What are /r/santarosa's favorite Products & Services?

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I posted here about this last week when I needed to rent thousands of dollars worth of video equipment on a tight budget and short timeline. Nobody had what I needed. Then, I found everything I needed for free, right at my local library. https://sonomalibrary.org/camera-catalog

Today I learned anybody can join the Libary's E Street Studios (Virtual) Media Maker Meetup.

They are usually the last Monday of every month from 6-7pm but this month it is on May 24 (because Memorial Day). Here’s the link to sign up:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErdOivrTMrHdFlNOiQ8z3z6hISTJJoGX5g

Well, the weather is definitely better.

• When it's hot, the humidity tends to be pretty low and so even a spritz of water feels pretty amazing. (In humid areas, a spritz would just be spreading the misery around.) However, for whatever reason (climate change, etc.), each year seems to be getting slightly hotter. While the highs tend to be in the 80s-90s (remember, low humidity), we've had some surprising highs. Sept 6th was 116°F, and the day before was 113°F. See: https://www.accuweather.com/en/us/santa-rosa/95401/september-weather/327139?year=2022

• Lows can be in the high 20s.

Note that the temperatures can vary significantly depending upon where you are. When those "116°F" highs occurred, some places were cooler.

We're currently in a drought, although we did get 1-2" of rain in the past few days. Apparently, that was enough for the local fire department to declare the end of this year's fire season.

Speaking of which: Santa Rosa is now Fire Country, so please be aware of that.

Snow is pretty rare, although the surrounding hills can occasionally get a light dusting. Some places do get black ice.

Also note that that there is a pretty big earthquake fault running through the area, and all three (3) major hospitals are on top of it. IIRC, there's something like a 33% chance of it going off in the next 50-100 years (sorry, I can't remember the details and I'm too lazy to look them up).

Santa Rosa drivers are crazy -- not as aggressive as East coast drivers and probably more polite, but possibly more stupid.

Only thing I'm worried about is wind blowing towards Healdsburg.

Edit: and of course air quality

Do you have the button? If so:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du6gq3ks0SQ
https://www.amazon.com/Singer-2002108-Sewing-Kit-Storage/dp/B001682BQQ/ref=sxin_12_ac_d_mf_rf?ac_md=1-0-U0lOR0VS-ac_d_mf_rf_rf&cv_ct_cx=sewing+kit&dchild=1&keywords=sewing+kit&pd_rd_i=B001682BQQ&pd_rd_r=3e15ad83-07cf-4506-b8ac-...

Are you able to check whether these biking directions are correct? I can edit the map to be correct but I'm not a cyclist and don't know the area https://www.openstreetmap.org/directions?engine=fossgis_osrm_bike&route=38.4541%2C-122.6363%3B38.4465%2C-122.6162#map=16/38.4503/-122.6289&layers=C

Don't take them to the dump. Take them to Goodwill on Industrial or Pick of the Litter on Piner.

https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/pick-of-the-litter-279000415

Won't cost you a thing. Just drop the stuff off and claim the IRS contribution.

I have my own part-time business doing computer repairs. As others have noted, it sounds like the power supply. Some quick googling doesn't come up with a spec sheet, but it looks like a 500 watt power supply would work for the computer. You want to do it yourself, since it's fairly simple. Three or four screws on the case, 1 or 2 cables to the motherboard and 1 connection for each optical drive or hard drive and possibly the graphics card. Here's a quick list of power supplys from brands I trust, with links to purchase if you want to do it yourself. If not, Santa Rosa Computers is a great place that will treat you right.

edit: Sometimes my brain fails me

I did a quick check on google to see if prices would be there: https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=STS;t=SFO;d=2017-07-05;r=2017-07-06

If it really will be >$400 round trip, that's pretty ridiculous for a 40 minute flight.

This is the NWR alert radio the City of SR gave out. Program to Sonoma County, frequency 162.475mhz. Loud af, seriously. Does not require internet or cellular and can alert on battery if power dies.

Tahoe-ish sounds like a decent direction to head.

