I used to save by buying store brand everything, now I look for markdowns

For years I would grab the generic cereal and canned goods at Safeway without thinking, saved maybe 20 bucks a week. Then last spring I started hitting the markdown rack first at the grocery store near my house in Eugene and found name brand stuff half off. Has anyone else switched up their grocery strategy and found a bigger win with markdowns over generics?

Just found out 90% of my design mockups were using wrong font weights from an old spec sheet

I was digging through some client project files from 8 months ago and realized the brand guidelines I was using had an outdated version of the font weights, meaning half my comps were heavier than intended. On one hand, the client never noticed, so maybe it doesn't matter. On the other hand, does that mean I should just eyeball it from now on instead of sticking to strict specs?

Started mocking up logos in black and white before adding color after a mentor chewed me out

Used to just pick a palette first and design around it, which led to a lot of muddy looks nobody wanted. Now I nail the shape and spacing in grayscale first, then layer color on top once the contrast works. Anyone else find that designing without color first fixes a lot of weak spots?

Drove past a new subdivision in Tempe and the fence posts made me cringe

I was heading home from a job yesterday and cut through the new Suncrest development. Every single vinyl fence they put up had the posts set maybe 18 inches deep, tops. The ground there is pure sand and we're heading into monsoon season. How do you expect that to hold when the wind kicks up? It's like they didn't even try to get below the frost line, or what passes for one here. Has anyone else seen a new build where the fencing crew clearly took every shortcut possible?

I finally got a stubborn 4140 part to hold size after three scrapped pieces

Running a batch of 4140 steel sleeves on the lathe, and the bore was walking on me by about five tenths every time. I was chasing my tail with different speeds and feeds, and I scrapped three pieces before I got desperate. I remembered an old hand saying to try a negative land on the boring bar for tough materials. I ground a tiny flat, maybe 0.002 inches, on the cutting edge at a five degree negative angle. I dropped the speed by 100 RPM and took a lighter finish pass. The chatter stopped dead and the bore held size perfectly for the rest of the run. It felt like a dumb simple fix for a problem that cost me half a day. Has anyone else had to mess with the tool geometry on their boring bars for specific materials?

A homeowner in Toledo told me I was 'giving the tree a haircut' and it made me rethink my pruning explanation

My uncle told me to skip the spray foam and just use rockwool in the container ceiling

He said it would be cheaper and just as good for our build in Flagstaff. I listened, but after the first real cold snap last week, we had crazy condensation dripping inside. Had to pull it all out and get the closed-cell foam sprayed in anyway, which cost us an extra $1200. Should have trusted my gut about the temperature swings up here. Anyone else run into this with high-altitude insulation?

My uncle told me to use a drop of olive oil on a stuck shutter blade. It worked, but then the whole thing smelled like a salad for a month.

Pro tip: double check your layer states before sending a file

I was in the middle of a big site plan for a project in Tampa and sent the PDF to the engineer. He called back immediately because all the utility lines were on the wrong layer and didn't print. I had to re-export everything and rush it over, which cost me an hour. Anyone else have a go-to method for a final layer check before hitting send?

My sourdough starter went flat after a week and I almost gave up

Turns out my kitchen in Seattle was just too cold, so I moved it on top of the fridge and it doubled in 6 hours. Anyone have a good spot for a starter in a drafty apartment?