New England B.S. Thread

I love the beach! I love the ocean! I love being at a lake. I love the mountains and I love the winter! That's the reason I don't think I would ever move from New England.

 

I don’t think your negative enough to be a local

 

Dammit I miss it up there. I love our home here in WNC, it's like the Berkshires but bigger. Well, and that there's industry & work... and houses are affordable... and taxes aren't near as high...

It was a conscious decision to move back down here (long story) but even in my wife's mere two years up there she got hooked.

But I still miss New England so bad. I usually get my fix about twice a year with runs up to family in Warwick, RI or North Adams, MA but covid pumped the brakes on all that. I was so excited to take the taco on it's first run up north.

You guys get to play with snowmobiles though.. the south has nothing for that one

 

Born and raised!


I even liked your post!

 

Alright, I'm starting to look at winter tires for the F-150 even though I probably won't buy until around September. On my last one I ran beefy all terrains all year, but there are definite cons to that approach. So, I bought some take-off 18" wheels and plan to buy some OEM TPMS sensors for them--stock size for those would be 275/65R18. I think I want to do 255/70R18 since narrower should be better for winter and they're also significantly cheaper than a 275.



I've started to narrow it down (which isn't hard, the selection isn't great) and am pretty much between the Yokohama Iceguard IG51V and Nokian Hakkapeliitta R3 SUV. I believe the total difference will be somewhere around $50/tire in the end, with the Nokians obviously being the more expensive tire.

What would you pick, or is there another tire available in that size that you'd pick? I don't really want studs--I find that they're only really beneficial in ice and any other time they're annoying.

 

I would recommend Nokians all day every day

 

Anything with cylinder deactivation isnt worth it in my opinion. Be ready for needing lifters or possibly new heads

 

I've never actually had Nokians, but I've heard nothing but good about them.

 

Same, plus too many damn people. Rather a pool or pond..I grew up swimming in ponds all the time.

To me, one fun part of swimming is when you're working outside and can just drop what you're doing, walk over to the pool and get in.

 

Anyone else remember the Cadillac V8-6-4?

 

Sorry Chris I meant to quote @jpereira2

 

I've had them and they are great. I'll be buying another set in the fall.

I do. What a pile!

 

love the winter? Ew. Otherwise there’s plenty of places with mountains and lakes and beaches without the snow. As noted below....

By WNC I assume western North Carolina? I was just down that area, Greenville SC then out to Charleston then back up the coast. Loved it. I’d consider living in Greenville or other parts inland but Charleston area just didn’t do it for me. The only way I’d be able to do it is if I lived on one of the islands and good lord we’re talking like 4MM houses. It’s looking like we’ll be making the leap to Austin. Beaches are farther away (Galveston, Corpus) compared to here (takes me 30 minutes without traffic to get to gansett and I am on the east bay so if you’re good with the bay, takes 5 minutes to get there). But F the winters. RI is better but it’s a half ass winter instead. Too cold to do anything, but warm enough that it doesn’t snow so you can’t do any winter activities, you’re just stuck inside doing nothing. I like the area but bring on the heat. As said just made a trip, Austin was included, went for a 4 mile walk mid day in the Texas heat. Was a okay. Sweaty like a bastard but that’s fine, dog and I can handle the heat, that’s what was important.

what brings you up to Warwick? What a sorry place....

 

Buckle up, here comes a novel...

@taco-houla Western NC, indeed. Lived in Greenville, SC for a few years during it's best Renaissance period (when $millions were spent on gentrification) from 2009 to 2014. It turned to shit (immediate downtown + bonkers traffic everywhere else) quickly after we left. Moved not far away, just over the line in NC where we are now, got to experience Asheville's best Renaissance period, decided it was time to slow down, have a 3 year old now and since we stopped going out all the time, Asheville got a little sketchy again. We got lucky.

I'm from Adams, MA orginally but when GE Pittsfield basically shut down in the early 90s, we ended up down here. Well, like most people do after school, I decided "this place sucks! I'm going back up north!" I'm not sure why I picked RI, but I did. It was mostly a pin the tail on the map kind of thing but it was the best move for me at the time. My then gf, now wife followed me up 8 months later and says the same for her.

I was up around RI for a couple of years for a few reasons, became friends with someone who has truly become a brother to me. Now I have a family, he does too, we all go on vacations on the outer banks together, random trips up there, they make trips down here, hook each other up with vehicle stuff, it's good shit. It's been 14 years already.

