Were you right on the shoreline or somewhere inland? We've been looking in Guilford and Madison and while we can't afford anything right on the water or across the street from the water, I have been wondering how the town fared maybe one or two streets or more away from the water.

I ride off road motorcycles on private property. Believe me when I say it will be impossible to get anywhere to ride in CT for a couple of reasons. First we are fairly densely populated and no one really wants any kind of organized motorized sport anywhere in their town because of the noise and dust. Second, people don't like inviting any kind of motorized enthusiast "element" into their town. We are a rather uppity NIMBY state. Third, CT already has laws in place that exempt property owners from lawsuits for anyone using their private property along established trails, however in the 70s these laws were changed to specifically exclude motorcycles and snowmobiles. I would presume ATVs would now fall into this exception. Finally, can you imagine the scene all the hikers and nature lovers would make? They already think any patch of woodland is theirs and pitch a fit when you try to ride mountain bikes or horses or do anything other than walk. Literally you cannot do anything other than hike and bird watch according to this group, they just don't like human activity.

CT, RI and Delaware are the three states who are exempt from Federal law ensuring there is off-road access and entertainment spaces with federal highway funds. This is why there are trails and other places to do off road motorized recreation in Western Mass, New York, Vermont, New Jersey etc. Everyone who has off-road vehicles in CT has to go on private land or out of state. We are taxed for these vehicles but provided no spaces to use them.... oh, and in one town they tried to prohibit kids from riding quads on their own land.

It used to but it has been at least 15 years since the Berlin Turnpike was any kind of cruising/street racing scene because the Berlin/Newington police worked hard to shut it down. Many people started going elsewhere in the nearby towns or on streets alongside the Berlin Tpke until they get chased away. It became somewhat easier to find spots when you could organize via web forums and then more recently with everyone having a smartphone.

I don't know but we often go right after lunch and they still have donuts most of the time, at least our favorites (sugar and glazed with raspberry filling).

Nice that you are having a different experience than my friends who were complaining. Perhaps it is the town and how transitory it is? My friends are in Madison/Guilford/Old Saybrook, which might explain some of it?

Mom and pop stores do not benefit. My friends are store owners (furniture, gift stores, hardware) in one of these towns that has seen an influx of weekend New Yorkers and they have seen an absolute decrease in business as "locals" have moved out. These weekend-only folks do not bring new business with them at all. They arrive by car with everything already from home and then leave without really shopping locally.

It is a serious problem, though time will tell if this trend will continue or if the NY folks will set down some roots and establish new patterns of behavior. But right now it sucks.

You are welcome. And yes, you should be all set with stabilizer in the gas. :-)

Apparently it is now illegal to have termination fees, so really there is no reason not to switch when the price is going down.

Yes. So back in the "old" days gas would break down after a few months and become unstable, clogging up the carburetor as it basically came out of mixture and some of the components of the gas evaporated off. So stabilizer was invented that lets you store gas for up to 2 years. Anyone who stores engines was encouraged to use stabilizer on gas you get from a pump (as opposed to the expensive $20 a gallon synthetic stuff you buy in a can at the hardware store)

However the bright minds here in CT moved us all to E10, 10% ethanol fuel. Ethanol is very hygroscopic, meaning is absorbs water. That water/alcohol mix is terrible for engine components and often, but not always, means engines are very hard to start after sitting for a while. This is especially true because the water/alcohol is heavier than the gas, so it settles to the bottom of the tank and if there is enough of it your engine simply won't run on water.

The solution is to put stabilizer in any fuel that goes in your small engines, and when you add that fuel to the tank make sure that the engine runs for a bit before you store it so the fuel gets all the way into the engine. (I'll add, most 2 stroke oils are considered a stabilizer which is why their fuel can seem to go years without causing a problem).

Best go out and start your snowblowers before this evening! Most times when mowers and snow blowers come into my friend's shop from not running it is from clogged carb parts and they always fail at the worst time... before a storm or after 2 weeks of rain when you just have to get the lawn mowed!

Hopefully you have fresh gas and put gasoline stabilizer in the fuel. Otherwise you might be spending some time getting her started. Blame the awful 10% ethanol fuel for any starting issues for snowblowers, worst thing for small engines ever.

Ok near Southington might be better.

Viron Rondo's just over the border in Cheshire is consistently highly rated.

New Mill very good reviews, though I don't necessarily see the appeal myself, but it is always packed so obviously must be doing something right!

Craft Kitchen near Southington Country Club is one of our favorites. Kind of farm-to-table and their burgers are the best I've had in a. long while.

And for greek style pizza you absolutely can't be Family Pizza... we travel from several towns over to get it!

You might try searching this forum. It is a question that has been asked many times before.

