. Either way, it's pretty convenient to have the laptop that can flip to "tented" like in the photo, so you can prop it on a table to watch videos or all the way flat like a tablet (which I do when I put it on my music stand to do video music lessons.)

I can't shake the feeling that we are headed for a bird flu pandemic and would like to stock up on KN95/N95 masks now. I made it through covid only wearing surgical masks - I never found a KN95 I liked and since we hardly ever left the house I didn't feel the KN95 was necessary. Bird flu is a whole different story and I'd like the best mask possible. When I look on Amazon, I see a number of generic knockoff brands that all have maybe 90% good reviews and 10% of "this is the worst piece of crap i ever tried".

Anyone have a brand they recommend? Bonus if they are individually wrapped. Extra bonus if they are reasonably priced (e.g. not 3M!), as I'd like to buy a stash for several family members as well.

@wtg Amazon. And it was less than $150 too, which is amazing.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0DMSSJ93Q/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_3?smid=A3LRDQCJ73A2H4&th=1

(The first review is mine, LOL! When I bought it there were only like 6 reviews and only 1 or 2 had (very blurry far away) photos. I wanted to fix that for future buyers LOL!)

Our first ever fake tree is up and decorated, and i have to say I'm pretty impressed. It is truly the most lifelike fake tree I have ever seen! Even better -- it was less than $150 for a 9 foot tree!

I've always had Samsung Galaxy S series phones, but I recently saw my coworker's new Samsung Galaxy A25. It's got 90% of what the S series phones have and it's like 1/3 the price. He paid $250 for his at Best Buy, unlocked so it can be used with any carrier. And it still has a headphone jack, which the S series no longer has and which I would sorely miss, which is why I haven't upgraded my phone in 5 years (still on the S10, which was the last one with the headphone jack.) Maybe $250 in spare change is a little easier to find in your sofa cushions than $399? If you haven't already looked into the A25, I'd check it out! Anyhow, good luck with your phone fixing and shopping!

Covfefe. Although I'm guessing that'll be making a comeback in about 6 weeks.