I made the trip up 146 and across the Pike to the Berkshires so many times back then, I had a flashback when I read @mach1man001's Blackstone, Ma location. Subaru parts swapping in Millbury, running up to NH to buy a first gen legacy with the ej22t, ripping up and down rte 2 and the Mohawk trail to North Adams, getting stuck in a retention pond in Exeter, RI, Matty hydrolocking his YJ and snapping the cam in half, late night trips to IHOP in Newport (no waffle house, we did what we could), watching the blue angles practice over quonset and watching the "jogger moms" running down elmgrove and blackstone while painting houses for a while. Gutting a nasty house in west Warwick as part of a rehab job with the same painting gig. Working on imports in a shop on West shore for a little while, that was interesting. They were repaving the road at the time and I, the go-fer, got sent on a dunkin run, took a Saab 900s and the damn rotten exhaust pipe popped off and was sliding on the road. I pulled off in a neighborhood there and kicked the cat back off, put the top down and set it up in the passenger seat and went back to the shop. Watching the cove freeze over in the fall and then the exotic cars coming out in the spring from my apartment in EG, watching fireworks on the sand in Conimicut, getting passed by a Diablo SV on airport road in the snow and slush...

It's amazing how some places can become such a huge part of your life in such a short time. RI is that for me.

Here's the thing: just like leaving here at first, I had to leave it to know what I loved about it. The same is true for RI, for western mass, for everywhere I've been. Everywhere is awesome, everywhere is a shithole. What you focus on is up to you and I'm lucky to love everywhere I've been.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk.

 

damn dude. I’m sure when I leave I’ll look back on some good memories. I do really love my house here, we lucked out (real estate seller took really bad pictures) ended up with 1/3 acre. In East Providence. That’s unheard of. Small ranch, it’s the perfect house but we only get to enjoy the back yard for half the year at most. Can’t sit outside and eat dinner outside in January. We visited Austin over the holidays and she loved it too, I went about a week ago on a road trip to experience the heat (I wouldn’t let myself move there without knowing I could handle the summer heat. If we can’t use the back yard for 6 months and can’t handle outside for 4 ish months who gives a rip if it’s hot or cold at that point). We did great so I think we’ll be making the move. Just have to be careful about what we’re giving up here to gain down there. Move out of a house with a beautiful open yard we can open up the door and let the dog outside, to move into an apartment with no yard and no balcony so you have to lug chairs and food to eat outside? Would just be silly. So, we have to be careful about the move otherwise we’ll regret moving because we did it wrong. I’m also contemplating keeping the house in RI for a few years as a rental property just in case. Even if it can at best break even, it’s a safety net, just in case.

Greenville seemed nice when I was there at least. I think it was a Monday/weekday. Parked at the zoo took the trails around for a few hours with the dog. Drove around a bit too and checked it out. Seemed like a nice enough place but it had a hell of a high bar to hit after the effect Austin had on us.

 

Greenville is really nice and if you can handle 95 by the mall and the curve or the bumper cars on 6 and 10 on a Friday afternoon, you'd be just fine.

If you can keep the place in Rhode Island, do it. You'll make money and not burn the score you made. Don't look at the property's value as an assumed value of what you have in it, rather what it would cost in money and time (patience) to replace it. If you wouldn't miss your current place living somewhere else in RI, that's one thing. If you would drive by your old place and think, "damn that was a good set up we should have kept it", then don't sell it.

Once in a while we'll reflect on the places we've lived to keep our perspective right about where we stand now.

Ever had a car you loved and at the time, it was felt right to sell but now it was the one you let get away?

I'm not pushing you either way, just saying take your time and think of replacement costs of all kinds in case you need to about-face.

 

Started prepping my bed for raptor liner tomorrow. Looked at bottles and I have the “tintable” not black, which is white.

Now I will be waiting another week or so for the tint to come and then I can get it done.

I will still degrease and hit it with an etching primer for now to cover bare spots. Then hold off on the adhesive promoter until I actually get the tint in and am ready to spray.

what an idiot

 

Hey guys don’t want to spam this thread with this buuuut. Putting it up for grabs tomorrow, just wanted to give y’all the last first shot

 

So... If you get the tin table version, it's white? That might end up being a good option in the future.

 

Yeah, I can try to post a photo later, but its just white looking when you open the bottle, from a couple stories I've read online from people doing what I did is that it is white. They have a white additive though for a dye, so I'm not sure if it would be a nice clean and solid white, or if its a little opaque and cloudy white.