• Check both Nevada and California highway closures and warnings for the highways you plan to take, as well as forecasts. The mountain passes are very high and windy, follow their advice and be prepared for forecasted changes during your trip. Maybe you can choose a place before the chain areas but still snowy?
• If recent snowfall or icy weather seems likely (or chains are advised/required) purchase chains for your tire size and practice installing them at home: there are official pull-off places where everyone will be putting on and removing chains for the pass areas, which means if you use them it'll be by the side of the road in the freezing wet snowy slush with grumpy passengers: without practice you'll feel like giving up and paying the random dudes on the side of the road to do it for you (which is an option by the way.) I suggest thin rubbery gloves if you use them: thick or fabric gloves will be worse than useless, I threw them out and used my bare hands last time but next time I'm gonna try these rubberized fabric ones.

I don't know of specific places to head up there, though. Maybe public parks?

Here's a map of current snow cover: https://www.wunderground.com/maps/snow/snow-cover

Probably not. Localized wind data basically relies upon various personal weather stations, and many have either burned down or are without power/internet access. However, a few still seem to be up: https://www.wunderground.com/wundermap

No freeways for me. I'll be taking bike trails the whole way.

> Potential Power Shutoff in Sonoma County Saturday (10/26) through Monday (10/28) 

> On Wednesday, October 23rd, PG&E announced “elevated status” for another potential power shutoff in Sonoma County on Saturday (10/26), Sunday (10/27), and Monday (10/28). Emergency officials will continue to update the public about this potential PG&E shutoff today (10/24). The County and cities are working with the National Weather Service and PG&E to monitor this potential additional shutoff and will share more information when it is available.

This website is suggesting 50+mph peak winds all across the city Sunday morning: https://www.windy.com/-Wind-gusts-gust?gust,2019-10-27-15,38.548,-122.695,7

Piner Creek Trail is just off Marlow and goes as far as Willow Creek Road. Flat, well maintained, clean, friendly. There are a couple places where you have to cross busy streets w/o a crosswalk (Guernville Rd and Fulton Rd) if you want to keep going. They both have big medians, so it's not too bad. https://www.komoot.com/highlight/163572

Our friends were one of the 100 vehicle owners hit in that spree. They sent us a link to a catalytic converter protector to deter thieves:

https://www.amazon.com/Cat-Security-Catalytic-Converter-Protection/dp/B087D8ZSV8

https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/california/mount-saint-helena-trail--2

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Here's a link to the AllTrails page for the hike. They should have a map on there to print out, or you can always keep it up on your phone.

Go here and poke around: https://www.wunderground.com/history/monthly/us/ca/santa-rosa/KSTS/date/2020-9

As others said, it's gotten hot in recent years, and it even hit 110 last year: 111 on Sept 6 & 7, plus 101 on Sept 27.

October had a couple of 100+ days, and quite a few with 88+. October wasn't fun last year, even ignoring the nasty fires and orange air.

It may useful to track the pollen counts for individual plants. The press democrat's weather service used to provide that info, I don't see it now.

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Here is a site that has general info on todays pollen counts.

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https://weather.com/forecast/allergy/l/Santa+Rosa+CA+95407:4:US?cm_ven=PS_GGL_DSA_09162019_1&par=MK_GGL&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4JO268am5QIVQ77ACh2AZQBwEAAYASAAEgJUYPD_BwE

That's very cool! I have the Overdrive app, but didn't know about the other resources listed there.

I'll also add: Project Gutenberg - lots of free public domain books: https://www.gutenberg.org/

Librivox - Audio books of books in the public domain read/recorded by volunteers - https://librivox.org/

Both have apps available.

I used North Spores kit for the Lions Mane and it came out great, just like that picture. Then I bought small bags and used coco koir from my local Ace Hardware. You need to look up videos on how to sanitize and inoculate the koir with spent mycellium. You can have unlimited mushrooms from that one North Spore kit.

We had ants real bad for years. Terro didn't do any good. Hired an exterminator and watched the product they used. Advion Ant gel wiped 'em out in just a couple days.

