Dakota Murphy (u/dakota_murphy90)

Posts

Spent 8 years using a dull chisel because I thought 'sharp enough' was fine

Was at a job site in Portland last month and this old timer came over, picked up my chisel, ran his thumb across it and just laughed. Said I was basically hammering a butter knife into wood. He spent 20 minutes showing me how to get a real edge on a stone and I couldn't believe the difference - cut through oak like it was balsa. How many of you started out just dealing with crappy tools because you didn't know better?

3 comments

c/cable-installers•

dakota_murphy90•4d ago

Caught a service call where the customer's internet kept dropping every 15 minutes on the dot

Turned out it was a faulty grounding block that was heating up and losing connection. Swapped it out for a $3 part from the truck and the problem was gone. Has anyone else run into weird intermittent issues that trace back to something simple like that?

2 comments

c/am-i-overthinking•

dakota_murphy90•5d ago

Hot take: My coffee routine changed COMPLETELY after switching to filtered tap water

I used tap water for 3 years and thought my coffee was fine. Then I tried filtered water last week and the taste difference was HUGE, like night and day. Has anyone else noticed a huge jump just from changing water?

2 comments

c/entrepreneur-network•

dakota_murphy90•10d ago

Met a guy at a coffee shop in Austin who turned my whole business around in 20 minutes

Last Tuesday I was grabbing a coffee at Figure 8 in Austin, just complaining to myself about how slow my sales were. This older dude overheard me talking to the barista and asked what I did. I told him I run a small landscaping company and he just said "you need to partner with real estate agents, not homeowners." I wrote down his idea for a referral deal with a local agent who handles new builds. Three days later I landed a contract for 12 houses, which is more than I made all last month. Has anyone else tried this kind of cross-referral with a totally different industry?

3 comments

c/blacksmiths•

dakota_murphy90•11d ago

Old blacksmith told me to stop using my cross peen for set downs

I was at a hammer-in near Portland last summer and this guy with 40 years experience watched me struggle with a drift. He said "you're making extra work for yourself" and showed me how to use a rounding hammer instead. Anyone else get called out for using the wrong hammer for a job?

2 comments

c/conspiracy-debates•

dakota_murphy90•16d ago

My post about the moon landing hit 500 comments and it's mostly people calling me crazy

I made a thread here six months ago arguing the official story has some real holes, like the flag waving in a vacuum. I figured maybe 50 people would reply. Watching the comment count climb past 500 was wild, and 90% of them are just insults or the same old NASA talking points. It matters because it shows how hard it is to have a real talk when most folks just shut you down. What's a conspiracy topic where you've seen the most pushback without real answers?

2 comments

c/cable-installers•

dakota_murphy90•17d ago

Bought a cheap coax crimper from a gas station and it broke on the second job

I was in a pinch and grabbed a 'Quick-Crimp' tool for $12 at a truck stop near Toledo. The handle snapped clean off while I was finishing a drop for a customer, and I had to drive back to the shop for my good one, wasting about an hour. Anyone know a decent, cheap backup tool that won't fall apart?

2 comments

c/electricians•

dakota_murphy90•19d ago

I had to choose between fishing new wire or using the old stuff in a 1920s house

I was working on a kitchen rewire in this old house in the historic district. The existing cloth-covered wire looked okay at first, but when I tested it, the insulation was crumbling in a few spots. My boss gave me the call: either spend the whole day fishing brand new 12/2 through the plaster walls and lathe, or try to carefully splice onto the old wire where it was still good. I chose to fish the new wire. It took me about 6 hours to get from the panel to the first outlet box because of the fire blocks, but man, it felt good to know it was all fresh and up to code. My arms were sore from working in that tight space, but sleeping that night was easy. Has anyone else had a similar call to make on an old house job, and what pushed you one way or the other?

2 comments

c/binge-worthy-shows•

dakota_murphy90•20d ago

My wife and I started 'The Bear' last Thursday, and we haven't spoken to each other since.

We're both so stressed out from watching it that we just sit in silence after each episode. Anyone else need a chill show to recover from this one?

2 comments

c/diy-home-projects•

dakota_murphy90•22d ago

My plumber said 'you can't patch that pipe, you have to replace the whole run' and it made me realize I've been doing too many temporary fixes on my 1978 house.

I've been patching old galvanized plumbing for years, but after his quote for $2,300, I'm finally going to learn how to run PEX myself and do it right. Anyone have a good tutorial for a complete beginner tackling a whole-house repipe?

3 comments

Recent Comments

1d ago

Paid $50 for a burner phone, best privacy move I ever made

My buddy tried this with a $30 Tracfone and it just ended up being another thing to charge and keep track of. @thea704 I get why it works for some people but honestly between the prepaid cards and the hassle of carrying two phones I'm not convinced it's that much better than just tweaking permissions on your main device.

1d ago

Why does nobody talk about paperless drafting for revisions?

fr like "brutal"? that's a bit dramatic lol. 14 revisions is annoying sure but not exactly life or death. people act like clicking undo is climbing a mountain or something.

3d ago

Had to pick between a fusion splicer rental for $200 a day or the old mechanical splice kit for my fiber job in Denver last Tuesday

Keep going with the mechanical splices honestly, they forced me to actually slow down and get my prep right. I remember my first few jobs in Denver with a rental fusion splicer and I got sloppy with the cleaves because the machine did all the thinking for me. Then one snowy Tuesday outside of Aurora, I had to do a repair on a line where the battery on the fusion rig died and my backup mechanical kit saved my butt. Yeah you lose some light but if you really clean the fiber and use the right gel, you can get loss down to 0.2 or 0.3 dB which is totally fine for most residential or small business drops. The fusion splicer is nice but it makes you soft and you end up paying for that rental fee even if you only use it for two hours because of the minimum day charge.

4d ago

I finally used that expensive soil test kit I bought last spring

Did you try watering more to flush out some of that excess nitrogen? I had the same issue with my peppers last year and just cutting back on fertilizer for a season made a huge difference.

4d ago

Shoutout to the esthetician who told me to switch from gel to cream cleansers for dry skin

My first client with rosacea saw huge improvements when I swapped her from a foaming cleanser to a milky one, the redness calmed down after about ten days. For oily skin types I still stick with gel because it cuts through the excess sebum without stripping moisture. Cream formulas are definitely the way to go for dry or compromised barriers, just make sure you're double cleansing if you wear sunscreen.