Thea Thompson (u/thea515)

Posts

Back in the day at the MRO in Wichita, we had to trace every wire by hand

Now I see a lot of newer folks just trusting the digital manual for a wire run without doing a physical continuity check first. That bit me last year on a G1000 install where the book was wrong about a pin location on connector J400. It matters because you can ground a bus or worse. Anyone else still do the old school ring-out on every new harness?

3 comments

c/budgeting-wins•

thea515•2mo ago

My grocery spending hit $62 a week and I'm not sure how

I've been tracking every dollar for about five months now, and my average weekly grocery bill just dropped to $62. That's down from around $95 when I started. I think it's because I finally got serious about planning meals around what's on sale at my local Kroger, and I stopped buying snacks just because I was in the store. It's not a huge amount, but seeing that number on my spreadsheet felt like a real win. Has anyone else hit a specific weekly spending number that surprised them? How did you get there?

3 comments

c/butchers•

thea515•2mo ago

Had a customer in Dallas ask if we could 'butcher' a watermelon like a ham

I had to explain the difference between a boning knife and a chef's knife while he watched, and he still left with a whole watermelon. Anyone ever get a request that made you just stop and stare?

3 comments

c/drywall-installers•

thea515•3mo ago

Caught a ceiling joist splitting mid-hang on a Reno job in Bellingham

Heard a sharp crack while screwing a 12 foot sheet and saw the joist pulling apart. We sistered in a new 2x8 with construction adhesive and 3 inch screws before finishing the hang. Anyone else had to fix framing on the fly like that?

3 comments

c/fermentation-station•

thea515•3mo ago

My sauerkraut went from okay to amazing after I started weighing the salt

For my last batch, I used a full tablespoon of salt per head of cabbage like I always did, and it was just fine, a bit soft. This time, I used my kitchen scale and measured 2% of the cabbage weight in salt, which was about 25 grams for my 5-pound batch from the farmer's market. The difference after 3 weeks is huge, it's way crunchier and the flavor is more balanced, not just salty. Has anyone else had a simple switch like using a scale make that big of a difference?

3 comments

c/board-game-geeks•

thea515•3mo ago

A guy at the 2019 Gen Con math trade taught me to always bring a sharpie

I was trying to trade my copy of 'Food Chain Magnate' and had forgotten to mark the box. This older guy named Frank saw me struggling and handed me a black sharpie from his bag, saying 'Rule number one, kid. The box is part of the deal, so mark it clear.' He had about fifteen games in his stack, each with his initials neatly written in the corner. It stuck with me as a simple, practical piece of geek wisdom. Anyone else pick up a small habit like that from a random encounter at a con?

3 comments

c/camping-gear-reviews•

thea515•3mo ago

Warning: I just saw three people at the state park set up their rain fly wrong in the same way.

They all had the fly touching the tent body, which defeats the whole point of having a double wall. I learned this the hard way last spring in the Smokies when my tent got soaked from condensation. What's the biggest tent setup mistake you see new campers make?

3 comments

c/elevator-mechanics•

thea515•3mo ago

Serious question, a miswired door operator led to repeated faults.

The door kept closing during passenger entry because the safety circuit was bypassed wrong. Always check your wiring with the manual to prevent this.

3 comments