MacGyver

There are only 5 rules to plumbing - but I’ve added a 6th to my personal rules. If I have to break a piece of pipe to fix something a 1/4 ball valve is going inline. You cannot have too many shutoff valves.

FWIW, if the part that failed is CPVC, save yourself the headache and replace as much of it as you can with PEX now. I recently replaced plumbing in a place with CPVC. It seems like once the environmental/age conditions are met for that stuff to start failing it fails all over. I bet in the stuff we replaced because of one problem that was visible - we discovered ten that weren’t. CPVC is the devil. A brittle devil - but a devil nonetheless.

If anyone is looking to complete their "three name lone assassin" collection - this one is a perfect match for the Tennessee portion of the list.

We're going to need a reveal here after Christmas.

Typically we’re in y’all’s neck of the woods sometime over the holiday - so it’s been the one in Oak Ridge there on the river. To my knowledge the one in Nashville closed years ago. Fortunately it’s been years since I’ve eaten in either. For a few years honestly the deciding factor was that we could get on the boat and just cross the river way faster than we could drive anywhere from my in-laws house. I will give my in-laws some props about the holidays. My wife has is one of several siblings, and when the oldest got married my in-laws decided they weren’t going to fight over holidays. They just decided that in their family - whenever the holiday fell - they would gather the Saturday following. It’s been such a healthy practice that I expect we’ll recreate when our kids get married.

I will say that siblings on both sides of my family have traded giving gifts for leaving kids at home one evening over the holiday and going out for a meal together. Sometimes it’s a nice restaurant - sometimes it’s Calhoun’s. But, it’s a time to just catch up and be thankful.

I guess I’ll call myself thankful to get to spend a few days and share a meal with people that I truly love. My mom has a habit of buying people presents that are things they’d never buy for themselves. I asked her about it one time and she said, “you and your sister are productive members of society. You never call and say the kids are going hungry or we’re going to lose the house or anything like that. I’m glad to get the chance to do something nice.” I recognize that’s a privilege a lot families may not have - for a whole lot of reasons. Life is complicated sometimes. But, that’s something that I’ve tried to incorporate into my own life. Sometimes it’s nice to do something really nice for someone with no expectation of them doing anything in return.

I’m interested in this. Let me see what trades I might have.

There’s always time if retirement is getting to you

FWIW that's probably a sign that she's in the right place. When I talk to students about going into forensics, the question I most often ask is whether or not doing the same thing, exactly the same way over and over brings them joy. If they look at me weird, I can encourage them in a direction that's more suited to them. If they're like, "oh my goodness yes - then they've found their people."

That’s a nice pistol.

You should be aware of privacy issues on some of the Samsung smart TV’s before you buy one. Make sure you know what you’re signing up for.

Yeah, this actually took place this summer. They didn't bring anyone over. The group that bought them basically bought them for the name. The new owners will leverage the fact that most people won't know or care that they're not the classic company. They'll shift all of the manufacturing for whatever lines they keep overseas and "cut costs" to increase their return.

I should have been more clear in my statement above. They manufactured the military contract knives here in the states. I expect winding down the GWOT had an impact on those contracts - I could look them up I guess - but it's not worth it. Like Colt and so many others - when you depend on the .gov for paying higher than normal processes for a product - you're likely going to have a hard time getting by when those contracts end. Most of their folders went overseas years ago. I remember specifically the outcry in the knife community when they got the rights to produce the RAT folders and did them in China. It's a shame, I guess. I hate it that those folks lost their jobs. But - I can't find any tears for the company or the private equity folks who cashed out.

I guess Ontario was an “American company” in principle - but you’d have to stretch to really call It that. To my knowledge pretty much every knife they made was outsourced to China years ago. Now, there are some Chinese producers that are making decent production knives for cheap - and Ontario lost all their margin. That's a game you’ll never win

Pistols generally do less damage because they generate less hydrostatic shock than supersonic rifle rounds.

That’s very true - and there are some legit questions about how long consumer spending will last. 70% of GDP is consumer spending. So, to be clear - the American consumer is propping up the whole economy. It’s not awesome - but it is how it has been for a long time. Mind you, all of us *should* be pulling for Taylor. It matters. Some of y’all might have noticed that the Fed - with their dual mandate - did 15 consecutive interest rate hikes to try to get inflation down. They’ve gotten it from better that 9.5 to a little over 3%. All the while, they’ve kept unemployment low - including some historic lows for some historically underemployed groups. If you want a proverbial “soft landing” - that is monetary tightening without causing a significant recession - most economists would quietly admit right now that this is about as good as it gets. They don’t want to jinx it. For better or worse - consumers spending on stuff like the Eras tour plays a significant factor in this

I expect it’s contagious.

Seems like she repeated it again this week: https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/12/11/taylor-swift-donates-1-million-tennessee-tornado-fund/71882903007/ So much of the text is identical though - seems like the crew at Gannett just did a copy and paste. Support local journalism…

She gave out $55 million in bonuses to the crew that worked her tour - including $100k checks to each of her truck drivers. She didn’t go out and talk about it. Of course she knew that the recipients would. They talked about it like it was life changing in some instances. Good on her for supporting the people it takes to put that whole thing on. https://www.ajc.com/life/taylor-swift-gives-over-55-million-in-bonuses-to-crew-of-her-eras-tour/ZRDGDMJQVRDCFCHB4XX37AVXPM/

Her tour this summer was significant enough to be measured on a national economic scale. It was literally quoted in the Beige book as being a differentiator for regions that hosted shows. There seems to be a group of people looking to get folks stirred up against her. I think they’ve likely picked a poor target. I’d bet on her.

Someone told me once that Billy Joel sings show tunes for people who won’t admit to liking show tunes.

If I were buying an air rifle right now - it would be a Umarex Gauntlet 2. It‘s a PCP. From my perspective for the price - there’s not a close second. But that’s too much rifle for an 11 year old who’s likely still getting handling basics squared away. I’m partial to the classic Crosman 760 Pumpmaster.

This is the one of only a few people I’d trust to absolutely do it right.

Absolutely thrilled to hear this.