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Prius oil change and Hurricane Milton Recovery

By Uncategorized

I just uploaded a video to YouTube

containing the Oil Change I did right before 

Hurricane Milton made landfall in Tampa Bay.

recently. Also, Some of the destruction from that storm.Why owning a Prius through that storm 

was so awesome, and the ongoing recovery process. It can be viewed here. It is over 2 hours long.I am also going to upload it tomorrow to my

other Tiny YouTube channel called Minimize Me.

Please like this video and subscribe to both channels. https://youtu.be/TEofk9qvbn4?si=taZEIUD8vKHWKxWX 



October 25, 2024
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Second day without power from Hurricane Milton

By Uncategorized

Today is the second day without power in Tampa Bay from Hurricane Milton. I have been watching the Florida Outage map and I calculated these power companies to be restoring power at a rate of 17-20000 restores per hour. That is restoring power at a pretty good clip and I am grateful. There are droves of things that are very bad, to have people working in the field, around the clock that are completely dedicated to the restoration of power for those that have none due to Hurricane Milton is so awesome! Sure, I depend on power for so much, until you have no power at all you take it for granted all the time. I try to flick a light on all the time and I am reminded that I have no power. Then there is the temperature which sux but ai think about this. Irma made landfall in early September in 2017 and September is a very hot month in Florida. Hurricane Ian struck in late September of 2022 and I noticed at night it was like 5 degrees cooler than it was with Hurricane Irma. Then Hurricane Milton made landfall on October 9th and it is like a full 10 degrees or so cooler than it was with Irma. I remember I hunkered down for Irma at my younger brothers house and the power was already out there when I arrived at 10 AM. Irma didn’t come until that night and there was no power. So I wasn’t going to die, but it was miserably hot! I rinsed off the house today and there was insulation pretty much all over it. This is what I learned from Hurricane Milton. When a big storm hits in Florida, want to be in a building that was built (or like in my case manufactured) after 2004 because the codes were upgraded that year because of Hurricane Andrew. Also, you want to spend your money on 1 time cost for things like hurricane shutters, doors, windows, fireproofing, and you do not under any circumstances want to live near a body of water. Humans are drawn to water they love to live on or near water. It is well known that living near water is very expensive, and causes some pretty big problems. I just do not know why anyone does that. I read a book once by Joel Salitan and in ot he talked about his dream home. That dream home was super awesome! He talked about it being built into a mountain because mountains help with temperature control and all kinds of practical things. His dream home became my dream home pretty quick. I really like Joel a lot. I watch him and read his stuff all the time.

October 12, 2024
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Best hosting provider I have ever had.

By Blog

Which web hosting provider is the best?

 

  1. Namecheap.com
  2.  Bluehost.com
  3. Hostgator.com

 

I have and and have had accounts at various hosting providers and through my own personal experience with the various hosting providers, I have found the best hosting provider to be www.namecheap.com. I have an associate degree in network engineering, passed and held multiple Microsoft and Cisco certifications and have had many technical positions throughout my life and right now I am in my mid 40’s. I have scoured the internet and have had hosting packages with various companies to host various websites and this is what I have found. Around 6/20/2024 my hosting package at Bluehost was going to expire. I purchased and built this website on my Host Gator account using their baby package. When that account was about to expire, I spoke with a member of their tech team via chat and was told that I could not transfer this domain to another Host Gator account. I though this to be odd because I purchased this domain on their platform and have it there right now. They explained to me it was not possible. I wanted to keep this domain so I searched around for another provider. I checked on YouTube and I kept seeing videos that “Bluehost” was the best. I contacted a member of their support team via chat and was told in fact they do support .blog domains on their platform. So after some thinking about it, I transferred this domain to Bluehost (Host Gator and Bluehost are under the same ownership) and I stayed with them for a couple of years. Recently, my hosting package with them was going to expire, and I have an account with Namecheap now, I really like them a lot.

 

Transfer into Namecheap

 

I asked a member of the Namecheap support team if they support the transfer in and hosting of .blog domains, and they said that they do. I really like the folks at Name Cheap too. Since 04/09/2024 I have been without any income. Earlier this year, one of my other Bluehost domains

came due and when I renewed it via name cheap it was like $10.66 or something. So I renewed it with them. Then when this domain name became due, I though it was going to be the same price through Namecheap, I checked with them, and they told me it was going to cost me

over $24.00 to renew because it was a .blog extension. So I was like fine, and I paid for the renewal. I renewed the domain at name cheap but the DNS, Email, Content, and blog posts

were still hosted at Bluehost. Then on 06/17/2024, Bluehost detected that the domain had expired and the site went down. I had like 5 email addresses on the Bluehost domain and they too went down. So I recreated the emails on NameCheap through their cPanel and asked their support staff through chat what I needed to do to transfer that content into Namecheap. So they advised me that their domain concierge team could assist with that transfer. So I asked them if there was a charge for that, as with pretty much everything, and they advised there was no charge for their help. So I chatted with them and they told me I had to get a full backup from the cPanel of my old hosting provider and then upload to Namecheap. It takes forever to get it from my old host (It needs to be generated) to my computer and then to upload that file to NameCheap and then they would do the restore. I did that but when I got the file (it was a 7.2 GB tar file package), I amended the domain name to it for clarification. I then uploaded it to name cheap. They created a ticket and continued to email me status updates as they progressed. 

