Sun City Palm Desert Residents

Bump for new members.

My homeowners insurance policy was not renewed last year. I called my good friend Craig Wong and he was able to get us homeowners and earthquake insurance through Mercury Insurance. Our auto insurance with Mercury went down by several hundred dollars a year because he could bundle the cars with the homeowners.

I have known Craig for over 10 years and he's a good guy and excellent as an insurance agency.

I spoke to him yesterday and asked if he wants referrals and he said he really wants to write new policies in our area. He's been writing policies mostly in San Diego and L.A.

Let them know I referred you!

Craig Wong Insurance Agency
(619) 207-0715

There have been quite a few people who have registered for the site (joined) recently. I welcome you all.

The software here is not quite as simple as Nextdoor, but it really is easy to use.

The site is organized like “folders” and each folder can have many discussions/topics (discussions like on Nextdoor).

I created a number of instruction topics to help you learn how to use the site (in a folder named, how to use the site!).

How to use the site

Uncensored discussion for SCPD residents

Sun City Palm Desert Residents (scpdresidents.org)

From the home page, you can create a new topic. The only tricky part is that you need to choose which folder to add your topic to. People can then post comments, just like Nextdoor, on your topic. These folders are called categories in the software. When you start a topic, there’s a “select category” button to the left of the title for your topic.

Why folders (categories)? Because WE can choose how we want to organize our topics. For example, we could have a folder for animal rescue and those type of topics would be put there. If you aren’t interested in animal rescue, you can just not visit that folder.

At the bottom left of the page is a button that looks like >>

Click on that and you get some help,about what all the buttons and functions are.

I’ve used Don Hegge and his company for the times I’ve needed an electrician.

His prices are fair and he stands behind his work.

He is a good man, too.

Local Electricians in Indio and Palm Springs | Hegge Electrical Contractors

Call our trained, licensed, and insured electricians providing white-glove service in Indo, LaQuinta, and the surrounding areas since 1987.

Hegge Electrical Contractors (www.heggeelectrical.com)

You know, I don’t mean to be short with my answer.

I don’t think that Vance winning the debate is going to move the needle as far as the vote goes. People vote for the person at the top.

I consider myself a 60s hippie type - anti establishment and anti war.

To me, the real factor to consider is that the previous administration was making peace agreements with middle eastern countries and Israel and this one has us under fire and hot wars in several places.

I’m not a MAGA or Trump guy, just someone who doesn’t want us near war with a nuclear power enemy.

Did the debate matter?

Just asking…

@donandsandy said in Getting started:

How do I start my own topic? Where do I go? I can reply to topics but can't figure out how to start my own. Thanks in advance!

See the big blue New Topic button?

To get to this (the home) page, click on the “Sun City Palm Desert Residents” link at the top of any page.

You will have to select a category for your topic, like “solar Project” or “General Discussion” next to the “Enter Your Title Here”

When I moved here in 2015, I used the pharmacy at Stater Brothers because it was convenient.

When Stater Brothers closed the pharmacy, I switched to Rite Aid on Washington, across from Stater Brothers. It, too, was convenient. I was easily able to get there by golf cart, crossing Washington at the light at the entrance to the Stater Brothers parking lot.

When Rite Aid closed, they sold their client base to Walgreens in the Stater brothers shopping center. I was blown away by how terrible a pharmacy could be. They never answered the phone in a timely manner. When I showed up in person, the lines were quite long. It was so frustrating that I wanted to find another pharmacy to use.

I found it, and I want to give them the props they deserve. Cornerstone Pharmacy is across Washington from Stater Brothers also. It is to the left once you enter the parking lot across Washington, next to Chipotles.

I’m very happy with them. They have several people working at the times I have gone there to pick up my prescriptions. They answer the phone quickly. They are Uber friendly and knowledgeable. They are family owned and it’s noticeable how different they are from corporate pharmacies. They also deliver.

I have been using them for well over a year, maybe even two.

The store itself is rather small, with most of it dedicated to the pharmacy. They do have a small selection of items for sale, like pill boxes and walking aids and so on. But I don’t go to the pharmacy to shop for things, and what Cornerstone does is high quality service.

Cornerstone Pharmacy - Cornerstone Pharmacy | Your Local Palm Springs Pharmacy

Cornerstone Pharmacy is a local pharmacy in Palm Desert.

(www.cornerstonepharmacy.org)

Good people.

@Joe said in Home entertainment technology and how to get the most bang for the buck:

@mschwartz I agree with your post, I was just offering a couple of different options, both for hardware and software options for watching tv. Wasn't trying to take away anything from what you said.

I was very glad to see your post as like you said, Spectrum DVR is junk. A few other options out there for those that want something different.

We decommissioned our TiVos and went with the Apple TVs.