A couple of hints:

1. Where are you? We are a small state, and you say you might travel farther, but where is that? I could recommend some great places in Southington but if you are in Greenwich it doesn't do much good.

2. What kind of food? Lots to choose from.

You make a good point, and so my reaction to you was simply because everyone in this subreddit and indeed my hometown Facebook is all about Constellation. But they are only one of many electric companies, as you acknowledge.

I didn't read your other reply that including "or any other electric company". Missed that I guess.

Everyone in Connecticut who is not on a budget plan should be able to switch (and should!) energy suppliers.

However as I said in my other reply to you, it isn't just Constellation. They just happened to be the least expensive at the time you locked in last year. I've used Direct Energy, Town Square and a few others over the years at this point.

Everyone throws out Constellation but they aren't close to being the least expensive any more. If you missed the December pricing then it went much higher through early January before decreasing to now. Electric prices are significantly lower in the short term than they were when everyone was switching in December.

Town Square: $0.1067 for 8 cycles. Direct Energy: $0.1069 for 8 cycles.

And pricing for longer-term is closer to where it was in December: Town Square: $0.1299 for 18 cycles (months).

https://energizect.com/rate-board/compare-energy-supplier-rates?customerClass=1201&monthlyUsage=750&planTypeEdc=1191

edit: Sorry for the snarky reply, yes lots of other electric companies available.

No it isn't. UCONN has objectively higher quality students looking at acceptance criteria. It is a legitimately difficult school to get into for many high school seniors who end up going to the other state school systems. Now if your argument is that more students from Simsbury, Avon and Glastonbury get in to UCONN and fewer from poorer towns like Bristol, Berlin, Norwalk then you probably have a point. But that isn't UCONN's problem to solve, that is either the town (because our k-12 is town based) or a larger state problem to fix education at that level before they get to UCONN.

UCONN has selective admissions, at least it has had that in the past 20 years. When I went to college 30 years ago UCONN was where you went as your safe school. No longer, for many kids it is their primary destination, partly because it is up to 1/2 as expensive as private schools.

I don't know, you have all sorts of measures to pick from. SAT scores, place in graduating class, ability to attain academic or other scholarships, and more.

UCONN is far more competitive to get into in the first place. And as an instructor I can tell you without a doubt the quality of the students in my experience is far better than the CCSU and ECSU students I have known or even the Quinnipiac students I have taught. In my current class of sophomores I am blown away by the observable differences, both qualitatively (higher grades for same material) and quantitatively (writing and logic abilities).

Back to early-mid December temps! It is really going to suck.

Did you miss the part where there are vehicles in front? You can't make them magically disappear, and getting overly close to the car in front (closing the gap) isn't going to make a difference either.

Personally when this happens I swallow my pride, move over to the right and less the asshole pass only to get stuck again. Inevitably my new lane ends up passing them anyway.

Compared to the UK test, absolutely. Almost impossible to fail, and in fact most UK drivers will have a rude awakening for the state of drivers in this country based on the ease of the test. It really is atrocious how easy we make getting a license here.

Agreed.

TIL that adults over age 18 need to do 90 days with a learner's permit, however individuals who have held a license in another country do not need to obtain a learner's permit. https://portal.ct.gov/dmv/licenses-permits-ids/get-learners-permit/adult-learners-permit?language=en_US

Different time of day but Rachel Frank is our go-to.

I thought it was just me getting older and worse eyesight that I can't see the lines when it rains. A lot of times I'm using the rain/fog/shoulder line to navigate especially when there are cars with lights coming toward me.

I've also noticed the really bright LED lighting they are using in street lights is making the glare significantly worse than the prior yellower street lighting. It used to be that you could tell when a car was coming the opposite way and dim your bright headlights but now it might just be a street light.

If he had done it and not been clocked we'd have never known about it. So speeding in general is seen as a victimless crime until it isn't... which is either when an idiot like this plows into someone or the police/fire department have to scrape him off the pavement or pull him out of some trees in a bloody pulp. Either way folks have to deal with the horrible results that physics imparts the faster you go.

I think most of us in this sub speed on our roadways. Maybe not to this level but certainly quite a few of us could be considered dangerous even just on going 75mph on 84 or the Merritt regularly. So I don't drive like this but myself in this glass house isn't going to throw rocks that will eventually result in more traffic enforcement or going back to the old way where CT had a ban on radar detectors and the cops were the hugest dicks about even minor speeding, they were fucking everywhere. I've been driving in this state since 1984 and the old ways were not at all better. I like the current traffic flow much better.

Just filled up at $3.65 today. I am really pleased with this recent drop in pricing!

McKinley Oil in Cheshire was $3.98 this morning, which is really a decent rate for a local place.