 

Failed to Restore

 

I went to sleep and I woke up the next day and they told me in an email that the restore failed. They told me that they tried several things with the file I uploaded them but it had failed each time. They encouraged me to try again but this time DO NOT change the file name in any way. So I did exactly as they instructed. I generated a new tar file pulled it down to my PC and then pushed it up to Namecheap. I went to sleep again. Before I was able to sleep, I just kept thinking of what I was going to have to do to rebuild this site. I knew what I was going to have to do but it was going to be a P.I.T.A. 

 

Transfer success

 

I woke up the next day, and before I even checked my email, I went to this domain on my cell phone, and it came right up, exactly how it was before. I was elated. Then I checked my email and I saw that the restore was a success! So I logged in to my Bluehost account and did the exact same thing with www.justawesomeshots.com and it also was a success. Namecheap is awesome, their support is also awesome and there is never a charge for anything, pretty much. The names of their staff seem to be of Middle Eastern descent but I do not care, they are always very responsive, and super knowledgeable too. Their spelling is always very good too and their is a chat button on every page and there is an audible alert right before their response and you only get that alert from a human response, unlike Blue Host who spams you to death with their Audible alerts from their bots. I need to speak with a human, not a bot. Anyway, Namecheap is awesome for numerous reasons. They give free domain privacy to all the users on their platform, which is awesome because without that service you will get spammed to death when you purchase a domain without privacy, Bluehost and Host gator charge for that service, and they may discount their hosting packages but they never ever discount the domain privacy fee. Namecheap also gives you a free SSL certificate for the first year for free, which is very much needed. Needless to say, I am staying with Namecheap. 

 

In conclusion: 

 

Namecheap is the absolute best hosting provider I have ever had. Their staff is always friendly and knowledgeable and sometimes they have to deliver bad news. I appreciate that to, because I have learned that just because I don’t like the information that is delivered to me that does not make it incorrect. Namecheap is always very prompt with either type of news and the Namecheap provides the absolute best hosting service that have ever had the pleasure of being with. They provide tremendous value always. I am not sure where they get their support staff from but they are there around the clock and offer the best help that I have ever seen.

June 20, 2024
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I have an announcement to make

By Uncategorized

 

Under 200 Pounds 05/26/2024
I post every month on the 10th pictures of all my vital stats including of course my weight at www.onlyyourbodymatters.com. I calculated that at my current rate of weight loss and my current weight, I would be down to under 200 LBS by  06/05/2024 – 06/08/2024. I have always ridden the Peloton at night taken a shower and then eaten. I watched this YouTube video the day before yesterday by this guy his name is Thomas Delauer. He said in that video to exercise after you eat. So I made a simple switch and I noticed the next day that I lost an extra pound that put me at 201.5 pounds, then I checked it again the next day and I was which is a huge deal to me. I just can’t remember when I was last under 200 pounds, I estimate that it
was in 2016 or so. So that’s what I do now all the time.

May 26, 2024
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About driving for Uber Human, you gotta know when to holdem

By Uncategorized

 

The thing about driving for Uber (Human) I have never driven for Uber Eats. Is that  Anytime you accept a request, if the ride goes perfectly (Which sometimes it does not) What is happening at that moment is that you are saying yes to that rider but no to any rides that may be larger. So when you accept a request any request it has got to be as close to your preference as possible. When I first started driving for Uber in 2018. This opportunity was  Just NOT available at all. The only thing that was available was if a trip was going to be longer than 45 minutes then that driver would be notified, so you could tell at that moment if you were going to be late or not for any type of engagement. That is all it would say. So if that trip was 46 minutes or 90 minutes that is all you would see. You could not tell where it was going, which direction it was going none of that. Now, you can see how much money the driver is going to receive and where exactly that trip is going. That is a lot of information, that previously was not available. So when a request is accepted you are saying no to all of the other requests that may come through. Sometimes there are no ride requests, and sometimes there are a lot the thing is you have to hold out for the rides that are closest to your preferences. There have been many times that there are not any requests coming in and then a big request comes in. There also have been many times when no requests are coming in and then nothing comes in and you just have to pack it in and come back and do it again another day. You absolutely need to know, when to do that when driving for Uber.

May 24, 2024
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The top 4 best vehicles to drive rideshare in according to my 6 years as a full-time Uber driver.

By Blog

What are the top 4 best vehicles to drive rideshare in?