The cable card requires another ugly set top box…

As far as bandwidth goes, people may think it really just takes 3-5 minutes to upload a photo they just took with their phone so they can include it in email or post it to messages. Just because people don’t know what they’re missing doesn’t mean that 20mbit up is good for most people.

I suspect that most people take photos with their phones.

@Joe the whole point of my post was to explain how you can ditch the DVRs entirely and use the Spectrum App on smart TV or Apple TV or other streaming box. Whatever you record on the DVR is almost surely available through video on demand in the app.

I am truly surprised that Spectrum hasn’t upgraded the set top boxes they use. The ones they use are made by Arris, and are the same ones I had in San Diego in 2008.

If they have upgraded the boxes, they are giving us the old used ones because we pay so little for the services than non bulk customers do.

@Videoguy I wasn’t speaking to storage, but the number of tuners. If you have 3 tuners, you can watch 1 program while recording 2 at the same time.

We SCPD residents get Spectrum cable for Internet and TV. The equipment Spectrum uses is mediocre at best and outright terrible if you know anything about it. They give us 2x DVRs because one of them is insufficient to record a couple of shows and let you watch a third. It really is terrible. Plus you have these big ugly boxes on your TV stand(s).

Well, it turns out that you don't need these DVRs to watch Spectrum TV. They have an app you can use on most smart TVs, Apple TV, Amazon Fire stick, and other streaming devices. You can watch live TV using the app and you can watch shows you would record with a DVR with their Video On Demand in the app. So you can ditch those DVRs.

I recommend Apple TV. It simply is the best streaming device made - its menus are gorgeous and everything works very fast because it has a fast computer processor in it. It also supports the best in advanced video and audio capabilities offered by streaming services and 4K DVDs.

You will want to create an account at spectrum.com. You can use this username and password to sign in to many apps you can download for the Apple TV because we get some streaming services for FREE because of what we get with Spectrum.

For example, we get MAX for free, instead of having to pay $16.99 /month for it like everyone else does. But you have to sign into max using your TV Provider, which is Spectrum. And for that you need an account with Spectrum.

We also get access to any app that we have a channel for with our Spectrum HOA subscription - like ESPN and CNN and CNBC and others.

VIDEO

The TV you have matters if you want near theater (or better than theater) experience. You will want a BIG screen if you want 4K programming (which is gorgeous). The smaller the TV, the closer you have to sit to the screen to get the benefit of 4K. For example, for a 55" TV the recommended maximum distance from where you sit to watch to the screen is 7.7 feet. For a 65" the maximum distance is 9 feet. A 70" TV has about a 10 foot maximum recommended distance.

We have a 77" 4K TV and sit about 6 feet from it. Watching movies is an immersive experience.

My preference for brand of TV is Sony. They say you "pay the Sony tax" for the TV, but their software and hardware combination is as good as it gets. At the low end, Vizio is a "cheap" brand, but makes some fantastic quality screens.

AUDIO

For the longest time, we were stuck with low resolution picture tube TVs. Even with cable, programming was designed for this format. But while the state of the art in picture quality was stagnant for 30+ years (1960s through about 2000), the quality of audio vastly improved.

You may have heard of Dolby Labs (or just "Dolby"). What they have done over these years is provide TV programmers with better and better quality sound. Originally, we had a tinny sounding speaker on the TV but Dolby came up with stereo and ways to encode 5 channels of sound on a stereo signal (compatible with stereo players and with 5 channel players).

What do these channels get you?

With stereo, two people talking on screen, the person on the left's voice comes out the left speaker and the person on the right's voice comes out the right speaker. With 5 channel sound, you have 2 surround speakers to your left and right and front left/middle/right speakers. A race car sound might come from the rear right to the front right to the middle to the left as it passes by on the screen. It's exactly what you'd hear in a theater.

Today with streaming services and 4K DVD, they can provide 7 channel sound (add two more surround speakers behind you) to make the sound "stage" 360 degrees around you.

All audio formats, from stereo to the 5 and 7 channel surround formats also allow you to add a subwoofer to significantly enhance the low end or bass sounds. An explosion in the movie will have a much richer sound with the subwoofer.

If you see 5.1 or 7.1 or 2.1 as the audio format, it means 5 channels plus subwoofer, or 7 channels plus subwoofer. You will see these numbers while browsing movies to watch on Netflix or MAX or whatever services you subscribe to.

Stereo, 5 channel, and 7 channel sound are mixed by a recording engineer. He'll record the sound track so the race car's volume decreases in the rear right and increases in the front right as it passes by on your right, etc.

The ultimate audio today is ATMOS. Rather than clever mixing to make the sound surround you (SURROUND SOUND after all!), the engineer places objects, like a helicopter, in 3D space and as it moves in 3D space, the audio equipment decides the volume per speaker and which speakers the sound comes from. It's far more accurate.