This is the emergency radio SR gave out to some regions of the city. It will alert without cellular or power. I bought one for home and the office.

Absolutely! While I’d love streetcars and/or trams (maybe one day…) I think a good place to start would be overhauling the current bus routes. Buses in this city need to run more often, include more stops, and run later than they currently do. There’s a great book on the subject of what makes a good bus system and how to ask for it called Better Buses Better Cities.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000BYDPE/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_i_07BDQRKE3YCG3SCWMMPY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I hope that Link works! It's just an adapter to the exhaust pipe of any gas vehicle. Which will basically smoke them away or kill them while they sleep

You might find this website very helpful- https://weatherspark.com/y/595/Average-Weather-in-Cotati-California-United-States-Year-Round#Sections-Clouds

And this tool allows you to compare two cities- https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/595/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-Cotati

I grew up watching the fog ebb and flow through the valley from Sonoma Mountain. Basically, fog creeps up via the Petaluma Gap from south nightly. Often it also just comes straight over the hills from the ocean too, covering the entire valley. It burns off slowly starting in the warmer northern areas until it's all gone- unless its a very cool day. Since Cotati is closer to that gap, it often gets fog sooner and loses it later than points north - so maybe it sees an extra hour of fog. Not a huge difference but in comparison, yes it is more foggy than RP, SR, Sonoma...

I live in Cotati now. It's foggy most mornings and lifts between 7-10 AM. It's usually back just after sunset. I also lived in Berkeley and I can pretty confidently say that it's significantly less foggy here, we are much farther from the bay/ocean. If you really want more sunshine though, go to Windsor or Sonoma. The downside is that summer nights can be REALLY hot.

So offshore winds are known to drastically decrease our humidity levels, which is why they have often triggered red flag warnings in the past. I'm not a meteorologist, but i agree that our humidity levels have been high enough, and the ground is still saturated from rain and fog, for a red flag warning to not be necessary. I like checking the speed of the wind gusts on windy.com to be aware of how strong they will be and for how long. Then I'll switch to their humidity feature to see how drastic our humidity will drop during the course of the wind event. From that info, i can see the humidity levels will drop at the lowest between 30-35% in our general area from this wind event. I'm also famuilar with our fire risk being most risky when humidity levels drop to around 20% or lower. I generally check these things when the weather gets sketchy, and for me, i feel like it reassures my feelings on whether an upcoming weather event might be dangerous or not without having to go searching in google and what not. I know the offshore winds are just about over now, but i thought I'd share my process of reassuring myself of these things if you could maybe benefit from it as well.

I know you're asking for knife sharpening shops, but I had the same problem and decided to go this route. My knives have never been sharper, and if they get dull I just run them through this thing for a minute and they cut like ceramic knives.

If you do get sick of sharpening, ceramic knifes are wicked sharp and almost never need sharpening due to their hardness. You can't use them on things with bones, or on stuff like cheese where there is a lot of twisting, but for pretty much everything else they're the best there is.

The number of people who say this on Reddit and Twitter is astonishing. Go on a weather website, look at the forecast; the information is right at your fingertips. Here, I'll even help you get started https://www.wunderground.com/forecast/us/ca/santa-rosa/KCASANTA2223

>And you aren't connecting a $300 generator up for whole house power

Sure you are. If you don't have any really big devices, then a $300 generator is perfect. It will cover 2000w.

My freezer draws 70w. My computer, while gaming heavily, draws 150w. My actual power use on my bill is about 1000w an hour, so a cheap generator covers even peak times. Even a big microwave only draws 1500w, but for only a few minutes. My electric stove is between 200 - 1800w, and running it on low works fine but takes longer.

A decent heater is 750w, so you might have to turn it off when cooking, but that would be literally the only concession my family made with a $300 generator.

People are downvoting you, because only well-off people can afford solar, and that is unlikely to change by 2028. A gas generator is a practical, available solution to an increasingly common problem we all face, regardless of economic class.