 I have driven for Uber for over 6 years now and the best vehicle I have ever had and have ever driven is my Toyota Prius. These are the top 4 vehicles to drive rideshare in from my own personal experience. See, in rideshare driving actually any type of driving even just back and forth to work, what you want to purchase is the most fuel-efficient vehicle you can get your hands on. Then you want to search for and purchase that vehicle but with all the options on the inside that you can possibly find. That way you have a vehicle that is as cheap as possible at the gas pump but inside where it is actually important, is where all the good stuff is. Also, you need for it to have as much safety equipment as possible, for two reasons 1) is that when you enter the VIN number to purchase auto insurance you want your insurance company to give you credit for all of those safety features because that translates in savings on your monthly premium, and 2) in the event of an accident you need to be completely safe. Now that accident happened the day after my car rolled over 500K miles. I have viewed the footage from the impact of the accident and I could clearly see that all the safety equipment still worked perfectly which is exactly what you want. From my 6 years of experience while driving for Uber.

 

So with 1 Being the best. Here is my selection of the 4 best rideshare vehicles

 

  1. The Toyota Prius. 53 MPG and in these new 5th gen cars they added 100 HP
  2. The Honda FIT (Hybrid Edition) 49 MPG
  3. The Honda Accord (Hybrid Edition) 51 MPG
  4. The Lexus es 300 (Hybrid edition) 44 MPG

 

         It is important that anyone considering any of these vehicles understands that these are all NON-PLUG-IN hybrid models. They all get the electrical energy from a battery that is recharged when the brake is pressed. That is the only place they get electricity from. A plugin model severely limits the range of the vehicle that is being recharged. The vehicles listed above are the only ones that I can recommend at all. The vehicle that is chosen to drive rideshare with. needs to get at the very least 40 MPG. Uber continues to decrease their pay to drivers and fuel is the only cost that a driver has any control over. I personally change the oil in my car every two weeks when I am driving for Uber. It is very important for anyone considering driving for Uber or Lyft to understand that driving in addition to a job, or to supplement any type of income, will cause the wear and tear on a vehicle to double, which means that the amount that will be paid for a mechanic to perform any work at all on a vehicle will also double. Also, the amount that is paid to fuel ANY vehicle is also going to double. This doubling will eat away any income that you earn as a rideshare driver. Also what will eat away at your rideshare profits is auto insurance and the fact that as a rideshare driver, you will be on the road a lot more so there will be a lot more risk to you as a driver because you will be on the road a lot more. You will get into an accident. I have been in 3 accidents over the past 6 years and NONE of them have been my fault. As the adage says, fault in a car accident matters very little if you are dead. I read a book recently by Dr. Peter Attia and he says in that book, he has worked in the hospitals over the years and he has seen the victims of car crashes and the person that usually dies or gets very badly injured is often the person that is not at fault. The person who was behind the wheel and minding their own business often is the one who ends up paying the price. As you can see from the footage of my dashcam. I was completely stopped at a stop sign and I was struck head-on by another vehicle there were two Uber passengers in the back so the Uber insurance took over, and Uber has no uninsured motorist coverage and they denied my Uninsured motorist claim because my policy wasn’t a commercial policy. If you have Geico commercial insurance there is some secret mileage number that if it is exceeded, Geico will drop you and they will never say anything to you about that number. Not before you sign up with them, and not even after they drop you. They just never say. I have tried googling it multiple times and I have been unable to get any answer at all. I am a full-time Uber driver. I do not do anything else, I do try to 

Get income from other ways but in the past 25 years, I have been unable to make an online sale whatsoever. When I started driving for Uber in my first couple years the mileage on my vehicle was almost 100K in a year. I was with Geico personally before I started driving rideshare in 2018 and when I talked with Geico about rideshare driving, they immediately 

made me cancel my existing policy with them and get a commercial policy with them. So I did, they force you to take a picture every year of your odometer and send it to them somehow. That is how I am able to remember the mileage I was driving then. Now in 2024, it is different. Last year that accident happened the day after my car hit 500K miles. Right now, it has only 547K miles on it. That means in a year I drove a total of only 47000 miles which is good for a single year. That is probably right around the mileage that will be driven by a rideshare driver who is just supplementing their other income. Progressive told me that the Rideshare “Rider” that I also have on my insurance policy only covers me while I am on the way to pick up a passenger and as soon as a passenger gets in my vehicle then the Uber policy takes over.

In Conclusion: The vehicle that you choose to drive rideshare in is VERY important. The vehicle that you have right now may or may not be the best thing for driving a lot of miles. The thing about rideshare driving is that, once you are approved to drive for Uber or Lyft then it is very easy to just go online and start earning. The revenue that you have to pay for each trip tends to be outrageous and now that Hyperinflation has touched everything, the efficiency of the vehicle that you drive is EXTREMELY important. Just remember that also after each trip the passenger judges/rates you as a driver and often they hear noises from other vehicles on the road and they rate you based on that. So fuel efficiency, safety, and ongoing maintenance costs are very important in a rideshare vehicle.

May 12, 2024
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