This year was meant to be the year where I made a number of high-cost, high-reward upgrades. After the extremely harsh winter, I knew that I needed to install a level-2 car charger and to buy a pickup truck to do the kind of things that a small electric hatchback can’t do. I also knew …
Continue reading "Joe added solar panels to his house"
Almost exactly two months after buying a cheap pick-up truck, it catastrophically broke. It was parked in my driveway (with me actively working on it) when a branch from one of the trees along the street broke, fell through the windshield, and smashed the dashboard. This was exactly one week after I paid Best Buy …
Continue reading "My truck got a little smashed"
Back in May 2020, I bought a VW e-Golf and got rid of my trusty Subaru Impreza. Since then, I had been living without an ICE car in my life. For the most part, it has worked out well but the extreme cold and deep snow over the past month had gotten me thinking. More …
Continue reading "I bought a cheap pick-up truck"
As I mentioned back in May, I bought a new electric car this year. As the weather began to turn cold, I noticed the effective range go down. It is generally ok, though because everything that I would really need to drive to is within 20 miles of my house. I did find myself needing …
Continue reading "Living with an electric car in Wisconsin: Winter 2020 Update"
Since the Android 11 update bricked my Pixel 3 in September, I have been in a weird place with my phone. For two months, I was using the iPhone 8. For one month, I was using the Moto G Fast. I didn’t like either phone as much as I liked my Pixel 3. I finally …
Continue reading "Thoughts on the Pixel 4a 5g"
Back in September, the Android 11 update bricked my Pixel 3. That left me with the option of using my Motorola Moto E5 or my iPhone 8 (the two phones that I keep around for device testing). I spent September and October using the iPhone 8 (and kind of hated every moment of it). At …
Continue reading "A month with the Motorola Moto G Fast"
Back in 2012, I backed the Pebble e-paper watch on kickstarter. My thought at the time was that it would be a good way of looking at my messages without pulling out my phone. It worked fine for that but it is a pretty limited use case and you still need to be within bluetooth …
Continue reading "Thoughts on the Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 GPS Smartwatch"
One of the really nice things about buying an electric car is that you don’t need to repair it as often. When fewer things move, there are fewer things that can break. Thanks to regenerative braking, even the brake pads are expected to last a freakishly long time. The big question is what to do …
Continue reading "Living with an electric car in Wisconsin: Repairs"
A month ago, the Android 11 update borked my Pixel 3. Since then, I’ve been using an iPhone 8 as my daily driver. I figured that I owed you a follow-up with my impressions, so far. Pros The phone is noticeably thinner and nicer feeling in my hand. It seems to pair more easily to …
Continue reading "The great iPhone experiment – Part 2"
One of my favorite things about summer is that I can start riding my bike more. In the “before times” (when working from the office didn’t give you COVID), I spent half of the year biking to work instead of driving. Back in 2018, I dropped $1,568 on an electric bike from Rad Power Bikes …
Continue reading "My other car is a bicycle"