ATMOS allows for as few as 5 speakers and up to 13 or more speakers. The idea is that the sound system is fed the 3D information about the helicopter and uses the 5 or 13 or 7 or whatever number of speakers you have to best present the sound.

What's particularly exciting about ATMOS is that it provides for more than a 360 degrees around you (SURROUND) sound stage. If add speakers in the ceiling, those will be used to provide "height" to the sound stage. You will hear rain and thunder from the ceiling speakers, the helicopter from the ceiling speakers, and so on.

The quality of the sound system you want is up to you. A sound bar and 2 rear surround speakers and a subwoofer is going to be really good sound. You will enjoy it.

Dolby's WWW site has diagrams for how to set up speakers for the various formats. For example, here's how they recommend you set up 7.1 speakers:

7.1 Virtual Speaker Setup

Set up your home theater with 7.1 virtual speakers enabled with Dolby Atmos using our PDF and guide for optimal sound. Experience your entertainment in Dolby.

(www.dolby.com)

If you have any questions or want my advice, feel free to ask here.

To please socialists?

FCC reinstates net neutrality, FCC Commissioner Carr slams move

The FCC voted to reinstate net neutrality rules that allow the agency to regulate broadband internet as a telecommunications service over the objections of Commissioner Brendan Carr.

Fox Business (www.foxbusiness.com)

I built and ran one of the first commercial internet service providers in 1994. I have a deep understanding of how the internet works, especially on the network level.

The net neutrality rules are BS and not needed. The internet already has fast lanes for data in a few ways, and it’s necessary.

Google, for example, spends vast sums of money to build server locations all over the world so access to their sites (Google, YouTube, etc). The bandwidth is termed “premium” bandwidth.

There are many companies that offer similar service to anyone willing to pay.

Some of these services are free, even. I could have put this site on such a service but it’s not needed for the kind of traffic that is being generated.

The network protocols include a QoS (quality of service) so video and audio streams get priority over email, web browsing, file downloads, and so on. If they disable QoS as net neutrality requires, then your tv shows, movies, music, and podcasts that are streamed will stutter and stop periodically so someone else can download a big file in 58 seconds instead of 60.

Sorry if you don’t like Fox News. The article is what counts. I’m not a fan of Fox News myself.

What’s key is what Commissioner Carr and others are saying. They’re correct.

Last time we had this net neutrality debate, the claims were that the internet as we know it would end. Instead, when net neutrality rules were tabled, the internet got better in the ways we all care about.

Netflix streams perfectly fine over our Spectrum and Frontier connections. The HOA deals are incredibly inexpensive for what we get. Without an HOA deal, I get gigabit speeds for about $50 from Frontier (the best connection is fiber, not cable).

Companies like AT&T and Charter (Spectrum) and Frontier and T-Mobile are investing heavily into infrastructure- 5G and fiber - at impressive growth.

The only thing that matters to consumers are data caps. Fortunately for us, I don’t think there are data caps for our home connections. The data caps for 5G are generous enough, but they are going to force those who use/abuse the bandwidth to pay a little more. Cox Cable has a data cap for cable internet, which is bad policy.

I don’t see what the net neutrality rules are supposed to fix. It’s bullshit. It’s supposed to make voters feel better that the government has control or something. It’s like a scam intended to take advantage of seniors.

Peace!

@Bugs said in Auto and home insurance:

I have had AAA home and auto bundled for several years. No claims so far so I cannot speak for their claim service. However, the customer service has been excellent and the renewal annually so far has been no problem. At this point I would recommend AAA.

We've been paying about $2600/yr for Home + Earthquake.

I'll check into AAA. Thanks!

I pay Mercury Insurance for auto insurance twice a year. Last year, we paid about $975 (twice a year) for 2 cars (2016 and 2017 models). The bill just came and it’s now $1150. That’s a steep increase!

I read online that insurance rates are going up a lot. I didn’t expect this much.

So it works out to about $100/month per car for the 12 months.

Does this seem reasonable to you?

On a similar note, we received a cancellation notice for our homeowners insurance. We haven’t chosen or really looked for a new policy yet - it expires in November. Mercury is one of the companies not fleeing the state.

It may make sense to look to bundle the two.

Any recommendations?

Laurie Hirth over at Tri Palm Estates Country Club asked me to send this out to the group. Tri Palm is still trying to recover from Hurricane Hillary and signing the petition online would benefit the golf course we are playing on, as well as the Tri Palm community. We are all qualified to sign as we live within the surrounding sphere influenced.

Go to https://chng.it/jtK9SfWZNH

I would think any of the house painters can do it.

Fernando Rossi
+1 (760) 534-3925

He painted our house. He’s one of Margaret Denneny’s recommendations.

Everyone should go! Good way to meet people and especially creative people.

And so we are at war in yet another place in the world.

US, British militaries launch massive retaliatory strike against Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen

U.S. and British militaries are bombing more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, in a retaliatory strike.

AP News (apnews.com)