Casual Conversation

I moved out to the middle of nowhere for work. The sky is amazing at night, so I don't run visible lights outside. It's dark as hell. I picked up a set of night vision. Pricey but worth it.

picking up a new skateboard deck today! i need to get out and get moving again to help recover from a recent injury. it’s been years since i’ve ridden but i am super excited! i’d like to also depend less on a car so i can eventually sell it. baby steps, though.

Never in my life did I expect to get excitement and antipation waiting on our very first manure spreader to arrive but here I am, cannot wait for it to get here.

Let me tell you, if you need a manure spreader and don't have one....shit piles up quick.

Sony WF-1000XM5s. The ANC is better than anything I have tried in years. I got them because I tried loops and was disappointed with how little they did. The quality of music through them is a really positive secondary purpose for me.

Litter-Robot 4, which was a painful $800.

Best purchase ever.

Heat pump water heater, and fuck yeah, it's neat!

Tri clad stainless steel cookware. Getting rid of non-stick pans for healthier living. They're still a thing to get used to, right heat settings and such, but I'm excited.

I bought a classic Kamado Joe last year. It was a spicy meatball but the meats I make on it are far and above anything I would make with a cheap smoker and it gives me the option to use it as a grill not just a smoker.

Electronic Unicycle: it's likely going to kill me, but it's a ton of fun to ride. Mines capable of 60mph/95kmph. Took about a week to ride confidently but definitely worth it.

I got a new RC airplane. A SIG Kadet LT-40 ARF (Almost Ready to Fly). It's a trainer with a 70" wingspan (~1.8 meters)

A lot of RC airplanes these days come ready to go... almost everything is pre-installed including the electric motor, ESC (electronic speed controller), servos, control surface hinges, you name it. The problem is they're all made out of styrofoam, and while they work and fly well enough, they don't appeal to me as much as a balsa and plywood model where you pick all of the components yourself.

To me it's like the difference between buying a prebuilt computer that comes with Windows on it vs building my own computer.

This one is an ARF, which means the major components are pre-built, but there is some final gluing and assembly to do.

The Kadet LT-40 is a trainer, and I only got it so I can teach other people how to fly should the need arise. All in, I've spent about $950 on it. I bought good quality stuff which increases the cost, plus I even bought a 2nd transmitter to use as a buddy box during training. The student will use one transmitter, and I'll have my transmitter in hand ready to take over before they crash.

With cheaper components I could have reduced the cost by $200 at least. To me it's worth the extra in order to have stuff that I know is good quality.

Was it worth it? I think it will be, yes. I've been flying RC planes on and off for 20 years, and even if I don't have any students, this will be fun for me to fly.

Had to get PC upgraded bcus old one don't work any more . Has enough VRAM for local image generation , ftmp don't hafta deal with limitations of online generation services anymore !

I bought a dehumidifier in January it was a couple of hundred. I fucking love it don't know how I lived without it.

I went to engineering school in the US. Twice.

No. Lol.

We redid the kids/guest/common bathroom recently. But I bought a pretty pricey toilet for the second bathroom that's closer our our room. It has a seat warmer and a washlet seat. I build and remodel houses for work so a lot of my week is using a portable toilet. I figured weekends should be a little nicer and parts of me deserved some pampering. Man, I was right. 10/10 would recommend.

A decent camera, and yeah. I’ve had a fairly good camera for a while, but getting one that takes the photos I see has been a game changer - previously I always felt they needed editing, and I never really had the inclination to learn that very well. Now they mostly look like what I want straight out of camera, so I’m printing them more often, and enjoying the whole process a lot more

new glasses for €1300. they had to be customised to fit my head. so far, they have fucked up my prescription twice. so no.

I'm not sure if it's worth it yet because it has not been delivered yet, but it's a new Synthesiser I've wanted for a number of years.

Looking forward to the wave of creativity that usually follows when I get new gear

A laundry basket with legs that you can fold out.

I have to hang-dry my laundry (I live in Japan), so being able to raise the basket high enough so that I don't have to bend to the ground every time to grab the next item is worth it.

Technically, it's not that recent, nor that expensive, but it was like double the price of the laundry basket next to it at the store.

My Berkey water filtration system. I got the travel size (1.5 gal). It's efficient enough to filter out food coloring, the water is a perfect pH 7, the water doesn't irritate my mouth sores like tap or bottled water (looking at you, Aquafina!) and the water just tastes better. Plus the filters are rated for 6,000 gallons. I'm better hydrated than I ever was.

I bought an Ember Mug, and while it was expensive the quality of life it has given me has actually been worth it. Always having your coffee at the right temperature even after sipping it slowly over the course of an hour is such an upgrade over re-heating it every 15 minutes it's actually wild.

Depends on what someone thinks of as expensive.

But I had been saving up for a new digital SLR.

I had bought an okay point and shoot years ago, and couldn't justify replacing it just because. Then the thing disappeared. Tore the house apart looking for it. Nada. Nobody has been in the house where it was stored at all, so my best guess is that I did something like loan it to someone while half asleep, or otherwise go brain dead and shove it somewhere weird.

Anyway, looked at my budget, guesstimated what I could afford, what I'd need to take the kind of pictures I wanted, and bloody well picked up a decent enough Canon. More camera than I need, but that also means I can use it until it falls apart and be plenty satisfied with anything I shoot. I mostly take pics of my chickens. But they're good pics.

Makes me wish I'd done it ages ago. Not that the pics the previous one took are bad, these are just better.

Pokemon card booster packs to open.

Hell no it wasn’t worth it, but ya gotta gamble sometimes.

Carbon wheels and a power meter crankset for my bike. I'm having so much fun with it.

It was kind of expensive, but in relative terms it was fine since I got them on AliExpress

Not super expensive, but more than I would normally spend on a countertop appliance. But a small dishwasher. Pour in a gallon and half up top, put the evac hose in the sink, little bit of Cascade powder (the cheap stuff works best I have no clue why people buy the expensive tablets), and it gets them cleaner than I can by hand.

I’ve yet to make that purchase, but I’m about to spend around €1.5k on a new (used) e-fatbike, since I snapped the frame on my old one. The one I spent over €2k on three years ago was absolutely worth it, so I don’t hesitate for a second to spend that much again. I’m just grateful that my finances allow for it - an unexpected cost like that would be devastating for so many other people.

Offline AI capable hardware in July of 2023 was my last big purchase and has been well worth it. This is the longest stretch where I have felt engaged with one hobby thing and it has bridged most of my other interests in interesting ways. For an advanced tech capable disabled person in social isolation, this is the way.