Removing that solution without offering another in its place is basically a big middle finger to the poor.

Just now ran two speed tests: <em>fast.com</em> = 170 Mbps; Ookla speedtest.net = 207 Mbps

I pay 75.00 a month for Comcast. I've had Sonic in the past and, yes, they are local but the last time I moved it took them like a month to tell me ATT didn't provide service where I was going. I've had Comcast for the last 3 yrs and basically no problems. Nobody's customer service is bad as ATT.

https://darksky.net/forecast/38.3267,-122.7068/us12/en
Weds - 0.11 in
Thurs - 0.00 in
Fri - 0.01 in
Sat - 1.20 in Sun - 0.73 in
Mon - 0.07 in
Tues - 1.10 in
Weds - 0.66 in

If you're bored, you can see historical temperature data for "Santa Rosa" at: https://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KSTS/2017/1/8/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Santa%20Rosa&amp;req_statename=California

However, that "Santa Rosa" weather station is actually at the Sonoma County Airport, which is several miles away from SR.

I just got this google group going. Might as well join, and perhaps the original guy will come back to this thread and join as well?

Also to MuscovyDrake, if you make it back to this thread, I'm not trying to take over your climb group or anything, but I'm just trying to streamline the process. Please PM me and I'll add you as an admin to the Google group if you would like.

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups&amp;hl=en#!forum/santa-rosa-climbers

I tried to mark the geysers close to Pine Flat Road in relation to the directions OP is giving, does this look about right?

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/untitled-map_359605#10/38.6319/-122.7667

Wait now that's two sight lines, which you can triangulate with. Am I hearing you right that this is about where you're at on Ludwig and approximately what you mean by directly left?

https://umap.openstreetmap.fr/en/map/untitled-map_359605#10/38.5364/-122.7338

If you're willing to actively work, you could make 4-6 USD/hr on amazon turk https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome?variant=worker

I tested it out. Made a dollar in 12 minutes on my very first time there. The more serious you get, the more it pays. If you bust your ass and go all in and work on being more efficient, I could see making 200-300 per week working "full time". Plus you get to start and end work whenever you want. A lot of typing, so you'll probably want to set up voice recognition to cut corners.

I wish this was available when I was a kid. I did some shitty jobs for less pay back in my day. The hard part for me would be deciding to actually do it. Its different when someone isn't holding you accountable to get a certain number of hours in.

Good luck!

This is a great suggestion. Add a simple, inexpensive display that shows both inside, and outside temperature, and you will have a convenient, effective system for keeping your living quarters cool.

Wireless Digital Indoor/Outdoor Thermometer

The other half of the convo is a hepa air filter. I like the Coway AP-1512HH ($200 right now on Amazon) but shop around.

For your poor kitty, you can keep them in a closed up part of the home while you open up and air out the rest, then close up and switch on your air filter for a bit before letting them out. It's a hassle, but with a good fan and air filter (maybe two of each if you live in a big space) it shouldn't take too long.

This worked pretty well for me in a similar situation. My neighbor is sympathetic, but when his daughter house-sits for him she's apathetic.

Edit: I tried using this on my dogs briefly, but ANY loud noise will set it off including my kids derping around. We opted for individual bark collars for our dogs.

An under-sink filter system like this with several stages of filtering would probably be plenty for this. Carbon filters will remove chlorine pretty well, along with many other things. The trick is having much bigger filters with more stages - these units are much more effective than a Brita, for example.

You could go all-out with a system that has a reverse osmosis stage as well, but RO by itself doesn't remove chlorine.

Amazon. I got a kit like this. Pretty handy for my generator as the oil neck made things a lot easier than using a funnel. Especially when draining. Mine didn’t come with the 1/4” gas cap adapter but I’m going to get that too.

Honda says they break them in at the factory but I got a hell of a lot of shavings out of my oil. Thought I had a pic or two but I can’t find them now.

Can also get one of these, run your heater on fan only. It'll filter out a ton. Told this by an HVAC guy.

Make sure to check the size first, of course.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TUDHVSC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1