We picked up a 12 year old civic hatchback before Covid for 5k and it was in immaculate like-new condition, low miles. It got totaled right after our other car’s engine finally wore out. I then found a 10 year old Toyota for 16k. It was the lowest price in a 200-mile radius for cars/small trucks with under 150k miles on them that weren’t limping/totaled/savaged.

It was fucking flabbergasting.

A friendly reminder: dust off the fan blades before you switch directions. I forgot to do this last week and dumped dust all over my bedspread right as I was about to get under it.

I’m an industrial project engineer and I’ve always referred to it as Professional Cat Herding. I get handed a goal (replace some piping, fix a tank, build a new thing, etc) and I have to get the operators input on what they need to run the system easily, I need the maintenance people’s input to make it easier to work on, I need the process owner’s input to make it optimized for production. All of these inputs will change a hundred times as there are always multiple crews/groups with different priorities and a lot of them oppose each other.

Once I have the design in place, I need to wrangle a group of laborers, a crane operator, the scaffold builders, the painters, the electricians, the inspectors and the parts so everyone and everything shows up at the same time to the party. That means meetings to make sure they know what the goal is, training completed to get them on site, lead times on parts sorted out, etc.

When everyone and everything finally shows up it’s mostly just running around like a maniac to make sure work goes smoothly with no injuries or major setbacks by ensuring everyone is communicating well with/through me. Halfway through there will be an internal request to change some aspect of the job and it’ll be on me to weigh the pros and cons of modifying a project mid-way through. These requests are denied 90% of the time, the rest cost a fortune to implement.

So ultimately, what it takes to do a good job is communication, patience, and attention to detail. For larger jobs that interrupt production or maintenance, a well-timed delivery of breakfast burritos helps as well.

A tired dog is a happy dog. I would recommend a VERY long walk or a trip to the dog park when you get home from work. Being kenneled all day and night with a brief respite while you are home and awake will lead to some serious pent-up energy, especially in puppies. We have two large dogs we’ve had since puppies and avoided rampant destruction by having a long yard for them to play in, but it requires us to be out there with them playing fetch and running them silly every day when we get home and again before bed. If we don’t, they just sit around outside begging to come in because ultimately they want to be around us.

Thank you for your service.

I do that with cupcakes and muffins too. Saves the best part for last and you get a higher tasty-to-meh ratio.

At the tail end of a massive maintenance shutdown (16 hr days for everyone, for 2 weeks) the mill leadership started a site-wide meeting with pictures and stories of their recent trip to Japan. How they went golfing, the great meals they had, their trip to the mountain, etc. They finally wrapped that up and proceeded to tell us that cost of living raises were going to be small that year due to them being “unsure about next year’s profit margins”.

There was a pretty steady wave of resignation letters for the 6 months following that meeting.

Let’s say you break your leg. Your first reaction is usually “HOLY FUCK FUCK FUCK THAT HURTS” and your mind will do anything to try to escape it. But if you turn your attention towards it and focus on it directly, you can start to slightly diminish it by picking it apart. Is it a throbby or stabby pain? Is there an underlying itchy sensation? If you accept the pain and embrace it, it helps reduce it by seeing it for what it is and, more importantly, is not: You are not dying, even though your brain is reacting like you are.

The Buddhist mindset is kind of like that, but for all of your reality. The zen doesn’t come from running away, it comes from seeing and accepting everything as it is and understanding that the only thing you can control is your mind’s reaction to it.

Signed, Someone who’s broken a lot of bones and done a lot of meditation (still a shit Buddhist though)

Industrial project engineer. Consequences of losing those jobs? No more new production plants and maintenance forces would quickly get overwhelmed trying to handle upgrades on top of routine maintenance. Profits would plummet. Plants would shut down.

They already found him guilty in the 2022 defamation case. The 2019 case is for the same thing (at a different time, he did it more than once) so the judgement effectively covers both cases. He’s already been found guilty, now it’s just time to determine damages. Again.

And if he keeps repeating the same lies, they’ll keep charging him. Now it’s just a game of “will he stfu or go broke first?” My chips are on “broke”.

Moving to a rural/secluded area has been the best thing ever for my mental health. My commute is gorgeous and there’s nothing better than waltzing around outside naked in the sunshine.

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Throw in a decade or two of “marijuana is bad and will leave you addicted and homeless” just to grow up and find out “nope that was primarily just a few greedy bastards shoving opiates down our throats” and wham, you’ve got yourself a generation primed for escapism.

Yes, though I did end up as ELT. I left it out for clarity above.

I got called by a military recruiter right before I graduated high school. I had nothing better to do so I signed up to take the entrance exam. After a music festival and somewhat still drunk I took it and actually did very well. The recruiter told me I should go into the nuclear field. I said “ok”. Then they split us up into our rates and I became a mechanic after learning they spend the least amount of time sitting still (that was my only criteria). I thought the work was interesting and the nuclear power plant was fascinating to me, so I went to university after my stint was up and became a mechanical engineer. Now my specialty is project management in a manufacturing plant. I get to run around and climb on things and nerd out whenever I want and I love it.

This is the best sports reporting I’ve seen a while.

Bring back nudity.

Food. Jfc does America love food. Celebration? Throw a bbq. Mourning? Better bring a casserole. Meeting? Where’s the donuts? Wealth is synonymous with healthy food: fresh fruit, smoothies, and whatever hot new protein food strikes your fancy. What do you eat? How do you carry it? How do you drink it? How do you mix it? How do you cook it? It’s fucking absurd.

Finally, success.

I’ve lived through enough financial crises that constantly hearing that (“Low unemployment! Go spend money! It’s fiiiiine, everything is GREAT!”) for the past year has made me a nervous wreck.